This is an excerpt from what Roger Ebert had to say:
It could not have been anticipated by Palin. The next camera angle was above and behind her. She paused. The silence seemed to anticipate words of sympathy and identification from her. But Biden had ended in a sentence using the word “change,” and her response, reflecting no emotion at all, cued off that word and became a talking point about McCain. This felt to me, at worst, insensitive and callous. At best, that she had not fully heard Biden. In either event, her response troubled me. If a man had responded in that way to such a statement from a women, he would be called a heartless brute
October 4th, 2008 at 11:15 am
That’s probably true. There is definitely a double standard there. Clearly the most emotional moment in the debate and one that I think spoke volumes about who Joe Biden and Sarah Palin are. I don’t think Palin is heartless. I’m sure her cold response was more likely due to her straightup lack of intelligence. I wouldn’t expect her to know how to respond otherwise to that. She had some lines prepared and she had to stick with them, because she doesn’t have the spontaneity or the skill to think about what Biden said and quickly come up with a thoughtful, appropriate response without saying something ridiculously dumb.