"There Ya Go Again."

It was billed as Ali-Frazier and instead it turned into Ali-Forman.

At first, it looked as if it was going to be another Republican hit job. How can you expect Gwen Ifill, a woman who'd written a scathing book critical of Barack Obama, to moderate a Vice Presidential debate in a non-partisan fashion? Ifill got off to a shaky start at the very beginning referring to the Republican candidate by her official title of "Governor" while introducing the Democrat as just plain "Joe Biden of Delaware."

Fortunately, Shep Smith of Fox (the network I watched the debate on so you wouldn't have to) brought his A game to Wash U, reminding us of Ifill's book while raising concerns about her impartiality. Afterward, Smith also immediately pounced on Palin for changing the subject several times and calling her out on a few of her outright lies.

Biden, it's plain, got his marching orders from the First Gentleman at Camp Obama: Don't hit below the belt and certainly not above it. Otherwise, if Biden had been as merciless as he was with his fellow Democrats during the caucuses and primaries, he would've come off as looking misogynistic.

Biden got some good shots in, making a reference to a bridge to nowhere. Still, it was plain that Biden was wearing pillows for boxing gloves and he didn't want to come off as looking condescending and patronizing as George HW Bush did in 1984 with Geraldine Ferarro. However, it was smart of Biden to keep hammering away at both Bush and McCain. The vice presidency is meaningless except when Constitutional succession is mandated and Biden was smart to stay focused on the more immediate threat, which is McCain.

As expected, Biden shone the brightest when foreign policy came up in the second half of the debate. How tempted he must've been to make a snide reference to Palin claiming that Alaska's proximity to Russia and Canada let her absorb foreign policy credentials by osmosis.

Palin, for her part, was merely toeing the GOP line fed to her: The surge is working. Ahmadinjedad can't have nukes (which is true, as Biden pointed out, since the theocracy running Iran would have sway over that and foreign policy). We need to win these two wars.

The most chilling comment that Palin made, I think, was when she said, "I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it..."

Yeah, that attitude has worked spectacularly well over the last eight years, wouldn't you say, Sarah? And speaking of which Biden said, "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history."

Palin was more coached than a Pekingese before a dog show, hammering home the mantras "Energy independence" and "alternative energy (nothing quite says "alternative energy" like the Governor of one of the nation's biggest oil-producing states), invoking Reagan's name, even resurrecting his "There you go again!" And, most of all, "maverick, maverick, maverick."

Biden was right to call Palin on her claims of McCain's maverick status, rightly saying that he has not differed one iota where it counts the most from the Bush administration. Palin reinforced this by refusing to blame the Bush administration directly for anything, especially Iraq, preferring to not point the finger of blame, as the disembodied "blunders" that have plagued Iraq arose independently without any direct tie to the White House.

But, in the end, a muzzled Biden made the debate's outcome look even closer than it ever should've been and it didn't help any that, like Palin, he lied on some key issues (like his unwavering support of clean coal) and his status as the ultimate Beltway insider made Palin look more like a maverick than she has a right to claim. As proof, here's USA Today's fact check, which actually keeps both Biden and Palin honest.

The transcript of the debate can be found here on CNN's website.

Debate Chat Tonight

The esteemed PJ has once again generously offered to host the chat for the Biden/Tina Fey debate tonight. Last week's turnout for the Obama/McSenile debate was so good we ran out of beer. So tonight you'd better bring your own. No, wait...better bring Jack Daniels. Lots of it. And shot glasses. You'll need it.

Not sure how late I'll be up tonight; long day at the new job and Mr. Brilliant has a cold that Must Not Catch. But you kids have fun. But no drugs, and no noise after 2 AM. And please no puking on the carpet. We have two bathrooms, that ought to be plenty.

Or, if chat isn't your cup of tea, you could always play Palin Bingo.

Travelodge Newcastle Hotel, Newcastle

Mushroom and potato soupSo these photos aren't my best but in the interests of thoroughness, I'm posting them anyway.Our recent weekend mini-break to the Hunter Valley saw us spend the Saturday night at the Travelodge in Newcastle. Only an hour's drive from the vineyards, it easily provided the best value accommodation for our money. There were a few problems reported with air-conditioning units

Will Gwen Ifill have the guts to ask Sarah Palin this?

I found this video over at Pam's House Blend, and it's worth the ten minutes it will take you to watch it. Because if you are not an End Times believer, and if you tuck your kids into bed at night believing that they have a future, then Sarah Palin is perhaps the scariest candidate ever to be on a national stage.

With the possibility that John McCain may have suffered a mini-stroke (though I would not advocate definitive-diagnosis-by-videotape; see also: Terri Schiavo/Bill Frist) while speaking today, there is a very real possibility that a vote for John McCain is a vote for President Palin.

We've managed to survive eight years of a president who believes himself to be an architect of the Final Battle™. Do we want to take a chance on another possible president with religious hallucinations?

Oh, no, not ANOTHER one

It's always been pretty obvious to me that George W. Bush has one heck of a Napoleon complex. The relentless working out, the athletic competitiveness, the swaggering walk -- all marks of a man who worries he's not big enough. George W. Bush is 5'11'. John McCain is 5'7", and he's got some of the same walk. He's also got the same desire to be a dictator. He doesn't say it as baldly as Bush did, but the implication is clear:

Just what we need...another president with penis size issues trying to work them out using the lives of America's kids.

