2012 Vice Presidential Debate Thread

[Meister]

Joe Biden Was Right to Laugh


I've never thought much of Joe Biden. But man, did he get it right in last night's debate, and not just because he walloped sniveling little Paul Ryan on the facts. What he got absolutely right, despite what you might read this morning (many outlets are criticizing Biden's dramatic excesses), was his tone. Biden did absolutely roll his eyes, snort, laugh derisively and throw his hands up in the air whenever Ryan trotted out his little beady-eyed BS-isms.


But he should have! He was absolutely right to be doing it. We all should be doing it. That includes all of us in the media, and not just paid obnoxious-opinion-merchants like me, but so-called "objective" news reporters as well. We should all be rolling our eyes, and scoffing and saying, "Come back when you're serious."


The load of balls that both Romney and Ryan have been pushing out there for this whole election season is simply not intellectually serious. Most of their platform isn't even a real platform, it's a fourth-rate parlor trick designed to paper over the real agenda – cutting taxes even more for super-rich dickheads like Mitt Romney, and getting everyone else to pay the bill.


The essence of the whole campaign for me was crystalized in the debate exchange over Romney's 20 percent tax-cut plan. ABC's Martha Raddatz turned the questioning to Ryan:

MS. RADDATZ: Well, let's talk about this 20 percent.


VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well – (chuckles) –


MS. RADDATZ: You have refused yet again to offer specifics on how you pay for that 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. Do you actually have the specifics, or are you still working on it, and that's why you won't tell voters?
​

Here Ryan is presented with a simple yes-or-no answer. Since he doesn't have the answer, he immediately starts slithering and equivocating:

REP. RYAN: Different than this administration, we actually want to have big bipartisan agreements. You see, I understand the –
​

"We want to have bipartisan agreements?" This coming from a Republican congressman? These guys would stall a bill to name a post office after Shirley Temple. Biden, absolutely properly, chuckled and said, "That'd be a first for a Republican congress." Then Raddatz did exactly what any self-respecting journalist should do in that situation: she objected to being lied to, and yanked on the leash, forcing Ryan back to the question.

I'm convinced Raddatz wouldn't have pounced on Ryan if he hadn't trotted out this preposterous line about bipartisanism. Where does Ryan think we've all been living, Mars? It's one thing to pull that on some crowd of unsuspecting voters that hasn't followed politics that much and doesn't know the history. But any professional political journalist knows enough to know the abject comedy of that line. Still, Ryan was banking on the moderator not getting in the way and just letting him dump his trash on audiences. Instead, she aggressively grabbed Ryan by his puppy-scruff and pushed him back into the mess of his own proposal:

MS. RADDATZ: Do you have the specifics? Do you have the math? Do you know exactly what you're doing?
​

So now the ball is in Ryan's court. The answer he gives is astounding:

REP. RYAN: Look – look at what Mitt – look at what Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did. They worked together out of a framework to lower tax rates and broaden the base, and they worked together to fix that. What we're saying is here's our framework: Lower tax rates 20 percent – we raise about $1.2 trillion through income taxes. We forgo about 1.1 trillion [dollars] in loopholes and deductions. And so what we're saying is deny those loopholes and deductions to higher-income taxpayers so that more of their income is taxed, which has a broader base of taxation –
​

Three things about this answer:


1) Ryan again here refuses to answer Raddatz's yes-or-no question about specifics. So now we know the answer: there are no specifics.

2) In lieu of those nonexistent specifics, what Ryan basically says is that he and Romney will set the framework – "Lower taxes by 20 percent" – and then they'll work out the specifics of how to get there with the Democrats in bipartisan fashion.

3) So essentially, Ryan has just admitted on national television that the Romney tax plan will be worked out after the election with the same Democrats from whom they are now, before the election, hiding any and all details.



MORE at the link.

So Raddatz was carrying Biden's water for him and the democrats.....as a moderator??????

 

[toomuchtime_]

Joe Biden Was Right to Laugh


I've never thought much of Joe Biden. But man, did he get it right in last night's debate, and not just because he walloped sniveling little Paul Ryan on the facts. What he got absolutely right, despite what you might read this morning (many outlets are criticizing Biden's dramatic excesses), was his tone. Biden did absolutely roll his eyes, snort, laugh derisively and throw his hands up in the air whenever Ryan trotted out his little beady-eyed BS-isms.


