It seemed like some sort of drug-induced fever-dream... There was Fargo's Marge Gunderson tarted up and playing the part of Miss South Carolina... "Oh ya" or "Ooh Key" she'd say in response to a question, then meander off-course and into an answer to a question not asked. I kept looking for signs of intelligence behind those blank eyes, but came up empty. It was a nightmare!

Actually, no it was not a dream, unfortunately, but the VP debates last night.

It was spectacularly frustrating watching her toss off a folksy homily and then lie or try to speak with conviction about something of which was she quite obviously ignorant. Like a true Caribou Barbie, when you pull its string, you always get a canned response, delivered in that fabulous Barbie way. You know the empty-headed piece of plastic isn't actually creating those responses on its own, but it's a great illusion. An not unlike a magic eight ball, the response may not be exactly what you were looking for when you asked the question.

She seemed a little more on her game than she has been lately with interviews. There were no obvious moose-in-the-headlight moments. There were very few fractured and incoherent sentences where her brain experiences 100% CPU utilization and just spins the pizza wheel. From that perspective, she admittedly did better than expected.

Of course, that's what happens when you don't have a journalist "belaboring the point" and forcing her to actually answer the question asked, and provide details. When she actually did address the question, it was certainly in the minority (probably countable on one hand). According to someone who has debated her in the past, this was to be expected:

Most of the time though, it was painfully obvious she was rote reciting memorized answers to questions. It wasn't a debate, it was an oral exam. When she said "say it ain't so Joe", I visibly cringed. How long had she been fondling that one in her jacket pocket, just waiting to pull it out? She also kept spewing out the word "maverick" in an almost Tourettes-like vocal spasm.

Joe, on the other hand, came across as smart, confident, informed, and real. He had a couple moments when he pulled out a prepared "zinger", but he mostly responded to the questions asked, and retorted the "facts" delivered in Palin's scripted answers. He was comfortable, cool, and collected. He looked vice-presidential.

To be fair, both sides occasionally played loose with the facts. With Biden, it was generally a small detail. Palin, however, delivered some real whoppers. Some examples:

The big moment of the debate (as noted by the pundits) is when Palin looked to Bush/Cheney for inspiration and claimed that they wanted to expand the powers of the vice-presidency. Considering the past eight years of the Executive branch running roughshod over Congress and the Constitution, that is a comment that should scare all patriotic Americans.

Ultimately, it was clear that Biden won the debate hands down. We can certainly hope it was the final nail in the coffin of McCain's whithering campaign. The prospect of a power-hungry vapid mercurial redneck one 72 year-old heartbeat away from the presidency is just too terrifying to contemplate.