Zing.
Easily the most substantive "zing" of the night. But not the most amusing "zing." That came after Ryan condemned the 2009 stimulus bill as "Crony capitalism and corporate welfare."
BIDEN: I love my friend here. I -- I'm not allowed to show letters but go on our website, he sent me two letters saying, "By the way, can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin?" We sent millions of dollars...
RADDATZ: You did ask for stimulus money, correct?
RYAN: On two occasions we -- we -- we advocated for constituents who were applying for grants. That's what we do. We do that for all constituents who are...
BIDEN: I love that. I love that. This was such a bad program and he writes me a letter saying -- writes the Department of Energy a letter saying, "The reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs." His words.
Ryan's Nixonian turns gave Biden the upper hand on a night when Democrats needed a win.
By the time the debate turned to the issues on which Biden was always going to have the upper hand: defending Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, all the vice president really had to say was: "Who you believe, the AMA, me, a guy who's fought his whole life for this, or somebody who would actually put in motion a plan that knowingly cut -- added $6,400 a year more to the cost of Medicare?"
All he had to say with regard to wild claims about how Obamacare threatens seniors was: "You know, I heard that death panel argument from Sarah Palin. It seems every vice presidential debate I hear this kind of stuff about panels."
And all he really had to say, after Ryan took the most radical anti-choice stance ever uttered on a debate stage by a major-party nominee, was that, while he respects the teachings of his Catholic religion: "I do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that, women, that they can't control their body... I'm not going to interfere with that."
It may not be entirely fair to compare Ryan with Nixon. In truth, the former president would never have bumbled Thursday night's Afghanistan questions as badly as did this year's Republican vice presidential nominee -- who was reduced to repeating the seasons of the year "winter, spring, summer, fall" in an attempt to cover for his mis-statement of details of the current fight.
But Ryan played Nixon Thursday night.
On issue after issue, the Republican vice presidential candidate danced around the details.
But unlike last week when Barack Obama allowed Mitt Romney to repurpose himself as a credible contender, Joe Biden was having none of it.
Hubert Humphtey never got a chance to call Richard Nixon out on a debate stage in 1968.
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