Posted on 10/13/2012 3:27:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
The irony of ironies: The Biden-Ryan debate was more about foreign policy than the economy and jobs. And yet another irony: Paul Ryan, an expert on all things fiscal, revealed a much better knowledge base of foreign policy than anyone thought existed. Shows how smart and well-rounded he really is.
In fact, Ryan’s Benghazi slam, right out of the chute, won him the debate. This terrorist attack is going to be a huge presidential-race issue. Americans are furious at the Obama-Biden-Clinton stupidity and mismanagement surrounding the tragic Benghazi deaths. They are enraged at the Benghazi cover-up. Ryan accused Biden of malfeasance in every aspect of this tragedy. It was a tremendous body slam right from the start.
And Biden mislead everyone with a string of falsehoods. He said the administration did not have complete intelligence at the start of the crisis. But we now know they did have sufficient intelligence to realize that the killing of Ambassador Stevens and three others had nothing to do with spontaneous reactions to a YouTube video, and that it was a planned al-Qaeda attack.
Then Biden denied that the State Department asked the White House for stronger Benghazi security and was turned down on several occasions. But we know this to be true from various sources. We even know that State Department officials saw the Benghazi attack in real time. These untruths will dog Biden on the campaign trail.
The Benghazi round clearly went to Ryan. And later in the debate, when the discussion turned to Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria, Ryan went toe-to-toe with Biden, the supposed foreign-policy expert. He was every bit Biden’s equal and more, which is one of the surprising outcomes of this debate. The confidence factor in young Paul Ryan will rise as a result.
On the economy, not surprisingly, Biden adopted Obama’s redistributionist, tax-the-rich, go-after-the-millionaires approach. Ryan, the free-market capitalist, pounded hard for Mitt Romney’s tax-reform plan, which would lower tax rates across-the-board, provide new incentives for growth, and put limits on special deductions in order to balance-out revenues.
A clear choice emerged: Biden is for a government-directed economy. He blathered on about a non-existent, $5 trillion Romney tax cut for the rich, which Ryan easily parried. Heck, even the Brookings institute has pulled back from that charge. Biden also proudly touted a $1 trillion tax hike on successful earners. Now there’s a great idea to solve the worst economic and jobs recovery in modern times.
Ryan, in contrast, came out for free-enterprise, rewarding success, and creating opportunity, growth, and jobs. He was the candidate for lower tax rates, increased take-home pay for the middle class, and incentivizing investment and risk-taking for successful entrepreneurs.
However, Ryan should have said what Romney said a week ago: There will be a strict dollar cap on special tax deductions, probably a $20,000 limit that will be even lower for top earners who get a marginal tax-rate cut. This would have been a good specific to include in the tax-reform argument. It’s a huge revenue-raiser, at lower tax rates.
On the other hand, Ryan echoed a key Romney point: Obama’s leadership failure. Obama failed last year to get a grand-design deal, as chronicled in Bob Woodward’s book, The Price of Politics. This year, Obama was too busy campaigning and appearing on daytime TV to hash something out with John Boehner and the Republicans to avoid the recessionary fiscal tax cliff.
Ryan also emphasized Romney’s successful bi-partisanship point: A Romney administration will be willing to reach across the aisle to get a grand-design package of spending reduction, pro-growth tax reform, and entitlement reform, exactly where Obama failed. Actually, I think the Romney bi-partisanship offer is big reason why the Romney-Ryan ticket is doing so well in the polls, particularly among undecideds and independents. These people want to see the parties work together to get these problems solved before America goes bankrupt and lapses into permanent, European-like stagflation.
Another key point: Obama has yet to provide a real reason why he should be reelected, and Biden failed completely to construct one. What is Obama’s raison d’être for reelection? No one knows. Including Barack Obama.
Finally, there was Biden’s snarky smile. His demeanor during the debate was very off-putting. It was like he was forcing his aggressiveness, attempting to make up for Obama’s lack of it a week ago. The fierce grins, the Ryan put-downs, the interruptions, the inappropriate laughter -- it really hurt Biden.
Polls will show a Ryan victory in this debate. Perhaps Biden stopped the bleeding after the president got clocked in Denver and proceeded to chase Big Bird all over the country. Dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.
But the big point is this: Mitt Romney’s march to the White House continues, and it was helped mightily by Paul Ryan on Thursday night.
I think as a person and as a leader Ryan looked very good. And that’s the most important thing in both of the first two debates. A live look at both Romney and Ryan showed the American people that the media has been lying about them both.
