Friday, October 12, 2012

Biden Makes a Fool Out of Himself

Last night was the Vice Presidential Debate. We expected Joe Biden to be...well...Joe Biden. What I didn't expect was for Biff Tannen to show up and try to turn Paul Ryan (unsuccessfully) into George McFly.

To get into a little bit of Rhetoric Nerd-speak, what Vice President Biden used was Proof by Verbosity. Essentially this is a rhetorical fallacy where one shouts down his opponent instead of allowing his ideas to stand for themselves.  Joe Jessup-Biden showed up. He sat there and railed at someone who deserved respect as if that would win him points.  In the process, while being verbose, Biden also spread on the lies nice and thick.

- Biden repeated statements that their intelligence after the Benghazi attack said that it was a spontaneous response to a video, and then later their intelligence was updated. Not so. The State Department officials who testified to congress have said they knew within ONE DAY that it was a terrorist attack.

- Biden repeated the lie that "letting the Bush tax cuts expire" for "millionaires" would not hit small businesses. Actually, Biden's "millionaires" include couples that earn a total of $250,000 per year. (For those of you from Palm Beach County, FL, $250,000 does not equal $1,000,000.)

- Biden repeated the lie that no religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, would be forced under Obamacare to provide contraception.

- Biden claimed he voted against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Actually, he voted for them.

There were many more, and you can read about them on Breitbart.com.

All Biden did was make a fool out of himself. So let's talk about the other two participants in the debate. First, the moderator, Martha Raddatz. She was clearly in the tank for Biden. She allowed Biden to interrupt Paul Ryan 82 times in the debate, often allowing Biden to trample his opponent's attempts to respond. Raddatz herself interrupted Paul Ryan 34 times. She also clearly failed, and it is my contention did so intentionally, did not reign in Biden.

Liberals are claiming that this was the liberal response to Governor Romney's intellectual trouncing of President Obama in the first Presidential debate. However, Governor Romney did not shout down President Obama and did not interrupt him 82 times. Romney simply let Obama talk and then explained why he was wrong.

Then there was Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan was confident. He was packed with facts. (Liberals will of course argue this point, because they love to break out liberal fact-checkers who always call out conservatives but rarely do liberals. They will say "They are nonpartisan!" ignoring the fact that so is MoveOn.org calls themselves nonpartisan too.) Congressman Ryan's performance reminded me of watching the fight at the end of Rocky II. Joe Biden was Apollo Creed, punching and punching and punching (albeit with far less skill than Creed did) and Ryan managed to take the hits then hit back. At the end, it was Ryan who hit a knockout blow with his closing statement. He ultimately explained the difference between his that Biden failed to do.

Ultimately, the debate seems to have been received by a whole lot of  people including Independents and women as the mean old geezer beating up the nice young man who lives next door and snow blows your driveway in the winter.  One article worded it this way: "Angry Joe and Martha vs. that nice Ryan fellow from Accounting."

At the end of the day, this is not helpful for the Obama campaign. Governor Romney remains in the lead. President Obama isn't able to successfully go toe to toe with Mitt Romney and his calm, adult facts. Make no mistake about it: In terms of public perception, Paul Ryan won the day.

8 comments:

  1. This won't do much to convince you, but:

    http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=cz4svanwkzuui&question=2

    Biden won the debate, clearly, and lied a heck of a lot less!

    http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=cz4svanwkzuui&question=2

    ReplyDelete
  2. Please tell me your source isn't a random online poll to make your argument? Because honestly, that's just sad.

    CNN Post Debate Poll: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/11/cnn-poll-on-debate-winner-ryan-48-biden-44/

    48% Ryan, 44% Biden.

    But you totally have that Google whoever shows up to vote poll so there's that...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1) CNN even states there that they oversampled Republicans in their poll.

      2) Google's was not an online poll. If you actually read it, they did exactly what CNN did.

      3) You can look at factcheck.org. Biden didn't lie. He exaggerated, or said things with conflicting analysis *twice*. Paul Ryan? 6 times!!!!

