Oct 042012
 

4Debate

Photo credit: Washington Post

I sat down to watch last nights Presidential debates expecting Barack Obama to clean the floor with Willard Romney.  I was shocked!  If you missed the debate, I’m including the complete video for you to see for yourself.  The worst performance of the evening was by Jim Lehrer.  He allowed Romney to dominate him, rudely and petulantly, throughout the night.   He gave Romney the last word in every segment, and failed to insist that Romney answer the questions asked.  Barack Obama was lethargic.  His normal animation was AWOL.  He appeared detached and disinterested.  He allowed himself to be attacked in the most despicable fashion and did not fight back.  From a perspective of style, Romney was the clear winner.  He appeared poised and confident.  He attacked Obama without rancor.  However, there was one problem that will come back to haunt him.  The policies and positions of the Romney at the debate had absolutely nothing in common with the policies and positions of the Romney that has been campaigning for months.

First, here is the debate video:

Next the meat of the debate can be found by comparing the lies told by the two candidates.

Romney’s Lies:

He [Romney] will not cut taxes for the rich.

Obama increased taxes and spending.

He will reduce the tax burden paid by the middle class.

He is not proposing a $5 trillion tax cut.

He will not reduce the taxes of high income families.

He will not raised taxes on middle income families.

Obama will raise business taxes from 35% to 40%.

His tax cuts will increase revenue.

His tax cuts will create jobs.

Obama gave $90 billion to green energy companies, and half of them went out of business.

There are no tax breaks to help companies move plants overseas.

Obama cut $716 billion from Medicare.

He will put that $716 billion back into the program.

Obama designated five banks as too big to fail.

Obamacare will cost families $2500 per year more.

Obamacare is killing jobs.

Obama pushed Obamacare through and was not bipartisan, because he did not negotiate for Republican support.

According to CBO, Obamacare will make 20 million lose coverage.

In Obamacare, an unelected board decides what kind of health care you can have.

He does not plan to cut education funding.

Obama will make 4 million people lose Medicare Advantage.

Is that a lot of lies or what?  I’m sure I missed a few.  He was lying faster than I can write.

Obama’s Lies:

Twenty years ago, Wednesday, Michelle Obama agreed to marry him.  (She did not.  Michelle Robinson agreed to marry him.)

I did check the fact checking sights and found that their claims about Obama were splitting hairs over irrelevant items.  They did not rise to the level of Romney’s whoppers.

There was virtually no mention of the 47%, the Republican War on Women, disenfranchising legitimate voters, papers please, Bain or labor, to my great dismay.

As uninspiring as Obama’s performance was, he did nothing that will put himself in jeopardy over the long term.  However, you can be sure there will be dozens of direct comparisons between what Romney said last night and what he has been saying all along.  The only people who will be convinced by his performance are those who knew absolutely nothing about the campaign to date.  Therefore, I doubt that the debate will significantly improve Romney’s chances.

There is one real plus here.  Romney’s big donors appeared about to abandon his campaign and funnel the money down-ticket.  Romney performed well enough to delay that, improving our chances in Congress and the states.

Nevertheless, Obama will need to improve his performance in  the next two debates.

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  26 Responses to “Romney and Romney: Nothing in Common”

  1. I am of the belief that Pres. Obama was suffering from altitude illness. He flew into Denver, the mile-high city, yesterday afternoon. A few hours later he was on a stage to debate the Mittster. Stressfull,  to say the least! One of the symptoms is lethargy. He seemed to display that to me along with a few other symptoms. His campaign manager made a major gaffe by not thinking of this possibility.
     
    One other scenario may be that he laid back on pupose. He definitely appeared presidential. Whereas Rmoney appeared as the bully he is. He seemed to want to fire everyone on PBS last night, even though he likes them. Did he have a pair of shears hidden on the podium?
     
    Could POTUS have been lying back waiting to see Rmoney's weaknesses? Like in a poker game, letting the opponents win a few hands while  searching their faces for the tells? In a pool match, letting the opponent win the first game? A boxing match, losing the first few rounds to give false confidence before laying on the one-two punch?
     
    I choose to believe this. After all, Mondale won his first debate and look how that turned out. Al Sharpton was the strongest in his debates and he lost too.

    • Some  interesting insights :  I had not thought about the President being ill– but that does fit-
      My thought was of a Chess game– in which President Obama set Romney up to shut off all his weapons– while Obama just licked his chops– now that is a lot of mixed metaphors here–Just to say– in Chess the President is winning–

    • I haven't watched the debate yet — I've only seen short snippets — but one thing that I have been thinking about is Romney's ONLY job right now is campaigning.  He is trying to get elected — with travel, speeches, fund raising, practice for the debate, the debate — it is a big job to be sure, and no doubt exhausting.  Now look at Mr Obama.  He has all that, PLUS he has a country to run!  And the country has to come first — if there is a 3 am call, debate pending or no debate, he has to be there.  He has good support but the "buck stops at his desk", nobody else's.  Could that account for some of his lethargy?  Just a thought. 

