Conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said that despite all the criticism Tim Kaine got from his clumsy debate performance this week, it still wasn’t enough.
In an op-ed published Thursday night, Noonan said the Democratic vice presidential nominee deserved more than being “smacked around” for repeatedly interrupting and talking over his Republican counterpart, Mike Pence.
“He famously and rudely interrupted both Mr. Pence and moderator Elaine Quijano …,” Noonan said, citing a journalist on Twitter who had also observed the interruptions. “Actually he needed to stop being a rude little rhymes-with-witch. And he needed to show he has some idea what time it is.”
She said Kaine’s debate strategy must have been to “block all thought, reduce everything to prefabricated one-liners” and that he showed a “weird, un-grown-up regard for the power of sarcasm.”
Others in the media made similar observations. After the debate on Tuesday, liberal MSNBC host Chris Matthews said that Kaine came off “desperate.”
