Wilfredo Lee/AP

Well, my first two predictions didn’t come true. But the third did: BORING.

Like I’ve said before, that’s just what these things are. Surprising to the pundits in the background are Palin’s saying she’d expand the vice presidency, her misnaming the commander in Afghanistan, her suggesting a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem (which apparently is way out there, but I’m no Mideast expert), and a senseless answer on climate change. Biden, meanwhile, could not form a sentence without the words “John McCain” in there somewhere.

The only time my interest was really piqued was when she said Obama-Biden want to “wave the white flag of surrender” by setting a date certain for withdrawal from Iraq, and then went on to say something to the effect of “We will leave when our commanders decide the Iraqi government can handle it.” Think about that for a second: In a place where we went in to get weapons of mass destruction unseat an evil dictator fight terrorists help set up a democracy — a democracy that the hawks say was necessary and one that now has an $80 billion surplus — America is going to decide when the sovereign nation of Iraq is sovereign enough to handle itself. If you were looking for “straight talk,” this is it, and it sounds absolutely insane (which is why even Bush has never said such a thing in such stark terms).

Overall, she cleared the low bar and Biden didn’t get in any real knockouts… which, ultimately, means she won.

Tags: Iraq, Joe Biden, politics, Sarah Palin

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 8.08 pm and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.