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It was respectful and yet it left with nothing to hoot about. Had he corrected her in any way, it would have been red meat for the Blues, but a waste of time & talent. Instead of going after her, or even correcting her more than he needed to reassert his points, he simply walked right past her and hit his target: sink McCain, sell Barack.
At first I worried: 'She's not sputtering; she's not forgetting the names of her family members; he's being too wonky, not really scoring debate points, letting her get the last word in...' I was being a worry wart. I was assuming the electorate would be bamboozled yet again by a candidate who substituted any knowledge of governance with a folksy confidence in her own delusional platitudes. I thought the viewers and the voters might fall for it again.
I was wrong and Biden was right. Joe just plugged away, explaining the facts and counting on the American people to listen in, ignore the sparkle, and figure out that this is a guy who knows his job. The TV reviewers of the "Sarah Bright and Dark" show were as dumb as me. They too saw her certainty and poise on stage and marveled at her ability to control the debate. They too assumed anyone who isn't locked into a Red or Blue posture is a nincompoop who will fall for a charming spokesmodel over a professorial DC workhorse.
Viewers didn't see a woman who controlled the debate; they saw a woman who refused to answer the questions the moderator asked. They saw through the smile and weren't blinded by the winks. The post-game recap on the cable shows all talked about how she "spoke directly to the people" and how it was like she wasn't on the same stage with Biden. But they missed that Biden was also not on the same stage with Palin. They missed how Joe Biden turned his style into substance--or maybe remade substance into his style.
This isn't the first time Joe's done this. In 1988 Biden chaired the politically volatile Bork hearings just as his presidential campaign was flaming out over a careless intellectual sloppiness on his part (I'm being far kinder to Biden here than he is toward himself in his biography, Promises to Keep). Biden got a chorus of advise from his colleagues and political supporters--don't get bogged down in civil rights minutiae against Bork, go after something personal or take Bork down on political issues. Instead, Joe Biden trusted the voters to be smart enough to handle the truth, smart enough to handle an intelligent conversation in the midst of a campaign season, smart enough to grasp, if it's presented right, something as abstract as the importance of judicial philosophy.
Joe trusted us, the people. And Joe Biden was right. Joe Biden is one of those rare politicians who isn't just smart himself, but brings out the intelligence in the people he offers his leadership to. And that's why, for all his talent at saying dumb things on occasion, I trust Joe. Because Barack Obama was smart enough to trust him, too, I grow more confident every day that we won't just win an election this year, but that we'll actually be able to begin the long slow work of putting this country back on the right road.
And we won't have to get to that road by driving over the Sarah Palins in the world; we don't have to play the old Republican game of personally smearing and destroying our opponents. We only have to trust our fellow citizens to be smart enough to see who's leading when we walk right past the Republicans' hissyfits and distractions and move toward building a better government.
Thank you, Joe, for keeping a cool head. Thank you, Barack, for finding this kindred spirit.
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