Back in the 70's, the tongue-in-cheek, anti-war question was, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" In an embarrassing variation on that theme, the question from last night's vice presidential debate was, "What if they gave a debate and the moderator didn't show up?" Simply put, moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS was missing-in-action.The rhetorical battle between Biden and Palin was so unusual that it may have changed the nature of debate as we know it. Palin's strategy was ingeniously simple: If the moderator asks you a question about which you know nothing, simply refuse to answer it, and instead answer one of your own making. The Palin strategy produced a bizarre back and forth in which one never knew what Palin was going to say, because she paid so little attention to the question at hand, preferring instead to simply recite pre-rehearsed monologues. As a result, it wasn't long before the inmates, or should I say the inmate, was running the asylum, and the moderator had abdicated control.

I would grade the participants as follows:

Biden: B+ Biden was as disciplined and on point as I've ever seen him, making his points with a crispness and seriousness befitting a vice-presidential debate, even while Palin tried to distract him with a procession of winks, quips, jokes, shout-outs, and misstatements of fact that sometimes came so fast and furious that it was hard to keep up with her. Biden's grade would be higher if he hadn't seemed so nervous through much of the debate, leading to occasionally garbled sentences.

Palin: C Just for showing up and surviving the ninety mintues, Palin gets a C, though her survival depended largely on being able to dismiss any question that did not conform to the talking points that she had previously memorized. Early on in the proceedings she gave warning that the debate questions were in her view, an evil creation of the mainstream media, and that answering the moderator's questions was optional:

I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record...

Toward the end of the debate, in an oblique reference to her disastrous Katie Couric interviews, Palin continued her criticism of the mainstream press:

I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they've just heard. I'd rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did.

Ifill: F I'm not sure I've ever seen a debate in which the moderator was as docile as Ifill was last night.There are three basic tasks for the moderator of any major political debate: 1) Set an agenda by raising serious and relevant questions 2) Keep the participants on task so that they follow the agenda at hand. 3) Highlight any lapses of clarity, factual accuracy, or candor with follow-up questions. I don't believe that Ifill managed to accomplish any of these tasks last night.

Ifill was almost certainly affected by pressure from conservative groups, who viewed her upcoming book, Breakthough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, as a serious conflict of interest. In the view of Ifill's critics, her book, due to be released on inauguration day, would obviously be more relevant and more financially successful if Obama won the presidency, than if he did not. There is some truth to this complaint, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that Ifill felt the need to overcompensate during the debate by giving Palin free rein to pick and choose which questions she would answer.

Early on in the debate, I knew that things had gone awry when Joe Biden, in responding to a question about the subprime mortgage crisis, described John McCain as one of the biggest advocates for market deregulation. Ifill offered Palin a chance to respond to Biden's criticisms, and here was Palin's response:

I would like to respond about the tax increases. We can speak in agreement here that darn right we need tax relief for Americans so that jobs can be created here. Now, Barack Obama and Sen. Biden also voted for the largest tax increases in U.S. history. Barack had 94 opportunities to side on the people's side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction, 94 times.

For a moment I thought I was losing my mind. Tax increases? Who said anything about tax increases!? Am I already losing my memory at such a young age!? Clearly, tax increases were the first line on Palin's list of talking points, and she was determined to raise the issue, come hell or high water.

One of Ifill's many shortcomings during the debate was her inability to ask a question without simultaneously providing multiple choice answers. So she couldn't simply ask something like, "Who was at fault in the subprime mortgage meltdown? Instead, Ifill coddled Palin with this formulation:

Who do you think was at fault? I start with you, Gov. Palin. Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?

Every time she got such a multiple choice question, Palin breathed a sigh of relief, because she then knew that she could circle "all of the above." Likewise, Ifill didn't ask how Palin would facilitate peace in the Middle East; instead, she threw her a lifeline by suggesting "...is a two-state solution the solution?" Was anyone surprised by Palin's response: "A two-state solution is the solution." Bravo!

In the category of dumb questions, Ifill asked Biden about his statement that he, "would not be vice president under any circumstances." The problem with this question is that Biden said that when he was still a presidential candidate. Show me a presidential candidate anywhere who would say, "Yes, I'm willing to take the second job." It was later, after he had ended his campaign, that Biden told Brian Williams on Meet the Press that he didn't want the job, but if asked, he would accept:

SEN. BIDEN: Unlike most other people, I'm being straight with you. If asked, I will do it. I've made it clear I do not want to be asked.

MR. WILLIAMS: Do not want to be asked. But if asked, the answer, of course, would be yes.

SEN. BIDEN: Of course it would, because the--if the president--if the presidential nominee thought I could help him win, am I going to say to the first African-American candidate about to make history in the world that, "No, I will not help you out like you want me to"? Of course, I'm--I'll say yes.

I watched the interview live on July 22, and found it to be a candid and sincere statement by Biden. Palin was apparently referencing this comment by Biden in trying to defend her own statement that she didn't know what a vice president actually did:

In my comment there, it was a lame attempt at a joke and yours was a lame attempt at a joke, too, I guess, because nobody got it. Of course we know what a vice president does.

Huh? Biden's comments to Brian Williams on Meet the Press were dead serious. This is just another example of Palin winging it with no real knowledge of what she's talking about. Conservative writer Kathleen Parker put if perfectly when she wrote: "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself." By the end of the debate, when Palin had relaxed a bit, she started to tap into her inner Tina Fey, getting more cutesy and folksy by the minute. I hope I never again have to watch a debate where I hear a "shout-out" to the third grade of Gladys Wood Elementary School. I hope I never have to hear canned lines again like "say it aint so, Joe." I hope I never hear the word "maverick" again. And I hope that the Commission on Presidential Debates thinks long and hard before giving another debate to Gwen Ifill.