Palin, Biden trade barbs in debate

WASHINGTON—The confident Sarah Palin—the one Republicans swooned over when John McCain chose her as his running mate in August—re-emerged last night in a hotly-anticipated vice-presidential debate that saw her hold her own against a masterful Joe Biden.
Palin, whose disastrous interviews with CBS’s Katie Couric in the past week have made her the butt of jokes around the world, spoke clearly and forcefully in short question-and-answer segments during the showdown in St. Louis.

Peppering her remarks with folksy phrases like “darn it,” “doggone it,” “Joe Six-Pack,” and dropping her G’s as always, the Alaska governor repeatedly lauded McCain as a “man of reform” while accusing her rivals for the White House of being tax-happy.
“I may not answer the questions the way you or the moderator may want me to but I am going to talk straight to the American people,” Palin, looking directly at the camera, said in the midst of a verbal clash with Biden about Barack Obama’s voting record on tax increases.
Biden, known for being gaffe-prone himself and occasionally hot-headed, was eloquent, feisty at times, and even became briefly tearful recalling how his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident years ago and his two sons gravely injured.
But he was always polite toward Palin, who started out the debate harkening back to her “Working Mom” persona as she discussed Wall Street’s financial meltdown.
“Go to a kids’ soccer game on Saturday and turn to any parent on the sideline, and I betcha you’re going to hear fear in that parent’s voice,” she said.
Biden, a longtime Democratic senator considered one of the most seasoned foreign policy experts on Capitol Hill, became spirited when the debate turned to the war in Iraq. He fiercely disputed Palin’s insistence that Obama has voted against funding U.S. troops while McCain always has voted in favour.
“John McCain voted to cut off funding for the troops,” Biden said. “He voted against it because he said the amendment had a timeline in it to end the war and he didn’t like that.”
The Republican senator from Arizona has been wrong about the war in Iraq since its very beginning, Biden added, insisting the United States is fighting on the wrong front and spending vast amounts of money to do so—something that’s resulted in troops in Afghanistan getting dangerously short-changed.
Biden and Palin also clashed over energy, global warming, and government spending in their only debate.