The anticipation for tomorrow night’s Palin/Biden debate feels like when you find yourself wanting to see a movie that you know won’t be as funny as the trailer. As much as I’d love to think that it’ll be a 90-minute trainwreck, I think we’re really looking at another Saturday Night Lie sketch that doesn’t work as a full movie. I’m not saying this in an effort to play the expectations game (although Palin’s rhetorical skills are so legendary, she makes Cicero look like a drunken stutterer trying to speak a foreign language). I’m just saying that the Palin interviews have been so ridiculous that there’s no way a heavily-structured debate can live up to the thrill of watching someone clearly out of their element answer questions in which the interviewer can ask follow-ups. Palin’s answers will be masterful in their level of bullshittery, but in a format that simply invites two candidates to take turns giving mini-speeches, the opportunities for her to choke will be few and far between.

Here’s my prediction : Palin’s canned answers will be music to the ears of a GOP base and press corps that celebrated the fact that George W. Bush “beat” Al Gore and John Kerry in debates without answering a single question. They’ll look past her glaring unfitness for the Presidency and praise her for “connecting” with voters. Meanwhile, Biden’s demonstrations that he’s much more knowledgable and experienced for the job will be derided with cries that he’s a “bully” for daring to point out that Palin doesn’t know what she’s talking about. With the media deciding that she “won” the debate, the Palin anti-backlash will begin and the McCain campaign will let her out of captivity more often. Eventually, she’ll give a press conference and that will be hilarious.

UPDATE : Having said that, wow, this is embarrassing (via Hilzoy):

My favorite line, so far is “I’m in that sense a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas.” In that sense, I’m a Republican, where I believe people should vote for Democrats.