A friend reposted this.
What Romney did to Obama last week is a dirty debate strategy called the "Gish Gallop" (see link to wiki, below), in which one debater piles into a two minutes statement as many lies, half-truths and straw men, leaving the opponent overwhelmed and knowing not to which one to respond. A second facet of the Gallop is to interrupt a competitor with a false statement, to throw the opponent off base, give the illusion that the speaker knows what he's talking about, and toss still another lie into the mix.
Obama dealt with this the way most debaters do the first time that they encounter this move; he retreated and merely repeated his points. Joe, on the other hand, was prepped to do what you need to do to counter the Gallop: interrupt the misstatements with facts (in Joe's case, also gestures), to signal to the audience that the statements are untrue. This means that the lies are not allowed to pile up -- pile on -- before the opponent has a chance to respond. You've already signaled the audience that the speaker is lying, and trying to fool the audience, when your turn begins. Then you can pick out one or two of the big lies and zing them.
Ryan was thrown totally off base by Joe's responses. The Gish Gallop faltered. Joe wasn't rude; he was executing a strategy. And it worked.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop