10:03 PM … Didn’t Palin just get the name wrong of our Army commander in Afghanistan. His name is David D. McKiernan. Who’s the McClellan she was talking about? She pretty clearly misstated what he said, but she seems not even to know who he is. And here’s the article with the General saying what Biden said he said, that a surge type strategy wouldn’t work.

Here’s the vid …

10:06 PM … What’s Palin talking about saying that Biden was supporting McCain’s line on Iraq during the primaries? Really? Can we go to the videotape on that?

10:14 PM … What’d she just say? That she’d like the VP to take a stronger role in the senate?

10:15 PM … A bit earlier Gov. Palin said that Sen. Biden supported McCain’s policies on Iraq until this race. Let’s do some fact-checking on that. Here’s her quote: “You had supported John McCain’s military strategies pretty adamantly until this race.” What’s she basing that on.

10:18 PM … “America is a nation of exceptionalism.”

10:21 PM … Biden saving the best for last. Very powerful.

10:29 PM … Palin: “I like answering the tough questions.”

10:33 PM … Here was one of Palin’s weirdest moments ….

Needless to say, getting the name of the top general in Afghanistan wrong just shows that Palin is new to the subject matter. But lying about what he said is a much bigger deal.

Toward the end, one of Biden’s most powerful moments in the debate …

My global thought on this debate is that it helped the Obama-Biden ticket more than McCain-Palin’s. But I also think it probably helped stop some of the hemorrhaging and morale breakdown among hardcore Republicans.

One clear fact about this debate is that Palin didn’t have one of those stammering moments that we’ve seen especially in the Couric interview. She got the name of the top general in Afghanistan wrong. And she dug in on a clearly false claim when she said that Joe Biden had supported McCain’s Iraq policies up until this campaign started. That’s nonsense. And I suspect we’ll see that whopper taken apart over the next hours and days. Still, though, these whoppers and gaffes aren’t in the same category. (I mean, a pretty ridiculous standard — she clearly has virtually no grasp of any major national political or policy issue.) For that reason, as I said, I think she gives base Republicans a reason to feel reassured and permission to stop feeling embarrassed.

One thing that I think is easy to overlook here is that Biden did really well. He started a little slow. But he quickly got into his groove and in the second half there were several answers that he took the debate squarely to John McCain in a way that I thought was very effective.

So basically a win for Biden because he just did a lot better and it’s Obama-Biden who want the trajectory of the race to stay as is. She made herself less of an embarrassment and gave core Republicans a reason to stop being embarrassed. But there were a bunch of flatly false or nonsensical things she said — and we’ll see those picked apart over the next few days.

We were just talking about why Palin did better tonight than she did in her interviews. I think it’s actually very simple. No follow ups. It’s not a criticism of Gwen Ifill. It wasn’t the format she was supposed to work with. But if you look at Palin’s interview trainwrecks things always got bad on the follow up — when the interviewer (Gibson or Couric) pressed her on the nebulous answer for some specifics, which she couldn’t provide. That’s the difference.

Another point that bears some notice. Biden got Palin to agree that she believes in full civil rights for gay couples. I think she’ll want another bite at that apple.

Here’s the vid. The key exchange comes at 1:40 in to the video …

The claim from this debate that is still sitting with me is this: Gov. Palin said that Sen. Biden supported McCain’s Iraq policies “pretty adamantly until this race.” Well, that’s complete nonsense. At least since 2004 they’ve been on completely different sides of this question. That was one of her biggest attack lines through the debate. And it’s completely false.

We’ll be hearing more about this.

Here’s the vid …

So what did our top general in Afghanistan really say about an Afghanistan ‘Surge’? Not what Palin claimed. We have the details here.

Greg Sargent: “Biden Won, Because He Made Forceful Case Against McCain“

Hmmm. Sarah Palin wants to give the Vice President more control over running the Senate? Here’s Sen. Kit Bond, one of Palin’s surrogates, saying maybe that’s not such a hot idea.