Somewhere in the back of my mind the “angry liberal” in me hoped Palin would have that deer in the headlights moment, seize up, and perhaps even walk off stage.  But she didn’t.  And the realist in me knows that wasn’t likely to happen.  Otherwise the McCain camp would have never agreed to show up.  That debate would have been one where she was forced to answer questions and last night she wasn’t.  Instead she was allowed to wander aimlessly through her talking points and skip through any serious discussion in her perky although quirky fashion.  And with expectations so low, the conservative cheer squad were doing back flips over her ability to perform the whole 90 minutes without seizing up or saying something incredibly stupid. But incredibly stupid is what was her performance.  It was brilliant in that she could quickly shift gears and pull out a standard talking point, but incredibly inept in that the shifting gears was the method of avoiding the questions altogether.

There was no debate.

Biden did exactly what he needed to do.  Answer the questions and show his aptitude to address complex matters and not attack Palin.  And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have the opportunity.  As she zigged and zagged Biden could have easily pressed her to explain herself.  But I doubt it would have been anymore affective at getting her to show some competence as the initial question in the first place so… never mind.  Biden stuck to contrasting the Obama/Biden candidacy with that of McCain and that was all that was needed.  Palin really doesn’t fit into the equation.  At this point she is just a set of pre-recorded conservative talking points.  They may not come out in any particular order but that doesn’t really matter to anyone already convinced.

But there was no debate.

[It’s 5 am, the TV is on and I just heard Pat Buchannon say Palin won the debate. I think I’ll watch the Obama Channel on Dish Network 73… ahhhhh]