Obama lost that debate, badly. It wasn't that Mitt Romney was, as they say, on his game, or was in command of his facts, or exuded intelligence and confidence, so much as it was Obama's shortcomings being made unmistakably obvious just by juxtaposition with someone who can apparently chew gum and walk at the same time. Some say Romney hit a home run with his performance, but I figure that all he really needed to do was appear able to string together coherent sentences and win, because Obama obviously cannot.
You saw it all last night: the inability to answer direct questions with direct responses, the repetition of stale, pre-programmed, 4-year-old talking points and slogans learned by rote, the inability to speak without a teleprompter, the petulance, the thin skin, the seeming inability to grasp the simplest of concepts, the lack of basic knowledge on...just about everything, the inability to tell the truth, the determination to double down on stupid, and inability to first admit and then learn from, mistakes.
Last night, you saw exactly why the 52% of the voting public that selected Obama over McCain should be taken out and evaluated for harvestable organs....then they should be forcibly sterilized.
Barack Obama stumbled through that performance last night, grasping at straws. Unable to defend his record, he talked about anything but, whenever possible, and even at one point asked the moderator to change the damned subject when he could no longer offer even a feeble defense of his policies. Hell, it only took him 21 minutes (I know, because I was waiting for it with a stopwatch) to blame George W.Bush for all of his troubles.
Some general observations about both men:
On Romney:
* Romney Looked ready. He looked refreshed, and was in command of his facts and figures. He gave one the impression that, if elected right this very second, he'd be able to hit the ground running and accomplish more in his first week than Obama has in four years. He appears thoughtful, serious, and personable. I find it amazing that a press that has imbued Al Gore with a personality despite any evidence of having one, would find Mitt Romney a cold fish. But then again, I guess that's just the narrative -- Romney as the cold, distant, dispassionate,.calculating technocrat -- which ignores te fact that it is his opponent that is all of those things.
* Romney took Obama to task every time that President Marriott-Suites misrepresented either his (Romney's) policy suggestions, or his record. he did not let Obama slide whenever The O-Man decided to exaggerate his (Obama's) questionable achievements. He absolutely schooled Obama on economics, tax policy, health care and federalism. The most telling moment was when Romney took issue with Obama's insistence that American businesses get tax breaks for relocating factories overseas, and all but called Obama a liar on national television.
* Mitt hammered Odouchebag on failed Green Energy 'investments' (government cash for campaign contributors). He got specific -- a charge the Obamatards have been leveling at him for at least a week now, naturally without evidence to back that up, because that's who they are -- in a way that left Obama standing there as if he were waiting for a bus that never seemed to arrive. Oh, wait: the bus DID arrive, and Obama found himself under it. An unusual circumstance for a would-be President who usually is so good at throwing others under it's wheels.
* Romney laid out a contrast between the insanity of continuing with the same failed policies and expecting different results and those who would take a different route, and made the case -- as if it needed to be made, really? -- that spending money we do not have on more entitlements and larger government and catering to the 47% of Americans who pay no income tax has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. Romney even coined a phrase for it: Trickle Down Government.
Last night, it trickled down the back of Obama's pants.
* One letdown for me. Romney should have asked this question, at some point: Mr. President, have you ever done an honest day's work in your life? Have you ever received a paycheck that wasn't in some way, issued by the government?
On Obama:
* Obama appeared bored, tired, pissed off, irritable. I guess that's what happens when you spend three days a week jetting off to a fundraiser -- two of them in Las Vegas, the city Obama once derided as the symbol of greed, just this week alone -- and thus unprepared. He arrived at this battle of wits completely unarmed. Everything President Obama had to say after 'Good evening' was probably a waste of air, mostly because it was recycled slogans from 2008.
* Obama kept hitting a theme which I have to dissect here. He said it at least twice, and probably a third time, and it made me shake my head. Obama said he wanted to spend money (that we don't have) to hire 100,000 Math and Science teachers, and he called it an economic policy. Three things:
First, more teachers doesn't solve anything. It won't get kids interested in math and science, it won't get anyone better grades, and the fact that you now have 100,000 more government employees that will have to be paid, and receive benefits and pensions from broke-ass states, doesn't sound like an economic boon to me.
Second, the Federal Government doesn't hire teachers; the State and local Boards of Education do that. The Federal Government's reach into the Public Schools is so great, that now it's axiomatic that the President of the United States should be able to simply wish 100,000 union workers into existence, the school boards must accept them, the states must pay them, and somehow, your children's learning experience will be improved just because they exist, because Barack Obama says so.
Third, the question isn't 'Do we need more teachers?'. Rather it is 'Why can't we get better teachers than we have?'. The answer to that question is the same rationale behind the whole 100,000 teachers and 'I saved Detroit' rigmarole that Odingbat is constantly on about: at this point, the only way Barack Obama can survive is to appeal to his base, which largely consists of welfare queens, brain dead soccer moms and unionized labor.
