Polls show smarmy Biden loses VP debate

Oct. 12, 2012

Katy Grimes: I couldn’t decide if Vice Presidential incumbent Joe Biden was manic during the VP debate last evening, or just being condescending and rude to intimidate challenger Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Rude, condescending, and just weird, Biden interrupted Ryan 82 times, while Ryan remained respectful and polite; it was a stark contrast. Joe’s OPD came shining through. Obnoxious Personality Disorder is not an official personality disorder, but it should be, especially after last night’s debate.

Biden’s smirks, laughs, eye rolls, huffing and puffing, only made him look like a petulant child, instead of the “statesman” he prefers to be called. Even veteran FOX journalist Chris Wallace said after the debate that in his years of watching debates, since the first Kennedy-Nixon debate, he had never seen anyone behave so disrespectfully or contemptuously as Biden.

After the bounce that the GOP got from the Romney-Obama Presidential debate, the expectations placed on Biden were high; he had to bring home a win for Obama-Biden.

But that did not happen. Even the CNN and Associated Press polls called the debate for Ryan last evening.

While moderator Martha Raddatz offered solid questions, she did not maintain control of Biden. She even interrupted Ryan many times, often just as he was making a point.

Ryan handled pointed questions on foreign policy, surprising many, and handed Biden his tush on taxes and the economy with numbers and facts.

Libya

The debate opened with Raddatz asking Biden if the terrorist attack on Libya and the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was a huge blunder. “It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn’t this a massive intelligence failure Vice President Biden?” Raddatz asked about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where Stevens was brutally murdered.

Biden dodged the question and launched into his own speech about how great the President is.

But Ryan answered the question and said that  Stevens had been denied sufficient security by Obama administration officials. “It took the President two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack,” Ryan said.

“With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey. Not a single thing he said is accurate,” Biden snarled.

Raddatz told Biden to “be specific.”

Biden retorted that Ryan cut the embassy security budget, and then launched again into how great Obama has been on security.

Economy

Biden said that the economic recovery America is enjoying would proceed if Republicans “get out of the way.” Ryan deftly pointed out that the Democrats had complete control of Congress and the White House when Obama and Biden took over in 2009-10. “He had his chances. He made his choices,” Ryan said, and “this is where we are at.”

Obamacare

The debate moved to Obamacare allowing to Ryan bring up the unelected panel which would make important health decisions and ultimately what the future of health care would look like. Biden laughed again, and said that Sarah Palin had already argued the death panels with him in the last debate.

Foot-in-mouth-syndrome

Out of the blue, Biden brought up Romney’s campaign comment when he said that 47 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax, see themselves as victims, and take no responsibility for their own lives.

“It’s about time they take responsibility” instead of signing pledges to avoid raising taxes, Biden said about Romney, Ryan and the Republicans. And somewhere during the debate, Biden brought up Grover Norquist and his “no-tax” pledge.

“This is a man who gave 30 percent of his income to charity, more than the two of us combined,” Ryan retorted. “Mitt Romney’s a good man. He cares about 100 percent of Americans in this country. And with respect to that quote, I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.”

Ryan finally succeeded in wiping the smirk off Biden’s face, but only temporarily.

Medicare

Ryan said Obama’s health care plan will take $716 billion from Medicare, as well as create a new board that could have the power to deny care to the elderly patients who need it.

Democrats “haven’t put a credible solution on the table,” Ryan said. “They’ll tell you about vouchers. They’ll say all these things to try to scare people.”

In a throw-granny-off-the-cliff moment, Biden retorted that Ryan had authored two proposals in which seniors would be given government payments that might not cover all of their care. And he said that the Romney-Ryan plan would never achieve the savings they claimed.

It was clear that without a strong record to run on, both Obama and Biden are on the  attack, and Ryan let them know that he knows their plan. Quoting Barack Obama from 2008 when he was on the campaign trail, Ryan said that their strategy is obvious: “If you don’t have a good record to run on, you paint your opponent as someone to run from.”

It’s exactly what Obama and Biden are doing, and why they steer clear from their four years in charge, and spend much more of their time on-the-attack. This debate was more evidence of the strategy. Thankfully, it’s over.

Politico has the debate transcript.