Last night, seated at a table across from each other and broadcast on national television, Vice President Joe Biden and Republican challenger Paul Ryan squared off in their only debate of the 2012 election. As expected it was a contrast of styles, and Biden came out swinging, while Ryan tried to harp on problems that made him popular among the deeply unpopular Tea Party.
Ryan tried to make the case against the federal bailout during the financial crisis, pointing to it as one of the major reasons why the national debt is so astronomical. Yet Ryan completely forgot that it was Bush who orchestrated the bailout, and Obama, with bipartisan support, put it into effect. It would be the last time that Obama would enjoy any measure of support from the Republican side of the aisle. Ryan himself fought hard for federal bailout funds for companies operating in Wisconsin. The man has no limits to hypocrisy, but we knew that already.
Biden, with his sports bar conversation replacing traditional rhetoric and enough facial expressions to challenge the world’s best mimes, did all he could to put Ryan on this defensive about his controversial policies and radically conservative ideas. He tried to reveal Ryan for who he really is, and by most measures, he was successful.
But he was successful more so because he was arguing on the side of compassion: for a Republican so bent on freedom, Ryan sure wants to restrict a lot of things. Biden made the case for society, and at one point even referred to what Ryan said as malarkey, definitely an underused word in the political sphere.
No one was surprised that Ryan couldn’t hold his own, most people who know anything about politics know that his ideas are out of sync with the American people and might have been appropriate 100 years ago. With the next presidential debate only a few days away, the effect of this debate will be minimal, but it did what it was supposed to do: make Ryan look like a man unfit for the highest office in the land.
