Infantile, Unhinged, Buffoonish, Clownish – Just Some of the Adjectives Used By Pundits to Describe Biden During the Debate

Not a crushing victory, but a victory nonetheless — the sitting VP was bested by the challenger.

So Romney passed the Threshold test — spectacularly — and Ryan passed it as well.

And in both debates, they won.

Alex Castellantos on CNN had a point: The post-debate buzz will be about Biden’s buffoonish mugging.

I hate to say this, but as I said in the liveblog, Biden’s Mission Number One was to reassure and re-energize the base. He did that. He at least stopped some Democrats from defecting to Romney, or deciding not to vote.

And see – this  is why some people think Allahpundit and Ace are the same person:

I expected “table-pounding atmospherics” from Biden but I didn’t expect him to act like a total jackhole for fully 90 minutes. Give him credit for knowing his target audience, though: His task tonight was to get the left excited again after Obama fell into a semi-coma in Denver, and evincing utter disdain for Ryan — grimacing, shouting, laughing inappropriately, constantly interrupting, the total jackhole experience — is just what the doctor ordered. He might have irritated independents and undecideds, but probably not so much that it’ll change people’s votes. The Democrats needed someone to go out there and clown for liberals, and if there’s one thing this guy knows, it’s clowning.

Foreign Policy fact checked Biden on a major point: Biden contradicts State Department on Benghazi security:

Vice President Joe Biden claimed that the administration wasn’t aware of requests for more security in Libya before the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi during Thursday night’s debate, contradicting two State Department officials and the former head of diplomatic security in Libya.

“We weren’t told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there,” Biden said.

In fact, two security officials who worked for the State Department in Libya at the time testified Thursday that they repeatedly requested more security and two State Department officials admitted they had denied those requests.

Paul Ryan fact checked Biden’s attempt to throw cold water on the charge that the HHS mandate is an assault on religious liberties:

Biden try to explain away the Obama administration’s pro-abortion assault on Catholics, evangelicals and other religious groups and businesses.

“With regard to the assault on the Catholic church, let me make it absolutely clear, no religious institution, Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic Social Services, Georgetown Hospital, Mercy Hospital, any hospital, none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact,” Biden falsely claimed.

“Now, I’ve got to take issue with the Catholic church and religious liberty,” Ryan retorted.  “Why would they keep — why would they keep suing you? It’s a distinction without a difference.”

That’s all Ryan was able to get in before he was cut off. Shhhhh!!!!

The mandate compels religious employers to pay for and refer women for abortion-causing drugs, birth control, contraception and sterilizations.

The left has tried to turn the right’s objection to this into the phoney Republican War on Women™.

UPDATE:

Like I said, Biden’s smirking and sneering got panned by almost everybody:

John Nolte, Big Journalism: Media Hits Biden: ‘Stop Smirking!’ ‘Weird,’ ‘Jerk’:

We’re about thirty minutes into the debate and already Vide President Joe Biden is receiveing pretty tough reviews for his bizarre smiling and smirking as debate moderator Martha Raddatz talks about issues as serious as Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

These aren’t exactly conservative media types, either.

Another huge lie caught by Washington Free Beacon. I somehow missed this this one (why didn’t Ryan call him out on it?): Biden Claims He Voted Against Afghanistan, Iraq Wars:

“By the way, they talk about this great recession like it fell out of the sky–like, ‘Oh my goodness, where did it come from?’” Biden said. “It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card, at the same time, put a prescription drug plan on the credit card, a trillion dollar tax cut for the very wealthy.”

“I was there, I voted against them,” Biden continued. “I said, no, we can’t afford that.”

Then Sen. Biden voted for the Afghanistan resolution on Sept. 14, 2001 which authorized “the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.”

This was such an obvious, blatant lie. Ryan’s been in Washington long enough to know the truth. Why did he get Biden get away with it? The day after fact checks are not where the action is. You have to call them out on their lies when you have the chance, or most people will never know the truth.

Michelle Malkin: Vice President Jerk: The return of Smirky Malarkey McSmirk:

Pundits and news anchors are expressing post-debate shock at how smirky, condescending and arrogant Vice President Joe Biden was tonight. They buzzed on Twitter at his “malarkey” rebuke of Paul Ryan’s foreign policy criticism.

But this is all old, tired recycled behavior and rhetoric from the last election cycle. Remember? Go back and read my VP debate thread from 2008. It was titled: Sarah vs. Smirky. Go back to 2008, when Biden derided Sarah Palin for her “malarkey” about Bill Ayers.

Tonight, just as in 2008, Biden sighed.

But more significantly, Biden bald-facedly lied.

In other words: Biden was…Biden.

Fred Barnes, The Weekly Standard:Biden Bombed:

You don’t win a nationally televised debate by being rude and obnoxious.  You don’t win by interrupting your opponent time after time after time or by being a blowhard.  You don’t win with facial expressions, especially smirks or fake laughs, or by pretending to be utterly exasperated with what your opponent is saying.

That’s why Vice President Joe Biden didn’t win the one and only debate last night with his Republican rival, Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan.

In fact, though Ryan had several weak moments—one of them was on Syria—the only conceivable takeaway from the veep debate was Biden’s out of control conduct.  It will be long remembered—and not favorably.

There’s one person who should be delighted with Biden. That’s Al Gore. He had the honor of having delivered the most over the top and weird performance in a presidential campaign debate when he sighed and frowned and acted frustrated in his first debate with George W. Bush in 2000. Now Biden has taken that crown—or dunce cap—from Gore.

Finally, via Twitchy, the Tweet of the night, as far as I’m concerned: