Debate Two. Winner: Biden, and the Floor He Mopped with Paul Ryan

During the closing statements of Thursday's VP Debate I half-expected Joe Biden to turn and look directly into the camera, addressing all of the nay-sayers who wanted Obama to drop him and make Hillary Clinton his running mate, and yell, "HOW Y'ALL LIKE ME NOW, HATERS!?"

The pundits, which I purposely avoided watching that night, may try to call this race a "draw" because they need the ratings that come from a close contest.  But from I heard and saw (mostly heard, since I was listening on the car radio as I was driving home) Biden was the clear winner.  Biden brought the facts, he brought the fight, and most of all he brought the passion that Obama was missing in his debate.

VP Debate Thought Experiment

Let me ask you something.  How many times have you gone to a movie based on its glowing review only to find that it totally sucked, or perhaps vice versa, reading a bad review but finding that the movie was quite enjoyable?  It's happened to all of us at least once.  And it's not just movies.  We've done it with restaurants, television, music, theater, books, even sports.  Seriously, how many people root for the Dallas Cowboys not because they like them, but because we've been told for the last 20 year's that they're "America's Team"?  How many people fell for the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had "Weapons of Mass Destruction".  Of course we like to think that we're not this maleable, but in reality very few of us are capable of formulate our own opinion on things of importance.  So we ask others for their opinion, and we act based on those opinions.

Biden Unchained, Right-Wing Unhinged

This past Tuesday the Republicans once again reved up their right-wing phony outrage machine.  This time directed at our own huggable, lovable gaffe-box, Joe Biden.  At a speech before a racially mixed crowd in Danville, VA, Biden made this comment about Romney's proposal to loosen regulations.

“Romney wants to, he said in the first 100 days, he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They're going to put y’all back in chains.”

That was the bat-signal for the Romney campaign to go full "drama queen", implying that Biden's comments were somehow racially offensive and accusing the Obama campaign of pandering to Black voters.  Romney called the comment "another outrageous charge", adding: "The White House sinks a little bit lower.  This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like."

Obama's Last Day: 01/19/2017

Over the weekend, Mitt Romney introduced his choice for running mate. Ladies and gentlemen meet the latest GOP sacrificial lamb, Paul Ryan.  Now the mainstream media will spend the next few weeks in orgasmic bliss, as they always do with VP picks, pouring over the "Ryan mystique" and analyzing what, if anything, he brings to the Romney campaign.  I can save them a lot of effort and sum up what Ryan brings in three words…Obama’s Second Term.