He's Got This

Stalwart Hoydenizen Amanda has a great guest post up at Hoyden About Town about her confidence that, despite his tendency to alternate between bloviating and munching on his own foot, Joe Biden will perform well at the veep debate tonight:

All debate lead-ups are exercises in lowering the expectations for your candidate, although in this VP debate the effort is somewhat half-hearted from the Dems because … well, you know, Sarah Palin. But still, there are press reports/strategic leaks about anxious moments in Arugula HQ about how their guy will do, and meeja commentary on the gaffetastic clusterfrak that he will apparently, inevitably create. And sure there are more than enough data points in his history as Windbag Q. O'Blabby, Senior Senator from the Great State of New Gaffestonia to fashion a credible angle on it. But I want to do something different, a little relief from the current political mirrorverse we're living though. I don't want to talk about Biden's weaknesses but about his strengths. Putting aside the genuine *headdesk* moments in his verbal resume, why am I confident Joey the Shark will ace the test?

I am confident he knows what has to be done and how to do it. In the primary debates I thought Biden did the best of any of the bloated early field whose names did not rhyme with Clinton, Obama and Edwards and he did better than even them at various moments. Didn’t get his actual vote out the asterisk territory but dude can de-bate. Sure, the liberal elite media says, we know that but he just talks so goddamn much! Just shut up for a second, will you, Loquacious P. McYawnigan! says they. Well, that question was memorably asked and answered in the primaries. Can I remind you Biden is the man who gave us the Rudy Giuliani "a noun, a verb and 9/11" smackdown. As this pre-VP pick announcement article points out, while Obama was "[spinning] out some airy sentences" on the politics of fear, Biden conjured a one-liner that has entered the political language and defined a mindset.

Read the whole thing here.