Well, the highly anticipated Veep debate came off… adequate, I thought. Not really a game changer. I didn’t expect Sarah Palin to do badly (as opposed to how she did with her interview with Katie Couric) – she did fine – but, nothing spectacular, avoided really answering moderator Gwen Ifill’s questions, and spouting off folksy things like “Gosh darn it” and “maverick” and “Alaska!” lots of times. Joe Biden was okay – he was being a slightly more boring Joe – less of the usual passion, but still a moment of poignant Joe. Good on substance at least. Kind of wished he took more of an attack mode, but at least he avoided seeming to be sexist or patronizing. That’s really the best we can ask for.
Time.com’s Mark Halperin gave B grades to both Palin and Biden.
Time’s James Poniewozik, Karen Tumulty, and Michael Grunwald with a great tag-team live-blogging on the veep debate – some priceless lines! Ex., Tumulty on Palin’s remark: “[Palin’s saying that] John McCain ‘knows how to win a war.’ Has anyone told her he was in Vietnam?” — that was kind of my reaction too; when Palin said that, I snapped to the tv, “But, we didn’t exactly win the war that McCain was actually in, so how does he know how to win a war?”
Slate did a funny Twitter for the debate. Make it a drinking game indeed!
I don’t quite understand the so-called bailout (or what I prefer to think of as “Save the Economy!”) plan, but apparently, once he has that $700 billion, it won’t hurt for the Treasury Secretary to think like Warren Buffett and actually get some money out of this for America. Somehow. Maybe?
A very unrelated matter to the election or economy (well, probably economy related, since the city’s budget’s going to make libraries’ funding harder): Brooklyn Public Library’s doing a book drive to raise money, at Central Library, this Saturday, 10am-3pm. I’m going to try to make it! Brooklyn rules!