Tell me that this moment, where Mitt was so sure that he caught Obama in a lie about what he said the day after the Benghazi attack, wouldn’t have happened if Fox News weren’t the unofficial manager of the Romney campaign. As Joe Patrice points out in his excellent after-debate piece, Romney was already on the wrong track with this attack, since his belief that there’s another Watergate-style cover up had him focusing on the small potatoes issue of when Obama used the word “terror” rather than the more damaging issue of the lapse in security. That strategy may or may not be Fox’s fault, but Romney’s belief that Obama was lying must be completely based on what he or his advisors saw on Fox. No other media outlet was pushing that lie, and Romney bought it hook, line and sinker.
Replaying the video, I still wonder if part of the reason the audience is clapping after they laugh is because a journalist finally called out a politician on a fact in real time. A lot of my non-political friends think debates are a chance for politicians to sling lies. Catching one of them in real time is something they crave, and Crowley delivered.
Finally, it should be no surprise that the Fox idiots are doubling down on a Jesuitical parsing of what Obama said. Here’s the quote:
No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.
Anyone with reading comprehension can see that Obama was putting Chris Stevens’ death in the same category as 9/11. Anyone, that is, but the Fox News “reporters” who led Mitt Romney down the garden path to the spanking he got on what should have been the worst question for Obama last night.
Mark B.
I like the comment I read somewhere today that said that catching Romney in a lie is like finding a grain of sand on the beach. Unremarkable, but the remarkable thing was that Romney got called on it this time.
General Stuck
Got up and checked the natterings of the msm and others in the pundit dungeon, and reading the tripe, it dawned on me that an awful lot of people want Romney to win. Not just the wingnut faithful, but most of teh establishment. Luckily, most folks put more faith in their garbage men, than those clowns these days.
amk
‘transcript truthers’ now ? lmao.
The fucking peak wingnut is a fucking mirage.
mai naem
I didn’t think Rmoney was going to screw up last night. Part of my theory was that it wasn’t only that Obama had to be good but that Rmoney had to screw up. He also kind of lost the forest from the trees when he went on and on about the “act of terror.” Who cares if Obama or anybody called it an act of terror? I would bet money that non-Faux virwers didn’t get the “Act of Terror’ significance. And then, I wish I could use the Rosie Perez accent here – “Please proceed, Governor…” Rmoney was done. He should have just packed up and gone home at that point.
Brian R.
I swear I could see Romney’s soul leaving his body after that exchange. Just brutal.
Mark B.
“Please proceed, Governor,” and then Romney stepped into the pit.
Chris T.
Off-topic-ish: the poll at http://finance.yahoo.com needs more “Obama won the debate” votes.
Face
Unless/until this translates to polls more favorable to Obummer, I’m going to file this in the “so what” category.
MSNBC, teh liberal news outlet, is already calling the debate a tie. So how much mo-mo can O show from this down-low?
rikyrah
The President bitchslapped his ass but good during that exchange
sb
@Face: What the…?
Robin G.
I wonder if any reporters noticed that one brief, simple act of journalism caused a crowd of undecideds (by definition the wishy-washiest people on earth) to start spontaneously cheering. Maybe a few other reporters might want a little of that adulation for themselves?
some guy
The fact that JenRubin_Shill is pissed off that Candy called Mitt a liar on national TV is all you need to know about this line of attack. Binders full of women is one meme, but Mitt flubbing his Benghazi attack is another one forming
sb
@General Stuck: My impression as well. Read a few natterings myself and frankly, it’s hard to think otherwise.
Davis X. Machina
I understand the use of ‘Jesuitical’ in this context, but there’s not much doubt where the Order stands these days.
Linda Featheringill
My daughter says that Clinton made the public “I am responsible” statements in order to set up the conversation so Obama could say “I’m the CinC and I’m responsible.”
If this is true, that’s an excellent piece of teamwork.
