Body language: Love or hate him, it was all Joe

[October 12, 2012]  NEW YORK (AP) -- This time, they didn't need Big Bird.

Because really, who needed a "Sesame Street" character to grab all the post-debate attention when there was Joe Biden's smile -- or laugh, chuckle, grimace, grin, smirk or "goofy face," according to various descriptions?

Whether you loved or hated his performance -- a decision that seemed to split (surprise!) along partisan lines -- it was Biden who dominated the conversation during and after Thursday's vice-presidential debate, with his animated facial reactions to almost anything his opponent, Paul Ryan, uttered.

The vice president also came up with the two catchiest phrases of the night -- "bunch of malarkey" and "bunch of stuff" -- both of them employed (and tweeted, and retweeted) to paint his Republican opponent as untruthful.

Some impressions of the night, from political communication and body language experts:

WHATEVER YOU CALLED IT, IT WORKED:

"I'm not sure what that was -- a smile? Not really. Not a laugh, either," said Katherine Hall Jamieson, a professor of political communication at the University of Pennsylvania. "And actually not a grin. It was really just something that said, 'I have an answer to that and I'm holding it.'"

Was it appropriate?

That, said Jamieson, would simply depend on one's allegiance. "The Republicans are trying to advance the argument that Biden was behaving in an unhinged fashion," she said. The Democrats, of course, thought it was great.

Another expert in the field thinks that even if some viewers were offended by the smiling, for lack of a better word, it helped Biden control the agenda.

"I think it was part of an overall strategy to keep Ryan off stride," said Jerry Shuster, who teaches political communication at the University of Pittsburgh. "He really couldn't ever finish a thought."

Jamieson echoed that: "Whenever you're paying attention to the person reacting, it draws attention from the person talking," she said.

In any case, it seemed to be just what President Barack Obama needed from his running mate.

"If I were the president's doctor, I would say, 'This is just what I ordered,'" Shuster said.

ENGAGING, OR A TURNOFF:

While many found Biden's grins infectious, some found them immature.

"That mugging, those condescending looks -- it was a complete turnoff," said body language expert Lillian Glass, author of the upcoming "Body Language Advantage." "He was bullying, he was smug, he interrupted ... I think he lost a lot of his message based on facial gestures."

Biden may have been deemed the winner by many, but "from a body language point of view, he did not win this debate," she said.

A GOOD FIRST OUTING FOR RYAN:

Even though he's much less experienced than Biden, experts agreed that it was a first good outing for Ryan.

"He passed the threshold of being an acceptable vice president -- through his command of foreign policy, which is a difficult threshold since he's a domestic policy wonk," said Jamieson.

"He was more gentlemanly," said Glass, in Los Angeles. "He looked at the vice president, and didn't ever mug, or make a face."

LONG LIVE THE MODERATOR:

ABC's Martha Raddatz got much praise for her smart and swift moderating -- with some people tweeting that SHE was the evening's winner.

A noted exception: Fox News host Sean Hannity, who tweeted, "Martha Raddatz is the worst moderator ever." He and some others believed she was too quick to cut off Ryan and to let Biden talk over him.

In any case, her performance was seen by most as a clear contrast to PBS' Jim Lehrer's in last week's debate between Obama and Mitt Romney.

REBUTTAL WITNESSES:

Skillful moderator or not, this debate was much more substantial than the Obama-Romney faceoff because the two men answered each other and really engaged in a give-and-take.

"Both candidates were effective in rebuttal," said Jamieson. "But especially Biden controlled the agenda by rebutting EVERYTHING -- both in words and in gestures."

VOCABULARY LESSON:

In the Webster's New World Dictionary, "malarkey" means "insincere, meaningless or deliberately misleading talk." In the vice-presidential debate, it meant a separate hashtag on Twitter and lots of attention for Biden's folksy style.

"With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey," he told Ryan.

He did what Democrats wished Obama had done last week with Romney: Call out the opponent when you think he's being untruthful.

Biden also told Ryan: "This is a bunch of stuff," referring to the congressman's criticism of Obama's treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Shuster, the University of Pittsburgh professor, liked the phrase, but thought Biden really wanted to say something, er, stronger.

NOT HOLDING HIS AGE AGAINST HIM:

At 69, Biden was debating a man 27 years his junior. That was not lost on many in the Twitterverse, who sent various tweets referring to Ryan's tender age of 42.

But nowhere was Biden's consciousness of the age gap clearer than when Ryan mentioned President John F. Kennedy as an example of a president who made certain cuts before.

"Oh, now you're Jack Kennedy!" Biden quipped -- perhaps eager to channel Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and his famous "You're no Jack Kennedy" quip to then opponent Dan Quayle.

"I knew that was coming because of the age difference," says Shuster. "I even told my students in class today to expect it."

[Associated Press; By JOCELYN NOVECK]

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