However, I remain disappointed on some specifics of what Ryan said and didn’t say in the debate. When Ryan was pushed for specifics by both Biden1 (the VP) and Biden2 (the moderator) he had a golden opportunity to talk about the sheer size of government and how it must be cut. Of course, such talk would have had to have been sanctioned by Romney in advance. I worry that Romney really isn’t interested in cutting the size of government.
Also, a minor but very irritating point: the whole Kennedy thing.
When Biden said “so now you’re Jack Kennedy” echoing the famous “I knew Kennedy, you’re no Kennedy” line from Bentsen, Ryan should have been ready (as all Republicans should always be ready because this is going to come up again), to say something like this:
“When Republicans mention President Kennedy’s tax cuts it’s not because any of us are claiming to be John Kennedy. We do it to point out that there used to be people in your party who understood the importance of lower taxes for economic productivity. There used to be leaders in your party who understood that principle. And there aren’t anymore.”
As usual, Kudlow is right on the mark.
But Biden flew over Afghanistan in a helicopter - many times.
I think that was his “Kerry moment”
Yep Obama can play golf but avoid the intelligence briefings and then head for a fund raiser while the attack was still fresh
I think Ryan will get the opportunity to say the things you and I wish he had said in interviews. You have two good ones.
I would have liked him to have paused, looked at Biden, and said, “Excuse me, why are you laughing? Do you think it’s funny 23 million people out of work...our counrty in debt...etc?”
I am slackjawed at how easily many people talk about how much money government should take from one fraction of its citizen to fund social spending. This is a shocking and predatory mindset, as if nobody really had a right to the fruits of their own labors but should be happy with how much these people (via government) had judged was “fair” for them to keep.
This is the mindset of covetousness, which the Apostle Paul declares as idolatry:
“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness (which is idolatry),” Colossians 3:5 (MKJV)
Anyone who thinks arming/supporting the Salafist/al-Qaeda-associated Syrian rebels over the corrupt/Russian-backed Assad regime, is not all that foreign-policy savvy.
Oh, and, as far as I can gather, only Obama, Clinton, Romney, Ryan, Rubio, McCain, and L. Graham ALL take this very position.
Is there anyone in D.C. who gets it?
It will get us exactly what dumping Mubarak for the rebels in Egypt got us — from the frying pan into the fire.
And it will get Israel surrounded by people who “love death.”
Sometimes I think that this is the ultimate goal of many in this evil mix: Get rid of that big thorn in everyone’s side — Israel.
Very evil. Very stupid. Very short-sighted.
Arming and helping the Syrian rebels indeed. I wonder if Israel is helping Assad, and I wouldn’t blame them if they do.
The mistreatment of the families of the killed Benghazi staff is compounding the negligence and stupidity of this admin. As long as they stone wall and deny, they keep this going...
And this is the smartest admin EVAH!
If you go back and watch the replay of the debate and not being distracted or angered by Biden’s histrionics, Paul Ryan was very solid.
On the other hand, those people that go back and look at the absolute bizarre and unbalanced behavior of our current VP should be concerned.
Ryan hit the FP points hard and stayed on message but he got steam-rollered and it showed. More people digest the visual and emotional over the intelectual and that's where Ryan did not win.
Ryan had no good answer for Iran or Syria (but at this point there is no good answer). He missed two big openings in the FP part...
1)"Hey, Joe, you're the VP of the United States, what could there possibly be about the deaths in Libya that make you smile?"
2)Biden hit him with; "what do you want, US troops on the ground in Syria?" When the fact is that the very day before it was publicly announced that we had deployed Marines to Jordan's border with Syria.
Ryan was asked three times to be specific about the RR tax plan and three times he ducked and did not answer.
I like Ryan and endorse him as VP but he could have and should have done much better against Crazy Joe.
I agree...Syria is a clear case of Hitler vs Stalin...let them kill each other then go in and make the most out of what’s left.
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If it didn't show the first time then it doesn't count.
Wisconsin ping: Ryan takes the debate just on Benghazi!
FReep Mail me if you want on,or off, this Wisconsin nterest ping list.
Ryan actually did say something to that effect about Biden’s Kennedy remark - it was something like, “Closer to him than you guys”, but it was covered up by Biden’s antics.
If it didn’t show the first time then it doesn’t count.
Sure it does, as an example take the first debate between Al Gore and GWB in 2000 when AG was constantly sighing and rolling his eyes. It took almost a week before the negative polling showed up because people went back and started digesting this poor behavior.
I missed that. I have to re-watch.
Exactly.......hope Governor Romney hits The Kenyan with this on Tuesday. Hope he brings out The Kenyan's abysmal attendance rate at all security briefings.
One can see that Joe's only task was to run interference. It's really all he was capable of anyway. He's a very good jack@ss.
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