You remember Peggy Noonan, right? She of the open mike idiocy about that Palin pick being “bullshit” gaffe. Then she tried to spin it around, but, she has been less then a supporter. That is her right, but, now, she is a bandwagon jumper

She killed. She had him at “Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?” She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy.

The whole debate was about Sarah Palin. She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

As far as Mrs. Palin was concerned, Gwen Ifill was not there, and Joe Biden was not there. Sarah and the camera were there. This was classic “talk over the heads of the media straight to the people,” and it is a long time since I’ve seen it done so well, though so transparently. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial.

There is more gushing from Peggy. How does that crow taste, Peggy?

And David Brooks? You remember the Keith Olbermann network gleefully writing “Palin: When you’ve lost David Brooks…” Now we get

Still, this debate was about Sarah Palin. She held up her end of an energetic debate that gave voters a direct look at two competing philosophies. She established debating parity with Joe Biden. And in a country that is furious with Washington, she presented herself as a radical alternative.

By the end of the debate, most Republicans were not crouching behind the couch, but standing on it. The race has not been transformed, but few could have expected as vibrant and tactically clever a performance as the one Sarah Palin turned in Thursday night.

Ummmm, crow. Tastes good! Feels good! Real good! (to the tune sung during marching in Full Metal Jacket by R. Lee Ermey)

Next on the crow list will probably be Kathleen Parker. We’ll give her a few days to clean her Thanksgiving Day silverware.

Surrendie didn’t know if he should be sad because Saracuda did so well last night, or happy because so many in the Liberal media were so flumoxed by her performance that they were forced to surrender and say “She done good!” But, Surrendie loves how they have done it. Consider an Internet front page story at the Washington Post

Sarah Palin looked as though she had prepared for her appearance at the vice presidential debate last night by studying Tina Fey’s impressions of her on “Saturday Night Live.” She twinkled and winked and piled on the perkiness, a “darn right” here and an “I’ll betcha” there.

At the same time, Palin seemed determined to banish thoughts of her as airheaded and inexperienced; she was really debating her own public image rather than Sen. Joe Biden. She subverted the whole purpose of the exercise by merely repeating the key points of her running mate, Sen. John McCain, and ignoring questions that called for more specific answers.

No mention from Tom Shales about the lies of Joe Biden. Who is Tom Shales? He is a Style writer for the Washington Post. Nice to know the Post apparently has no political writers sober enough after Palin’s performance (and, to be honest, let’s not forget that Biden did do very well himself, certainly better then either McCain or Obama) to write a decent article. Shales’ article is considered “top news,” if you look at that link.

Despite the even toned article at the LA Times, one which tends to avoid the zingers by Palin, their headline says it all for those searching for some medical mary jane in the newsroom

Palin and Biden spar in VP debate but neither deals a knockout

And, how can we ignore the Grey Lady?

Gov. Sarah Palin made it through the vice-presidential debate on Thursday without doing any obvious damage to the Republican presidential ticket. By surviving her encounter with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and quelling some of the talk about her basic qualifications for high office, she may even have done Senator John McCain a bit of good, freeing him to focus on the other troubles shadowing his campaign.

It was not a tipping point for the embattled Republican presidential ticket, the bad night that many Republicans had feared. But neither did it constitute the turning point the McCain campaign was looking for after a stretch of several weeks in which Senator Barack Obama seemed to be gaining the upper hand in the race. Even if he no longer has to be on the defensive about Ms. Palin, Mr. McCain still faces a tough environment with barely a month until the election, as he acknowledged hours before the debate by effectively pulling his campaign out of Michigan, a Democratic state where Mr. McCain’s advisers had once been optimistic of victory.

So, she did fantastic, but, it don’t mean nuttin’.

Exit question: other then perhaps at Fox News, the Washington Times, and a few other media outlets, are there any in the Credentialed Media who do not have hangovers like Cuba just won the World Cup?

The New York Times took on Joe Biden in my previous post, painting him as a great guy who just wants to give his family a good life in a pleasant, beautiful domicile. How do they treat Sarah Palin? Let’s check the headline: As Governor, Palin Has Focused on Developing State’s Resources. The underlying premise is “sure, she did well in Alaska, that state with the tiny population out in the middle of nowhere, but, does that mean she knows anything else? Can she really run a country? Does she have the right stuff? Does anyone really know anything about her?”

When Gov. Sarah Palin meets Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Thursday in the vice-presidential debate, even her fellow Alaskans might hear for the first time some of her views on health care reform, education policy and other issues of state government.

Yeah, because that 80% + approval rating was based on the wind. Let’s go to the next two paragraphs.

In her 22 months in office, Ms. Palin has not addressed many of those matters in a significant way, pursuing a narrower agenda rooted in Alaska’s resource-based economy.

Ms. Palin has approved increased spending for education and the elderly, sued the federal government for listing the polar bear as a threatened species, and pushed for a bill that would have reduced state regulation of new medical facilities.

Hmm, that seems like education and healthcare policy. Here we go, though, the red meat for the liberals who read the paper

But by and large, oil and gas issues have dominated her tenure.

