Last week, Ed was disappointed by President Barack Obama's performance in the first presidential debate.

Tonight, in the first and only vice presidential debate, it was a very different reaction from Ed.

"I thought Joe Biden made up a lot of ground," Ed said in his first reaction on MSNBC to tonight's vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

He continued: "I have a sense that the liberal community is going to be very satisfied with what Joe Biden delivered tonight.  He was detailed, he was passionate, he made people believe he that he cares about the country and had confidence in which way this administration wants to take the country." 

"He talked about the progress that has been made and talked about the tough decisions that had to be made and the decisions that were made were the correct decisions.  I think that's what the base wanted hear tonight and they got it from Joe Biden."

"Now, as far as Ryan is concerned, look, I don't think it's going to take very long for them to start crying about the referee here.  I think that [moderator Martha Raddatz's] reporting skills came out tonight.  She improvised a great deal on the subject matter, I think that is going to be criticized in the right wing media." 

"Ryan?  Mission accomplished.  He went there tonight and I don't think he hurt the conservative agenda at all.  They don't give details.  They're OK with that.  He was lacking in specifics on the economy, he was lacking specifics in Medicare.  He tried to sell that hard.  Everything Joe Biden said was factual.  Everything that Ryan came back with was 'well that's not right this is what we want to do,' but he really had no detail on anything."

"And I also thought that Joe Biden's experience tonight on foreign policy, I mean it was a man against a boy.  I mean he got so mixed up, Ryan did, he would not accept that the fact that Afghan forces are also making strides and they're the ones being detailed to the very regions he's talking about." 

Ed on the PBS documentary about the men competing for the presidency:  "I highly recommend you watch it. You will see a candidate who can change his convictions so easily because he has no true convictions."

27 days until the election and Mitt Romney implodes over a woman's right to choose.

Tonight, Ed welcomes Terry O’Neill, President of The National Organization for Women, and Democratic Strategist Bob Shrum for reaction and analysis of Romney’s abortion Etch A Sketch.

Mitt Romney went moderate during his debate with the president.  Will his running mate do the same?  Howard Fineman, NBC News Political Analyst and Editorial Director of the Huffington Post Media Group, has a preview of tomorrow's vice presidential debate.

Paul Ryan tries to convince Michigan voters that he and Mitt Romney will fight for the auto industry, but their records tell a different story.  John Nichols, Washington Correspondent of The Nation will have the details.

From the coal mine owner to the real estate mogul, CEO's are holding their workers hostage to get votes for Mitt Romney.  Tonight, Robert Reich, former U.S. Labor Secretary and UC Berkeley Professor, looks at the revolt of the plutocrats.

The mother of a Navy SEAL killed in Benghazi asks Mitt Romney to stop using her son as a political prop.

And in the Big Finish, Rep. Joe Walsh attacks Tammy Duckworth for her appearance at the Democratic National Convention, and he's not the only Tea Partier facing a tough re-election fight.  We’ll talk with Karen Finney, MSNBC Political Analyst and former DNC Communications Director.

It's going to another blockbuster @EdShow at 8pET on @msnbctv.

Join the conversation now or during the show by commenting on Facebook and/or tweeting (with the #edshow hashtag) so we can share your thoughts on the show.

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Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren face each other in the third of four televised debates at Symphony Hall in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Is the pressure of Thursday's debate with Joe Biden getting to Paul Ryan? 

On Sunday, a Ryan fundraiser at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont, Illinois, prominently featured a sign banning audio and video recording.

Ryan's remarks were reportedly routine, so why the sign?  Perhaps Ryan was thinking about those secretly recorded video remarks that Romney made at a fundraiser in May, which caught him saying that 47 percent of Americans were "dependent on government" and saw themselves as "victims."

Then on the following morning, Ryan sounded worried about the upcoming debate.

"Because [Obama] had such a bad debate [on Oct. 3], that Joe is just going to come flying at us," Ryan told radio host Frank Beckmann.  "It seems pretty clear that their new strategy is just basically to call us liars, to descend down into a mud pit, and hopefully with enough mudslinging back and forth and distortion, people get demoralized and then they can win by default."

