Veep Debate Retrospective: Biden's Great Night

I know several of you have hit the site today looking for my take on the debate, and pundits far and wide have had their take on the night's events out since minutes after it ended. I've started writing a response several times only to abandon it as feeling flat, and now I know why.

The inclination was to critique Palin, and there is simply nothing left to say. The range has been exhausted. We didn't see anything new from her last night. I tend to share Geraldine Ferraro's assessment that I'm glad she didn't fall flat on her face. It is bad enough that McCain chose a trophy Veep to stand with him along side his trophy wife; if she had completely melted down it would have done as much to set women back as Hillary did to bring us forward. Palin's journalism teachers and pageant coaches should have been proud of her last night, but I hope the lesson of history our daughters take away is that cute and coy is not enough.

Last night, while everyone's attention was on Palin, Biden methodically stole the show. He was warm, smart, so obviously well versed in issues that matter that while Palin shuffled her deck of talking points he deftly took the upper hand, time and again, without ever coming off in the least bit condescending. Last night Biden helped give us a glimpse of what we get to be FOR in November. This is no longer a battle against the failed policies of GWB; "stop looking back" might have been the only sensible thing Palin said.

The economic catastrophe we've witnessed these last two weeks put the exclamation point on Bush's irrelevance and Palin's perfunctory performance, I think, sealed the deal for us. I worried, rightly it turned out in 2004 that the only Democratic agenda was an anti-Bush platform. It wasn't enough for Kerry, and we've all paid dearly. Last night, Biden reminded me why we should not only be hopeful, but excited this year.

(More later...)