But he should have! He was absolutely right to be doing it. We all should be doing it. That includes all of us in the media, and not just paid obnoxious-opinion-merchants like me, but so-called "objective" news reporters as well. We should all be rolling our eyes, and scoffing and saying, "Come back when you're serious."


The load of balls that both Romney and Ryan have been pushing out there for this whole election season is simply not intellectually serious. Most of their platform isn't even a real platform, it's a fourth-rate parlor trick designed to paper over the real agenda – cutting taxes even more for super-rich dickheads like Mitt Romney, and getting everyone else to pay the bill.


The essence of the whole campaign for me was crystalized in the debate exchange over Romney's 20 percent tax-cut plan. ABC's Martha Raddatz turned the questioning to Ryan:

MS. RADDATZ: Well, let's talk about this 20 percent.


VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well – (chuckles) –


MS. RADDATZ: You have refused yet again to offer specifics on how you pay for that 20 percent across-the-board tax cut. Do you actually have the specifics, or are you still working on it, and that's why you won't tell voters?
​

Here Ryan is presented with a simple yes-or-no answer. Since he doesn't have the answer, he immediately starts slithering and equivocating:

REP. RYAN: Different than this administration, we actually want to have big bipartisan agreements. You see, I understand the –
​

"We want to have bipartisan agreements?" This coming from a Republican congressman? These guys would stall a bill to name a post office after Shirley Temple. Biden, absolutely properly, chuckled and said, "That'd be a first for a Republican congress." Then Raddatz did exactly what any self-respecting journalist should do in that situation: she objected to being lied to, and yanked on the leash, forcing Ryan back to the question.

I'm convinced Raddatz wouldn't have pounced on Ryan if he hadn't trotted out this preposterous line about bipartisanism. Where does Ryan think we've all been living, Mars? It's one thing to pull that on some crowd of unsuspecting voters that hasn't followed politics that much and doesn't know the history. But any professional political journalist knows enough to know the abject comedy of that line. Still, Ryan was banking on the moderator not getting in the way and just letting him dump his trash on audiences. Instead, she aggressively grabbed Ryan by his puppy-scruff and pushed him back into the mess of his own proposal:

MS. RADDATZ: Do you have the specifics? Do you have the math? Do you know exactly what you're doing?
​

So now the ball is in Ryan's court. The answer he gives is astounding:

REP. RYAN: Look – look at what Mitt – look at what Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did. They worked together out of a framework to lower tax rates and broaden the base, and they worked together to fix that. What we're saying is here's our framework: Lower tax rates 20 percent – we raise about $1.2 trillion through income taxes. We forgo about 1.1 trillion [dollars] in loopholes and deductions. And so what we're saying is deny those loopholes and deductions to higher-income taxpayers so that more of their income is taxed, which has a broader base of taxation –
​

Three things about this answer:


1) Ryan again here refuses to answer Raddatz's yes-or-no question about specifics. So now we know the answer: there are no specifics.

2) In lieu of those nonexistent specifics, what Ryan basically says is that he and Romney will set the framework – "Lower taxes by 20 percent" – and then they'll work out the specifics of how to get there with the Democrats in bipartisan fashion.

3) So essentially, Ryan has just admitted on national television that the Romney tax plan will be worked out after the election with the same Democrats from whom they are now, before the election, hiding any and all details.



MORE at the link.

Ryan's answer was that Romney is serious about seeking bipartisan solutions to problems, and it is no surprise that Biden and most Obama supporters found the notion of bipartisanship laughable. What is disturbing is that after nearly four years of the polarizing and divisive tactics of the Obama administration, Raddatz, a journalist, also apparently didn't believe in bipartisanship as a real option.

 

[thereisnospoon]

What's a Yankee?

Any player on the winning-est team in baseball history.

PFT! GO REDSOX! We had a bad year but we will be back next year...Oh and Go Orioles!

Red Sox/ Orioles.....Playing golf.

 

[thanatos144]

Biden did what he had to do, and you yell at him for it.

Remember our side's disgraceful performances in the Town Hall meetings in 2009?

Jake defending biden and questioning Romney supporters, Does that sound like a Romney supporter too anyone?

