Sarah Palin Takes Joe Biden in Vice Presidential Debate

Sarah Palin walked out on the stage, smiling, self confident and shook hands with Joe Biden. "Nice to meet you...May I call you Joe?" It was sweet, disarming and without even a hint of menace of what was to come. Poor Joe Biden. He never knew what hit him.

Very soon during the Vice Presidential debate it became apparent that Sarah Palin has learned how to deliver death with a smile. On taxes, a source of vulnerability for Democrats, Palin said, "Now, Barack Obama and Sen. Biden also voted for the largest tax increases in U.S. history. Barack had 94 opportunities to side on the people's side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction, 94 times." On energy and tax breaks for big oil companies, "Sen. Biden, you would remember that, in that energy plan that Obama voted for, that's what gave those oil companies those big tax breaks. Your running mate voted for that." On Iraq, "Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq and that is not what our troops need to hear today, that's for sure. And it's not what our nation needs to be able to count on. You guys opposed the surge. The surge worked. Barack Obama still can't admit the surge works."

This was not the Sarah Palin who was made to look foolish by Katie Couric. Joe Biden's denials, delivered with a kind of forced smile of a man who has been hit in the gut but is too polite to get angry were unconvincing.

And here was something that must have made a certain former President, in whatever after life he dwells in, smile, "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again." If Sarah Palin becomes Vice President, that line will be quoted forever.

Joe Biden, while he clearly struggled not to lose his cool, did not commit any obvious gaffes, but did constantly mangle facts. Whether it was misrepresenting the Constitution (Article 1 deals with the Legislative not the Executive Branch) or the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (three weeks in Iraq do not come anywhere near to equal seven years in Afghanistan) Biden misrepresented facts. Sarah Palin, by and large, let them slide, perhaps her sole mistake.