Third half hour: One topic was drones. A word that fits this debate. As a stand alone debate, like the last one, Obama won on points but Romney was solid most of the time. He also agreed with Obama much of the time, a tip of the hat to good internal polls. He needed to be smart and present in a context that is less important to most voters. He was. His China answer will play well. Romney closed hard and strong. Obama’s closing was very good. All in all I think this debate changes exactly…nothing. We shall see.
Second half hour: I’m bored. Okay, now that’s out of the way. This is a draw so far. Obama is did okay in 2nd 30 minutes. He’s smirky but okay. Romney threw out the red meat at the top of the hour. Obama fired back. POTUS calls Romney a liar…then hammers Obama for skipping Israel. Obama does well in his response. Quite well. Emotional, it’s all bullshit on a stick but it worked. More later.
First half hour: A draw. I lean a bit toward Romney being “ahead” because he seems like the President and Obama seems like the challenger.
Romney and Obama go at it again at 9pm Eastern in the last debate. I’ll be a bit delayed but watching and adding my thoughts. Unless there’s a huge gaffe I don’t expect this debate to change much. What do you think?
Romney asked for my vote. obama didn’t.
obama sounded a wee bit desperate.
It’s boring listening to two republicans debate foreign policy.
“It’s boring listening to two republicans debate foreign policy.”
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…No one is supposed to know they are all on the same team
Ha!!
I turned it off after four minutes then tuned back in for the last ten. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t take it tonight.
This debate was proof that torture is still legal in the U.S.A.
But boring helps MR — no gaffes.
good one! sigh…
Obama is such an ass. Mittens closing speech was pretty darn good.
Also, according to standard wisdom on talking about foreign policy, Romney seemed to try to sound calm & assured.
well, Romney won. He was respectful, clear, strong, optimistic. I only hope he does well by us.
Romney seemed like the incumbent president, while Obama seemed like the challenger who was trailing. Get ready for President Romney folks!!
obama YA talked about the things he wants to do .. in the future tense. In the past tense, he cut out osama bin laden’s liver with his bowie knife.
Rofl, Tamer! Actually, he scooped out the liver with his bayonet.
Romney is going to win.
The CBS snap poll of uncommitted voters gave the debate to Obama, 53%-23%. CNN’s poll of all debate viewers (which tilts Republican) showed Obama winning 48%-40%. PPP’s poll of swing state voters had Obama winning 53%-42%.
Where did all these Republican trolls come from?
Sally, did you here obama say anything in the debate that you agree with?
Tamerlane, no actually. Obama comes across to me like a moderate Republican. He says things that are (a) platitudes that no one would disagree with, mixed with (b) plans that are inadequate to meet current needs, with the guts removed that we know he won’t fight for. His proposals are mostly half-measures, and thus inadequate even if he were at all likely to implement them. I liked his claim that he would support community colleges but then he appointed Arne Duncan and has done as much to undercut higher ed as any Republican. He is wrong on so many important issues in ways no true Democrat would dare to be, and he completely ignored the things that are important to me — said nothing whatsoever about them. Starting with global warming and green issues, support for our space program and science funding (he only mentions adding math/science teachers — but how when they are being laid off en masse in school districts nationwide?), cleaning up Wall Street and holding them accountable for causing the destruction of wealth in the middle class, and continuing to all those civil rights issues that Dems have always fought for, including protecting civil liberties and fighting for privacy,closing Guantanamo, adhering to Geneva conventions in war, etc. But I cannot fathom any Democrat having a kill list, nor bragging about killing Osama bin Laden. These are things someone should agonize over not boast about. When you factor in his lack of support for women’s health issues and his sexism in his own administration (look at his appointees, read The Confidence Men) and campaigns, I cannot consider him any kind of Democrat, much less a liberal. I heard Obama make a lot of promises in 2008 and then I saw what he actually did. If I heard anything I agreed with in the debates, I would consider it just so much hot air. I don’t feel that way about all politicians because I have seen hard-working politicians work hard on behalf of their causes and constituents. Bill Clinton was a Democratic moderate and he is far to the left of Obama.