Emma
@sb: shush. Do not feed the trolls. They are out in force this morning, sounding like gibbering monkeys are they try to to earn their peanuts.
anibundel
@some guy:
DID SOMEONE SAY BINDERS FULL OF WOMEN?!?
beltane
This is the problem with living in a bubble. Yes, it might be soothing to be surrounded by voices who tell you everything you want to hear and nothing else, but the minute you step out of that bubble you are vulnerable to attack. Fox News is nothing but a giant sand pile where conservatives go to stick their heads and escape from reality.
PurpleGirl
Any talk about consulate/embassy security should include mention of the cuts to funding by Congress. The Republicans have been reducing and reducing the funding for several years. It was bound to have grave repercussions for State Department employees at some point.
Anya
@Face: I watched MSNBC after the debate and all of them called it an Obama win. Each and everyone, including, Steve Schmidt and Villagers, John Heilmann and Howard Fineman.
kd bart
One other moment from the debate that didn’t get commented on enough that I’m sure will irritate quite a few people. It’s when Mitt sputtered out the following:
You’ll get your chance in a moment. I’m still speaking.”
The Real Mitt was revealed there. The Mitt who see each and everyone, including the President, as no more than just The Help. You were almost expecting him to throw in a “boy” at the end of that sentence.
quannlace
Between the insane build-up, the bad polls and an inability to take more of Romney’s snake-oil salesman, I didn’t watch the debate. Just couldn’t
Looks like I missed some good stuff. (Binders of women? Sounds like a bad porn movie.)
And sounds like the usual diversions from the RW set.
1st debate – Talk about how weary Obama was, not about what he said
2nd debate – Bitch about how many times Biden laughed, not about what was said.
3rd debate – Blame Cindy Crowley! Demand CNN fire her.
flukebucket
Neal Boortz is just raising hell out there about media bias and Candy Crowley walking back her statement that Obama called the attack an act of terrorism. What is hilarious about it is that instead of saying “Candy later admitted Romney was right” Boortz accidentally said, “Candy later admitted that Romeny was WHITE!” It was a golden moment for me because I loathe Boortz.
MattF
Once upon a time, Republicans were the experts in foreign policy– but that was then. In particular, Romney steps into something smelly every time he ventures into foreign policy, and voters need to make the connection between Romney’s belligerent, ignorant, dishonest statements and the likelihood that American soldiers will be sent into battle in a Romney administration. The Obama campaign should get its act together here and point this out.
dmsilev
So, have the media morons pivoted yet to “after the first two debates, it’s one-one, so the third debate *DECIDES ALL*!”? Because they will, and we’re going to spend the next 150 hours listening to that.
Enhanced Voting techniques
Yahoo declared Obama the debate winner. This feels like it’s going to stick and hurt Romney.
Svensker
@beltane:
They don’t know they’re in a bubble…which is the other problem with living in a bubble. That’s why they get all surprised when their big “gotcha” moments often fall flat.
Brian R.
If you’re feeling good, donate some cash to Obama or the DCCC.
This ain’t over, people.
Brian R.
@dmsilev:
Heard precisely that on Morning Joke today.
Davis X. Machina
@dmsilev: As long as the promos contain the phrase ‘nitro-burnin’ funny cars!’ ‘m cool with that.
Some Guy
That was a terrific moment and coupled with Obama’s somber smackdown about the offensiveness of politicizing Libya should put Romney on notice for next week. Obama isn’t going to have this issue FOX’d.
I cannot understand those calling it a narrow Obama win. He won it comfortably. Romney was smacked around a bunch of times: Libya, immigration, equal pay, healthcare, 47% and I am probably missing some.
What did Romney do that stuck? Crickets. I cannot recall a single attack from Romney that stuck. The only thing maybe is that Obama did not meet his election promises. Which is pretty weak tea. What president ever has?
General Stuck
I think it is telling for the state of our politics, the freakout from the right wing that someone, anyone, in the fallen 4th estate calls them on their lying. Lib bias blasphemy that Crowley dared point out a republican lie like Mitt’s on Libya, disturbing the nutter narrative that is both sacrosanct and complete bullshit.
