Surpassing the Low Bar

I am guilty of the same reaction the media had to Palin's performance in the debate last night. I thought she did alright. In fact, last night my reaction was fear and loathing of the month ahead and how much work the Dems have ahead of them to keep the popularity gap widending rather than narrowing. And then this morning I went to look at the Check Point article at New York Times and realized my reaction was tempered by the low standard to which I held her. She did not do well, she just didn't screw up. And that's a major difference. She didn't say anything substantive about her own veiws and when she did say something about her running mate's views, it was usually wrong. In fact, at one point, she said she hadn't been at this for very long so she hasn't promised too much. Well, she didn't help herself out last night either because she continued to promise the same rhetoric about hockey moms and standing up to those big oil companies. And while she's probably going to hold true to her hockey mom rhetoric, she is way off base claiming that she ever stood up to oil companies or will ever in the future. I find it interesting that she makes a promise to do so under the same breath that she corrected Biden's mistake on her favorite chant: DRILL, BABY, DRILL. Palin, according to Check Point, spoke many untruths about Obama, her running mate, AND HERSELF. Granted, Biden had some missteps for which he'll be accountable as well, but Palin's outnumbered Biden's by 2:1.

I hope the American people can see through the credit they're giving Palin on the debate last night like I have. She sounded no more like a Vice President than Bush sounds like a President.

And that's what scares me...