Did anyone else catch barry bragging how he’d “organized the international community”?
YIkes. Don’t go there, dude.
Not exactly, but I heard him brag about taking the risk of killing bin ladin without even taking the time to poll the popularity of such a potentially “controversial” maneuver. What an ass- Also, the fact that obama worked to achieve sanctions on Iran over years of intense effort (on someone’s part, perhaps, but not Sir Barksalot’s)
. . . . organizing the International Muslim/Jihadist Community! .
Both set of internal polls must show that Obama was trailing significantly. Obama seemed petty, and vicious. Romney looked relaxed. This election is over.
Romney was the president tonight. Obama was a punk.
Yes. Agreed with pretty much everything said here tonight. I was bored myself half way through and I love this stuff even when it’s ordinarily boring. As a Romney voter, I was worried during the debate because he was agreeing with Obama more than he was disagreeing, but by the end, I think I figured out his strategy. This was clear – Romney didn’t want to get drawn into a pissing match with Obama and it was just as clear that Obama was trying to draw him into one. Romney had a team who predicted well what Obama would try to do and Romney prepared to do the opposite of what Obama wanted him to do.
I think that’s why Obama looked again so pissed at the end of this debate. Obama looked supremely confident at the end of the second debate, but looked pissed at the end of this one. His strategy to get Romney to act like a warmongering cowboy wasn’t working. (And, what was with all the nodding to Bob Schieffer – like – hey Bob – you know you are supposed to come back to me now. You know you’ve got my back.)
I also came away by the end thinking, man, Romney’s camp’s internal polls must look awesome for them because he came in with a strategy to just look calm, presidential, seem extremely moderate, take no bait and wait out the clock.
(As an aside, Obama told one whopper after another all night. Not a surprise except by how breathtakingly easy it is to disprove them. You can almost pick any line of the debate and find a huge fat lie – Romney actually did specifically, for example, say that GM should go through a regular managed bankruptcy with government guarantees for private market loans as needed within the context of the bankruptcy. Obama denied he said that and actually said “check the record” when Romney wrote an op-ed to that effect. Sequestration, Obama just completely lied about. And, on bayonets and horses – our troops in Afghanistan currenly use both horses and bayonets for close in fighting and for manoeuverability. Wow.)
Different men, same result. Nice and neat for everyone who likes where we’ve come and where either of these men will steer our future. Romney and Obama both love drones. Drones are nice and neat, none of that unpleasant blood splatter that comes with horses and bayonets. Into the Valley of Death flew the drone.
‘Forward, the Drone Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the pilot knew
Some one had blunder’d:
His not to make reply,
His not to reason why,
Only to click, they die,
Into the valley of Death
Flew the manless drone.
My apologies to Tennyson. It loses something in the adaptation. But then haven’t we all.
You left out the “children to the left of them, grandmothers to the right” part.
Well done, Zal.
Drone warfare is awfully cowardly. Unfortunately, there’s no way to put that genie back in the bottle, especially after Obama’s so standardized its use. SkyNet of the Terminator doesn’t seem such a stretch now, does it?
Sure we’re all victims of circumstance aren’t we? Poor us. Bush bad. Not our fault. Obama bad. Not our fault. Nothing we can do about it now. Voting for more of the same isn’t your fault.
Good luck with your pool bet. Fun times.
“Drone warfare is awfully cowardly. ”
More than that, it’s a violation of international law, a war crime.
“Unfortunately, there’s no way to put that genie back in the bottle”
We could refuse to vote for any candidate who engages in, or promises to engage in, murder by drone.
obama’s greatest accomplishment by far has been his transforming of the previously anti-war Left into a mob of blood-thirsty jingoists.
That explains Obamabots but what transformed those who weren’t taken in by Obama? That’s the part I still don’t get.
Rofl.