PreservedKillick
@Linda Featheringill:
Yup. And Biden was so over the top with Ryan to give Obama air cover to go after Romney quite directly.
I mean, seriously, he basically called Romney a liar how many times in that debate?
catclub
@anibundel: I ain’t clickin on that link at work.
Some Guy
Oh, and Romney looked like a total dick several times. Testy, whiny, overly-aggressive. Obama did some of that too, and he really did not have to, but he did not come off as a jerk. Romney did.
If Biden was a turn off to women, supposedly, what about Willard? Please condescend to the moderator one more time, that will do you well with all those mythical Wal-Mart moms.
PreservedKillick
@dmsilev:
Oh yeah. Right. Because the American people are simply riveted by deep discussions of foreign policy.
They’ll head off to the mid-east and half of the tiny fraction of the public actually watching the debate will change the channel to QVC.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Especially after last night’s “binders full of women” lie, I have come to the conclusion that Romney has the worst character trait of all: He is brazenly willing to lie to himself. Not just the occasional “this piece of chocolate cake won’t hurt me” lie, but flat out willing to deny reality if he thinks it will get him somewhere. Of all of the human traits, this would by far be the worst one to have in a president.
catclub
@Enhanced Voting techniques: Is that the Yahoo that had a headline: “Obama wins debate, but the wrong one.”
PreservedKillick
@Some Guy:
The ones Romney accused of raising mentally deranged automatic weapon nuts?
Quarks
I can’t help but think that Fox and to a lesser degree CNN are battening down on this one because it takes away from the other things Romney said that will have a more direct impact on most voters than whatever did or did not happen in Libya:
1. Romney’s statement that eliminating taxes on investment income will help the middle class more than the mortgage deduction. For most people, the mortgage deduction is more than whatever taxes they might be paying on investment income, even assuming they have investments. The assumption that most people have large savings accounts and/or investments in something other than a 401k where taxes are deferred anyway was pretty breathtaking. That was also part of a discussion that made it sound, to me at least, that under a Romney presidency filing taxes is going to get even more complicated for most people.
2. The way Romney kept talking over or trying to talk over the moderator. He looked like a complete asshole.
3. The way that instead of answering a legitimate question about self-deportation, Romney instead said, let me tell you about my enormous blind trust, and the follow up joke that Romney’s pension is bigger than Obama’s.
4. Leaving aside the small problem that it was a lie, the fact that Romney admitted that after several years in business, running the Olympics, and running for governor in Massachusetts, he DIDN’T KNOW ANY QUALIFIED WOMEN and had to ask his staff for help. Geesh.
4. The attempt to blame gun control issues on single mothers.
Focusing on Libya helps deflect attention from those issues. That said, it also helps deflect attention away from Romney’s only good debate moment — when he listed the broken promises of the Obama administration and pointed out the economic difficulties the U.S. is still facing. That’s a much bigger concern for most voters than who said what when about Libya.
Napoleon
@flukebucket:
Link to Candy walking it back? She has not done so.
catclub
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): “this would by far be the worst one to have in a president.”
Is “I want to be president because God told me I should,”
the same trait? Cause if not, I suspect that one is still worse.
jibeaux
Live by the bubble, die by the bubble. It’s not sharp and pointy, but there’s no air in there.
patrick
part of the obtusification of the events may be trying not to blow the cover of a secret (hidden in plain sight) CIA base in Libya, that numbnuts congressional republicans may have outed…
washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-letting-us-in-on-a-secret/2012/10/10/ba3136ca-132b-11e2-ba8…
jibeaux
@PreservedKillick: Well, not if they marry somebody. That was my favorite part, just marry “somebody”, who cares who it is, it will stop gun violence, ok, trust me.
Some Guy
@PreservedKillick: Usually not, but I think with Afghanistan and Libya, people will be more tuned in. Americans really want the troops to come home and many people are disturbed by consulate attack.
