Big Joe and the Joyful Noise

Big Joe and the Joyful Noise
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Friday 12 October 2012

Vice President Joseph Biden of Delaware dropped the hammer on Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on Thursday, and it was a powerful thing to see.

Anyone who tells you the vice presidential debate was a tie, or that Mr. Ryan prevailed, is trying to sell you a diamond mine that ain't worth a dime. The ultimate impact and import of what went down during Thursday's debate won't be immediately known, but the simple fact is beyond dispute: Joe Biden owned the night, and owned his opponent, in a way rarely seen in modern debate history.

It was, in every respect, just what the doctor ordered for the Democratic presidential campaign: a high-energy, aggressive and fact-laden stand taken by a battle-scarred party elder who, for all time, dispelled any and all preconceived notions that he is some half-addled gaffe generator who cannot be counted on when the chips are down. Joe Biden came to play Thursday night, and the public works employees of Danville, KY, will be spending the next couple of days sweeping up little pieces of Paul Ryan because of it.

Biden - at times laconic, at times incredulous, at times simply pissed - gave a clinic on debate management over the course of 90 minutes. He left no stone unturned in attacking the weak points of his opponent's arguments and general philosophy, handily managed to make Mitt Romney the absent and hopeless star of the show, and in the process delivered a rousing defense of both the Obama administration and Democratic Party principles that was deeply reminiscent of Bill Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention. Mr. Biden's presentation was, like Clinton's, both folksy and factual, and - most important of all - he did not allow Mr. Ryan to slip even one lie into the conversation without covering it with bite-marks, bruises and blood.

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Biden was heated, and animated, and was not shy about telegraphing the disdain he felt for his opponent's arguments. Of course he will be criticized for that. Of course he will. Elements of the "news" media will certainly try to boil off the meat and focus on the dreck, for no other reason than to make their jobs easier, and that narrative will be promoted with vigor by the GOP's spin machine.

If that becomes the final takeaway from Thursday's debate - despite all the substance provided, despite all the facts deployed, despite all the heartily-welcomed challenges traded back and forth - then the political "news" media has officially lost any and all purchase on usefulness in this republic. What happened on Thursday night was nothing more or less than the best Vice Presidential debate in American history, and was the best debate - period - any of us have seen in a long, long time. If it is not reported this way, in detail, the political "news" media should be collectively shoved into a shot-weighted barrel and dropped into the Marianas Trench.

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This much is certain: what took place on Thursday night in Kentucky was a clinic, a deconstruction, a masterpiece, a thunderclap. The sun came up on Friday morning to shine upon a world that will never, ever underestimate Joe Biden again. For those who needed what he gave, it was a joyful noise indeed.

The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12075-big-joe-and-the-joyful-noise