* Obama made it apparent that he doesn't know much of anything. Romney took him to school on basic economics, on tax policy, and on health care. Over the last four years we have seen the devastating effects that Affirmative Action have had upon the country; we've elected a man who has achieved his lofty status by virtue of his interesting racial heritage, and who apparently has never achieved anything without government assistance or manipulation. This is why we can't see Barack Obama's college transcripts, his work at Harvard Law Review, his record as a State Senator. Because if we did see these these things, there'd be a march on the White House complete with tar and feathers. It is apparent that Obama lives in a bubble, a comfy cocoon wherein he is worshiped and always right, and dawdled over as something unique and special, and where reality -- in terms of a tough question, a press conference, proof of an assertion -- is automatically met with accusations of racism, treason, partisan intent, and a desire to see the poor, elderly and women marched to the gas chambers.
It's almost as if Barack Obama has been raised and cultivated by those people who show up at your child's school and hand out certificates bestowing 'self-esteem' upon the kids by fiat, and only after the politically correct puppet show. The man doesn't know anything, can't explain anything, because he has never had to. He's been sheltered all of his life, and never more so than when he took this job.
It was obvious to anyone capable of breathing without mechanical assistance four years ago that Barack Obama wasn't qualified to run your local McDonald's. It was made glaringly obvious when he spent the first 18 months of his Presidency advocating for a Health Care bill that apparently even he hasn't read, and can't explain in terms of efficacy, cost, or even rationale. Last night's debacle hammered those points home again; this man is in over his head, has no clue as to what he is doing, and has made a bad situation infinitely worse.
He then has the unmitigated gall to stand there and get snippy when he's asked an uncomfortable question?
* Barack Obama without a teleprompter is a stuttering prick, unable to string coherent sentences together, and is prone to rambling. If there's one thing he is good at, however, it is the repetition of slogans. Last night, we were treated to Barack Obama's Greatest Hits. From the excessively threadbare 'It's George Bush's Fault' to the perennial favorite 'We saved GM' (apparently by screwing bondholders, paying off the unions and forcing the company to build cars that no one wants, even with a subsidy), we heard all of the buzzwords and -- dare I say it? -- dog whistles that we've heard since 2008.
It's the same continuous drone, come to think of it, that we've heard from democrats (small 'd' intentional) for near on 50 years, already. If a republican is elected, children will die in the streets, the elderly will be pushed through meat grinders, women will have to suffer through back-alley abortions performed in an abattoir with coat hangers and knitting needles. The skies are falling, the seas are rising, and Exxon-Mobil is evil. He took another victory lap over Usama Bin Laden, perhaps his one real accomplishment. He busted out some of his favorites:
'Responsibly' - Obama used this word repeatedly when discussing budget balancing and deficit reduction. Apparently, 'responsibly' in Obamatalk does not mean an ability to choose between right and wrong, but rather in an inability to cut anything -- especially welfare and other transfer payments -- from the budget which is politically inconvenient, but economically suspect. For example, Obama made the case, quite rightfully, that Big Oil receives federal subsidies and those subsidies should be discontinued because we can't afford them anymore, but he conveniently forgets to apply that same rationale to ethanol subsidies because he likes those, and they bring in votes for him.
'Investment' - Typically, an investment is an outlay of cash which one would normally expect to generate a profit. In Obamatalk, an investment refers to a huge waste of taxpayer funds chucked down whatever black hole is most politically popular or necessary. Teacher's unions this week, Auto Workers the next, Green Energy the week after that. Obama's promise is always that these 'investments' will pay off in some unspecified, intangible way in some as-yet unimagined future. At least when Mitt Romney talks 'investment' there's a prospectus and the actual reporting of economic activity; when Obama says 'investment' you can rest assure the money is simply either being wasted or going into his campaign contributor's pockets.
At least he gave the Hopenchange a rest for a night.
* Obama keeps talking about some ethereal vision of the future, which floats upon the far horizon in an ephemeral haze, and which only only clear-sighted (i.e. people who agree with him) will share in, because they had the foresight and good luck to hitch their stars to his wagon. And yet, despite all of this talk of a shining future, Barack Obama is stuck firmly in the past. He is wedded to an ideology which has failed everywhere it's been tried, but which still retains a streak of romance for stupid people. He's attempting to recreate the sense of Camelot Cool that surrounded JFK, push forward a new-and-Improved New Deal that would have made FDR green with envy, and he has now taken to asserting that the best economic polices where those of Bill Clinton....and then he takes credit for those, too.
Obama talks about nothing but the future, repeats the mistakes of the past, and behaves as if the present doesn't even exist, as if the last four years never happened. All a figment of our collective imaginations. I guess it's just easier to appear to look forwards, act backwards, and espouse policies who's main attribute is that one can always say of them 'Rome wasn't built in a day, you know...'
True, but then again, Rome was actually built, eventually. Obama only promises. And experience tells us they were mostly empty promises uttered by an empty suit.
The miracle of last night's debate wasn't that Mitt Romney won, it was that Barack Obama managed to snooker so many for so long.
UPDATE: Edited for spelling and grammar. My apologies, but sometimes I'm in such a rush to get things written down that I forget to check it all before posting..
UPDATE: Edited for spelling and grammar. My apologies, but sometimes I'm in such a rush to get things written down that I forget to check it all before posting..
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