But the draw down in Afghanistan is big. And Romney’s war-mongering will get people’s attention. If he let’s his neo-con warmonger self do the talking, I think a lot of viewers will clue in. There is no appetite to start another war and as Biden cornered Ryan, that is all they have other than do what Obama has done but with more dickitude and big foam No. 1 finger waving from the President.
RaflW
The “please proceed” from Obama was like a drink of cool, cool ice water on a hot, hot day.
Mittens immediately starts stammering because he knows he’s just shit himself but has no clue how.
One of those men has the steely nerves to risk a raid on Osama’s compound, and not even hit the panic button when one of the choppers crashes.
And it ain’t the prattling fool who suddenly loves Pell Grants and universal health coverage.
anibundel
@catclub:
Why? Do you fear laughing too loudly?
dmsilev
@Napoleon: Don’t have a link, but she kind of sort of walked it back on CNN last night, saying something along the lines of “well, Obama used the Magic Word once after the attack and then didn’t for a couple of weeks so Romney had a point as well”. Or something like that.
catclub
@Quarks: “in something other than a 401k where taxes are deferred anyway.”
In a Roth IRA, where all the money that went in has already been taxed, all money coming out is free of taxes.
BUT, (I think), in a regular IRA where the money went in tax free, any investment gains that come out, comes out as REGULAR INCOME, not Capital Gains, which has more favorable tax rates at the moment. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Napoleon
@dmsilev:
I have since seen elsewhere what she said. Of course Mitts attack was on using the word terror, so I do not count what she said as a walk back because Mitt’s attack was in fact false.
RaflW
@Some Guy: Kevin Kling spoke at an event the other night (he’s an occasional NPR contributor – a poet/writer/storyteller).
His take on the Romney/Ryan foreign policy? “Their entire strategy is just ‘Don’t make me come in there!!'”
This got a huge laugh, delivered with all the stern authority of dad dealing with a boisterous teen.
ExurbanMom
Rachel Maddow and company called out the bubble last night, right away. Apparently, the “act of terror” issue was not just repeated on Faux News, but all over the blogosphere, in the larger right wing bubble.
So glad that came back to bite him in the ass. As Joe said last night, Romney’s ethos has been harmed here. And ethos is often the make-or-break with those (rightly villified) undecided voters. I know who looked more presidential, more truthful, more in command of the facts, and it wasn’t Rmoney.
Mark B.
Romney has been effectively scoring points with low-information voters for a while by exploiting the Benghazi tragedy. Now, with this major flub, he’s turned it into a net negative for him. His advisors are idiots, they’ve thrown away something which should have been great for his campaign and turned it into something that will turn off voters. All by telling a simple, straightforward, easy to check lie. Talking points are great, but they need to not be straight out lies. But maybe that’s the only kind of talking points that Romney has left.
rlrr
@MattF:
Once upon a time, Republicans were believed by some to be the experts in foreign policy
Fixed tour typo.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@RaflW:
“please proceed” – That’s a line a law professor tells a stubborn student to let him continue wondering off into the weeds, before cluing everyone else in to what an idiot he is.
flukebucket
@Napoleon:
I don’t have one but I have heard twice this morning on two different programs that she walked the comment back. Boortz said she walked it back on CNN very shortly after the debate.
MattF
@catclub: Right, except that you only pay income tax on the amount that you withdraw in any given year. So, it’s fair to say that the capital gains in a 401(k) aren’t taxed at all– and if you’ve been putting money into an account for a long time, those capital gains could be substantial.
PurpleGirl
@catclub: I’m at home so I’m able to click links. It’s a stupid photo of Bill Clinton bursting onto a stage with President Obama with the “Did someone say binders full of women” written on the photo. I guess we’re supposed to think that Clinton had such binders to find women to hit on.
Dork
I’ll believe it when I see O up more than 3 or 4 pts in friggin PA.