I believe Jake is paid by somebody to derail threads like this. The best remedy for Jake is to completely ignore his comments and don't allow him to derail it or start the food fights he is attempting to start. Sufficiently ignore him and he eventually goes away. Continue to comment on his posts and it just encourages more of the same.

Biden was an ass and used a LOT of misinformation in between his crude and boorish behavior. Oldstyle is correct that Romney was accused of a 'smirk' in one point in the last debate. If you watch the playback, it is damn hard to find, but I suppose it is possible to see pretty much what you want to see when you go into the process already convinced you don't like somebody.

I honestly don't know how anybody with any sense of character or fair play could defend Biden's behavior in Thursday night's debate though.

Just put him on ignore like me and you dont have to even see his lies.

 

[Foxfyre]

Jake defending biden and questioning Romney supporters, Does that sound like a Romney supporter too anyone?

I believe Jake is paid by somebody to derail threads like this. The best remedy for Jake is to completely ignore his comments and don't allow him to derail it or start the food fights he is attempting to start. Sufficiently ignore him and he eventually goes away. Continue to comment on his posts and it just encourages more of the same.

Biden was an ass and used a LOT of misinformation in between his crude and boorish behavior. Oldstyle is correct that Romney was accused of a 'smirk' in one point in the last debate. If you watch the playback, it is damn hard to find, but I suppose it is possible to see pretty much what you want to see when you go into the process already convinced you don't like somebody.

I honestly don't know how anybody with any sense of character or fair play could defend Biden's behavior in Thursday night's debate though.

Just put him on ignore like me and you dont have to even see his lies.

Naw. He and I get along pretty well outside of the political threads. I just scroll over the nonsense in here.

 

[thanatos144]

I believe Jake is paid by somebody to derail threads like this. The best remedy for Jake is to completely ignore his comments and don't allow him to derail it or start the food fights he is attempting to start. Sufficiently ignore him and he eventually goes away. Continue to comment on his posts and it just encourages more of the same.

Biden was an ass and used a LOT of misinformation in between his crude and boorish behavior. Oldstyle is correct that Romney was accused of a 'smirk' in one point in the last debate. If you watch the playback, it is damn hard to find, but I suppose it is possible to see pretty much what you want to see when you go into the process already convinced you don't like somebody.

I honestly don't know how anybody with any sense of character or fair play could defend Biden's behavior in Thursday night's debate though.

Just put him on ignore like me and you dont have to even see his lies.

Naw. He and I get along pretty well outside of the political threads. I just scroll over the nonsense in here.

More power to you cause I cant abide a blatant habitual liar.

 

[mudwhistle]

Thus, they were excused in advance to what you weren't going to like about Biden three years later?

The shoe either fits both feet or neither feet.

Wow, you really aren't very good at this, are you.......

Voters who are angry over abusive government is not the same as a Vice President laughing and shoving his way through a debate on national television. You just want to slough it off because you don't know how to take anything seriously.

Biden is second in line to be president. Such boorish behavior should be beneath his office.

However it's clear that you love it and that reflects on you.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I am exceptionally better at this than you, for sure.

The Town Hall meeting disruptions reflected from the beginning the criminal elements within the larger movement. Generally, they have had to mute themselves since then and have done so. Wise choices.

Biden's activities were to put our GOP on notice that the changes in the narratives would not go unchallenged for the remainder of the debate. In that Biden succeeded.

It is clear I am not unhappy with it but realize that the boorish behavior began within element of our party in summer of 2009.

 

[Stephanie]

From what I've been reading Bidens actions turned off a lot a people.

So you go ahead and cheer this type of behavior on and tell Obama to do the same thing

You'll help out the Republican party a lot

 

[JakeStarkey]

I am staying in reality, which you seem to have trouble. Biden stopped the massive hemoraghing for his party. But if Romney does as well this time as last time, then the GOP wins, and we begin getting rid of influence from the weird far right.

 

[mudwhistle]

I am exceptionally better at this than you, for sure.

The Town Hall meeting disruptions reflected from the beginning the criminal elements within the larger movement. Generally, they have had to mute themselves since then and have done so. Wise choices.

Biden's activities were to put our GOP on notice that the changes in the narratives would not go unchallenged for the remainder of the debate. In that Biden succeeded.

