The VP Debate - Bingo Cards Not Included

6:00pm PDT - Gwen Ifill gives us the rundown of the events. She looks radiant in her turquoise jacket. She must have gotten it at the thrift store I got my pedophile costume. What? At least I didn’t make a cripple joke.

6:01 - Biden and Palin meet and shake hands. Palin asks Biden if she can call him Joe. I guess this was an attempt to put Joe off his game by seeming polite. Joe should have responded by saying, “no, please call me Professor Happypants.” That would have turned the tables the governor for sure. She sure does look hot though.

6:02 - Biden talks about the bailout. Talks about Barack Obama and his stipulations for any rescue plan. Joe says he and Obama want to focus on the middle class. He’s being boring and right. Damnit.

6:04 - Palin responds with a “take a look at the economy by going to a local soccer game”. She then drops a “you betcha.” Why do I think this won’t be the last time I’ll hear that phrase. Says McCain represents reform.

6:06 - Biden says he has a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle. Drops the “McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Here comes the gauntlet.

6:07 - Palin says the American workforce are the fundamentals McCain was talking about. “Team of Mavericks” is dropped. Oi. “Get down to gettin’ business done.” Shoot me now. She said “maverick” again. Anyone playing a drinking game at home?

6:08 - Ifill is annoyed because neither of them answered her question which was “why do you want to be vice president?” I’ll field that one Ms. Ifill: personal chef.

6:09 - Gwen asks who was at fault with the sub-prime mortgage problem and if she thinks it was the lenders’ fault. The first words out of Palin’s mouth are “darn right.” Really, America? I’m gonna pause real quick and ask you right now: are you seriously considering this woman to be vice president? Really? This woman? Ok, unpause.

Acknowledges corruption. Good for you. Oh God, did I just hear “Joe Six-Pack” and “Hockey Mom”? Is she trying to kill college students across the nation via alcohol poisoning? This is gonna get ridiculous.

6:10 - Biden responds by saying Obama warned about the sub-prime problem two years ago and that McCain was surprised that that could happen. Also mentions that McCain has wanted more deregulation and less oversight which is exactly how we got into this mess in the first place. I don’t really have any jokes for Senator Biden. He’s sticking to responding with details and personal anecdotes that illustrate his points. Um, I think he’s debating.

6:11 - Ms. Ifill asks if Palin wants to respond to Biden’s talk about healthcare and Palin refuses and would rather talk about taxes. Ahhhh, she said “darn right” again!!!! Kill me now. Says Obama voted to increase taxes 94 times which I know is false. She also says Obama plans to raise taxes on families making $42,000 a year. That is also not true. Who’s checking her facts?

6:12 - Biden corrects her on the “voted 94 times” thing. Says by her standards McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes and both points are not true. Then asks why Palin didn’t answer the original question about deregulation. Gee, I wonder if this is going to be a theme.

6:13 - Ifill gives Palin a chance to respond to Biden and she says “I’m still on the tax thing.” Apparently her cue cards don’t have an answer to that. OMG - she just admitted she’s not going to answer the questions the moderator or Biden ask and that she’s just going to talk to the American people about her track record...which is??!?!? Who let this woman in the auditorium, seriously?

Says she’s reduced taxes in Alaska. Biden is flabbergasted that she is going off on this tangent smiling and keeping from laughing. Ifill cuts her off because she ran out of rebuttal time.

6:14 - Ifill asks Biden about he and Obama’s plan to raise taxes on those making over $250k while asking Palin about her and McCain’s plan to tax employer’s health benefits that would put 5 million more people uninsured.

6:15 - Biden preaches fairness. Says 100 million middle class households get no tax breaks under McCain's plan. Says 95% of people making less than $150k will get a tax break under Obama's. CPunch likey. Biden talking directly into the camera now. This is good, McCain and Obama didn’t this in their first debate.

6:16 - Palin actually says something somewhat smart although I don’t know if it’s accurate. She claims that Biden and Obama plan to tax small businesses which will hurt job creation. Oh man, she just blew it though by saying that government is too often the problem and that taxing is unpatriotic. If government is the problem maybe you should ask your running mate who’s party’s been in charge of all these problems the last eight years.

