Joe Biden bordered on maniacal with his switching expressions of somber and then inappropriate giggling and smirking and eye rolling and general distracting behavior. My husband left the room for another TV with sports on. I hung in to see what could be garnered from this high level debate between two men, either of whom could be our next national leader. What I saw was a serious Paul Ryan trying to have a back and forth discussion with a political hack whose only goal was to obfuscate and diminish any positive impact that Ryan might have on this election. The Biden antics, no doubt rehearsed, canceled any gain that might have been made by either side. That was the point of course. An honest debate would have been negative for Obama and positive for Romney.
And, I’m sick of people saying the content of the debate was a “draw,” and Biden lost on his ugly comportment. Even Krauthammer was saying this last night, but it is just not true! Ryan had facts and he raised them appropriately within the context of the conversation. Biden, at best, was just mistaken on Libya and the burden being imposed on the Catholic Church by Obamacare; at worst, he was lying and just assuming no one would notice. These were two HUGE mistakes, unmatched by anything Ryan said. How could the debate have possibly been a draw?