Last night was the final episode of the reality series “Big Bird, Binders, and Bayonets.” I came away thinking that the President was much more knowledgeable and coherent, but that it wasn’t as decisive as I would have liked. But the fallout says otherwise. The Right is visibly dispirited. The best Brett Stephens of the Wall Street Journal could say is that Mittens would make a “perfectly plausible” President. Basically, he didn’t have a psychotic break and accuse Grandpa Bob of putting ants in the porridge, so he’ll do.
The less stable elements of the Right are not so cautious. Glenn Beck tweeted, “I am glad to know that mitt agrees with Obama so much. No, really. Why vote?” Other tweets show righties going through the five stages of grief.
It was early in the proceedings here on Monday night when I was struck with a horrible vision. It may have been right about that moment in the final presidential debate when Willard Romney — who, for most of the past two years, has been the most bellicose Mormon since they disbanded the Nauvoo Legion — looked deeply into the camera’s eye and, inches from actual sincerity, said, “We can’t kill our way out of this mess.” Or, perhaps, it was when, in a discussion of his newfound dedication to comprehensive solutions to complex problems, he announced his devotion to “a peaceful planet,” or when he cited a group of Arab scholars in support of loosening the grip of theocratic tyranny in the Middle East.
It was the horrible vision of John Bolton in four-point restraints.
Today, the President said Romney suffers from “stage three Romnesia.” See also the “Abbreviated Pundit Roundup” at Daily Kos.
The “horses and bayonets” line is the most talked-about part of the debate. This morning Paul Ryan said he didn’t understand the “bayonets” reference. He was not wearing a T-shirt that said “Because I am a moron,” but he might as well have, because most of the rest of the nation seems to have got it.
[Update: Ryan’s comment was even dumber than I had realized. Ryan said that “to compare modern American battleships and Navy with bayonets, I just don’t understand that comparison.” He thinks we still use battleships?]
(BTW, my dad really was in the horse cavalry, at Fort Riley, nearly 75 years ago. After Pearl Harbor the horses were put out to pasture and the cavalrymen reassigned. My dad ended up being an airplane mechanic. Notice that since then all the battleships have been put out to pasture, too, so to speak. I’m surprised Mittens doesn’t want to bring them back.)
Let us now look at the horse race overall. I keep running into news stories that say Romney is still surging, but Sam Wang and Nate Silver have both been saying the surge stalled and began to recede about a week ago. This morning’s tracking polls have Obama in the lead with the exception of Gallup, which has been an outlier lately. But there is no better indicator that Mitt’s recent surge has stopped than the fact righties are starting to fall back on poll denial again (or, at least, Nate Silver denial).
According to Romney Iran’s path to the ‘sea’ is through Syria? Did the Persian Gulf recently dry up? Must have missed it.
And when Palin declared herself a Russian scholar because she could Russia from her front porch?
And when M. Bachman told us that Paul Revere’s ride was to warn the British that the Americans were heavily armed so they had better not attack us?
And when a Congresswoman told those in the chamber that day that the earth was 6,000 years old and NOBODY FLINCHED?
If the people in or vying for high public office are this stupid, uninformed and/or misinformed, what does it say about the people electing them to office. It says that the American electorate just may vote Romney into office and that should scare the living shit out of all of us.
Mitt was schvitzing like a nervous, poorly read, 9 year-old with ADD at a spelling bee.
Obama totally destroyed him.
He mocked Mitt, with those lines about the horses, bayonets, and aircraft carriers.
And he had a great line about the 1980’s wanting their foreign policy back. And then, he topped it with, “But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.”
That totalled Mitt like an Edsel in a head-on with a semi.
And to the chagrin of Conservatives, “Multiple Choice Mitt,” became “Me Too Mitt.” Never mind about the daylight between the US and Israel, Mitt had virtually no daylight between himself and the President on foreign policy.
And he ducked the Libya question like that 9 year-old playing dodgeball.
I’m hard-pressed to think of a debate so dominated by one candidate. Even W did a better job against Gore and Kerry.
And yet, the MSM feels the need to keep the horse race going.
And Republicans are left spinning like nuclear cyclotrons, with Obama clearly winning two of the three debates, claiming that “Romney won the series.”
Really?
Losing 2 out of 3 debates means you win the series?
Tell that to the Kansas City Royals who lost three 3-game series to the Yankees back in the late 70’s, 2 games to 1. I’m sure they’d have loved to have played in the World Series instead of the Yankees.
Spin, motherfeckers, spin.
Maybe Tagg Romney’s Electronic Voting Machines in Ohio can still spin the election for you.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/13221476-romney-family-buys-voting-machines-through-bain-capital-investment
Oh, and Tagg, if you wanted to take a swing at President Obama after the 2nd debate, what do you want to do to him now that he bitch-slapped your flop-sweaty Pappy on national TV?
