Dear Joe Biden, Please Read This Before you "Gaffe" Up the Debate

The must-see vice presidential debate is coming up and everyone is nervous, or excited, to see Sarah Palin. I'm actually more nervous to see Joe Biden since he often misspeaks and his runaway mouth is very well documented. As much as some don't believe his gaffes are damaging, I think we are too close to election day to risk any more Biden gaffes.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick has written a letter to Biden with some tips on "How To Debate a Girl, and Win."

Below are just a few funny, yet very valid points:

"Everyone expects you to win the debate, and to trounce her on the substance. But the rules for debating Gov. Palin are different. If you lecture her, you'll be seen as a sexist bully. If you act too smart, you'll be seen as a sexist bully. If you condescend to her, you'll be seen as a sexist bully."

"Sen. Biden, let's be clear. Great Supreme Court oral advocates will tell you that a flawless oral argument will never win a case, but a bad argument can lose one. You have a similar problem. If you engage, fight, bicker, or bluster, you can lose this debate. Think Rick Lazio. So my advice, in a nutshell: Don't lose it."

"There is no easy way to tell you this, Joe Biden, but the surest way for Joe Biden to lose a debate against Sarah Palin is by being Joe Biden. If you are windy, pompous, unctuous, or pushy, you will come across as patronizing and condescending—the guy who puts the "boy" into "old boys' network." If you flirt and smirk and flatter (Did you truly tell an Ohio crowd you thought Palin was "good-looking"? Did you really introduce us to your wife, Jill, by leering that she is "drop-dead gorgeous"?), you're going to sound like the creepy guy in the trench coat at the back of the porn theater. If you can manage to be your warm, amiable self, even if you're going batshit on the inside, you will do fine."

"Caution: Sarah Palin is funny. And it's the kind of jeering Ann Coulter-funny that's assuredly going to irritate the heck out of you. She'll suggest you are a coward and unpatriotic and also (heh heh) that you are corrupt and dishonest. Keep your poker face. Poker face when she says you plan to raise taxes on the middle class. Poker face when she says she has plans to sell Barack Obama's next celebrity memoir on eBay and give all the money to special-needs children. Don't lunge (a la Lazio). Don't sigh (a la Gore). Don't roll your eyes (a la Where the Wild Things Are) or look longingly into the camera as if to plead "This is the best they could find for me?" Just nod sagely and refute logically. Get off a zinger if you can. ("You're nice enough Sarah" does not constitute a zinger.) But you are not going to beat her at the victim game, or the regular-folks game, or the humor game. You have to beat her on the fact that you are qualified to be a heartbeat from the presidency and that in 10 years she may be, as well."