It's a "blame game" when Dems use it against Reps.  It's "accountability" when Reps use it against Dems. F.U.Palin.

Exactly, I love how we are just supposed to ignore 7 years plus of lies, criminal activity and outright failure from the current administration. Yet it is ok for Republicans to always blame Clinton.

Oh sure, Doris, play the blame game.  "It's republicans, nyah nyah, They started it nyah nyah blaming Clinton nyah nyah..".

It's the fault of you and the libruls pointing fingers that we can't come together and solve the energy crisis...

From Michael Bérubé (here):

"As Governor Palin pointed out tonight, we’ve lived through divisive partisan politics in both the Bush and Clinton eras, and if we’re going to look forward, Americans need to agree that the Democrat party is to blame for divisive partisanship, and Republicans offer a fresh new future of change and reform instead of a finger-pointing obsession with the past."

Thanks for that.  I needed a sardonic laugh.

Good catch MMFA, Biden's answer and Palin's "blame game" response are lost without context, which absolutely includes Ifill's question.  By the way, Gwen Ifill did a mediocre job, at best.

Tommy- I disagree, Ifill was wonderful, she allowed the debate to occur and did not inject herself in it, she also maintained the rules. Well done Gwen!!!

Doris, Maybe the debate rules stifled her a bit, I just hoped for more from her......she didn't press enough when their responses veered off topic.  But that is the inherent problem with this uber structured format, it's too stiff.  I would have liked to see them go at it more, challenge each other - not gonna happen.

Far too often in our so-called "debates" the candidates have this, "If I can't decide the entire format before hand, I'm not going to debate" adittude. 

Why even have moderators anymore? Just have a tape recorder sitting on a desk and an unpaid intern to switch it on and off.

High school debate teams have better formats. At least they are required to answer the question. My idea of the week: a panel of seven individuals (3 college professors, 2 MMFA posters :) and 2 average citizens) sit at a table watching the debate live. After each question asked, the board votes. If 5 of the panel members decide that the candidate has not answered the question, a trap door opens under the candidate. The candidate must fight the mancore (spelling?) from Return of the Jedi, to continue the debate.

I would agree that she lost some control of the debate letting Palin continually straying off response on several occasions, but I think the questions were very good ones. If she is the one who came up with that list, I give her cudo's for not lobbing softballs.

I noticed that Caribou Barbie repeated this talking point several times, accusing Biden of "looking backward", or something like that.  I guess I can't blame them for not wanting to look at the past 8 years with a critical eye, since they've made such a f***ing mess.  This is a matter of survival for those who are pulling Barbie's strings, since too much retrospection could result in criminal indictments of people like Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney.  (Bush probably had no more of a clue than Caribou Barbie, so he might be able to plead ignorance.)

There's an additional part to this.  Since the McCain/Palin policies are shaping up to be no different than the Bush/Cheney policies, Palin doesn't want us looking "backward".  If we do that, we see exactly what the "maverick" team is going to be foisting off on the U.S.

It's hard to play the "opposition" to what has gone on if you admit there was a past...and you're going to do the same as it ever was.

Note to self,invest in WWhhaambulance stock today!

Two points.

1) Palin specifically said that we could learn a lot of good lessons from this economic meltdown. How does she expect to learn anything without looking back to see what went wrong?

2) IF the McCain campaign doesn't want to look back, WHY do they keep pointing to ANYTHING in Obama's records?

Would it be more accurate to say that she doesn't want anyone looking back at the McCain/Bush/Palin records?

Would it be more accurate to say that she doesn't want anyone looking back at the McCain/Bush/Palin records?

Well yes.

But not looking back to what caused the meltdown, while learning from the mistakes made seems to be a common tread in the McCain/Palin ticket. Look at the global warming/man made question during the debate. Palin said she dosn't know if it is man made and that its not important to know what caused it. But we need to correct it.

Huh?