Well, at least Glenn Beck may not vote. That’s a victory, right there.
Am I the only one who suspects Paul Ryan got beat up a lot in school?
“Big Bird, Binders and Bayonets.” Can’t wait for the Off-Broadway musical revue starring Neil Patrick Harris!
The wingnuts are crying because they were hoping for General Buck Turgidson instead of Mr Plausible.
Is it true, then? During the debate Mitt really was
leaking hydraulic fluid from his anterior servossweating?Somebody’s going into the shop today for some repair work!
That women in the second debate who asked the question…What’s makes you different from George Bush?..really landed a good shot. Probably the most effective question to separate Mitt from his persona..Holding George Bush up as a standard from which to measure illustrates how vacuous Romney is.” What he said!”
Maybe Jesus will be a little disappointed with me, but I enjoy a good gloat..I enjoyed watching the body language..Obama was pugilistic and focused in how he held his head. The vertical axis of Obama’s head was leaning forward about 75 degrees in relation to a horizontal shoulder line while Romney’s vertical axis was near perpendicular if not a degree or two toward the rear..Like Michael Palin holds his head when he portrays some of his characters with a sense of bewilderment.
No doubt about it..Mitt got thrashed. His chrisma weren’t working too well.We saw the Mitt Ann’s been hoping we’d see..Mr. Jocular…
Like Michael Palin holds his head when he portrays some of his characters
I’m probably misremembering this, but I can visualize Mitt shamefacedly telling Bob Schieffer, “Sorry, Squire. I gobbed on yer carpet.” And then he admits that he raises polecats, and the election’s over.
OK, maybe that was something I dreamt the other night.
“According to Romney Iran’s path to the ‘sea’ is through Syria? Did the Persian Gulf recently dry up?” I was flabbergasted by that remark as as well. Maybe he’s been opening the windows in his aircraft a few times too often and the thin air is taking a toll.
Still, I hope, come election day, we have the EV’s not to be dependent on Ohio. I am hoping we have a good “cushion”, to avoid any SCOTUS intervention– maybe Florida or NC shifting to “Forward”.
The surest sign of who one is the silence today on Facebook from my several righty Friends. There have been a few attempts to push back against the bayonets zinger, but very feeble ones.
As for battleships, it might be good policy to refit them and use them. Nothing short of a nuke can sink them, and their ability to project lethal force is impressive. The problem is that they are so old—over 70 years. But I would like to see a cost analysis of keeping a battleship-centered force at sea vs. a carrier task force.
What’s makes you different from George Bush?..really landed a good shot~To whom was this question addressed. Beyond words to the masses, I am seeing 3 peas in a pod. Monopolistic destroyers of small business. Obama only makes “green” excuses why many must go, and few trump. How is the EPA lawsuit going? Feeding people fumes from a diesel truck? Green?
Now Syria follows suit flying Al Qaeda flags, nice. They should just put the black flag on one side and stars and stripes on the other for “our” next victims.
Anyone ever bother to take a retrospect view of Osama B L death? All military/gov sources seem devoid 100% of any video, DNA, personal effects or any proof whatsoever of encounter, muchless the killing of. Where ever they receive scripts from, it is not of this world.
I have a theory about that Ryan comment. Maybe he didn’t realize, when he was introduced at the USS Wisconsin, that it was a museum, not a docked active warship.
Republicans do tend to confuse appearance with substance, after all.
AHS – nice gibberish.
Anyone ever bother to take a retrospect view of Osama B L death certificate?
Oh, no.. Dont tell me they forged that also.
Maha, my father was an aircraft mechanic too. Back in those days, they might have still been called “engineers”. When the war broke out he got bumped up to supply officer. Basically he ran the aircraft motor pool at Ladd Field in Fairbanks. That was pretty fortunate duty to draw.
goatherd — My dad was in the Pacific northwest for a while during the war, but I don’t recall him saying he made it to Fairbanks. Most of the war he was in Georgia, I believe.
“I have a theory about that Ryan comment. Maybe he didn’t realize, when he was introduced at the USS Wisconsin, that it was a museum, not a docked active warship.”
Did he pretend to scrub the deck?
Just a reminder: Reagan actually did pull the battleships out of mothballs back in the 1980s, used them to shell Lebanon IIRC, and then promptly put them back into mothballs – all at great expense.
Theo — Yes, and also recall that the Missouri and Wisconsin were re-commissioned and used in the Gulf War. The Missouri actually fired her big guns, which the history nerd in me thought was kind of awesome, I admit. Whether it made any military difference I do not know.
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