And later in the day, Ryan just lost it, abruptly ended an interview with ABC 12 in Flint, Michigan, after an exchange on gun violence in inner cities:

"Does this country have a gun problem?" WJRT's Terry Camp asked.

"This country has a crime problem," Ryan responded.  "If you take a look at the gun laws we have, I don't even think President Obama is proposing more gun laws. We have good, strong gun laws.  We have to make sure we enforce our laws. We have lots of laws that aren't being properly enforced. We need to make sure we enforce these laws."

Ryan continued: "But the best thing to help prevent violent crime in the inner cities is to bring opportunity in the inner cities, is to help teach people get out of poverty in the inner cities, is to help teach people good discipline, good character. That is civil society. That's what charities, and civic groups, and churches do to help one another make sure that they can realize the value in one another."

"And you can do all that by cutting taxes? With a big tax cut?," Camp asked. 

"Those are your words, not mine," Ryan responded.

With that, Ryan's press secretary abruptly declared the interview over and a clearly irritated Ryan began removing his microphone, saying to the interviewer, "That was kind of strange.  You're trying to stuff words in people's mouths?"

"Well, I don't know if it's strange," said Camp.

"It sounds like you're trying to put answers to questions..."  The camera is then covered by white paper.

Ryan is now in Florida for more debate prep, reviewing Biden’s 2008 debate with Sarah Palin and past Biden speeches.

Vice President Biden is home in Delaware, preparing for Thursday’s debate, holding mock debates with sparring partner Rep. Chris Van Hollen and reviewing video of Ryan’s speeches and interviews.

He’s also reviewing video of Ryan’s speeches and interviews and reading Ryan’s book Young Guns.

Thursday’s 90-minute debate at Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky, will be begin at 9pET.  It will be moderated by ABC’s Martha Raddatz and will cover both domestic and foreign policy.  The candidates will be seated.

You can watch it live both on MSNBC and here on The Ed Show blog. 

29 days until the election and Mitt Romney uses fear and lying to get votes, but Ed won’t get away with it!

Tonight, Ed welcomes retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff at the State Department during Gen. Colin Powell’s term, and currently the Pamela Harriman visiting professor at the College of William and Mary, to analyze Romney’s scare tactics, his bad ideas and the desire to return to the bungled foreign policy of George W. Bush.

Republicans continue to push conspiracy theories on Friday’s jobs numbers.  The Nation's Ari Melber joins Ed to discuss the GOP’s alternate reality.

Female legislators could gain several seats in the U.S. Senate this November. We'll look at why women are leading in the some key races with Michelle Goldberg, Senior contributing writer, Newsweek & The Daily Beast NY, and Keli Goff,  author (“The GQ Candidate”) and Political Correspondent for TheRoot.com.

Fox news is backing up Mitt Romney's $5 trillion tax lie.  Ed will talk with E.J. Dionne, a Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution and Washington Post columnist, about that and much more.

And in the Big Finish, a new study reveals the impact that voting restrictions would have on the state's African-American community.  Sen. Nina Turner (D-OH) joins Ed live in the studio!

It's going to another blockbuster @EdShow at 8pET on @msnbctv.

Join the conversation now or during the show by commenting on Facebook and/or tweeting (with the #edshow hashtag) so we can share your thoughts on the show.

The @TweetTron9k is powering up the circuits to put yer tweets on the teevee.    

We found out Friday that the national unemployment rate fell in September to 7.8 percent, the lowest rate since President Barack Obama took office.

Great news for American workers, but some wingnuts on the right said it was the result of a conspiracy to re-elect the president by bureaucrats at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Today, Donald Trump joined that echo chamber, saying there was "a lot of monkey business."

"I'm telling you in a month and a half from now, they will do a readjustment like has been happening for the last year and a half. They will do a readjustment and the number will be 8.2 or more," Trump told Fox & Friends.

It turns out, however, that if anything, there’s a conspiracy to help Mitt Romney get elected!

In a little-noticed part of Friday’s report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that it had systematically undercounted jobs by 386,000 from April 2011 through March 2012.  That's roughly 32,000 jobs per month, on average.

It means that the jobs picture looked WORSE than it actually was for the 11 months ending in March 2012 (and probably beyond), actually hurting President Obama's chances for re-election!