Make your long weekend sweeter

Only a few more days til a lovely long weekend! Yay!You can make your long weekend sweeter by heading to the Good Living Growers' Markets, mentioning Grab Your Fork to Gena at Sweetness the Patisserie, and taking home a special free gift with any purchase. This exclusive offer has been carried over from last month after the miserable washout at the last Good Living Growers' Markets. Mother Nature

Kit Seelye is at it again

Regular readers of the New York Times know the name of Katherine Seelye from 2000, when she was one of the head snarkers about Al Gore. In 2007, Evgenia Peretz wrote an article for Vanity Fair about how the press piled on Gore, and paid special attention to Seelye:

As with all campaigns, the coverage of the 2000 election would be driven by a small number of beat reporters. In this case, two women at the most influential newspapers in the country: Seelye from The New York Times and Ceci Connolly from The Washington Post.

A prominent Washington journalist describes them as "edgy, competitive, wanting to make their mark," and adds that they "reinforced each other's prejudices."

"It was like they'd been locked in a room, and they were just pumping each other up," says Gore strategist Carter Eskew.

"They just wanted to tear Gore apart," says a major network correspondent on the trail. (Both refute such characterizations of themselves. "Why would reporters [from] major news organizations confer with the competition on such a fiercely competitive story?" asks Connolly.)

Building on the narrative established by the Love Story and Internet episodes, Seelye, her critics charge, repeatedly tinged what should have been straight reporting with attitude or hints at Gore's insincerity. Describing a stump speech in Tennessee, she wrote, "He also made an appeal based on what he described as his hard work for the state—as if a debt were owed in return for years of service." Writing how he encouraged an audience to get out and vote at the primary, she said, "Vice President Al Gore may have questioned the effects of the internal combustion engine, but not when it comes to transportation to the polls. Today he exhorted a union audience in Knoxville, Iowa, to pile into vans—not cars, but gas-guzzling vans—and haul friends to the Iowa caucuses on January 24." She would not just say that he was simply fund-raising. "Vice President Al Gore was back to business as usual today—trolling for money," she wrote. In another piece, he was "ever on the prowl for money."

The disparity between her reporting and Bruni's coverage of Bush for the Times was particularly galling to the Gore camp. "It's one thing if the coverage is equal—equally tough or equally soft," says Gore press secretary Chris Lehane. "In 2000, we would get stories where if Gore walked in and said the room was gray we'd be beaten up because in fact the room was an off-white. They would get stories about how George Bush's wing tips looked as he strode across the stage." Melinda Henneberger, then a political writer at the Times, says that such attitudes went all the way up to the top of the newspaper. "Some of it was a self-loathing liberal thing," she says, "disdaining the candidate who would have fit right into the newsroom, and giving all sorts of extra time on tests to the conservative from Texas. Al Gore was a laughline at the paper, while where Bush was concerned we seemed to suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations." (Seelye's and Bruni's then editors declined to be interviewed for this article.)

[snip]

Katharine Seelye, who still writes about national politics for The New York Times, has had time to reflect on her work: "I'm sure there were times my phrasing could have been better—you're doing this on the fly. Sometimes you're just looking for a different way to describe something that you have to write about over and over again," she says. "But I think overall my coverage was tough-minded. A presidential campaign is for the most important, hardest job in the world. Shouldn't the coverage be tough?"

Today, this most lazy and irresponsible of journalists, who defended her treatment of Al Gore by saying it was just a way to try to find something new about someone she writes about all the time, has decided that what's "new" about Joe Biden is his habit of talking off the cuff -- as if this is some revelation no one knew about before:

He showed less restraint in a CNN/YouTube debate a few months later, when a gun owner asked where the candidates stood on gun control, saying he wanted to know if his “babies” would be safe. “This is my baby,” the man said on the video, showing off his Bushmaster AR-15.

“I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Biden replied. “If that is his baby, he needs help.”

The audience applauded enthusiastically, but Mr. Biden did not stop there.

He went on to deride the questioner, saying he incriminated himself because the man said he bought the gun while it was banned, then he questioned the man’s stability. “I don’t know that he is mentally qualified to own that gun,” he said in a gratuitous aside.

The Democrats held 26 debates during the primary season. Mr. Biden, of Delaware, participated in 14 of them before he dropped out of the race Jan. 3, after he came in fifth in the Iowa caucuses. That would seem to give him a huge advantage going into Thursday’s vice-presidential debate with Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, who has never debated on the national stage.

But his off-putting remark to the gun owner suggests that perhaps his “yes” answer to the question about self-discipline had been premature and that there are perils ahead for Mr. Biden on Thursday — both because of his tendency to go too far and the hazards of debating a woman.

Ah, there it is -- the "fragile flower" meme. Let's go on and see what she says about that, shall we?

One danger for Mr. Biden on Thursday is that his habit of speaking authoritatively, of saying he possesses the truth, will come across as overbearing or condescending, particularly toward someone like Ms. Palin, who lacks his credentials. To try to guard against sounding sexist, he is sparring in practice sessions with Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan, who is playing the role of Ms. Palin.

Right on schedule. There's the Republican meme right there: Any Criticism of Sarah Palin is Patronizing and Sexist. And if it's being done by Barack Obama, a black man, it's also "so disrespectful", as the voiceover in a recent McCain ad said, its owner clearly clutching her pearls as she had the vapors over Barack Obama daring to diss a white woman.

Most of us have learned something in the last eight years. Obviously Kit Seelye has learned that bashing Democrats works. I'll bet she's received some nice fat raises, too.