Obama at times, sounded childish and bratty, “ships that go underwater” oh please.
Yes, he did. Also, pricky.
interesting:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100186053/romney-won-the-presidential-debate-by-looking-presidential-obama-had-a-painful-case-of-bidens-smile/
Condescension is the last resort of those who have no intelligent response. It falls flat with grown up audiences, as last night demonstrated.
Both candidates did their best to avoid foreign policy because they have no substantive disagreement about it. Obama’s most offensive line of the night, “America remains the one indispensable nation,” sounds like a Republican bumper sticker. And Romney didn’t even bother with Benghazi. They talked about the economy because voters will listen to that. So we got to see them revomit their economics bickering.
Thing is, US foreign policy and our economy are inextricably related. An enormous military, constant war and occupation, hundreds of military bases around the globe all drain resources from more constructive use. But neither major party any longer questions this imperial neocon premise, so the real economic impact of US foreign policy goes unaddressed on that stage.
Obama brags about the massive military spending during his presidency. Romney says he wants to spend more. And nobody on that stage suggests that spending almost more than all other countries on Earth while our economy is on life support is irresponsible and ruinous or even, at best, excessive.
I have to agree with obama on this one. Just last week, I had St. Vincent DePaul come haul away my Belgians.
hahahaha, Tamer.
True that, zal.
Zal, I don’t disagree, but with the ‘constant war’ you mentioned, what do you suggest as an alternative ? Within our own country, military bases are often the main contributors to the economy in the nearby towns, providing many civilian jobs directly, and indirectly, to local businesses.
Also the Defense industry has some of the most powerful lobbyists in the Beltway, and does provide thousands of jobs, in spite of all their misdeeds, so there’s that.
At the risk of sounding like a liberal or Democrat here, an alternative to war might be supporting the efforts of the United Nations. Another alternative would be addressing world economic problems that are at the heart of armed conflict, such as famine and disease, increasing education (especially for women) and access to birth control, providing local means of escaping from povery, and so on. It might cost similar amounts of money but would involve far fewer deaths and might even provide long range prevention of future problems. Instead, we’d all prefer to mock efforts like the Gates Foundation Challenge to design a cheap and efficient toilet for the 3rd world.
“military bases are often the main contributors to the economy in the nearby towns”
Well, that’s a stupid-ass reason for raising an army, and a terribly inefficient way of boosting the economy.
Sally’s programs would actually cost far less. Providing cheap solar ovens to 3rd world countries, for example, would be ridiculously cheap. Yet it would end the deforestation from charcoal burning, which causes drought, which leads to famine and then to war.
People might also feel more amicably toward the USA when we say, ‘Hey, here’s a free oven,’ instead of, ‘Hey, we just blew up your village and killed your entire family.’
Help – my reply to tamer went into the spam folder, I think.
Sally – no one is mocking those efforts at all. Certainly no one here. (Since I work on those efforts – like toilets that can be used in urban or rural settings in the developing world – I certainly don’t mock them!). But, not sure why you think supporting these kinds of efforts is limited to liberals or Democrats. I have found for a fact that it’s not. Conservatives don’t particularly like the UN but largely (other than the black helicopter conservatives, which are not the majority, despite how they are painted) that’s because they find the UN ineffective and wasteful. Lots of us who work on developing world economic and social problems would agree with this to a great extent. But, there are a great many conservatives who deeply believe that the things you mention need addressing and of course are better than military conflict; their perspectives as to how to address these many problems, in my book are as welcome as any others, if they can prove effective.
All that said, there are also a great many really bad, bad actors in the world still – leadership among Bosnian Serbs, Rwandan Hutus, Sudanese Muslims, Somalian warlords, North Koreans – the list, tragically goes on and on. Economic progress and female empowerment isn’t going to change that fact.
Votermom, I have your reply here in a binder.
The choice has been to use resources to blow stuff up instead of to build stuff up. Rebuilding the countries infrastructure would also create lots and lots of jobs.