RaflW
@General Stuck:
Yep. For one thing, I think a lot of the Halperin-type idjits are bored with Obama. No drama = no ratings gold. When the worst “scandals” are a Solyndra loan guarantee failure and the Libyan embassy attack, the paid trolls of TeeVee got damn near nothing.
They crave a new narrative. They’re such shallow fools that they’d rather be entertained by WWIII exploding in the Mid-East and consuming us and the earth, than be bored by competent steering of our country away from Randian-Neocon end-times.
Its insane. Its sociopathic.
catclub
Obama should be sure to thank Fox for making incompetent, untested opponents, and for keeping him sharp, in his victory speech. (I am also hoping Roger Ailes will stroke out when he does.)
patrick
@MattF:
what she said was that mitt was wrong/O was right that the next day in the rose garden he did call it an act of terror, but that she also said Mitt was right in his claim that the administration also said it looked to be linked to a protest to the anti-islam tape for the next 2 weeks, but nobody heard that part of her clarification because of all the clapping/reaction….
dww44
@General Stuck: And is that not frightening? Are they actually wanting to empower the sort of craziness and extremism that is the GOP these days? What sort of personna has Romney evidenced that would allow them to think he’d be some sort of non waffler-in-chief? Or, is it simply that they want to empower the 1% of which most of them are a part? Really, how could anyone want to turn the country over to their brand of social and economical extremism?
It simply must be that their hatred of all things Democratic and of its non-Waspy leader overrides all other considerations, including the facts on the ground that this President has been both effective and good. Unfortunately they also sincerely believe that Obama is a weakling and not smart. I sometimes wish that he would release his school transcripts, side by side with Romney’s tax returns.
Cermet
Mitt was so hot for that dog (terrorist attacks) that he jumped the shark – as the saying goes: Live by the
Foxfake news, die by the fake news. Ass wipe put his foot into it (then his mouth)MattF
@RaflW: Also, decades of politically ‘balanced’ hiring by media companies are taking their toll– there’s lots of talking heads out there whose job credentials consist of nothing but their college duties as Young Republicans.
Napoleon
@flukebucket:
Read what she said. IMO it is not a true walk back since Mitt was focusing on the word terror.
Quarks
@catclub: Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t have a Roth IRA and I don’t know how those work.
What I do know is that my investment/savings accounts consist of a small IRA (really piddly small) and a 401c. I don’t _currently_ pay taxes on the income earned on either account, and won’t for several years until I am able to withdraw from both accounts without paying the early withdrawal penalty.
So eliminating taxes on investment income doesn’t do anything for me right now. Admittedly, I don’t have a mortgage either, but the chances that I may buy a home in the next ten years are greater than the chances that I’m going to put that same money into Coke stock.
Maude
@PurpleGirl:
59, That reeks of desperation.
Reading tweets, it became clear right away that there was a game of cat and mouse going on in the debate. Better to be a cat and Obama does that easily.
It’s like, I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.
PeakVT
I don’t quite understand why anyone would think the Bengazi incident is such a positive for the Republican nominee. If Obama is a bad president because a small attack in a foreign country with an unstable government was successful, then what does that say about a Republican president who allowed a huge attack at home? If Obama should be voted out for Bengazi, then Bush should have been … what? Shot at dawn on the south lawn of the White House on September 12? Do Republicans really want to go down that road?
Yes, I know – using logic, liberal facts, never underestimate, and all that.
Bill E Pilgrim
@RaflW:
And of course CNN, while focusing on that moment like everyone else, plays every second of it except that one, editing it out. You see the entire exchange, every line, except the two times he said that which they jump over.
qwerty42
In the on-bat circle: Romney is out of his depth with foreign policy. Larrison has been beating him on this issue for weeks. In fact, anyone who does not subscribe to the neocon view has been doing this. The real criticisms he might make are ones he cannot. So, expect more about Libya next week, oh yeah, plus the “apology tour”, “American exceptionalism, and “being resolute”. Maybe he will mention the Soviet Union as well.
