Vices Revealed: Live Blogging the VP Debate

Suit up folks....I'm live-blogging the Vice Presidential debate. Should be fun and maybe, if we are very, very lucky, funny.

9:02 The audience has promised no untoward outbursts. I have made no such promise.

9:05 Memo to Sarah: most of the folks at the kids' soccer fields on Saturday actually have no Stock Market investments.

Both of them dodged this question, which was about how well Congress did with the bail-out (hint: not well at all, since, um, we don't actually have a bailout). Biden explaining how Bush policies have failed . But Palin argues that McCain was instrumental to the bailout. Really? That hasn't been obvious to me.

9:10 Palin just demanded federal regulation of banking. And then suggested people live within their means. My goodness, next she'll renounce the Republican party.

Biden needs to look at the camera as Palin is doing.

9:14 Biden pretty well ate her lunch on who voted for tax increases in the Senate. But she's feisty and fighting back.

9:20 Taxes just won't go away, will they? Ifill needs to get us off this nonsense, or we'll be pointing fingers all night long. And so she heads off to questions about which of the campaign proposals will have to be scaled back in light of the bailout. Both Obama and McCain dodged this last week.

9:23 And Palin just goes off on how great she's been at busting on oil corporations in Alaska. WTF? She got a little wacky off-script here. But she's got all sorts of TV presence, Tina Fey-style. Though her continued invocation of the idea that McCain got people to the table for the bailout makes me laugh.

9:30 I believe our friend from out West just called for drilling ANWAR, an "untapped domestic source of energy." She's answering all questions by discussing energy. So Gwen goes to climate change.

So Palin explains the climate in a way that I find completely confusing.....she wants to "positively effect the impacts." What does that mean?

9:36 And out of the frying pan into the fire....Biden endorses same-sex equality for property, hospital visiting. Palin is opposed to same-sex marriage, but you can sleep with whomever you like. Apparently, she knows some gay folks!

9:40 Gracious me, it's okay to be gay.

But perhaps not in the military........Gwen drops the ball and now Palin is discussing foreign affairs and telling us how great the surge is. She's all over the place here, with no tether to keep her sensible.

9:46 Palin can almost say Ahmadinejad......though she just called him insane, which seems unlikely to make him feel friendly toward us.

9:52 Memo to Sarah: the successful agreements between Israel and its neighbors was the accomplishment of Carter and Clinton, Democratic presidents. Not your peeps in the GOP.

9:56 Biden just nailed McCain on the similarity of McCain and Bush policies overseas. Total homerun for Joe there.

10:16 Does Palin actually know what the constitution says about the Vice Presidency? Because it ain't much. Has she read the constitution?

10:21 I've rarely heard Biden invoke his time as a single parent with such emotion and honesty. As a single parent myself, living in a world that often fails to understand what that feels like, I have to say that I really appreciate what he said. If Palin was being honest and she and her husband really didn't have health insurance at one time, then the campaign should talk about it.

But it says a lot that I assume she's not telling the truth.

10:29
Palin's sum-up was far stronger than her answers to the questions in the 90 minutes. Though I'm not persuaded that just because she's a proud American she (and John McCain) should be elected. Biden made the case for fundamental change and his definition of progress resounds with me. He can go folksy pretty darn well.

In sum, I think that it's truly clear that Biden is a thoughtful guy whose political credentials run deep. Palin seems to start strong but very quickly it's clear that her policy knowledge is, shall we say, deeply shallow. She's goes to folksy when that happens. I don't buy it.