New poll: The vice president did just fine

By Richard K. Barry

Best debate picture ever!

In case you missed this, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, Joe Biden came out ahead of Paul Ryan in last Thursday's debate.

The energetic Biden claimed a seven-point victory -- 42 percent to 35 percent -- among registered voters, with a similar margin among independents. Nearly a quarter of registered voters and about a third of independents were unsure who did a better job during the debate at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

I'm not suggesting these numbers are momentous or that they will have a significant impact on the final outcome. I would only suggest that the nonsense coming from the right-wing punditocracy that Biden in some way hurt himself or the campaign by calling Ryan out on the lies, and the way Biden did it, is simply not the way people are seeing it.

Others have said, and I would agree, that a Biden "win" only holds the line, allowing the Obama campaign to fight another day, while a Biden "loss" would have been disastrous.

And that, dear reader, is what has pissed off the GOP so much. They felt that Mr. Serious Thinker, a.k.a. Paul Ryan, would blow the VP out of the water, and that just didn't happen. They felt that things could have ended last Thursday.

Final word on Biden's smiles and head shaking as a response to the lies: There is no way to call someone a liar time and time again without looking mean, unless you are smiling, laughing, and interjecting as you do it. Even then, it comes at the price of appearing unserious or even unnecessarily disrespectful. It is a tricky thing and Mr. Biden probably did it as well as anyone could have.

Let's move on to Tuesday to see if Mr. Obama absorbed the lesson.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)