Wasn’t able to watch the debate so I listened to it on the radio. Because I couldn’t see his soft warm smile, Vice President Joe Biden sounded really pissed off at nearly everything. His voice, booming out from my car speakers, helped Congressman Paul Ryan sound much more professional. I could faintly hear scoffs and snickers during some of (most of) Ryan’s answers but I didn’t really understand how disrespectful the vice president was until I saw the news footage of it. Charles Krauthammer said that if you heard the debate on the radio Biden won because he was aggressive and in control of the issues. Far be it for me to disagree with my favorite columnist but it has happened before. I felt that the radio successfully picked up the unpleasant mannerisms the vice president was heavily pouring out. Angry Joe seemed, get this, angry. Ryan didn’t. He seemed concerned.
The vice president did do better than I thought he would. He sounded knowledgeable in several areas, especially foreign policy, but ultimately doomed himself with how blatantly dismissive he was of Ryan’s points using words like “malarkey” and “stuff,” which really stood out over the radio. Chris Wallace of FoxNews said he has never seen a candidate, Veep or presidential, be so rude and disrespectful to their opponent. Ryan took a few shots at the vice president but his performance is not being described as rude by the left who are too busy right now claiming that the vice president wasn’t rude. Ryan delivered a clearly prepared defense of the 47% line when he said that the vice president knows that words don’t always come out right. As I write this I can’t decide whether the vice president has “buried” us with his gaffes or have his gaffes left us “in chains.” Either way, he says dumb stuff with great frequency but last night he managed to avoid slipping any gaffes. However that is uncertain at the time of this writing because in regards to our Embassy in Libya the vice president said no one told them they needed more security. This may not be true. I’m interested in how the White House, State Department, and our intelligence services handle this news. But other than that, last night’s debate was overall unimpressive mostly because it was the vice president candidates, or the B-teamers. With an exception here and there, nobody votes based on the second name on the ticket. This debate did not sway enough people one way or another to have any impact on the outcome of the election. Had I been home, I would have watched the Titans play the Steelers.
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