“You can’t think of another area where there’s been another drive or initiative coming out of the administration with the same level of intensity,” said Scott Goldsmith, a professor of economics at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Big Oil! Or, should that be written, Evil Big Oil! Obviously, she must be intimately linked with Big Oil, the destroyer of Gaia, the Bane of Liberal Existence, those evil people who jack gas prices up and harm the economy at the expense of the Middle Class! Yawn.

Interestingly, they actually do something they have yet to do for Barack Obama or Joe Biden, and delve in to several of the issues Sarah has been involved in, healthcare, education (remember, Alaskans do not know her positions, according to the Times), trade, environment, elderly, budget, and social issues. In each and every one, the Times attempts to put in a little rejoinder that spins what Palin did as not so good. Consider environment, which is not so subtle

Ms. Palin has taken positions that reflect her support for developing Alaska’s natural resources. Her views are largely in line with those of voters in her state, but not with environmentalists.

And, in Liberal World, to hell with the 80%+ people who support her, the environmentalists come first.

A good chunk of the story involves the oil industry, no surprise considering how important it is to Alaska, but, the constant mentions are, of course, meant to tie her to that EVIL industry, even when she is taking them on.

I’m waiting for the story on her house.

Ask yourself if you have ever seen an article this nice about Sarah Palin by the Grey Lady. Ask yourself why this artice just happens to come out the day of the VP debates. A bit of Biden Luv from the New York Times: An Everyman on the Trail, With Perks at Home

For the millions of voters getting to know him, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, portrays himself at times as an average guy who takes the train to work, frets about money and basically has led a middle-class life.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine,” Mr. Biden said when Senator Barack Obama introduced him as his running mate. “You sit there at night after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills.”

He’s a swell guy, eh?

Although he is among the least wealthy members of the millionaires club that is the United States Senate — he and his wife, Jill, a college professor, earn about $250,000 a year — Mr. Biden maintains a lifestyle that is more comfortable than the impression he may have given on the campaign trail. A review of his finances found that when it comes to some of his largest expenses, like the purchase and upkeep of his home and his use of Amtrak trains to get around, he has benefited from resources and relationships not available to average Americans.

As a secure incumbent who has rarely faced serious competition during 35 years in the Senate, Mr. Biden has been able to dip into his campaign treasury to spend thousands of dollars on home landscaping and some of his Amtrak travel between Wilmington, Del., where he lives, and Washington. And the acquisition of his waterfront property a decade ago involved wealthy businessmen and campaign supporters, some of them bankers with an interest in legislation before the Senate, who bought his old house for top dollar, sold him four acres at cost and lent him $500,000 to build his new home.

Hmm, that would seem to be problematic. Is yardwork the reason people donate to his campaigns? As for the waterfront property, that seems to be exactly the kind of issue that Obama rails about (though we know he doesn’t mean it.) I bet the Times has something to say on this obvious lapse in ethics

There is nothing to suggest Mr. Biden bent any rules in the sale, purchase and financing of his homes. Rather, he appears to have benefited at times from the simple fact of who he is: a United States senator, not just “Amtrak Joe,” the train-riding everyman that the Obama-Biden campaign has deployed to rally middle-class voters.

Ah. It’s OK, then. Sarah Palin fires a guy who refused to fire a trooper - who happened to be her ex-brother in law - who tazed a 10 year old, drank before and during shifts, illegally shot animals, etc, but, according to all the Liberal media, there is a problem with that.

Interestingly, throught the who article, which is about telling us what an average Joe Joe is, we get a look at Joe’s finances, and realize that this guy just isn’t very good with money. Good thing he is just running for the job of VP, eh?

So, where is the article on Palin? That post is up next.

The headlines of both articles gives a good idea of where the Times wants to push the reader. We’ll start with Sarah Palin, then get to the Gaffe Master after the jump

Past Debates Show a Confident Palin, at Times Fluent but Often Vague

Not since Dan Quayle took the stage in 1988 have debate expectations for a major party candidate been as low as they will be on Thursday for Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Setting the stage for calling Palin a lightweight

A newcomer to the national scene, Ms. Palin has given little indication that she has been engaged in a serious way in the pressing national and international issues of the day.

Sorry she couldn’t have been in the Senate since 1972 like Biden, and having failed 3 attempts for the Democrat nomination, or having been chosen as a VP with more experience then the top of the ticket. I doubt Clinton was real concerned with national or international issues while governor of Arkansas, either.

But a review of a handful of her debate performances in the race for governor in 2006 shows a somewhat different persona from the one that has emerged since Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, named Ms. Palin as the vice-presidential nominee a month ago.

Ms. Palin, a former mayor who had become a whistle-blower about ethical misconduct in state government, held her own in those debates. (There were almost two dozen in the general election alone; she skipped some, and not all were recorded.)

Some pleasantries thrown in to give an appearance of journalism, rather then opinionation

Her debating style was rarely confrontational, and she appeared confident. In contrast to today, when she seems unversed on several important issues, she demonstrated fluency on certain subjects, particularly oil and gas development.

But just as she does now, Ms. Palin often spoke in generalities and showed scant aptitude for developing arguments beyond a talking point or two. Her sentences were distinguished by their repetition of words, by the use of the phrase “here in Alaska” and for gaps. On paper, her sentences would have been difficult to diagram.

John Bitney, the policy director for her campaign for governor and the main person who helped prepare her for debates, said her repetition of words was “her way of running down the cloc