From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

It is perhaps the most anticipated debate of the entire election.

It is hard to imagine anything could even partially eclipse that which has the potential to be the most remarkable debate in political history.

This is an unusual debate, an unprecedented debate for the vice presidential candidates.

This wasn't a political debate. The great showdown between vice presidential candidates

Joe Biden and Sarah Palin was an episode of American Idol. Who would be Clay Aiken?

Who would be William Hung? Would Joe Biden inexplicably tell a dirty joke? Would Sarah Palin ramble incoherently? And as a

sideshow, there was moderator Gwen Eiffel, who is writing a book pegged to the Barack Obama candidacy.

Would she be, as the McCain camp hinted, a biased arbiter? Yeah, well, none of the above. Here's what happened.

Biden was Biden. To give you a $5,000 plan, which his website points out, will go straight to the

insurance company. And then you're going to have to replace a $12,000. That's the average cost of the

plan you get through your employer. It costs $12,000. You're going to have to replace a 12,000, that's the average cost of the plan you get through your employer.

It costs $12,000.

You're going to have to replace a $12,000.

And Palin was Palin, as perky and wholesome as all get out.

Darn right, it was the predator lenders.

Joe Sixpack, Hockey Moms across the nation, for 30 years and God bless God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?

We have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons.

I say it ain't so, Joe, there you'll go again.

So Biden did not come unhinged. And in the wake of the disastrous Katie Couric interviews,

...