No, Sarah Palin did not fall silent for long painful seconds and then recite gibberish.

And no, she didn’t say, “Who am I? Why am I here?” like Ross Perot’s James Stockdale.

But come on!

By any neutral measure, she lost the debate badly.

First of all, she invoked the name of the leading U.S. general in Afghanistan several times, but she called him by the wrong name. She called him “General McClellan.” She’s only off by 148 years. General George McClellan was one of Lincoln’s generals in the Civil War. General David McKiernan is leading U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Second, she simply refused to answer some direct policy questions.

Example A. “Ifill: Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Sen. McCain’s comments about health care” [that McCain would deregulate that, too, like Wall Street]?

“Palin: I would like to respond about the tax increases.”

Example B.

“Biden: … Gwen, the governor did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild…”

“Ifill: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?”

“Palin: I’m still on the tax thing.”

Example C. When Biden fired back on “the tax thing,” Ifill gave Palin a chance to respond, and she said, “I want to go back to the energy plan.”

Look, if anyone in a high school debate weaseled out of answering questions like that, they would have been tossed off the stage.

Third, Palin underscored her own inexperience when Ifill asked her if there’s anything she has promised as a candidate that she “would take off the table because of this financial crisis we’re in.” And Palin said, “There is not. And how long have I been at this, like five weeks? So there hasn’t been a whole lot that I’ve promised.”

Fourth, on the Iraq war, which the American people want out of, Palin gave no comfort. “We don’t need early withdrawal out of Iraq,” she said. “We have got to win in Iraq.”

Biden came right back and said, “With all due respect, I don’t hear a plan” for ending the war. “Barack Obama offered a clear plan.”

Fifth, on Israel and Palestine, she just seemed jejune: “I’m so encouraged to know that we both love Israel.”

Sixth, on the powers of the Vice President under the Constitution, she was out to lunch. “I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the Vice President if that Vice President so chose to exert . . . Our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the Vice President.” What the hell was she talking about?

And finally, she praised McCain twice for “suspending his campaign,” which by all accounts was a disaster. Bringing that up again could not have helped her cause.

Biden, for his part, kept pummeling McCain.

On the financial crisis, he noted that McCain said at 9:00 a.m. one recent Monday that “the fundamentals of the economy were strong.” And then at 11:00 that same morning McCain said we were in an economic crisis. “He’s out touch,” Biden said. “John on 20 different occasions in the previous year and a half called for more deregulation.”

On Iraq, he lashed McCain together with Cheney: “John McCain said exactly what Dick Cheney said”—about how easy the war was going to be. They were in “lock-step.”

He thoroughly discredited McCain’s health care proposal, noting that though McCain is offering to give people a $5,000 tax break on health care, he’s going to force them off their employers’ health care rolls and onto the individual market, which will cost people $12,000 a year.

And on McCain’s maverick reputation, Biden went to town: “He has been no maverick on the things that matter to people’s lives. He voted four out of five times for George Bush’s budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year. . . . He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against including another 3.6 million children in coverage. . . . He’s not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college. He’s not been a maverick on the war. He’s not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.”

Time and again, on issue after issue, Biden landed his punches.

If it were a boxing match, he would have won by TKO.