Raw Drip

I hate to jump onto an already crowded bandwagon here – and I know that I’m breaking my no politics policy yet again – but WTF is going on with the media coverage of last night’s VP debate?

In watching the post-debate coverage, I couldn’t get over how analyst after analyst kept giving Gov. Palin credit for her “spunk” and her “tenacity” in the face of Joe Biden. Shockingly to me, most of these analysts called the debate a “draw”. A draw? Did I miss something? I thought Biden was eloquent and on point, and Palin was scripted, disjointed and rambling. In fact, she rarely directly responded to questions, instead going to her comfort zone remarks of, “John McCain and I are mavericks…” or, “How about energy? As Governor of Alaska, I took on the big oil companies…”.

With regards to her stance on foreign policy – which consisted mostly of NOT addressing the failed Bush Doctrine – I even heard one pundit on the BBC World News say that, “Palin couldn’t be expected to know anything about foreign policy so the fact that this was her weakest area in the debate is no big surprise.”

Excuse me? Is is just me, or doesn’t that remark smack of old fashioned “Good job, honey! (pat on the fanny)” male condecension? If a male candidate had given such an amatuerish, trite, phony folksy, scripted performance during the debate, wouldn’t he have been eviscerated by the media rather than congratulated for making a good show of it? Is it more patronizing to heap praise on an unqualified woman’s delivery than it is to question her lack of substance?