    • Having lived in Denver, I doubt it was the altitude.  I think Obama prepared for a different Willard.

  2. I agree that President Obama was more factual and articulate, therefore the winner…

    President Obama is still on the job with conflicts in the middle-east and perhaps a bit less rested than the full time extortionist and thief…

    • I forgot to mention that the President still has the JOB of running this country while Rmoney has NO JOB and is free to prep for a debate at his leisure. Even so, he seemed more nervous. He kept blinking his eyes and flapping his arms. Maybe he thought he was flying his plane with the windows open. Mant tweeters thought he was getting ready for take-off.

      • I agree that Obama was far more factuallyaccurate.  Unfortunately, the US public tends to be so factually challenged that accuracy has little to do with the public perception of who won.

  3. I watched the debate and of course was disappointed.  However, I will say this, President Obama was running the country, campaigning/speaking/flying all over/ and in the time he could spare, buffing for this debate.  All Romney had to do was butter up the same old lies he had been telling us for months.  President Obama acted like the gentleman he is.  Romney was a bully, speaking out of turn,  and standing there with that smirk on his face. Looking like an opossum, forgive me all opossums as I love you. I thought the moderator was MIA and he gave advantage to Romney as he let him rule the roost.
    Anyway, I know the other debates will be on the mark, as our President Obama is a smart man. (never thought about altitude sickness, but that might be as he did act lethargic and so tired). I know people on this site do the fact check so they do know who told the truth.,  The truth will prevail.  We have to make certain of that.  Just think for a minute what a world would be with Romney as President, then get out there and work to give Obama four more years. 

  4. I love your list of lies Tom
     
    I think the list of lies Obama could have called him on we would still be having a debate.  My frist thought was "What are you up to Obama?  Because he did seem to be sitting (standing) there letting Romney say anything.  Just like a parent listening to a child getting deeper and deeper in trouble.  Romney was and looked like he was on top of the world getting away with his lies.  lol it almost just to funny.  Obama doesnot do anything without a plan and he was just doing ehat he needed to do.  I think Obama was the real winner not Romney.  Romney won the night because he was the most comical and told so many lies and he was fun to watch and it did make him the loser

  5. Romney won on Style & Delivery
    Obama won on Facts & Content
     
    These days, I'm just not sure what is more important to Americans.

  6. Wow, really- altitue sickness?   hahahahaha…  Sadly, Obama has NOT been running the country.  He's been busy kissing the asses of middle eastern leaders and apologizing for America.  I strongly suggest YOU all check your facts!  The reason Obama didn't bring up the 47% video is because he KNOWS what the content was intended to mean before the mainstream media interjected their own spin on it.  He also knows that many videos – dating back to 2002 have been released proving that HE LIED about his affiliation with Jeremiah Wright and  Bill Ayers,  I found one comment interesting that he made last night… he said the most important role of government was to protect the security of Americans!   Then WHY did the White House refuse to provide extra security on 9/11, even though the Libyan Embassy asked for it on multiple occasions due to an increase in threats to Americans there?  The White House was even trying to cut security funding to foreign embassy security in the middle east.  They had weeks to prevent this from happening.  And how did he respond?  He claimed it was all an uprising caused by some lame YouTube video and NOT a terroristic attack!  They avoided commenting on it for 5 days until they finally had to ADMIT that it WAS a terroristic attack on our embassy… which, by the way, is a declaration of war.  Too bad Barry gave all those millions to the Muslim Brotherhood… especially now that they have turned again Americans there!  The great Unifier, huh?  This man has been the most divisive president in history and has done more to promote class warfare than anything else!  Cut the deficiet in half, huh?  He's doubled it!.  Why don't you fact-check what the deficeit was when the Dems took over the House and Senate?  As Mike Huckabee stated…"Facts tend to get muddled during a campaign season", but the fact is those  numbers are real and can't be 'fudged'.  Here is the fact. "At the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in 2005, the deficit was $318 billion – about a quarter of what it is now. It fell every year until 2007, when it was back down to $161 billion. Then the voters, who’d been fed a steady anti-Bush media diet, decided to give Democrats another turn at bat and handed Congress and its budget-making power over to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The very next year, the deficit jumped back up to $459 billion. The year after that, Obama became President, and the deficit hit an all-time high of $1.4 trillion. True, Biden can argue that was partly Bush’s fault: he did start the TARP bailouts. But that was a one-time expenditure that’s since been paid back with interest. If there’s a good explanation for why it’s still Bush’s fault that the deficit has remained over $1.2 trillion throughout every year of Obama’s term, well… apparently, that excuse hasn’t dropped into anyone’s lap yet.

    • S Allen, you asked:   "Then WHY did the White House refuse to provide extra security on 9/11, even though the Libyan Embassy asked for it on multiple occasions due to an increase in threats to Americans there?"
       
      We would NOT even be commemorating the tragic events of 9/11 and worrying about more attacks if GWB had listened to the warnings about Osama bin Laden and his threats to our country.

