With the upcoming debate we have a classic case of one candidate who is completely steeped in the subject matter and an ignoramus who is completely out of her depth when it comes to anything beyond cursory knowledge gleaned from watching TV soundbites.
Paradoxically Joe Biden has a much harder job here because his side will try to stick with the facts while his opponent will be free to make shit up as she goes along. To us politics junkies it will be easy to spot this right away. For the less informed masses there is a good chance she may come across as knowledgeable, tough and assertive. I have seen one too many debates lost by the good guys simply because they let the other side crapflood the discussion with untruths, distortions and fabrications.
But there is a way to fight this and still wreck your opponent without looking mean, condescending or over the top. Read below the fold to find out how.
The way to debate an opponent who is loose with the facts is to deploy the Socratic method. In the simplest terms the Socratic method relies on asking your opponent progressively more probing questions until you reach the limit of their understanding of the subject matter. One has to really have their shit together in order to withstand such scrutiny. Here's a rough excerpt how one of my recent debates with Jeff a fundie Christian who posited that Christianity was scientifically provable:
- "Jesus is our Lord and Savior who died for our sins so we can have salvation"
- "How do you know this?"
- "It is written in the Holy Bible"
- "Why do accept what's written in the Bible as ultimate truth?"
- "Because we can verify it by looking at the historic record"
- "What records do you know of that corroborate the Bible stories?"
- "Er, there is this passage in Josephus who chronicled events in the first century about Jesus being the Lord"
- "So you think that the Testimonium Flavianum is an authentic passage?"
- "Yes I do"
- "Do you know what it calls Jesus?
- "It calls him a miracle worker who healed the sick and raised the dead, just like the New Testament does!"
- "What was Josephus' faith?"
- "He was an apostate Jew who supported a pagan ceasar"
- "Not a Christian then?"
- "Not at all"
- "So is it more likely that the passage was written by someone who accepted the miracle works of Jesus and yet remained a pagan or is it more likely that the passage was inserted into later manuscripts of Josephus by a Christian scribe who was comitting pious fraud?"
- "There is much more evidence corroborating the New Testament story besides that testimony of Josephus!"
- "What is it then?"
and so on and so forth.
You see how this works. First you ask a question to let your opponent state his premise. Then challenge each assumption behind that premise until you expose your opponent's position as something that he or she chose arbitrarily without any real grounding. Before long your opponent hangs on a rope of his/her own making and the argument looks much more powerful than the more common 'he said' 'she said' type of argument that allows far more assertions to go unchallenged.
The real problem here is that it may be nearly impossible for Joe Biden to deploy this strategy as he'll be unable to directly address Sarah Palin. He'll have to do it through a moderator but it's possible nonetheless. He can start using phrases such as:
"I'd like for my opponent to clarify...."
"The question I'd pose to Ms Palin in regards to XYZ is..."
"I would like to know specifically what Sarah means by...."
He's got a tough job cut out for him. As opposed to most bloggers on this site, I don't think Sarah Palin will crash and burn all by herself. She'll recite the right wing talking points they've been feeding her for the past two weeks and without a proper retort her assertions will go unchallenged. Meanwhile the ignorant audience (most of whom have nowhere the depth of knowledge of an average Kossack) will swallow all the nonsense and perceive Sarah as assertive, confident and on message. The only way to disrupt this scenario is for Biden to deploy the Socratic question strategy. If he attacks directly he'll be labeled as a bully and a sexist. If he just blathers without ever challenging her the media will proclaim Sarah the "winner", "the comeback kid", "the rising star" and whatever other bullshit label they can recycle. The only way out of this dilemma is to help her trip on her own ignorance by probing the depth of her understanding. And the only way to do that is through the Socratic method.