After the VP Debate

Heaven help us if McCain and Palin win. Prior to the debate I figured that ANYTHING would be an improvement over George Bush. Now I’m not so sure.

Both Palin and Biden avoided embarrassing themselves but again, the Democrats in particular, and the left in general, continue to make the mistake by believing it’s about issues. It’s not. It’s about stapling more glittering generalities to your body than the other guy.

Biden talked issues. Palin made folksy and slung a record number of glittering talking points around the arena. It was almost like she had a list of words and phrases that she had to make sure she got in every few minutes whether it made sense or not. Let’s see, there was “Maverick,” “Energy Independence,” “getting government back on the side of the people” and a half dozen or so others.

Of course all of these were what we call a BFA. BFA stands for “Bald-Faced Assertion.” You say it often and loud and hope that no one notices that you don’t provide any evidence to back it up. Good old Joe had a few of those also but at least he didn’t drone away at the same word or phrase 10 or 20 times.

I thought it was interesting that the Republicans still think they can build prosperity from the top down. I’d rather build it from the bottom up.

Here’s the problem. The guys at the top are good at holding onto money. That’s WHY they’re at the top. They’re also pretty damn good at hiding that money from the tax man. That’s another reason WHY they’re at the top.

The rest of us can’t afford to hold onto it. We have bills to pay, kids to send to school and we’d like to have some enjoyments, a dependable car, decent clothes, a nice TV with a cable or satellite hook-up, go out to a show and dinner every once in a while and look forward to a reasonably secure and comfortable retirement.

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the cash to trickle down. The way it should work is the marketplace competing for the dollars of the consumers. If they want to expand their business, attract the customers and the revenue to justify it first, and then expand rather than expand first, and hope the customers follow.

So here’s my idea, rather than giving the cash to the top and trusting those greedy bastards to do what’s right for the rest of us, give it to us and trust us to do what’s right for the whole country including the greedy bastards at the top.

One other thing, it would have been nice if Palin answered the actual questions a bit more often. I was a little shocked to hear the NBC commentators complimenting her on not answering questions she didn’t want to answer, probably because they hadn’t prepared her to answer it, and simply talking about whatever she wanted to.

If I had been the moderator I would have repeated the question until I got something approaching an answer.

One last point, Geraldine Ferraro is an idiot. She was an “expert” commentator for NBC and was so happy that Palin demonstrated that a woman could stand toe to toe with an experienced Senator like Joe Biden.

Yo Geraldine, where you been? There have been an awful lot of women that were obviously capable of that. Ever hear of Shirley Chisolm, Gloria Steinem and Hillary Clinton? And oh yeah, wasn’t there a woman Democratic Vice Presidential candidate that was thought to be so obviously qualified that no one ever questioned her credentials? Her name escapes me at the moment.

Overall this debate, especially given the low expectations for Palin going in, can only help McCain. But at least Joe doesn’t resemble a flayed moose although he might by the time the pundits finish gushing over Palin’s scripted performance.