RaflW
Semi-OT but this has to be bad news for Obama:
Housing Construction Up 15% in September
AP
U.S. builders started construction on single-family homes and apartments in September at the fastest rate since July 2008, a further indication that the housing recovery is strengthening.
Snarki, child of Loki
A LOT of people would love to see debating politicians strapped to chairs that deliver an electric shock every time they lie about something.
Romney, of course, would be a smoking pile of ashes by this point.
Villago Delenda Est
Rmoney is a fucktard. His campaign staff is made up of fucktards. ANYONE who believes ANYTHING that the vile swine of Faux Noise broadcasts is a credulous fucktard.
Villago Delenda Est
@qwerty42:
You forgot Czechoslovakia!
Cermet
@anibundel: That is really funny (and safe for work/family.)
Elizabelle
Outside FoxWorld: Bloomberg item that appeared in SC’s The State newspaper:
Read more here: thestate.com/2012/10/17/2483601/donations-from-military-personnel.html#.UH64-47FVaU#storylink=cpy
kd bart
From the man who is always wrong:
Dick Morris: “By scoring big on the economy, gas prices, and Libya, Romney continued his victorious string of debate wins. He looked more presidential than Obama did and showed himself to be an articulate, capable, attractive, compassionate leader with sound ideas… this debate goes to Romney. It seals his momentum and will lead to a big win.”
Yep!! Obama won big last night!!!
Villago Delenda Est
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Evacuate Soledad O’Brien, and then burn CNN HQ to the ground.
Ash Can
@anibundel: That’s frickin hilarious. The juxtaposition of facial expressions is priceless (not to mention perfect for that caption).
Bobby Thomson
@flukebucket:
Inaccurate. Crowley is not denying that. She’s focusing on the word salad she went on to say about riots, but she is not walking back that the president said what he said. Anyone who suggests otherwise is misinformed or just a fucking liar.
RaflW
@PurpleGirl:
As Biden showed us in last week’s spanking, any talk about consulate/embassy security should include mention of the cuts to funding by Paul Ryan’s GOP House
Congress.General Stuck
@dww44:
I think the biggest opponent Obama has in this election, is the fatigue of some of his voters, or potential voters, of having to think about the topic of race in this country. Most all of us white folk would rather have an all night dentist, than to seriously think about racial matters in this country and having a black president makes it impossible to ignore every single day.
Most of us work through that rationally in our heads, some will have trouble doing that and it could tinge their thinking of what a Romney presidency would mean. It the republicans had fielded a viable candidate, they would likely have won for sure. With the hollow character that is Mitt Romney, it’s going to be very close.
Schlemizel
In politics as with human nature your biggest strength can also be your biggest weakness.
FAUX News has done irreparable harm to this nation by feeding the ignorance and hate of a dedicated segment of society. But they have been so successful that they have cut themselves off from reality without recognizing it. They are just now starting to pay for this fantasy world they created. They will never be able to pay enough but this is a start.
Anybody remember the 60 Minutes interview with Eric Can’tor? When it was pointed out that Reagan raised taxes his CoS was screaming off camera “He never did!” and it was pointed out that in fact he had the only come back was “He never did!”. That is easily proven but in their world the fantasy overrules reality. For even the undecided it does not though & its that that will kill them.
Randy P
So I’m sitting here is a hotel lobby and somewhere behind me I hear “Romney comes out swinging” on a TV. I turn around and they play “have you looked at your pension?” Are you kidding? Romney’s arguably worst moment of the night is what they’re pushing?
No surprise that this is Faux.
Now they’re pushing the Benghazi exchange. And “countering” Obama on the Rose Garden statement. See he didn’t actually call it an act of terror, he just used the words “act of terror” in his statement that was about Benghazi. Clearly a lie.
Randy P
So I’m sitting here is a hotel lobby and somewhere behind me I hear “Romney comes out swinging” on a TV. I turn around and they play “have you looked at your pension?” Are you kidding? Romney’s arguably worst moment of the night is what they’re pushing?
No surprise that this is Faux.
