Friday, October 12, 2012

Biden - Ryan Smackdown Review w/Updates

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. . . for someone like a Paul Ryan or anybody else up against Joe Biden, when the moderator allowed one candidate to absolutely run roughshod over the conversation, over the opponent. That’s a tough format. It reminded me of watching a musk ox run across the tundra with somebody underfoot. In this case, when it came to style, Paul Ryan was underfoot because of the moderator allowing Biden to do interrupting, to kind of take control of the conversation
~ Sarah Palin to Sean Hannity on Fox, via Politico

I could not be prouder of him. I thought he made a very strong case. I really think that his passion for making sure that the economy grows for the middle class came through. So I'm very proud of him.
~ President Obama, via LA Times

Joe Biden Dispenses with the Niceities
~ Headline on New York Mag

Joe Biden Shows Barack Obama How to Do It
Headline on The Australian

BuzzFeed: The Many Gesticulations of Joe Biden
Buzzfeed Picture Essay



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The laughter certainly was not something that we expected. On the policy front, I think it was precisely what we expected. I didn't hear any new attacks really. There were a few statistics that were more of a reach than usually, but pretty typical of the vice president in the limited amount that we've seen him in public in the past few months.
There was a lot of incredulity (among Romney-Ryan campaign staffers watching Biden). What is he doing? Why is he doing that? Does he know there's reaction shots? Several times it was just really inappropriate. Several times it seemed like he wasn't listening.
~ Ex-RNC Chairman Michael Steele, quoted by Yahoo News

Biden got the memo about not duplicating President Obama’s listless sleepwalk in Denver, and seems to have read it repeatedly. Aggressive from the get-go, he threw his hands in the air, guffawed as Ryan spoke, interrupted his rival and belittled him (“this guy,” “my friend.”). He flashed his teeth frequently and grinned incessantly.
~ Maggie Haberman on Politico

I don't believe I've ever seen a debate in which one participant was as openly disrespectful of the other as Biden was to Paul Ryan tonight. ...It was openly contemptuous and disrespectful.
~ Chris Wallace of Fox News, via Business Insider

On more than one occasion, the Republican candidate visibly gulped. It's dispiriting, of course, that political discourse should have been reduced to such displays of alpha-male dominance, but there were times when the debate might have benefited from a whispering David Attenborough voiceover: "And so the victorious older male, having bared his cosmetically enhanced teeth, stalks away, muttering: 'With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey …'"
. . . Biden is an incorrigible ham. On the split-screen, while Ryan spoke, he could be seen grinning, chuckling, shaking his head, throwing his hands to the skies or hanging his head in exaggerated disbelief, a widely varying sequence of gestures that all amounted to "can you believe this guy?" When the questioning turned to religious faith, Biden simply adopted a completely different voice, husky and several tones lower. With exuberant disingenuousness, he referred to Ryan as "my friend" more than a dozen times. But it all seemed to work. It worked much better, certainly, than Obama's decision to act as if the split-screen wasn't there.
~ Oliver Burkeman on Guardian UK

There is a deeply held Beltway myth of Paul Ryan, Man of Big Ideas, and it dies hard. But, if there is a just god in the universe, on Thursday night, it died a bloody death, was hurled into a pit, doused with quicklime, buried without ceremony, and the ground above it salted and strewn with garlic so that it never rises again. On foreign policy, Ryan occasionally rose, gasping, to the level of obvious neophyte. (He was more lost in Afghanistan than the Russian army ever was.) On domestic policy, his alleged wheelhouse, he was vague, untruthful, and he walked right into a haymaker he should have seen coming from a mile off, when he started bloviating about Biden's role in the "failed" stimulus program, only to have Biden slap him around with Ryan's own requests for stimulus money for his home district back in Wisconsin. He also made it quite clear that a Romney-Ryan White House will do everything it can to eliminate a woman's right to choose. This should make for some fine television commercials over the next few weeks.
~ Charles P. Pierce on Esquire

Alan Schroeder on CNN
. . . two candidates struggle to dominate the conversation -- again, I am reminded of a father and son going at it over the dinner table. The look of feigned incredulity on Biden's face as Ryan speaks is priceless. For his part, Ryan can barely contain his exasperation at being talked over. Biden's line -- "Oh, and now you're Jack Kennedy" -- is a not too subtle allusion to the classic vice presidential debate putdown from 1988, when Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy." Ryan attempts to laugh off the insult, but he seems a bit rattled here. Biden appears to have hit a nerve. Shouldn't candidates know by now that it's never safe to invoke John F. Kennedy in a presidential debate?

Stylistically this is one of Ryan's low points in the debate. Unsure how to handle Biden's perturbed tone, Ryan loses his cool. He begins squirming in his chair and moving his neck like a bobblehead doll. At a couple of points he emits a strange, snort-like chuckle, a sound that does not exactly enhance his maturity. For the most part in this debate, Ryan did not let an overbearing Biden get under his skin, but not in this clip.

Let's give Ryan credit where credit is due. Before the debate he predicted that Biden would come at him "like a cannonball," and indeed he did. Though it wasn't always pretty, Biden managed to dominate the evening, an old lion who had no intention of being taken down by the young gun sitting across the table.

Like a master thespian on opening night, Biden conspicuously deployed pretty much his entire bag of performing tricks: dramatic line-readings, huge smiles, exaggerated laughter, asides to the audience. As over-the-top as some of this became, it got the job done. For much of the debate the super-charged veep kept his opponent in a defensive crouch. At times it looked as if Ryan was afraid Biden might ground him and take away the car keys.











(Biden)came across like a guy you meet at a cocktail party or some political event, an obnoxious drunk who’s loud and boisterous and interrupts every conversation… He just is the kind of guy you want to get away from as quickly as you can and go find someone else to talk to. It was just boorish behavior for the first half.
~ Republican Mike Huckabee, via Think Progress

Vice Presidential debate review: Joe Biden and Paul Ryan grinned like sharks, biting each other
~ Headline on Entertainment Weekly

The pearl-clutchers might have the vapors, but Democrats are revived by Biden’s aggressive performance, in contrast with his boss’s listless one. In five days, Obama will face Romney again and all of this will matter much less. But Biden dialed down Democratic panic and reminded Americans he’s part of a team that’s fighting for them.
~ Joan Walsh on Salon.com

An Insignificant Hour and a Half of Joe Biden Braying Like a Biblical Donkey
~ Headline from Erick Erickson on Red State

Democrats had a reason to cheer last night. They were able to take themselves off the floor where they have been for the last week.
~ NBC's Tom Brokaw on Morning Joe

It was a therapy session for Democrats, right? That's why they feel better. (laughter) It made them feel good....This was quintessential Biden. If you like Biden, you loved him last night.
~ NBC's Chuck Todd on Morning Joe














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