Ho-Hum Debate: The much-ballyhooed Biden-Palin exchange of stump speeches disguised as a debate came off as a fairly bland affair. No big gaffes, no sizzling language, nothing but the same-old Talking Points we’ve all heard before. Full Disclosure: I only watched the last half of the ‘debate’ last night — the rest I recorded – and I checked the endless replays of the ‘highlights’ today. Just two thoughts:

1.) I never noticed before how truly phony is Sarah Palin. Up to last night, I regarded her as just a naïf out of her element, a high school player accidentally sent up to the Big Show. Not now; what I saw in the debate was a calculating hick, a two-faced Lonesome Rhodes “Face in the Crowd” type, who, I wouldn’t be surprised, probably muttered something like “That oughta hold those dumb bastards” when she was safely off stage. It was all there: The cornball “Gosh, golly, gee” patois, the overcooked Church-Lady-Meets-Lily-Tomlin’s-phone-operator voice, the cutesy winks, the camera mugging, the self-satisfied smile. It makes her even more dangerous than she was before; Junior with a craftier brain.

2.) In their post-debate commentary, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, the Politico’s Roger Simon and the Other Usual Media Miscreants once again strained credulity by attempting to speak for the Working Class out there in the Fly-Over Country of the Midwest. These guys inhabit offices in New York and Washington – besides the building doorman or the valet who parks their luxury car, how many actual members of the hourly-wage Drone Culture do they really know? In their omniscient view of the Biden-Palin encounter, Palin was likable and sharp and those downtrodden Soccer-Hockey Moms out there counting quarters to do the laundry were sure to swallow her guff whole-hog and rally to the GOP. Victory for Palin! Then Todd started running through the poll numbers from independent voters showing they thought Biden won – he didn’t really have an explanation for why Mr. and Mrs. Joe Six-Pack didn’t buy the adorable Palin’s pandering guff as predicted; it was just one of those, shrug, anomalies. Hint to Chuck and Company: I live out in that part of America you think you know so well; I can’t find anyone – not a single person — who likes Palin, even after her cynical performance last night.

Rating: Pretty flaccid on both sides and nothing memorable happened. Biden won it on points by a hair, mainly because he, ya know, actually knew things; Palin was all empty Talking Points and gushy BS; she didn’t do McCain’s campaign any good.