~thoughts on the recent event that was billed as a Presidential debate
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OK. So, that happened…
I’m not happy with the outcome, but neither am I willing to stipulate that Mr Romney can rightfully claim any true victory. Here’s why:
To state that one candidate won and the other lost would be to imply that the “debate” actually had rules and that there were judges keeping score and allotting points. If we use this as our gauge, then it is clear that the staged appearance did not, in any way, resemble an actual debate. It was a performance piece, pure and simple. Based on that criteria I would have to say that Mr. Romney put on a better performance than did the President.
This semblance of a debate gives both sides a lot of latitude to declare some form of victory. Here’s the thing: All Romney had to do was look like someone that could play the President on TV and his people could claim “victory.” President Obama needed to not only maintain the image and stature of being the President but in addition, also show us that he could stand up to bullies and liars and not allow his opponent’s fallacious nonsense to go unchallenged.
Personally I was, and still am, angry with President Obama for allowing the rampant dissembling and prevarication of Mr Romney to go unanswered. And don’t even get me started on the “moderator” that was charged with dictating the tone and tenor of the tableau. I left a post on a politically oriented web site saying that “someone needed to have Jim Lehrer’s nurse give him his pudding and wheel him back to his room in time to watch reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond…”
OK. I’m not proud of that, but he was just pathetic and useless.
Facts? Truth? Arithmetic? Those things would have had meaning and utility in an actual debate. What I needed and I believe what the nation needed, was to see and hear the President calling Mitt Romney on any of his bullshit. Sadly, that didn’t happen. So, hopefully the President will stage a better performance on the next one.
I think, collectively, the feeling on the left is that, had he nailed this, he would have put that poser in his place and he could have then strolled casually back to the WH with a slam dunk victory waiting for him in November. Now, the feeling is that this is going to be a serious battle with a reinvigorated and reinvested right wing.
Many of the President’s supporters decry the right wing’s claims of victory as false because their candidate’s statements were completely divorced from the truth. Even a casual examination of the facts reveal the obvious truth; that Mr Romney’s contentions just don’t add up. They cite the obvious and inevitable conclusion that it is in fact, impossible to cut taxes by 20% across the board and leave entitlements untouched…That his statements regarding a two state solution in Israel are diametrically opposite of the position that he took earlier this year and…and… Yes, yes. I know… But the hard truth is that in the minds of much of the electorate those things don’t matter.
You see, what people on the left and the middle fail to comprehend is that Mr Romney’s base doesn’t care if he is being truthful or even consistent when he spouts one nonsensical position after another. Whether or not Mr Romney’s rhetoric and policy proposals have any basis in reality or fact is utterly and completely irrelevant to them. The right does not even want someone that can think and chew gum at the same time and they have said as much.
They want someone with a pulse and one functional hand to sign legislation that is representative of the interests of his billionaire donors and the radical fundamentalists, once they have written it and have forced it through congress. They want nothing more. Mr Romney fills that bill quite nicely.
I find myself feeling at somewhat of a loss; I have made contributions and signed petitions. I have talked to people and I have sent emails. I am nevertheless still plagued by a single, overarching fear that all of the thinking people (even the wrong headed thinking people) have already made up their minds and this election (as in 2010) will be left to the so-called “low information voter,” otherwise known as the zombie cast of The Walking Dead, to decide.
OK… shake it off. Take some aspirin and some vitamin C. Splash some cold water on your face and pop some corn. Let’s get ready for Thursday’s “set piece” between Vice President Biden and Eddie Munster… Er, I mean Paul Ryan.
Forward!