I suggest building.
Sally’s right. Pardon our liberalism but the answer to all problems is not a battleship or bayonet.
Sure Hitlers come along and therefore we must have a military at the ready; but that’s not what these years of constant war is about. Not that long ago, liberals knew that. But there’s no species on Earth more endangered by extinction that the liberal.
The Democratic and Republican parties have turned everything into war.
LOL tamer.
Btw, someone on twitter pointed out that a unicorn is just a horse with a bayonet.
The UN is a joke.
And did you think that’s clever or, as a voter Mom, did you recognize it’s childish and this is a serious issue that needs to be thoughtfully addressed by the adults in our society?
You should have seen the photoshop – absolutely hilarious rebuttal to Obama’s snark, and on the same level.
Btw, I’m still in John’s spam binder.
The bayonet response, actually, was a good one. Disingenuous, no doubt. But no less apt for that.
Neocons pilfer our tax dollars to build war toys, which just coincidentally make their buddies billions in profits that don’t tinkle down to our end of the economy. Liberals knew that when Pay To The Order Of Halliburton was pre-printed on our income tax payments.
Oh wow – the guy who posted a grotesque and moronic “ann romney impersonator” video which he thought was funny now calls out others for being childish and unserious! Plus, his hero – Obama – certainly wasn’t trying to have a serious discussion when talking about those “ships that go underwater” and “ships called aircrat carriers.” He was trying to be an a–hole. (Oh – and note to Obama: submarines aren’t called “ships” by the military; they’re called “boats”)
Tamer, it is not stupid azz to state the obvious. Many towns Are dependent on military bases, that doesn’t make it right, it is what it is.
but you seemed to offer that as a rationale for keeping those bases open.
The more I read about the reaction to the childishly snarky “oh we’ve got these things called aircraft carriers and underwater vessels, so we don’t need more ships,” I could see Romney looking at Obama thinking – that just won me Virginia, at the least. And, with the “we also have fewer horses and bayonets” Romney was thinking – that stupid ass comment just lost you any military person who might have been thinking of voting for you who knows anything about our fighting in Afghanistan or the marine corps (not corpse) – which is everyone.
So true. Obama snarked his way out of VA.
Tamer, Re: above, not offering anything, I’m not that subtle. Sweeping statements that only name a problem and don’t offer even a suggested solution, bug me.
This is easy.
We can build a bigger and bigger war machine or we can build infrastructure, roads, bridges, water lines. Jill Stein has a detailed solution she calls the Green New Deal, which of course addresses our massive need for better energy solutions. There is more than enough work that needs to be done, the question is what we and our elected officials choose to do with our resources.
That stupid “new green deal” is unbelievably naive. It’s complete top-down central planning, and we all know how much of a brilliantly blossoming green energy economy there is in North Korea. God, this is ridiculous. She’s going to create 25 million new jobs if “elected president?” Why not 100 million new jobs? Why not 300 million? Why not 500 million and employ the world? I mean, given she’s never going to be president and won’t have to actually act on any of her borderline manic grandiose promises, why stop at 25 million?
In my view, the only way a sitting president can win a foreign policy debate is by making the challenger look either not credible OR dangerous as a potential C-in-C. Obama did neither; ergo, he lost.
Interesting post from Larry Johnson. I’ll just assume it’s a true story: http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/73683/post-debat-media-depression/#more-73683
The ironic thing is that MSNBC, in particular, may go up in viewership if Romney wins. I usually favor the news network that will hold people in power to account, otherwise, you just get regurgitation of whatever TP memos the WH/Speaker’s office sends out. I can’t say that I’ll watch the truly disgusting Matthews or O’Donnell shows but I might start watching MSNBC for news I won’t get from Fox in a Romney administration.
