Second banana debate

The VP debate is tomorrow night, and the suspense is building. While I was driving to and from the credit union this afternoon, I listened to some of Limbaugh's radio program; he was pissing and moaning about Gwen Ifill. In case anyone missed it, Ifill is a television talking head who does the "Washington Week" program on PBS and will moderate the VP debate. She's writing a book called Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama which will be published in January. Ifill is also black. All these facts form the foundation for the latest rightwing conspiracy theory. Ifill is black, works at PBS, and is writing a book with Obama's name in its title, therefore she has a conflict of interest and is planning to sabotage Speedo's bobblehead doll during the debate tomorrow. As I've said repeatedly, you have to be ready to swallow some incredible stuff to be a Republican these days.

The Repubs are masters when it comes to such tactics and the Democrats should take lessons from them. By inventing an issue of Ifill's bias and getting it on television, the bases are covered for Falin. If she drops a stinkbomb, it's because of dirty tricks by the liberal media, not because she's unprepared for politics at the level she's trying to play. But if she does well in the debate, it'll be heralded as a greater triumph because she had to overcome all that liberal media bias. Can you see how this works to make every possible outcome a win ? When it comes to exploiting code words and stereotypes, these guys are just plain good.

Added 9:52 am, Friday 3 October:

The second banana debate has now come and gone. I wrote down my immediate reactions last night at Skid Marks, but I kept thinking I had seen a lot of that debate somewhere before. It finally dawned on me: Falin is playing the female version of W's good ole boy character, right down to his speech mannerisms. Constantly mispronouncing the word nuclear should have been the dead giveaway.

Falin also reminded me of a car salesman who has his pitch down pat. I ask him about miles per gallon, and he starts telling me about resale values. Both have to do with the broad issue of economy, but he isn't answering the question I asked him. Falin did a lot of that last night, and it irritated me just like the car salesman does.