The beauty of watching presidential and vice-presidential debates on PBS is that one doesn't get a lot of pre- and post-debate silliness from campaign spinners. The conversation between Jim Lehrer and his guests is genial and thoughtful, probably somewhat boring to those who like commentators to scream at one another. I missed the pre-vice-presidential debate spin, but according to Think Progress:
On MSNBC Hardball, McCain policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin claimed that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are advocating for an “artificial arugula-style middle class.” When pressed by host Chris Matthews to explain what he meant, Holtz-Eakin said an “arugula middle class” is “a not very real middle class.”
This is a good example of silly spin. What does Holtz-Eakin mean by "artificial arugula-style middle class"? I eat arugula; you know, it's a green. I grow it. Or rather, I would grow it if we would get some rain here in metro Atlanta. I planted seeds about three weeks ago, and those doggone little greens sprouted and then just sort of hunched down waiting for rain that never came. Instead, some nasty bug started nibbling at them, darn it! (Do I sound folksy enough here? I can do folksy, too, Governor Palin.) In what whacked-out universe does eating greens make one artificial and not a real member of the middle class? Enough with the arugula already!
As for the VP debate: Palin did pretty much what I thought she would do, based on her performance at the Republican Convention and her performance in those interviews. She put on her smiling face--smiling, smiling, smiling--and she looked directly into the camera, appealing to all those "hockey moms and Joe-Six-Packs" whom she thinks will be impressed more with her feistiness, her smiles, and her folksy language than with any substantive response she might give in this debate. She didn't fumble like she did in the interviews with Katie Couric because there were no real follow-up questions to her responses. In fact, she openly refused to answer some of the questions:
And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also. (from partial transcript of the debate: The New York Times).
Doggone that moderator, asking Sarah Palin questions she doesn't want to answer and trying to keep Sarah Palin from talkin' to the people! And that darn Joe Biden--he actually included details in his answers rather than general accusations and homey assurances. And, oh yeah, I shuddered over Palin's alarming agreement with Dick Cheney's version of a powerful vice-president. (We're learning more and more of Cheney's work behind the scenes influencing the White House and at times making decisions that were kept from the White House.)
Here are some other viewpoints I found interesting:
- Joan Walsh, at Salon, "How Sarah Palin Blew It"
- James Fallows, at The Atlantic, "Your VP debate wrapup in four bullet points
- Kevin Drum, at Mother Jones, "Debate Liveblogging--VP Edition"
- Noam Scheiber, at The New Republic, "Joe Biden--Inspired Veep Pick"
- Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker's faint praise at The Washington Post, "The VP Debate: She Won Fersure, also" (I'm getting so tired of conservatives categorizing Americans as elites or non-elites. The terms are so meaningless.)
- The New York Times checks some of the claims of Biden and Palin in the vice-presidential debate. Go to Factcheck.org for more information.