Larry Johnson and “true story”?! Contradiction in terms, ain’t it?
run_dmc…the only thing I can say about MSNBC…is that they are incredibly immature…and they are dishonest…just think back to Hillary days…first off, then they hated the Clintons and took every cheap shot they could at them…prior to that they hated Gore and loved George W…in those days chris matthews would opine about George W and how great he looked on ‘mission accomplished’ photo op day…
MSNBC has NO credibility…and frankly, one anchor or pundit is worse than they next there…they personify groupthink in the worst way…and they take silly, way over the top cheap shots….think Lawrence O’Donnell just challenging Tagg Romney to a fight…that is their MO…
BUT…the very worst aspect of what they do at MSNBC is they constantly race bait…they see race in everything…they interject race…they create race problems…they instigate…
…if MR wins, it will be interesting to see if they swing his way, like they did with bush…I will never forget Chris Matthews thoroughly enjoying himself with his “buddies”, his word, not mine…those buddies were G Gordon Liddy and Tom Delay…
MSNBC…the land of the cheap shot opportunists…
That ‘Whitey’ tape should be coming out any day now.
So, one thing that Johnson hears and reports on turns out to not be true – or at least not released – and he forever has no credibility? I’d hate to be held to that standard, and I certainly know almost no people in the press or mainstream blogs who can hold up to that standard. Most of his intelligence reports – which is 95% of what he does – hold up well.
Larry Johnson lost me when he wrote — in all seriousness — that global warming can’t be true, because it says sea levels will rise, but the lake outside his front door hasn’t risen any.
Johnson also claims to be a former spy. I actually knew one obvious (ABSCAM) FBI undercover agent, and was good friends with a Defense Mapping Agency operative. Both denied doing any classified work ever. cf. TRUE LIES.
I am in a pool ‘betting’ on the EV map for Nov. 6. I predict a Romney win with 301 electoral votes. Let’s see how I do. Wish me luck.
Good luck. What swing states do 301 EVs include?
Thanks votermom. Not everyone includes the same states in the definition of “swing states,” so my answer may be confusing. Assuming we’re using the same definition, I gave Romney all the swing states except for NM, MI, and PA.
Another way of describing it: I gave Obama only the following states: WA, OR, CA, Hawaii, NM, MN, IL, MI, and all of New England (save and except for NH).
NES, why no WI? I’d appreciate your insight.
NES,
MN has gone from solid blue to leans obama.
Hiya Fembots: Here’s my thinking re WI not going to Obama. Check out these poll numbers and trends: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/wi/wisconsin_romney_vs_obama-1871.html
I figure that by Nov. 6, O will probably lose any state in which he has a 3-point or less advantage; WI is such a state. Addional indicators: Paul Ryan is a popular ‘native son,’ and the Scott Walker recall victory tells us that WI is willing to buck the blue-state status when appropriate.
Wow Piper, that’s amazing! Still, take a look at MN’s numbers and trends: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/mn/minnesota_romney_vs_obama-1823.html . Still O territory — but that could change, of course.
Frankly, I’ve never understood why MN always seems more dependably blue than, say, MI or OH. It seems to be the Massachussetts of The Mid-West. But what accounts for that? Anyone know?
Well, this may be “racist” and is not based on any actual research, but my sense about Minnesota is it tends to have a large Lutheran and, secondarily, Catholic, population, both of which “can” trend liberal, but not necessarily. Ohio tends to be quite conservative in the Northeast and the south (southern Ohio borders on West Virginia and Kentucky), Some areas of Northeastern Ohio include a large segment of relatively conservative protestants that settled after the Revolutionary War in the “Western Reserve”, which was Ohio. I am not as familiar with Michigan, NES.
Thanks for the explanation, Lillilam. Interesting demographics.
We have what is probably Mitt Romney’s best ad so far… “Apology Tour”:
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com/2012/10/best-romney-ad-yet-apology-tour.html
Love that ad.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-benghazi-emails-idUSBRE89N02C20121024
It seems they all knew what was going on in Benghazi in real time, and did nothing. The State Dept watched 4 people be murdered, as if they were observing Christians from the good seats in the Coliseum.
er…being murdered…