It is clear I am not unhappy with it but realize that the boorish behavior began within element of our party in summer of 2009.

Oh, so the voters are criminals? That's who was voicing objections. Voters.

BTW, how long does it take for Mr Biden to get over imaginary slights that took place nearly 4 years ago? It was obvious voters were reacting to the way the Obama Administration and the Democrats shoved their spending down the taxpayers' collective throats. They had a right to be upset. Sounds like you wanted them to STFU and just take it.

Well, to hell with that. This isn't China.

 

[JakeStarkey]

There are criminal elements on the right and the left.

Get over it, mud.

 

[George Costanza]

From what I've been reading Bidens actions turned off a lot a people.

Then you have been reading propaganda from the Republican Noise Machine. Biden's actions turned off a lot of Republicans. End of story.

 

[Foxfyre]

From what I've been reading Bidens actions turned off a lot a people.

Then you have been reading propaganda from the Republican Noise Machine. Biden's actions turned off a lot of Republicans. End of story.

Well you may be right. Democrats are mostly condoning and applauding the behavior. Republicans not at all. Independents not so much. So what does that mean? Perhaps what each group considers appropriate for their own guys?

However, I can't imagine Republians applauding their own candidate who behaved that way. So. . . . .

 

[Katzndogz]

Biden's actions turned off a lot of women. Men not so much, but women have been putting up with the Biden's of the world for a very long time.

 

[Oldstyle]

From what I've been reading Bidens actions turned off a lot a people.

Then you have been reading propaganda from the Republican Noise Machine. Biden's actions turned off a lot of Republicans. End of story.

The truth is...Joe Biden's "antics" were a diversion from the facts about this Administration. People were talking about his mugging for the camera instead of his lies about what happened in Libya and the totally unfounded statement he made several times about Ryan and Romney "betting against America".

It's the kind of performance you put on when you don't want to debate issues. Anyone who thought that Joe Biden "won" that debate on the merits of his arguments is laughably partisan. He didn't lose the debate because he did everything he could to make sure it never happened. All the interruptions...all the faces...all the laughter...that wasn't debating...that was deflecting attention away from this Administration's inept performance and abysmal numbers.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Foxfyre, the independents are the ones who are going to make the difference, and I imagine they are split among themselves on Biden's behavior.

You are right is is about who supports whom, so I gather you forget the support for the TP's histrionics at the Town Hall meetings in 2009.

From what I've been reading Bidens actions turned off a lot a people.

Then you have been reading propaganda from the Republican Noise Machine. Biden's actions turned off a lot of Republicans. End of story.

Well you may be right. Democrats are mostly condoning and applauding the behavior. Republicans not at all. Independents not so much. So what does that mean? Perhaps what each group considers appropriate for their own guys?

However, I can't imagine Republians applauding their own candidate who behaved that way. So. . . . .

 

[Oldstyle]

Foxfyre, the independents are the ones who are going to make the difference, and I imagine they are split among themselves on Biden's behavior.

You are right is is about who supports whom, so I gather you forget the support for the TP's histrionics at the Town Hall meetings in 2009.

Then you have been reading propaganda from the Republican Noise Machine. Biden's actions turned off a lot of Republicans. End of story.

Well you may be right. Democrats are mostly condoning and applauding the behavior. Republicans not at all. Independents not so much. So what does that mean? Perhaps what each group considers appropriate for their own guys?

However, I can't imagine Republians applauding their own candidate who behaved that way. So. . . . .

Some citizen standing up at a town hall meeting and shouting down a politician is NOT the same as the Vice President of the United States putting on that kind of a "performance" in a debate that we voters are supposed to use to choose who our leaders will be at this critical time in our history. Biden was a buffoon.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

The Vice Presidential Debate: Joe Biden Was Right to Laugh | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

First, let's get the excuses out of the way:

Duly noted is the standard rw excuse of the source. Yes, its true that Rolling Stone is over your heads. That's not the fault of Rolling Stone or of the author. Like Santorum said, you'll never get the smart ones.

Could we now just skip the rw whining and actually discuss the content?

(Yeah, I know... but, its always worth a try, right?)

 

[AceRothstein]

The most recent poll out of Ohio by PPP showed Biden as the winner by 12 points amongst Indys.