Now they’re pushing the Benghazi exchange. And “countering” Obama on the Rose Garden statement. See he didn’t actually call it an act of terror, he just used the words “act of terror” in his statement that was about Benghazi. Clearly a lie.
Cassidy
@flukebucket: It’s Boortz. If he says the sky is blue, you might want to go check.
Enhanced Voting techniques
@catclub: ROFL, they do love their horse race.
Perhaps the press so wax nostalgic about President’s Mondale and Kerry?
More seriously, the theme about Romney is he is a lying dick and this drove this home. Last debate people could think maybe the stuff they heard was wrong and the polls the last two weeks are second thought. But last night they saw Romney lie and be proven he was a lying in real time.
Culture of Truth
It’s a stupid attack anyway. Obama waits for all the facts to come in before making a decision. What a terrible quality in a President.
Redshift
@Quarks:
Of course, most of those claims of “promises” were flat-out lies straight out of the wingnut bubble, but we all know the chances that anyone would have heard about that.
jwb
@Linda Featheringill: I’m sure that was set up. Anyone but the Romneybot could see it was set up. It’s most surprising that the Romneybot was not programmed to take on that line since it was so clearly telegraphed.
Bobby Thomson
@kd bart: Outstanding news! Reelection is a done deal now.
jwb
@Anya: I thought I saw on Twitter that Steve Schmidt called it for Romney right after saying that if Obama had performed like this in the first debate the race would be over. I never could square those two things, but since I could care fuck all what Steve Schmidt thinks I didn’t bother to look into it further.
qwerty42
@Villago Delenda Est:
True, and I will expect mention of “Munich” to go with it. Heck, maybe the Habsburgs.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
Well, you know, the facts have a well known liberal bias, so therefore Obama’s clearly a socia1ist.
QED.
RaflW
Some great insights this morning. 1) that Clinton taking responsibility gave Obama the CinC “buck stops with me” opening and 2) Biden’s over-the-top giving Obama room to nail Romney directly.
Gee, it’s like the Obama campaign has developed a strategy. Too bad it took the first debate to get them there, but – as has been Obama’s m.o. for a long time, he’s a strong closer.
Mitt is a used car salesman closer.
Ella in New Mexico
“Romney’s belief that Obama was lying must be completely based on what he or his advisors saw on Fox. No other media outlet was pushing that lie, and Romney bought it hook, line and sinker.”
It’s debatable that Romney believes this line at all. He was really speaking to the FOX viewer crowds (and their more gullible low-information cousins just tuning in) using the disinformation that THEY believe.
As to what the fuck Romney DOES believe, well, who knows and who cares. Remember, Romney HAS no deeply held political beliefs. They’re all up for sale this election. Just like before his Massachusetts election, The Mormon hierarchy has told him it’s ok to mislead voters in order to obtain the highest office in the land.
Seriously, Romney is a tool of so many people who expect him to just sign legislation they put in front of him that he makes GW look like Rambo.
Bill E Pilgrim
This is how the media narrative is generally going to play out:
[Romney] accused the President of failing to call the killings a terrorist attack for fourteen days, when Obama, in his appearance in the Rose Garden a day after the killings, had clearly said: “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”
Was this just a silly error on Romney’s part? Was he badly briefed? We may never know.
This is John Cassidy at the New Yorker who despite people thinking that it’s the heart of the librul media I find pretty representative of and susceptible to all the Village conservative talking points, as much as anyone else anyway.
Not being familiar with the FOX/talk radio “Benghazi-Gate” hysteria going 24/7, Cassidy is mystified why Romney would make the “error” of telling an obvious and easily-refutable lie, but of course “believing what’s so obviously bullshit” is just another way to say “listening to FOX News too much”.
jwb
@flukebucket: Moreover, that’s not what Crowley said. She said that Mitt was right about the focus on the tape for two weeks. But she never took back calling Mitt out about lying about Obama not calling it terrorism.
Villago Delenda Est
@qwerty42:
Obama’s policy on the Ottoman Empire sucks!