      And that doesn't include Politifact's lie of the year: "Obamacare is a government takeover of insurance!". That brings Ryan's grand total to 7 complete distortions!

      Delete
    2. Also, CNN's poll is within the margin of error, hence it does not say Ryan won. It calls it a tie. Also, look at the age demographic of the poll for CNN; it's mostly old people.

      Delete
    3. OK your poll was 60% women, for one. Also your poll specifically says it has people who aren't registered to vote. It also appears to be biased to those on the West Coast. So there's that. Three, your poll does not even note it's methodology. So yeah, totally more reliable because reasons.

      Delete
    4. Also let me quickly list things Politifact did not quote nor did Factcheck.org:

      - When Biden said that Ryan's accusations of the administration were malarkey when Ryan said: "1) that the White House had distanced itself from the Cairo embassy's apologies on 9/11; 2) that Obama had failed to speak up for Iranian protestors in 2009; 3) that the Obama administration called Syria's dictator a "reformer"; 4) and that the Obama administration is imposing defense cuts and projecting weakness." (Admittedly the "projecting weakness" part is an opinion statement, so we'll set that aside.) Biden called all these "malarkey." All were true.

      - This one is simple, basic math: Biden claimed they "just want to let tax cuts expire on millionaires." Actually the plan is over $200k for a single person and $250k for a couple. $250k a year is not a "millionaire."

      - When Biden said "The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for." Actually, the Ryan plan called for a 19% cut in non-defense discretionary spending. It never mentions embassy security. At all.

      - How about this one: "No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise...has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact." No. Fact is the law requires all employers including faith based ones to pay for abortions and contraception, regardless of religious beliefs. Why do you think the Catholic church is suing, pray tell?

      - "It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card...I was there. I voted against him." Actually, no. Biden voted for both wars.

      - "What we did is we saved $716 billion and put it back -- applied it to Medicare." According to the Obama Administration's OWN ACTUARY they counted the "savings" in Medicare as also a "cut." The administration counted that TWICE.

      - Biden claimed there was no request for added security. FALSE!

      http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/security-officer-on-state-department-blocking-requests-for-me-the-taliban-is-inside-the-building/

      Fact Check and Politifact, as they are known to do, left out significant lies from their checks by Biden. That gives you the ability to say "Ryan lied more!" yet I just showed 7 additional lies which your beloved sources ignored. Stupid facts.

      Delete
    5. " "What we did is we saved $716 billion and put it back -- applied it to Medicare." According to the Obama Administration's OWN ACTUARY they counted the "savings" in Medicare as also a "cut." The administration counted that TWICE."

      This is false. Just because Ryan said so doesn't mean it's true. This has been debunked countless times.

      " When Biden said "The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for." Actually, the Ryan plan called for a 19% cut in non-defense discretionary spending. It never mentions embassy security. At all."

      Actually, if you read:

      Biden claimed that Ryan “cut embassy security in his budget $300 million below what we asked for.” That’s an exaggeration. The fiscal year 2012 funding was $264 million less than the administration had requested, and the funding isn’t only for security. It covers construction and maintenance as well.

      The Obama administration requested $1.801 billion for embassy security, construction and maintenance for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to The Hill newspaper. And House Republicans came back with a proposal to cut spending to $1.425 billion. Ultimately, the Republican-controlled House agreed to increase funding to $1.537 billion after negotiations with the Senate.

      "- Biden claimed there was no request for added security. FALSE! "

      There wasn't. Good job with a non-biased source for that one.

      "No. Fact is the law requires all employers including faith based ones to pay for abortions and contraception, regardless of religious beliefs. Why do you think the Catholic church is suing, pray tell?"

      This has already been debunked 100's of times over:

      http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/the-abortion-issue/

      The facts just don't support your arguments.

      Delete
  3. And as far as "Biden didn't lie" you really might want to check your sources.

    ReplyDelete

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