VP Debate

Both sides are declaring victory, of course. Everybody agrees that Pence did well by not panicking like his running mate did. Kaine was marginally more annoying, with his early and frequent interruptions, but possibly also effective in scoring lots of points that Pence could only deny by lying. The politicos seem to think that it was a draw, and I can't challenge that very strongly.

The moderator had some good questions, but failed, especially early, to maintain any focus as the Candidates routinely ignored the questions and squabbled like children.

Pence was particularly weak in trying to answer the questions about how they would deal with North Korea - strengthen our military, he said. I guess spending more on it than the next ten countries in the World isn't good enough. Both were vague about how they would establish the "safety corridors" or no fly zones for Aleppo. Nobody bothered to ask Pence about what would happen to the hundreds of thousands of addition refugees this would produce.

Both were good at avoiding the obvious fact that there are only two real alternatives - let Putin and Assad murder Aleppo or risk a very dangerous confrontation.

UPDATE: Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, a guy who wouldn't recognize a substantive point if it ran over him in an Abrams tank, gives the debate to Pence, purely on style points. He's probably right if people only pay attention to how people say stuff rather than what is actually said. The NYT and the liberal blogosphere like the punches Kaine landed, but I admit that I found him annoying as heck.