    • We interrupt your regularly scheduled Factually-Based Reality Programming to provide a message from S Allen – which has been approved by Faux News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Freeperville and TeaBaggers everywhere.

      Now back to Reality …

    • Welcome S.  🙂

      That's quite a list.  In the volunteer work I do with prisoners, we call your argument technique dump trucking.  Although it's a criminal thinking error, I am not implying that you are in any way criminal.  Most of us exhibit several of the criminal thinking errors.  Now the dump trucking error is piling on such a long list of unrelated charges that nobody will have time to deal with all of them.  Most of the points you have made are ones that I have already proven false here, and you are welcome to find all those articles.  Also, most of your charges have nothing to do with thread where you have dumped them.  Every day here, there is an Open Thread where folks may place comments an any topic they choose.  Please confine unrelated items to the Open Threads, and please have the courtesy to limit them to one or two at a time.  I do not have time for a data dump.  Finally, please read the rules page.  You will be treated with respect here, but if you fail to treat others here with respect, you will wear out your welcome. Thank you.

  7. TC, I am really curious as to why this S Allen is even reading your posts, he evidently is not on the same page as the rest of us.  I was frankly disappointed in Pres. Obama's performance last night.  He let Romney run with it.  I hope the rest of you are right, that this was part of a plan to let Romney hang himself.

    • Don't worry Edith.  S Allen has come to Debunktion Junction and I'm sure, that TC, or even Nameless, will debunk his misconceptions.

    • Edie, you might want to check the rules page.  All points of view are welcome here, as long as they treat others with respect and argue facts and issues without personal attack.  We have so few right wingers, because they have resorted to personal attack when their pseudo-facts were debunked, and after a warning that they did not heed, been banned.

  8.  Ok, I just finished listening to the debate, and my, oh my, now I know why Pinocchio was sobbing so hard when he lost the "Contest for World's Greatest Liar."  Romney won the "World's Greatest Liar Contest".
     
    Overall perception — Romney was definitely more animated for whatever reason.  But several things bothered me.  Romney seemed to ignore the rules, talk over and ignore the moderator, and he was a bully.  Lehrer should have used duct tape on him.  And probably the biggest thing was that almost everything he said last night was in direct contradiction to what he has been saying for the past year plus — Mr Flip-Flop!  Romney seemed to be talking to Mr Obama — I didn't get the feeling he was talking to the people.
     
    I was a bit disappointed that Mr Obama was not more forceful but that could have been part of the strategy — give Rmoney enough rope and he is likely to hang himself.  Mr Obama looked not only at Mr Romney, be he looked right into the camera a number of times and spoke directly to the people.  I could feel it.
     
    Content — From a details point, Mr Obama was all over Romney but Romney was not very specific.  As I listened, I picked out a lot of lies from Romney and was amazed at just how boldly he could lie to the American people.  Almost all of his presentation was in direct contradiction to what he has been saying.  I was amused by one comment in particular — Rmoney said he doesn't have a tax cut for the wealthy and that he wants to prevent the middle class from being crushed (his word).  As he said it my first thought was his comment about the 47% — I don't care about them.  I would have liked to see that issue brought up as well as Congressional obstruction.  Having said that, I can see that bringing up the obstruction might be perceived as whining and would be a definite "looking backwards" type of comment whereas Mr Obama said in the beginning he wanted to "look forward".
     
    One comment by Rmoney that perked up my ears was the following: “[G]et us energy independent, North American energy independent. That creates about 4 million jobs”.
     
    As a Canadian, this concerns me because he appears to have a plan to involve Canada in his machinations.  Is this part of his Manifest Destiny crawling out from under his hat?  Unfortunately we have the Rt Dishonourable PM Twit (Harper) who worshiped at the altar of Baby Bush and now the Republican/Teabaggers most likely.  Harper and his harlots are already changing things unfortunately and we are starting to see some of the worst policies of the Republican/Teabaggers drifting north like air pollution!  And 4 million jobs?  He better break that down into direct jobs and downline jobs because direct jobs just from the Keystone XL is  about 60 US jobs and 600 Canadian jobs, not 4 million.  And I thought that McConnell, or was it Boehner, was looney when he said 200,000 jobs from the pipeline .
     
    I think the next 2 presidential debates will show a different side of Mr Obama.  I think that the boxing gloves may come off.

    • He is now the Lord of Lies.

      His behavior was indeed boorish.

      I think he was caught off guard.  See my reply to Patty.

      Agree.

      Drill Baby Deja vu.

      Increase the Tar Sands. 🙁

      May that be so!

  9. Even if the president had some prevent defense, wanted to appear non confrontational, or what ever; you would think he would have changed that strategy in mid debate as Romney's lies got deeper. I cannot explain his performance.
    With the unemployment figure today (7.8%) and Romney's lies, he will still win, unless his next two debates go like the last debate, which I doubt.

    • I agree Steve.  I've notice something.  Whenever my Broncos play a prevent defense they get their ass kicked!

    • That unemployment figure is a great figure given what's happening.  That should be a help to Mr Obama's campaign!

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