Vice Presidential debates (both real AND media-filtered editions)

I'm a little slow-going this week due to a pile of work and a looming midterm, but here finally is my post on last week's VP debate between Delaware US Senator Joe Biden (the Democrat) and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (the Republican). It was not the train wreck some had expected (or even hoped). Governor Palin held her own, though I think she revealed that she is being led around by the Rove wing of the GOP.

Courtesy of the Grey Lady, here is the transcript in its entirety. 

And if you click on the picture below, you can see Saturday Night Live's spoof of the VP candidates' debate, with SNL alum Tina Fey deftly reprising her role as the Alaska hockey mom turned chief executive. Yes, Ms Fey looks like Palin (and vice-versa, yeah), but she also worked hard on getting the mannerisms and the voice down. What's really funny about this skit (and sort of tragic, too) is that so many of the weird phrases and the babbling come directly from Governor Palin's own words. 

And for those of you Joe Six-Packs who really were playing that drinking game, you would have had to down an actual six-pack, because Governor Palin said "maverick" half a dozen times. 

Biden topped her, though, with nine "mavericks" when he skewered the whole idea by painting McCain as a supporting-Bush-90%-of-the-time partisan lackey. Biden said that McCain "has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives," though I don't entirely agree. 

After Biden's skewering of the "maverick" meme, Palin stopped using that word.