Our View-Biden/Palin: The forensic battle that really wasn’t

If folksy, cute and “NU-CU-LAR” are the forensics criteria we gauge our elected officials by, then Sarah Palin kicked Joe Biden’s ass on Friday.

The vice presidential candidates, as debate mediator Gwen Ifill told Meet the Press, “had a job to do.” Biden’s job was to not attack Palin and focus on John McCain; Palin’s job was to stay the course and stick to reciting stump speeches, while in some cases completely ignoring questions.

We watched both candidates walk away from the only VP match-up relatively wound free.

But where does that leave the American voter? It leaves us with two candidates holding back because they are afraid to offend and terrified to fail.

Biden stayed far from the thin line of being seen as a bully, disappointingly failing to expose Palin’s answers and push her to defend her leadership qualifications. It would be nice if we could have relied on her opponent when he had the chance.

The McCain gang has a tight control over Palin’s media exposure and it continued after the debate, apparently having no plans to let her meet with the media in the month leading up to the election.

Let’s explore what was said and ignored for the five or so battleground states that will ultimately decide the next president.

The McCain camp shaped the format of the debate by pushing for short answer questions and short response times, according to multiple news articles. The format allowed for five-minute segments. The candidates had 90 seconds each to present an answer and then were allotted two minutes to respond to each other.

Many of the responses thrown between the rivals were purely congratulatory and complimentary.

Here, we had two candidates who stand on drastically different sides of issues vital to the American public, yet it was difficult to distinguish in this ass-kissing display.

Palin said she respected Biden so many times one would think she loves him as much as Biden loves McCain.

We were able to hear Biden point out the weaknesses of the current administration. Palin’s hand-wringing response was “enough is enough” with pointing fingers at her party’s exiting boss, basically suggesting we quit whining about our plight.

Palin proposed we stop thinking about past mistakes, while telling us we should continue with the same policies, alluding they will somehow have a reverse effect if we stay the course.

She provided a similar answer for climate change when she said she doesn’t want to argue about its human causes. How can we even begin to address solutions to our climate change problems if we don’t look at what caused them?

Ifill asked what would happen if the candidates have to step up and be president. Biden said he would “carry out Obama’s policies of reinstating the middle class.” He cited healthcare reform, good economic policy and other ways to fulfill Obama’s promises.

“What do you expect, a team of mavericks?” was Palin’s flippant response. She mimicked Biden that she too would continue McCain’s work by putting government back on the side of the people.

How she would do this was beyond coherence. By bringing a bit of Main Street, Wasilla to Washington?

Yes, that’s exactly what we need — to learn from a state with a population just over 600,000. By watching Alaska’s “Joe Six-Packs” and “Hockey Moms,” government will be put back in the hands of rural people and rid Wall Street of corruption.

Palin was all over the tundra, actually asking if she could talk about Afghanistan — as if in a panic searching for a talking point within her realm of expertise.

Palin failed to make any clear points — except connecting herself to Bush’s recycled campaign jargon — by mentioning her outside view of Washington, promoting change through reform, identifying with the everyday working family and agreeing with Bush on how to mispronounce “nuclear.”

Both nominees agreed that same-sex couples should have the same rights as traditional couples, but cannot under any circumstance be legally married. This makes exactly zero sense on either side of the wedding aisle except to further exclusive policy.

“I will tell Americans straight up that I don’t support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means,” said Palin. Biden left the definition of marriage up to religious entities

Neither debater established more than cursory connections to real issues.
If “not screwing up” is the litmus test for who should be sleeping next to the war button at 3 a.m., congratulations should be offered to Palin for surviving.

Perhaps our next Surgeon General should be considered qualified for the post even if that “C” in high school biology was the best grade he or she ever received.

Now, that would be NU-CU-LAR.