An Unbelievable Embarrassment: Cringe Reflex On High

I am afraid I will have to offend some of my readers today. Not that it will do any good, but I offer my apologies in advance of what I am about to say: Readers, forgive me.

Last night, as I watched the much-awaited debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin, I found myself unable to sit or stand still. I was doing everything I could not to pace; instead, I stood and fidgeted, I trod a small circle. I left the room, I went outside. I flinched. I winced. I said "Ouch!" I did everything I could to stay cheerfully mild. I discovered, to my shame, that I could not.

In the end all I could do was say, "Poor, poor Joe Biden."
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Senator Joe Biden. He's a legend in Delaware. He's a legend in the Senate. Nay, he IS the Senate, at least for most of us who were mere children when he first took office. He's a fixture of the Democratic Party. He has been the stuff of some of the wildest tales told about Senate hearings: He has reproached, chided, upbraided, rebuked, rebuffed, and rejected the likes of Robert Bork. He has raised his voice to men who now preside on the Supreme Court, men who barely made it through the very gauntlet which is Joe Biden.

This senatorial and legislative behemoth, this veritable leviathan of legislation, renowned for his 35 years of service to this country, failed -- abjectly, fully and undeniably publicly -- to put an upstart country-girl-small-state governor in her place. Not only did he not annihilate her in the debate's first five minutes, he permitted her to remain relatively equal to him in nearly every way. He did not impress us with his vast and superior command of all things political: his responses were adequate, and that's all. But mere adequacy is grossly insufficient; in a debate like this, adequacy is failure. Clearly, he never really distanced himself from his opponent. She remained doggedly confident; she did not lose a single ounce of confidence, her aplomb. She remained controlled, poised, eager -- and defiantly cheery. And she without a hint of embarrassment looked directly into the camera and spoke what we all knew -- and she knew that we all knew -- were some clearly canned set-pieces. But the fact is that she did all of this with pride, gusto, elegance; she laughed at diffidence and shame, and made her case to America. She came out of the debate liked by more Americans than when she went in.

But the Great Peacemaker's Great Elder Statesman, Joe Biden, made himself look like a dried-up old Washington insider who merely played verbal games: Instead of blowing Gov. Palin and the country away, he simply failed. The rookie was not fanned by the legendary CY Young award-winning pitcher; in fact, the rookie ended up on first with a 13-pitch walk. The novice was never schooled by her master. In that, Joe Biden's performance was a profound and legendary embarrassment.

A dear acquaintance of mine (I love him but we are not close) wrote a very well-received op-ed in New Hampshire's only state-wide daily paper. He was pitching for an Obama victory as the state headed into the last week's of the NH primary season. And in that ably written op-ed, my friend compared essentially the length of time it took Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to get where they were in December 2007. Hillary Clinton, far older than Barack Obama, had begun at a higher social rung than did he (at birth); she had a privileged upbringing, attending the best schools; she was a lawyer and first lady, and yet at her age was only now ready to run for president. By comparison, Barack Obama had actually accomplished far more in far less time, and he began with far less. The op-ed writer remarked:

"Obama's accomplishments show greater efficiency and clarity of purpose, forming productive alliances, making the most of his comparatively short career."

In effect, or so I believe, the op-ed writer could have been asking, "If Ms. Clinton was only ready to be president when she turned 61, how much more ready would Barack Obama be when he was 61 if he was ready at 47?"

Undoubtedly the same kind of question could be asked of Sarah Palin. If Gov. Palin is clearly fit to debate Joe Biden with only five weeks' experience, what would she be like when she was Joe Biden's age? If an inexperienced candidate can be considered by many pundits to have equaled the vastly more experienced Joe Biden in a debate, what does that say about her potential compared to his -- or even Barack Obama's?

The fact is clear in the plainest political sense. This sense may not be common sense; it may not spill over into the general populace. But the fact is that Sen. Joe Biden lost last night, terribly. No, he did not walk off the stage blushing, weeping, looking utterly dejected. No, he did not appear to wobble, nor did he begin to mutter circumlocutions like a doddering old man. But that Sarah Palin was able to walk off the stage last night in St. Louis, Missouri, waving and smiling and remarking that the whole thing was fun -- without being the slightest bit delusional -- proves that Joe Biden lost every second of last night's debate. Every second.

Lastly, even Sen. Biden's strongest points were utterly weak. He had an enormous debate advantage: he is a senator. Since Gov. Palin is not, he could pretend to talk authoritatively and knowingly about John McCain and Barack Obama's Senate records. Why would a governor know anything about such records, many of which are obscured by legislative politics and the trivialities that such politics engenders? Sarah Palin, as an obvious outsider, could not counter what the presumably all-knowing senator claimed to know. But it was precisely her outsider status that Joe Biden assiduously avoided: he did not argue against her record as governor -- for then he was in unknown territory -- he argued instead against John McCain's alleged record as a senator. Of course, today we are all learning that Sen. Biden essentially fabricated both Sen. McCain's and Sen. Obama's records in the Senate; he could do so simply by taking advantage of Sarah Palin's strength, namely, her outsider status. Last night, Sen. Biden was quite safe dropping complete or half-truths about his two colleagues in the senate chambers, realizing his interlocutor could not counter him during a live televised debate.

But all this shows the weakness of Sen. Biden, for even with his fabrications and assumed privileged position, he still failed to render Sarah Palin irrelevant, inconsequential or uninformed.

That is why the Contratimes poll, indubitably infallible, shows that, of those who were asked to declare who REALLY won the debate, 0 percent said Joe Biden won.

0 percent! That is just a few points lower than his class placement in his graduating class from law school. OK. Unfair. But could I really resist?

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