6:18 - Ifill asks if Palin wants to talk about McCain’s healthcare plan. Palin says yes and she wants to “give us a couple of details”. Well, isn’t that great. Aw shucks, well thanks! Uh oh, she just said that Obama’s plan will mandate coverage - woo woo - False Alarm is ringin’. Not true Ms. Palin, his plain isn’t universal healthcare “mandated by the feds.”

6:19 - Corrects Palin on her small business jab. Biden explains how McCain will offer his $5000 healthcare rebate by taxing employers’ healthcare benefits. Then says the $5000 credit will then go straight to the insurance companies, which I’m assuming he’s implying that McCain is in their back pockets. Oooooo: “and that’s what I call a bridge to nowhere.” Snap, Joe. Snap. Dropping the hammer!

6:20 - Ifill asks about what plans each campaign would have to cut with the economic slowdown. Biden says he doesn’t want to slow down on many programs but does want to eliminate wasteful spending programs. Doesn’t really get too specific besides saying he’s had enough of offshore bank accounts skipping out on taxes.

6:21 - Palin responds by saying John McCain doesnt pander. Um....riiiiiiight. How do you think he won the primary, sweetheart? Thanks for playing.

Oh wait, she doesn’t want to answer the question. Instead she wants to talk about energy plans (?!?!?!). Oh god, she is blatantly reading off her cue cards. Does anyone honestly think this woman knows anything about anything? She is reading her cue cards and not even looking up. She’s blabbering on about how she stuck it to the oil companies when she was governing Alaska.

6:23 - Ifill re-asks Governor Palin if she is then not going to change her strategy and cut anything because of the economic downturn. Palin says “there is nothing she’d cut” and then says she’s been at this for only five weeks and hasn’t had a lot of time to make any promises. Anyone else just sigh really heavily?

She just said the bailout needs to have a ton of oversight despite her agreeing with McCain that generally they want deregulation. Does she know what “contradiction” means?

6:24 - Biden is giving out specifics on how McCain’s ties to oil companies and tax breaks for them is completely contrasting to Palin’s record on dealing with oil companies in Alaska and that actually Obama/Biden’s stance on the oil companies is just like what Palin did.

6:25 - Palin is rambling on about McCain being the only senator that wanted to put reigns on Fannie/Freddie (remember, he wants to deregulate!) which really doesn’t answer Ifill’s question. Wow, and I’m sure she didn’t mean it like this and just got dyslexic for a second but it’s funny; she said “it’s a toxic mess on Main St. that’s affecting Wall St.” Oh, Sarah.

6:26 - Biden says he and Obama support mortgage lending banks to lower the principle and interest rate for mortgage owners so that people can stay in their homes and keep banks in business. Says McCain doesn’t support that.

6:27 - Oh wow. Ifill asks if Palin wants to respond to that and she says she doesn’t and would rather talk about both tickets’ energy policies. How is Gwen Ifill not interrupting and yelling at her? This is unbelievable. This is like arguing with a child.

She says east coast politicians are the reason why Alaska can’t produce energy ie drill in ANWR. Says energy independence is the key. No shit.

6:29 - Ifill asks what she thinks about global warming and how it was caused. Palin says that it’s not entirely manmade but that also its the earth’s cyclical climate change and that there’s definitely a climate change. Was that redundant? Yup. Just paraphrasing the governor. She doesn’t want to argue the causes. Well that’s funny - we need to know the causes to find the solutions you bimbo.

6:31 - Biden thinks it’s clearly manmade and says what I just said, that we need to know the causes to find the solutions. Says McCain has voted against alternative energy development. Says it will take 10 years for any oil in our own reserves that McCain wants to drill to be used. That’s an obvious fact everyone knows. Although I’m sure Palin will find a way to disagree with it.

6:33 - Oh yea, Palin just said “nucular”.

6:34 - Biden is getting annoyed. You can see it in his face. He just corrected Palin when she said that Biden is lying about his support of clean coal production. He says the quote was taken out of context and was really pertaining to exporting the technology to China. Notice how Palin never responds with any kind of argument like this facts.

6:35 - Biden supports all rights for same sex couples.

6:36 - Palin doesn’t but says she’s tolerant. I think there was a South Park episode like this - “you don’t have to like people different than you, you just have to tolerate them.”

6:37 - Biden clarifies that he and Obama do not support gay marriage in the legal sense but that all civil rights need to be applied to gay couples. Palin says nothing but “I agree.” Great, we can move on.

