I. Debate Commentary
The first third and most of the final third of this debate focused almost exclusively on foreign policy (in what was supposed to be a foreign policy debate), and I found it to be mostly very boring (with Romney with an apparent strategy to agree with Obama on a lot of points) and a complete stalemate -- both guys scoring points equally. On that score, I thought it was a big mistake for Romney not to take on Obama's Libyan disaster and the Obama administration's obvious dishonesty during the course of that ugly sequence of events and explanations.
But I thought Obama made a big mistake himself by opening the door wide open in the second third of the debate (and in the final half of the of the final third) on domestic economic issues, which I thought Romney clearly won. In those portions, Romney was his very solid self as he was in the first 2 debates, while Obama was mediocre and somewhere between (1) his rather weak and (2) much improved performance on domestic issues in the first 2 debates. My question for Obama would be: If you weren't as prepared to go lively on domestic issues tonight as you were obviously prepared to go aggressive on foreign policy (where you had plenty of canned, prepared, rehearsed one-liners ready to go about bayonets and "same rules" [errr, wait!]), then why open up the door so much on domestic issues, particularly in the second third of the debate?
At the end of the night, I thought Obama tonight could've really used his first distinct victory of the three debates in order to repel some of the recent Romney momentum, but Obama simply didn't get that. And Romney, too, didn't knock the ball out of the park either, although he won by default through the domestic, economic portions of the debate, not to mention having an incessantly pleasant look on his face and in his tone in contrast to Obama's constant split-screen sneering (see pics at top) and occasional rude interrupting and condescending smiling (which I thought did Obama no favors, although he also didn't take things to the extreme like Biden did). [Sorry, leftists, but my fellow Independents will decide this election outcome (whatcha gonna do, try to "kill" us all?), and this paragraph very much gets at some of those Independent sentiments.]
That being said, this debate was no "game changer," and I still predict an extremely close election result two weeks from today -- with me continuing to surmise greatly a popular vote victor (very perhaps, Romney) who does not win the electoral vote. Truth be told, regardless of who wins, I don't want to see a split decision like that. I think that's disastrous for the country (much like 2000), lends ammunition for partisan extremists on both sides to go around claiming "illegimate president" for four years, and it's the reason why I'd like to see an end to the electoral college.
II. Obama Lines That Made Me Laugh Out Loud
Regardless of what you thought about the outcome of tonight's debate, Obama -- likely the most left-wing president in American history -- continued his penchant for making me laugh out loud (not an easy thing to do, as oft-stated by me) at all of the crazy leftist 20 percenter and disingenuous things that come out his mouth. To wit (as usual, these are based on notes, and not necessarily word-for-word, but pretty close):
-"We can't do nation building [in the Middle East.]" [This after Obama got us involved militarily in Libya to effect regime change, not to mention continuing to keep us involved in an inherent "nation building" effort in Afghanistan, which has now become the longest foreign war in American history].
-"We have engaged in unprecedented cooperation with Israel." [Mr. "President," we know you don't care a whole hell of a lot for our Israeli brothers, and your actions of the past 4 years have only established and reinforced that truth. Equally making me laugh tonight was Obama pointing to a pre-presidency trip to Israel (in 2007 or 2008) as the greatest example of his outreach to our Jewish friends in Israel. Pretty pathetic stuff, dude.]
-"We refocused our efforts on Afghanistan when we came into office!" [This was particularly funny, since Obama did absolutely nothing on Afghanistan during his first year in office, offering up no plan for our involvement there through that extremely bloody year there that took countless lives of American boys of all races and ethnicities. He should've been a leader one way or the other: Either gotten us the hell out of that shithole immediately or at the very least had a plan from Day 1 to stop the killings of our American Warriors. Hundreds of American killings later, Obama suddenly showed some interest in a "surge" there. That's not leadership. That's one of the two worst presidents of my lifetime (along with W Bush) in full effect.]
-"China needs to play on a level playing field and play by the same rules as everyone else!" [Here, a tiring Obama, towards the end of the debate, seemed to be mixing up his tired old domestic policy talking points with foreign policy. I was just waitin' over here for him to accuse the Chinese of not paying their "fair share" of taxes! This one had me really rolling, quite like the entire Obama presidency has accomplished. Thanks for all the bad memories and big laughs, Obama -- really though!]
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PRESIDENTIAL_CAMPAIGN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-22-22-06-16
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