Biden's command of the facts?

The McCain campaign was ready with its list of 14 Lies by Joe Biden; the Associated Press has about the same number of fact checks on Biden as they did on Palin. Yet Biden comes across as sounding like he's being more factual and so the pundits and those in the instant polls rated him as winning the debate. Jonah Goldberg points out how Biden is often scoring points by his twisting of the facts.

Just a few: Flatly asserting that Obama never said he’d meet with Achmenijad; that absolute nonsense about spending more in a month in Iraq than we’ve spent in Afghanistan (“let me say it again,” he said as if he was hammering home a real fact); the bit about McCain voting with Obama on raising taxes; his vote in favor of the war etc.

It’s amazing how the impulse to see Biden as the more qualified and serious guy stems almost entirely from his ability to be a convincing b.s. artist. I’m not saying Palin was always honest or unrehearsed, but when she offers up a catchphrase or a talking point, you can tell. When Biden spews up a warm fog of deceitful gassbaggery the response seems to be “what a great grasp of the issues he has!”

His ability, nay his eagerness, to fake not only the “facts” but his sincerity is so shameless many pundits seem either mesmerized by it or scared to call him on it.

I think it's more that they don't know the details and so assume he's correct. When he starts giving details of some bill and then tells us that McCain voted the same way as Obama, it all seems so factual that one tends to think that it's all true.

And shouldn't a guy who has been in the Senate since the early 70s and been chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee know which article of the Constitution is about the Legislative branch?

Of course, Palin didn't have the knowledge of every vote that McCain has made in the Senate and couldn't defend those points. So they stand as arguments that she didn't answer. We then seem to have the comparison between a guy in full command of the facts and a woman trying to win over America with her folksy charm, gosh darn it. But if your facts are wrong, that rather changes the evaluation. You betcha.