Here's an excellent chart from Mother Jones that illustrates the point:

But no, we don't really think the BLS is conspiring to hurt Obama.  

Here's the deal: the agency relies on relatively small (and less accurate) surveys of businesses and goverment agencies for the monthly payroll surveys.  The BLS only gets better numbers after it examines tax records from companies across the country, a process takes about 10 months to complete.

Unemployment is the lowest it's been since President Obama took office and the conspiracy theorists are going nuts!

Tonight, we'll get the truth on today's huge jobs report from Robert Wolf, former President of UBS Investment Bank, and Democratic Strategist Bob Shrum.

Then, a Republican talking point died a bloody death.  Tonight, a requiem for the "8% promise" with Democratic Strategist Chris Kofinis.

A new report says the same company where mine workers attended a Romney rally without pay ALSO made workers donate to his campaign. Alec MacGillis, Senior Editor at The New Republic, has the details.

Mitt Romney is completely changing his tune after he basically called half the country lazy moochers. Karen Finney, MSNBC Political Analyst and Former DNC Communications Director, joins Ed for that.

Early voting is restored in Ohio for all.

And in the Big Finish, actor and former reading rainbow host LeVar Burton is mad at mitt romney for going after big bird.  He joins Ed to discuss mitt romney's promise to cut PBS funding and what it means for public television.

It's going to another blockbuster @EdShow at 8pET on @msnbctv.

Join the conversation now or during the show by commenting on Facebook and/or tweeting (with the #edshow hashtag) so we can share your thoughts on the show.

The @TweetTron9k is powering up the circuits to put yer tweets on the teevee.  

While researching for a segment tonight on Mitt Romney’s plan to fire Big Bird and cut funding to PBS, we came across an amazing piece of video on YouTube from 1969.

The video shows the late Fred M. Rogers (better known as Mr. Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) testifying before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications. 

The subcommittee was considering a $20 million grant for the funding of PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, proposed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson before he left office in January 1969.  The new president, Republican Richard Nixon, wanted to cut the proposed funding to $10 million.

On May 1, 1969, Rogers spoke of the need for social and emotional education that public television provided, saying he found the "inner drama of childhood" far more fascinating than violence.

“We don’t have to bop somebody over the head to make him – to make drama on the screen,” Rogers said.  “We deal with such things as getting a haircut or the feelings about brothers and sisters and the kind of anger that arises in simple family situations.  And we speak to it constructively.”

The committee’s chair, Democratic Sen. John O. Pastore of Rhode Island, clearly had no clue who Rogers was and came off as gruff and impatient.

But after Rogers recited the lyrics to What Do You Do with the Mad that You Feel?, one of the songs from his show, Pastore declared, "I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned the $20 million."

The following congressional appropriation, for 1971, increased PBS funding from $9 million to $22 million.

Thanks to Mitt Romney, we need Mr. Rogers more than ever before.  But unfortunately, Mr. Rogers passed away in 2003.  At least we have his moving testimony preserved on video.  

The consensus is that Barack Obama turned in lackluster performance during last night debate with Mitt Romney.  But the president was back on stride today on the campaign trail with some zingers of his own.

First, Obama jumped on Romney's flip-flopping sales pitches on taxes, regulations, health care, education and Medicare, painting debate Romney an imposter.

"When I got on to the stage I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney," Obama told supporters in Denver this morning.  "But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year, promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that." 

Then, Obama came up with the perfect word to describe Romney's "same top-down economic policies that got us into this mess." 

"It's not change, it is a relapse," the president told supporters this afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin.  "And we're not going to do it!" 

Obama also made fun of Romney's threat to cut PBS to make a serious point.

"He'll get rid of regulations on Wall Street but he's going to crack down on Sesame Street!  Thank goodness somebody's finally cracking down on Big Bird! Who knew he was responsible for all these deficits. Elmo's gotta watch out!"

All good lines, but will Obama change his strategy for the debate?  

The campaign says yes.

The president "made a choice last night to answer the questions that were asked … and not get into serial fact-checking with Governor Romney," said senior strategist David Axelrod.  "We’re going to take a hard look at this and we’re going to have to make some judgments about where to draw the lines."