What Kind of Debater is Sarah Palin, Also?

Is it just me, or does Sarah Palin seem to have the ability to spew bullshit with the self assurance and confidence of a sociopath? Like a Ted Bundy, she can seem charming and forthright, as she cheerfully spouts the most meaningless of words. But if we suddenly find out that the basement of her Alaska home is filled with human remains, I won’t be particularly shocked.

More seriously, however, I suppose shameless lying can be considered a skill. It might even make one an effective debater. According to Andrew Halcro, who has debated Sarah Palin “more than two dozen times,” she is actually quite skilled at evading questions, while using superficial, folksy banter to win over the audience and the media.

As I suggested before, the most important thing for Joe Biden to do in this debate is to make sure he sticks to answering the questions as closely as possible, while finding ways to politely remind viewers when Palin is reciting unrelated bullshit, particularly when what she says makes no sense at all.

He might even start some of his responses with something like:

Boy, I think I'm going to have to go back and look at the transcript to figure out what the Governor just said there, but . . . (insert substantive answer here)

[Also] I didn't get a chance to liveblog this one because I was stuck in a meeting in San Francisco until late, which resulted in a last minute decision to watch the debate at the official Obama-Biden campaign event, which happened to be held at a club only a few blocks away from my meeting. I'll put together my impressions of the debate and the event in the next day or two, but for now, I'll just mention that my absolute favorite line of the night was when Palin fumbled and said:

John McCain is the man who should leave, er, lead!

With about 400 people in a San Francisco club, that line resulted in a cheer worthy of a last second touchdown pass for the 49ers (except that I was cheering too!)