Heh. My Friend; I Think You Lost the Debate

Apologies to my American readers, but the Ghana Girl inside of me can’t discuss last night’s debate with any level of finesse. My Continent breddehs and sistahs will understand me when I say:

HHHHHEEEEEHHHHHH!!!!

Oh, chale did you see how Joe Biden just disgraced Paul Ryan last night? It wasn’t good kraaaa. It wasn’t good at all! E be like say they feed am kenkey for 6 straight days den tell am “mek you go beat this akiti boy with more vim.”

I mentioned on Twitter that I have seen this scene many times before in Africa. Allow me to set the stage:

There is a cantankerous old woman wearing nothing but a black scarf and a cloth wrapped around her torso sitting in her courtyard on a stool. Perhaps she sells charcoal. Perhaps she sells fowl. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she’s your elder and she has a thick piece of chewing stick in her mouth. It keeps her teeth cleaned and her jaws in motion. A vibrant young man comes to her courtyard to inquire if they might have a brief conversation. He has some ideas about how he can improve the village.

“Mama, good evening,” he says softly.

“Heh. What do you want here? You think I’m one of these smalls girls you can just speak to any kind of way?” the old woman spits.

“Oh, auntie, it’s not that ooo…” replies the young man quickly. “I just wanted to discuss how we can improve our village.”

The old woman is incensed. Who sent this small boy here to discuss old people things? She spits a stream of saliva from her gnarled lips.

“Kwasia! What do you think, heh? That you can come here with your foolish untested ideas and make me go along with them?”

She shifts her weight on the stool, never rising to dignify her young guest. She slits her eyes as though trying to diminish his frame in the waning evening light.

“Do you know how long I have been selling charcoal? Have you ever made charcoal before? In fact, did your own MODDA come and send you to beg me for charcoal just last month?”

She sucks her teeth in contempt, talking over the hapless young man as he tries to explain his position. Seeing that he will get nowhere with a woman so set in her ways, he thanks her for her time. She snorts and tells him to lock the gate behind him as he leaves. A shrill refrain from the dirge she was previously belting out before the lad came to disturb her evening fills the sweet African air.

Joe Biden was that old woman.

I mean, he just manhandled Paul Ryan. It would have been too painful to watch if not for the fact that it was SO bloody entertaining!

Since we all know by now that American political debates are no longer won based on substance but rather by performance (i.e. showmanship), it’s 100% safe to say that Joe Biden took home the trophy…no doubt about it. And what a show.

Joe Biden took complete control of your senses. From his blinding Colgate smile to his continuous interjections of “malarkey”, “stuff” and the occasional snort of disdain, it was hard to pay attention to what Paul Ryan was saying at all. Take notes folks: this is how debates are won in the age of media. It doesn’t matter what you say; all that matters is that you say it harder than your opponent – and last night Joe Biden was channeling several hardcore pop culture characters.

Samuel L Jackson

Bane

The Joker

It would only be prudent to discuss some of the facts, since it was a political debate and not merely an hour and a half episode of Brawl, so here are some of the things that were important to me.

With regards to jobs, I think the Obama administration got it all wrong from the onset. He spent 2 bloody years passing healthcare when he should have been focusing on jobs from the beginning. That has always been my position and will always remain so. The fact that we are at 7.8% unemployment is absolutely nothing to celebrate. It literally means we’re back to square one. If the president wants my vote, he’s going to have to prove that there isn’t some other rabbit trail he’s going to follow in lieu of creating jobs in his next term. That said, the Democrats are going to have to re-earn my trust as an Independent voter. They held the House AND the Senate for the last 2 years under Bush and the first two years under Obama. All this malarkey about asking Republicans to get out of the way so that Democrats can get the economy back on track is just that: malarkey. They’ve had ample time and opportunity to get this fixed.

On the other hand, neither Paul Ryan nor Mitt Romney has come out with a concrete plan on how they plan to get the economy back in shape. All they keep saying is “they’re going to sit down with Democrats”. Haba. These same guys who haven’t moved the economy along in 4 years? Sit down and do what with them again? O ho!

The other thing I did not care for was the moderator’s question on abortion and the two men’s faith as it relates to it. (Insert kudos to Martha for actually wrangling these two wildebeest into her tidy little pen.) It wasn’t the brevity of the discourse that concerned me at all: it was the tone.

The liberal narrative for the last 18, maybe 20 months has been that if you are not pro-abortion, you are anti-woman. They have created a phantom war on women based on this platform. But who are the casualties and soldiers in this war? Women.

In every war there are two sides who assume they alone hold the banner of what is good and right. This “war on women” is an unwinnable one. Unless the president and his allies manage to erase God and decimate the moral consciousness of millions of women, neither side will ever concede defeat. The issue of child birth is just too sacred and emotional. You can’t apply rules and logic to it, at least not in the frame work that liberals and progressives want to. Besides, why are women fighting each other based on what the other wants to do with her body? If you want prevent pregnancy because you are so allergic to carrying and raising a child, there are a dozen options to sustain that decision…up to and including sterilization (which I think a lot of people are prime candidates for). If you believe in the sanctity of life and want to preserve it, then make better personal decisions to help you live out that ideal. I believe the government has a role in our lives, but I totally resent this idea that we should allow them so close to our bedrooms, uteruses and nut sacks.

I repeat: I don’t want Nancy Pelosi anywhere close to my nut sack.

But back to the point. Future politicians, take note. The only way to decimate your opponent is to do precisely what Joe Biden did last night and what Romney did in the debate prior. You must make an absolute mockery of you foe, even to the point of snickering when they are gracious enough to thank you for the opportunity to debate them (which Joe Biden did stunningly last night). I think Paul Ryan fought gallantly, but Biden has been a politician since the Declaration of Independence was written. There was no way he was going to maneuver around or reason with Old Crazy Joe.

I’ve talked enough. I really want to hear what the MOM Squad has to say about last night’s performance. There were so many highlights that I’ve barely touched any of them. The news media is calling last night’s debate a draw. What do you think?