6:38 - Here we go - we’re on foreign policy now and she says that McCain’s plan for the surge is the best way to go and that Obama not only opposed the surge but also funding the troops. Joe Biden just gave a WTF face.

She says we need to win in Iraq. Hmm, win. My roommate made a good point, he goes “the war on terror isn’t a hockey game you can win or lose. The only thing we’re losing are American troops.” Take that, Sarah!

6:39 - Biden: “Gwen, with all due respect, I didn’t hear a plan.” He makes a good point. She never said what McCain and her plan was on getting the troops out of Iraq. Biden also says that the only one not on board with a withdrawal strategy is McCain and that even Bush is talking to Iraq about a withdrawal.

6:41 - Palin just took about five seconds of pause staring straight down at her notes to try and respond to Biden. She comes up with: “your plan is a white flag of surrender.” Sweetheart, the “cut and run” argument died long ago.

Now she’s going on about Biden wanting to have been on board with McCain’s campaign until he got picked to be Obama’s VP and that he said during the Democratic primaries that Obama wasn’t ready to be president. Biden keeps laughing as if to say, “lady, are you for real?”

6:43 - Biden seems a bit annoyed again and emphasizes that McCain voted against funding the troops simply because there was a timeline in the bill for withdrawal. He’s really making a pointed effort to pit McCain with Cheney and Bush here. Smart strategy.

6:44 - On to Pakistan/Afghanistan as Biden says that he and Obama know that the central front of the war on terror is from the Taliban bases in the hills of the border of those two countries, not Iraq like McCain says.

6:45 - Palin says that the central front on terror is, in fact, in Iraq because she says General Petraes and the leaders of Al Qaeda said so. I have no idea how true that is but it doesn’t seem right. As far as I know bin Laden is still in the hills of Pakistan/Afghanistan and he’s the Al Qaeda leader right?

And she just said “nucular” twice again. And twice more. She’s going on the McCain rant about Obama not needing pre-conditions to meet with enemy leaders.

6:47 - Palin just said she had a good conversation with Henry Kissinger. Really? I’m sure you two had so much to talk about what with all your similarities in that three minutes you two talked.

6:48 - Ooo good one from Biden. Just let the world know that McCain doesn’t get that Ahmadinejad doesn’t control the security of Iran, but that the theocracy does aka the Ayatollahs. Biden drops the line about McCain not wanting to sit down with Spain just like Obama did. McCain did say this though the question he answered with that was a bit confusing. But still, jeez, think about what you say better, John.

6:50 - Palin loves Israel. No, you don’t understand, really. And not just because McCain needs to win Jew-heavy Florida.

6:51 - “No one’s a bigger friend to Israel than Joe Biden.” That is hilarious.

6:52 - Palin is happy that she and Biden both like Israel. Uh, what?

Now she’s saying that Obama and Biden are too busy pointing out the mistakes of the Bush administration to care about bringing change. I’m not sure she follows what they’re doing here. It’s called tying your running mate to those failed policies. To show that your administration would be no different. God, you’re an idiot.

6:54 - Right on cue, Biden: “Gwen, past is prologue.” Ooo, that’s gotta hoyt! Biden hasn’t heard how anything McCain supports is different than George Bush.

6:56 - Oh god, a nuclear weapons question. My head is going to explode over how many times Palin says “nucular.” Whoa, all of a sudden in the middle of her rambling about nuclear weapons she actually asks Gwen Ifill if she can talk about Afghanistan now. She’s trying to draw differences between Bush and McCain and she just said Obama said we’re bombing civilians and that that was a bad thing to say. I smell a Biden correction!

6:57 - Facts matter to Joe Biden apparently. He says the general in Afghanistan says the surge protocol would not work in Afghanistan opposite to what Palin just said.

6:59 - Palin says that that’s not entirely true and Biden comes back with a McCain quote from a couple years ago where he said that Afghanistan was won. It’s getting a bit chippy in St. Louis!


7:00 - Biden is proud of his interventionism when it came to Bosnia/Kosovo and thinks we need to help the people in Darfur. Says we need to rally the world to act.

7:02 - Palin just said that it's obvious she’s a Washington outsider because she doesn’t flip flop. Well, I don’t know how true that last part is but I’m not sure how that attack all of a sudden comes up. Apparently Alaska has something to do with funding the help needed for fixing Darfur. I have no idea what Palin is talking about.

