With all my heart, I wish I could cheer on the female candidate here, but in five short weeks Palin has accomplished what it took George Bush five years to do - develop in me an automatic response to the sound of their voice that is equivalent to how I react to fingernails on chalkboard. It's that patent insincerity!

Biden impressed me. Palen is a goof.

Joe Biden is a careerlong bullshit artist. And he just kept smiling all night because you can't bullshit a bullshitter.

I would argue that not only can he cry on cue, he can stutter on cue. Remember the word he tripped over early on? Its humanizing and subtle move that makes you want to pull for him.

Palin doesn't have her act down and polished yet. She went to the "darnright" too many times. She lost the natural subtlty of a once-real trait.

Anymore she's playing a characature of herself and all the winks and the nods and the gollygee-youbetchas are starting to become a nervous tick.

She's about to outdo Tina Fey.

Yes, pausing to recall his first wife and his daughter was a humanizing moment for Joe Biden in his debate performance. But it only partly offset his bald lying in recent weeks about the circumstances of that tragic auto accident. The local Delaware news media and at least one national TV news channel reminded Joe that he has fabricated a story about his wife being a victim of a drunken driver; actually, she missed a stop sign and pulled into the path of a truck whose driver was stone sober and mortified by the outcome. Sure, it was a tragic lifelong loss, but also yet another total fabrication in a series of fabrications by a career DC pol. Credibility still counts !

Who was coaching Palin? I want to hire them! They sure turned her around from the last few weeks... Truly a smiling robot.

I would expect that Gov Palin would stopped smiling so broadly and assume a more somber facial expression when Sen Biden discussed his personal loss. Extra credit is she would have said "Joe, I'm sorry for your loss" before she took off with her next set of comments instead of completely ignoring the situation. It was the disconnect of her response during such a moment that caused us a TIVO moment to confirm that we were really seeing what happened.

His tears were extrmely authentic, I am sure. However, politicians are not beyond summoning their own emotions, combined with the real-life stories that explain their tears to garner sympathy appeal. As an aside, I've seen coaches do the same thing. Very powerful and very real and I'm afraid, sometimes a very calculating motivational technique. John McCain, while not tearing up, has referenced his painful POW experience to create more than a few touching moments. So has Joe Biden. He did so in Pennsylvania a little over a week ago. If I sound cynical, I just find it baffling that he can take an unimaginable tragedy he experienced and localize it according to the audience (kitchen table issues last night, Pittsburgh Steelers a week ago, and at the Democratic convention he teared up remembering the same tragedy while telling Delaware Dems how important they were to him at that time). Maybe I'm not cut out to be a politician, but if I know something's going to break me up in public, I'm not going to raise the issue repeatedly in public unless I actually want people to see me cry.

See link.
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/17560195/index.html

I guess distorting the facts "only" 1/3rd of the time is OK, but 1/2 of the time is too much. ??? Unfortunatly we set the threshold too low. We should expect and demand better.

What in the world is she supposed to do when Biden got all choked up...walk over and hug him? That would have been great, but get real, Biden was as scripted as anyone in the room (including his comment about his dead wife)..he's just better at it because he's been doing it in D.C. for 35 years. I'll take Palin's wink and shout out anyday.

"Unfortunately, half of the "facts' that Biden rattled off were not true."

Actually, if you had fact-checked correctly, you'd know that two-thirds of Biden's facts were accurate, so you have lost all respect I had for you.

Palin was so focused on reciting her talking points that she was emotionally detached from Biden's personal pain when he spoke of the death of his loved ones. It was all about her and the political "information dump" she had been programed to spew. This is not a woman who spoke from the heart; this is a woman who talked the talk of her Republican party (after a tremendous amount of coaching).

Steve

Facts and politicians are such polar opposites that it shouldn't even be a consideration when hearing the latter speak.

Thankfully, I fell asleep during last night's debate. I was getting really ticked that I couldn't tell who was the liberal and who was the conservative.

I'm voting Libertarian. I can't take this anymore.

Unfortunately, half of the "facts' that Biden rattled off were not true.
He lost my respect last night.

Palin's complete inability to react in a human way to Biden's emotional moment says much more about her character than her pre-scripted, gee-golly "shout-out."

A wink's as good as a nod to a blind horse.