Noonan: Confusing Strength With Aggression (Noonan nails it)

wsj ^ | 10/12/2012 | peggy noonan

[barryobi]

Last week Mr. Obama was weirdly passive. Last night Mr. Biden was weirdly aggressive, if that is the right word for someone who grimaces, laughs derisively, interrupts, hectors, rolls his eyes, browbeats and attempts to bully. He meant to dominate, to seem strong and no-nonsense. Sometimes he did—he had his moments. But he was also disrespectful and full of bluster. "Oh, now you're Jack Kennedy!" he snapped at one point. It was an echo of Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle, in 1988. But Mr. Quayle, who had compared himself to Kennedy, had invited the insult. Mr. Ryan had not. It came from nowhere. Did Mr. Biden look good? No, he looked mean and second-rate. He meant to undercut Mr. Ryan, but he undercut himself. His grimaces and laughter were reminiscent of Al Gore's sighs in 2000—theatrical, off-putting and in the end self-indicting.

I have just realized the problem with the debate: it was the weird distance between style and content, and the degree to which Mr. Biden's style poisoned his content.

In terms of content—the seriousness and strength of one's positions and the ability to argue for them—the debate was probably a draw, with both candidates having strong moments. But in terms of style, Mr. Biden was so childishly manipulative that it will be surprising if independents and undecideds liked what they saw.

National Democrats keep confusing strength with aggression and command with sarcasm. Even the latter didn't work for Mr. Biden. The things he said had the rhythm and smirk of sarcasm without the cutting substance.

[Teacher317]

Comparing to Jack Kennedy.

Sadly, Ryan didn't but should have jumped on the Jack Kennedy comment and AGREED!! IIRC, they were talking about tax cuts and increasing revenues. Ryan stated that it had been done several times. Biden interrupts out of nowhere with the Kennedy comment. Ryan should have said, "Yes! Exactly like JFK did in the 60's, he DID cut taxes, from the top marginal rates that went up to 94%, JFK slashed them dramatically, and the following years federal revenues DID increase. It's called the Laffer Curve, and between 1979 and 2002, over 40 different NATIONS followed JFK's lead, and cut their top rates, an in every case, revenues INCREASED the following year. There is no need to "pay for" the coming tax cuts, because our middle and upper classes are so over-taxed right now that decreases will inevitably lead to more business, and thus more tax revenues."