http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/ Gov. Palin did better than I expected. One exception was to the question asked by Gwen Ifill regarding the bankruptcy overhaul in 2005. Sarah Palin had informed, in advance, she "may not answer the questions that either the moderator or (Joe Biden) want to hear, but (I'm) was going to talk straight to the American people and let them know (my) her track record also." The following seemed completely off topic to me. IFILL: Sen. Biden, you voted for this bankruptcy bill. Sen. Obama voted against it. Some people have said that mortgage- holders really paid the price. BIDEN: Well, mortgage-holders didn't pay the price. Only 10 percent of the people who are -- have been affected by this whole switch from Chapter 7 to Chapter 13 -- it gets complicated. But the point of this -- Barack Obama saw the glass as half- empty. I saw it as half-full. We disagreed on that, and 85 senators voted one way, and 15 voted the other way. But here's the deal. Barack Obama pointed out two years ago that there was a subprime mortgage crisis and wrote to the secretary of Treasury. And he said, "You'd better get on the stick here. You'd better look at it." John McCain said as early as last December, quote -- I'm paraphrasing -- "I'm surprised about this subprime mortgage crisis," number one. Number two, with regard to bankruptcy now, Gwen, what we should be doing now -- and Barack Obama and I support it -- we should be allowing bankruptcy courts to be able to re-adjust not just the interest rate you're paying on your mortgage to be able to stay in your home, but be able to adjust the principal that you owe, the principal that you owe. That would keep people in their homes, actually help banks by keeping it from going under. But John McCain, as I understand it -- I'm not sure of this, but I believe John McCain and the governor don't support that. There are ways to help people now. And there -- ways that we're offering are not being supported by -- by the Bush administration nor do I believe by John McCain and Gov. Palin. IFILL: Gov. Palin, is that so? PALIN: That is not so, but because that's just a quick answer, I want to talk about, again, my record on energy versus your ticket's energy ticket, also. I think that this is important to come back to, with that energy policy plan again that was voted for in '05. When we talk about energy, we have to consider the need to do all that we can to allow this nation to become energy independent. It's a nonsensical position that we are in when we have domestic supplies of energy all over this great land. And East Coast politicians who don't allow energy-producing states like Alaska to produce these, to tap into them, and instead we're relying on foreign countries to produce for us. PALIN: We're circulating about $700 billion a year into foreign countries, some who do not like America -- they certainly don't have our best interests at heart -- instead of those dollars circulating here, creating tens of thousands of jobs and allowing domestic supplies of energy to be tapped into and start flowing into these very, very hungry markets. Energy independence is the key to this nation's future, to our economic future, and to our national security. So when we talk about energy plans, it's not just about who got a tax break and who didn't. And we're not giving oil companies tax breaks, but it's about a heck of a lot more than that. Energy independence is the key to America's future.