The Discerning Texan

From all of the "woe is Sarah" media drivel coming out this week, you would have thought the end of the world was nigh for the McCain campaign as the hour for the Palin-Biden debate neared. As it was prior to her VP acceptance speech, so it was as the media piled-on like an out-of-control lynch mob prior to this debate: she was "out of her league", "not ready for prime time", etc... The conventional wisdom was that Biden was supposed to chew her up and spit her out and clinch the game for Obama--who in reality is the most inexperienced of the four candidates running. And the media did everything in its power to make that happen. The pressure on Sarah was enormous--with all that has happened and all that has been said, if Palin had screwed up in tonight's debate it was game over; not only for McCain, but for her own political future.

Ahhh...not so much, buddy... Governor Palin stood on that stage and went toe to toe with a 30-year veteran of the Senate for 90 minutes, unbowed and unfazed. It was Biden who made unforced error after unforced error, repeatedly resorting to LYING about the FACTS to counter a Palin argument (at least 14 lies documented here).

Michelle's take was spot on tonight, and she highlights many of the reasons why I have been arguing since June that McCain should pick her:

First, I would like to see all the Sarah doubters and detractors in the Beltway/Manhattan corridor eat their words.

Eat them.

Sarah Palin is the real deal. Five weeks on the campaign trail, thrust onto the national stage, she rocked tonight’s debate.

She was warm, fresh, funny, confident, energetic, personable, relentless, and on message. She roasted Obama’s flip-flops on the surge and tea-with-dictators declarations, dinged Biden’s bash-Bush rhetoric, challenged the blame-America defeatism of the Left, and exuded the sunny optimism that energized the base in the first place.

McCain has not done many things right. But Sarah Palin proved tonight that the VP risk he took was worth it.

Her performance also underscored the underhandedness of the hatchet job editors at ABC News and CBS News, which failed to capture her solid competence on the whole array of foreign and domestic policy issues on the debate table tonight. (I didn’t care for all the “greed” rhetoric, but I understand they are trying to appeal to independents and Dems. They’re trying to win the election.)

Pause to reflect on this: She matched — and trumped several times — a man who has spent his entire adult life on the political stage, run for president twice, and as he mentioned several times, chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sarah Palin looked presidential.

Joe Biden looked tired.

Sarah made history.

Biden is history.

***

Prediction: Watch for a whole new, severe strain of Palin Derangement Syndrome to begin tonight.

They hated her before tonight. They are going to pour on more unfathomable hate at a level we have never seen before.

Sarah, we’re praying for you.

***

Frank Luntz’s focus group agrees: Sarah rocks.

Reader Brett had a sharp observation: “Palin amazingly avoided falling into a trap when Gwen Ifill asked whether she agreed with Biden on a particulalr issue — instead Palin repeated the question and stated her answer — rather than say “I agree” — like Obama said so many times at an earlier debate.”

Yes, that was excellent.

Mark Levin:

I have been involved in and observed politics for a long time. Governor Palin is a truly unique national figure. She is down to earth, personable, and smart as hell. That’s right. She has been on the national scene for a little over a month, she has been campaigning everywhere, she has had to bone up on all kinds of national issues, and she has shown class throughout. Too often too many are persuaded by the mainstream media’s opinion and react to that. This should be another lesson in that regard. As for some of her populist views, she cannot openly campaign against the positions of her presidential running mate. She is the bright light in this campaign from my perspective.

If there was a deer in the headlights on that stage tonight, it was Biden. I honestly do not think he knew what hit him.

Meanwhile Roger Simon points out that the biggest losers tonight were the elites of Big Media:

Tonight, Sarah Palin drove another stake in the heart of those fuddy-duddy reactionaries that constitute our mainstream media. Going toe-to-toe with a senator with decades of experience, she more than held her own, giving lie to the media constructed narrative that she was an inexperienced hick from nowheresville Alaska. It demonstrates once again why the media is held in such contempt. For economic and ego reasons, they consider themselves to be our gatekeepers, but frankly they are not that smart. They are not rocket scientists – figuratively or literally. They are certainly no smarter than Sarah Palin. I would be willing to bet that in a free debate with Katie Couric, Palin would come out the victor. (Frank Luntz’s focus group saw her winning literally by acclimation over Biden.)

I actually had some sympathy for Joe Biden tonight (who we all know thinks John McCain is better than Obama anyway – he’s said so, as Palin was correct to point out). He was an aging fellow (like me) forced to debate a young and much more charismatic woman who was easily his equal. You could see in his body language that he knew it.

But if McCain-Palin actually pull this one out, it is the MSM that will be the big losers here. They have put heart and soul behind Obama without really knowing him. For shame.

(BTW, was I missing something or did that aspiring author Gwen Ifill give Biden both the first and last words? Is that legal?)

Since when has the media played fair?