I have to disagree with the fallacy of expectation that I'm hearing. Not because it's wrong. Yes, Palin didn't fall flat on her face (at least by the standards that we seem somehow to have accepted as a default). This is obviously a ridiculous measure. But this isn't the reason why I don't want to engage expectations. Really, what I want to say is that Joe Biden was awesome! He was smart, substantive, passionate, personal, and just downright decent. He overshadowed her in every single way, even in the ability to seem ordinary and to pull at the heart strings. He did so as someone who really believed what he was saying, instead of the kind of practiced authenticity cum folksy-ness that Palin so tediously enacted. All talk of expectations distracts from the main story of the debate for me, which is Biden front and center.
My favorite moment in the debate - which I thought was just energizing and exciting - was when Biden was talking about his family, about being a single parent, about the struggle he had in his life. It was clear he was personally hurt by the accusations that Palin were flying at him, suggesting somehow that he was just a cookie cutter DC insider. She was trying to demonize and dismiss her, especially with her phony weather girl smile and dismissiveness of anything that suggests we have difficult problems that require serious thought. Biden, flashing his more goofy smile, was obviously taking some of this personally (at least it seemed so to me). And then when he was talking about his own hardships, his voice cracked and a tear almost formed in his eye. This was just like the moment in the primaries when Hilary Clinton let a moment of emotion shine through.
His moment of teariness to me, and I hope to a lot of viewers, seemed an expression of real outrage that anyone would suggest he was somehow incapable of feeling hardship and difficulty or worry just because he had chosen to serve his country in public office for more than three decades, outrage that Palin was insinuating she was the only one capable of shedding a tear for her family. I wanted to shout to her, scr*w you, I have a family too and I love my child just as much as you claim to love yours. But what I admired about Biden's tear was that he didn't turn antagonism outward but showed a certain vulnerability. It made me realize what made me so angry was that I too was feeling hurt by the sickening insinuations of her rhetoric, the plain-speaking, aren't we just folks (and anyone who won't vote for ME ain't folks) BS that we're suppose to fall all over ourselves in adoring.
What followed showed a crack in the facade that Palin had erected in the first two-thirds of the debate. Her slick attack-dog lines lost their cadence, and the familiar rambling gibberish that we have all come to love so much about her interview with Couric came through. I don't see any transcripts of this, but look at that moment just after Biden's voice cracked and you will see that she doesn't really know what she's saying. She has a look of surprise on her face, even a look of shock. She seemed extremely self-satisfied up till this moment, but her plaster smile grew crooked and she seemed to me almost genuinely ashamed about the role that she had been playing. She may have to go home and take a long shower, because she must have realized at this point how dishonorable her phoniness was. If she were at all decent, she would have to feel this way.
So I couldn't watch much of the post-debate coverage on any of the networks or even PBS. Everyone was being too cautious, even though it was clear how many of them were feeling, and David Brooks was making an ass of himself as he usually does after a debate (and I was sorry to see that Peniel Joseph was no longer among the historians, all of whom also seemed really off their game tonight). What I wanted to hear, and what I couldn't hear in their comments, was how cool Biden is. I never would have thought I could say this, as I've never been a big fan of his. But he was simply cool. And also so fiery angry at the mess the Bush administration has left us and the political philosophy that has led us to this dark place we're currently at and so on and so forth, so much so I just thought what a screwball distraction lightweight joke he was forced to share the stage with and why can't anyone just simply come out and say it. Palin is never going to be half the political leader Biden is, not if she remains in public office for twice the years that Biden has been a senator.
What I would love to see tomorrow and for the weeks to come is for a lot more attention to focus on Biden and what an amazing VP pick he is and will make. Maybe then we can start to see that not all politicians are the same, as Palin so wants us to believe (if only to excuse how little of a politician she is), and that governments are so dismal because we keep expecting so little from those we put into office and because we keep mistaking cynicism for sophistication.