I’m watching the debate. Not even 10 minutes in and its anti-climatic.

Palin: I’m not going to answer the questions the way you or the moderator want to hear, I’m going to talk straight to the American people.

I’m not sure what that means.
I can’t wait until a student shows up in class and says I’m not going to answer the question on the test the way the professor or the students want, I’m going to write my blue book straight to the American people.
What do you say to that?

Sarah Palin: Middle Class, where todd and I have been all our lives. Middle class equals worth over a million dollars. That’s not my middle class.

Updates as I watch:

H/T to Drezner, this is priceless: 9:21 PM: God bless Megan McArdle: “Sarah Palin winks at the camera. I didn’t believe it the first time I saw it; thank god for TiVo. I think all three million viewers are supposed to come up to her hotel room with a bottle of champagne after the debate.”

What I hate about this type of debate format: Let me go back and respond to some previous thing you said so I can get in my talking points. There’s no flow. Really, I’ve lost track as to what they’re talking about. What was the question again, Gwen?

Here’s why this debate is impossible–the two debaters aren’t actually debating each other, they are debating people not in the room. Biden is talking past Palin, at McCain and Bush. Palin is talking past Biden at Obama. Neither can respond for themselves, they have to respond for their principle. Biden, being more familiar with the positions of both sides (he’s been at this for a while now), is, clearly, more able to do this. Palin, who by her own admission has been at this, what 5 weeks, doesn’t have the same command of McCain’s positions, so she’s not as fluid in her answers. Regardless, it leads to a very scattered debate.

This debate has been unwatchable. I have no idea what Palin is talking about most times. Biden is Biden–at times fantastic, at times all over the place. My wife is asleep on the couch next to me, I think she got the better end of this past 90 minutes.