I was working during the Ryan/Biden debate and could hardly stand having to wait until I got home to watch the debate. I followed Marc’s liveblog here on ATD as well as Andrew Sullivan at The Dish. When my shift ended I broke several laws driving home to get there about 30 seconds earlier than if had driven lawfully. Suffice to say the risk to myself and the larger community attendant with my reckless driving was well worth it.
Here are several moments from last nights debate that resulted in me pumping my fists in the air, loudly exclaiming Oooooh!, laughing out loud for reals, trying to high five my cat, and or some combination of those actions.
Biden started early with a signature line in response to Ryans blather about the killing of Americans in Bengazi. Biden said “With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey.”
That line sticks out, but the way Biden followed is just as heartening from the left’s perspective. When the moderator prodded Biden “And why is that so?” Biden responded “Because not a single thing he said is accurate.”
Liberals around the nation have been shouting this from the rooftops for years! On issue following issue the modern Republican party is essentially delusional. Having someone say it to Ryan’s face in front of the nation was completely exhilarating.
Biden didn’t just say Ryan was delusional and let it go at that. He commenced with the work of deconstructing Ryan’s logic point by point.
Biden wrapped up that exchange with another fantastic line: “Look, I — I just — I mean, these guys bet against America all the time.” YES! I’m sick of hearing how weak we are, gloom and doom, terrorism, fear and how America is failing because we elected President Obama. Thank you for saying that Joe!
Another memorable moment for me was Raddatz pinning Ryan to the wall by asking him “Should the U.S. have apologized for Americans burning Korans in Afghanistan? Should the U.S. apologize for U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses?” I was really taken aback by Ryan’s immediate reply: “Oh gosh yes”. So much for “no apology” for America, from the Republican Vice Presidential nominee anyway.
Biden at one point seemed completely unable to properly express his frustration, and sputtered “this is a bunch of stuff”. Perfect! 99% of the nation knew by his tone that he had just caught himself before dropping the ‘S bomb’ on the entire nation. Asked to clarify what he meant Biden said ” Well, it means it’s simply inaccurate” and ”we Irish call it malarkey”.
Ryan tried to get all personal with his gloominess about how America is suffering along under Obama so he asked if Biden knew the unemployment rate in his hometown. Ryan compared the rate on the day Obama took office with todays rate and claimed the unemployment number was rising around America.
Biden retorted with “You don’t read the statistics. That’s not how it’s going. It’s going down.”
Oh my freaking GAW! It was like watching a school teacher telling a student to do their homework, and stop trying to lead the class from ignorance! PRICELESS! Liberals have been dying to hear this from our party leaders for years.
This trip down memory lane is starting to go way long, and this is less than 1/2 way through the debate! Biden just kept piling on. For some unknown reason Ryan invoked Kennedy and Biden shot back with “Oh, now you’re Jack Kennedy?”
That was a bouncing around fists in the air awesome moment for me and millions like me around the nation. I’ll bet it turns out that his handlers told Ryan to not mention Kennedy under ANY circumstance, remembering another wizened old Democrat’s epic take down of another Republican wunderkind. However the emphatic instruction to not go there only put Kennedy’s name in Ryan’s head and he just blurted it out to disastrous effect.
Biden put his hands up and waved them downwards while explaining how Republicans just act like the recession fell out of the sky and no one could have seen it coming. It was their policies which caused it and Ryan voted for those policies while Biden voted against them. Preach it brother Biden… tell it like it is!
Biden just destroyed Ryan over the stimulus. When Ryan started bad mouthing the stimulus Biden used the term “my friend” to describe how Ryan had sent 2 letters asking for stimulus funds for his district, pleading the funds would create jobs.
It actually turns out that Ryan sent 4 letters asking for stimulus. But we can forgive Biden for short selling Ryan’s hypocrisy because the point was devastating regardless. Never has the term my friend been used in so epic a beatdown.
I could add another thousand words to this describing how exciting it was to hear Obama defended and to see our side take the offense. It was just amazing.
I will wrap up by keeping it real. I thought the last quarter of the debate kind of stretched on. I also noticed a couple of times when Joe seemed to snap at Raddatz in ways I thought were a little off base. To me it seemed almost like a wild animal being set upon prey, and a bystander being bitten on the hand in the scrum.
Be that as it may, I’m sure Biden would say, “stuff happens.”
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