David Brooks on This Week:
Here is Brooks’ review of the VP debate for the 2008 Presidential Election:
Like the last debate, this one was surprisingly wonky – a lifetime subscription to Congressional Quarterly. Palin could not match Biden when it came to policy detail, but she never obviously floundered.
She was surprisingly forceful on the subject of Iran (pronouncing “Ahmadinejad” better than her running mate) though she stepped over the line in claiming that Democrats sought to raise the “the white flag of surrender.”
[…]Still, this debate was about Sarah Palin. She held up her end of an energetic debate that gave voters a direct look at two competing philosophies. She established debating parity with Joe Biden. And in a country that is furious with Washington, she presented herself as a radical alternative.
By the debate’s end, most Republicans will not have been crouching behind the couch, but standing on it. The race has not been transformed, but few could have expected as vibrant and tactically clever a performance as the one Sarah Palin turned in Thursday night.
It would be good to remember that one wink-filled, shallow and evasive debate performance in 2008 made Brooks comfortable enough to ignore the shocking ignorance Palin displayed in interviews (with Couric, Gibson) and her refusal to hold a press conference w/the presidential race press corps. Who’s the real joke?