7:05 - Palin just said John McCain knows how to win a war. Really? Cause I’m pretty sure we lost in Vietnam. Hahaha, the last part of her response, which didn’t answer any question anyone asked, was, “John McCain will know how to win a war.” Will know. Future tense. You just said he already knows. Wow.

7:06 - Ifill asks how the VP’s would run the country if the head of the ticket, God forbid, died. Biden says he’d fulfill all of Obama’s policies.

7:07 - Palin just called her and McCain and team of mavericks. I’m so effing sick of hearing that. Shut your freakin’ mouth, lady.

And she just winked at me. Excuse me? This is not a lapdance, Sarah.

Oh god, she just said we need to bring some of Wasilla Main St. to Washington. No thanks, don’t think we need to be shooting animals from helicopters while on a crystal meth bender.

7:09 - Joe Biden goes to Home Depot! Woo hoo.

7:10 - @#($*&)#$&@)#(&$)# “Say it ain’t so, Joe”?!?! “Doggonit”??!!? Sweet Moses Brown. What? Now we’re giving shout-out’s to 3rd graders and telling them they get extra credit for watching a vice presidential debate? 3rd graders still eat paste, Sarah. 3rd graders still eat paste. Sarah Palin has officially jumped the shark.

7:12 - Ifill points out that Palin said in July that she didn’t know what the VP does and Biden said that he didn’t want to be VP. Palin says that apparently no one got her or Biden’s joke. Um, I don’t really know what Biden meant by that but I saw the video of you saying your “joke”, Sarah, and you looked pretty damn serious to me.

7:14 - Palin is reading off a cue card again very obviously when talking about how Cheney has redefined the roll of the vice president. I’m almost at a loss for words at this point.

Wait, she just said that part of her qualification to be vice president is because she was a business owner. You know what she owned? A carwash - and it went under. Way to go!

7:15 - Oh man, Biden dropping the hammer again. Says Cheney is the most dangerous VP we’ve ever had and that the 1st Article of the constitution clearly defines what the VP does - that it’s not flexible like Palin thinks and wants it to be.

7:17 - Palin just said that part of the reason she’s qualified to be vice president is because of her strengths of, ya know, being a mom. I shit you not. I can tell you right now, I love my mom to death but she is not vice presidential material and I think she’d agree with me.

It’s funny because Gwen Ifill’s question was “what do you think your Achilles heal is?” Sarah Palin talked about how being a mom made her part of a great team with John McCain. Yup.

7:18 - Biden right off the bat jokes that Ifill was nice to point out only one flaw of his and he elaborates that he thinks he can be too passionate.

Biden starts talking about the rough times he had when his wife and child were killed and gets a little choked up and illustrates that he knows what it’s like to have to really fight through the tough times and make it out on top in the end. Really a strong point in this debate for him.

7:20 - Palin dropping the “maverick” tag again. Millions of college kids are now getting their stomachs pumped. Good job, Sarah.

Let’s say “maverick” one more time.

Wait, she just said Leiberman, Giuliani and others have different viewpoints that show how bipartisan John McCain is. Is this lady off her rocker? You betcha!

7:22 - Biden is sick of this “maverick” talk and points out a half dozen examples when McCain's not been a maverick by his own standards. By anything that actually affects regular Americans.

7:24 - Palin dropping the “bipartisan” tag again as well. Anyone still standing?

7:26 - Biden says he’s never questioned any other senator’s motive, just their judgment. That’s how he’s bipartisan, he says.

7:28 - Finally the closing statements. Oh man, how predictable - Palin is glad the mainstream media wasn’t running this debate to filter what she says so that she can just speak to the American people. Let me translate that for you: I’m glad I was finally able to answer questions I had cue cards for and was prepped for two weeks for as opposed to having to answer questions off the top of my head like I had to with Katie Couric, that annoying bitch. That’s what she really meant.

7:30 - I feel like my grandfather’s talking to me when Joe Biden speaks into the camera. Like a grandfather who always told you great stories and was there for you every birthday with a surprise gift you didn’t know you wanted but still loved years later. The man warms the heart.

Wait, that warmth is copious amounts of booze in my system from the Sarah Palin Drinking game but I really meant what I said about how Joe comes off when he talks directly into the camera.

7:31 - The debate is finally over and I think my head is going to explode. This wasn’t even close. Joe Biden had facts and spoke with certainty and poise. Sarah Palin proved she could read. There ya go, America.