KXB
Up until Libya, I thought Romney was adjusting to a re-energized Obama as best he could. He was still trying to drown Obama, Crowley, and the crowd with wave after wave of subpar economic news, and trying to make the case that Obama’s management just was not up to the task. Obama, like a good defense attorney, picked out just enough weak points in each argument so that the whole thing would collapse. “Use it or lose it” regarding drilling leases on federal land was one of those moments.
Then came Libya. I was concerned – not that Obama screwed up his initial reaction to the attack – because in the fog of war, there are few ways of getting something right. But I cannot recall such a sticky foreign policy issue handled with such deftness in a very long time. To take the blame for any mistakes, while tearing into Romney for trying to score partisan points before the ambassador’s body is even buried, made for dramatic television.
On other notes, MJ Rosenberg noted on his Twitter page that of the four Jewish questioners, not one of them asked about Israel. They focused on issues here at home.
I grew up near Hempstead, and while I dump on Long Island a lot, I have to say that seeing ordinary people, not media personalities, asking very general questions, free from Beltway inside baseball talk, was refreshing.
Anya
@jwb: I actually heard him say that this was a big win for the President. He also said that debates are about moments and the President had those memorable moments.
Here’s a link: video.msnbc.msn.com/msnbc/49442373/#49442373
RaflW
I thought Mitt yelling “Government never creates jobs! Government never creates jobs!” was another Foxified meme moment that undecideds kinda scratch their heads about.
That Mitt felt he had to insert that GOP boilerplate – twice – when it wasn’t his time to speak smacked of desperation.
FlipYrWhig
@patrick:
Well, as Chris Matthews pointed out, the prevailing view at the moment is that there was both an anti-video protest and a terrorist attack that capitalized on the protest as a diversion. So Crowley was wrong to give Romney as much credit as she did. But it was sweet to see Romney’s arched-eyebrow face (“really, huh, really?”) just totally deflate.
Rathskeller
@Some Guy:
On reading the transcript, I was struck by how often Romney was making his case solely with numbers. There were many sentences in a row where he was tossing out 23 million, 7.8% unemployed etc., like these numbers were badges that would let him be president if he flashed them often enough. The economy sucks, relatively speaking, and those attacks should be good ones. But Romney cannot complete the argument by making him the answer to Obama’s alleged failure, either in sterile policy prescriptions that would appeal to some voters or in humane understanding of others, which would appeal to others. He spoke in some areas like he was reading off bulleted items on a Powerpoint slide.
I had been annoyed, listening to Fox over the past two weeks, how Benghazi had been made into the greatest foreign policy debacle in the millennium. But now I really appreciate the preparation that they gave their boy.
qwerty42
@Villago Delenda Est:
Romney can rectify that by invading Syria. We will be welcomed as liberators.
hueyplong
Sorry if a dozen people have already posted this, but when Obama said “please proceed,” it was difficult to resist a little anticipation that something good might be coming. For me it was similar to:
“Please, continue, you were saying something about best intentions. What’s the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort.”
I have spent a decade under the impression that there is little produced by national Republicans that C Crowley won’t swallow. Guess I owe her an apology of sorts.
jwb
@patrick: Well, yes, of course. It’s my firm belief that all the talk about the tape was also obfuscation to keep the terrorists in the dark about what we knew and whom we suspected. I see on Twitter that conservatives are freaking out that the administration plans to take out the terrorists responsible before the election. I doubt Obama would make a decision on this based on the politics, though I’m sure he’ll be happy to green light it if they are sure about the intelligence, so I think the conservatives are right to be worried on this one.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: Say what you want about National Socialism,….
kd bart
@RaflW:
“Government doesn’t create jobs”
Yet Mitt stated earlier that if he were elected he’d create 12 million jobs.
NASA, a government agency, created a whole industry.
Redshift
@KXB:
Taking responsibility also highlighted that Romney never does. And talking about that responsibility, how he cares deeply about all the people who work for us, was a contrast as well. Has Romney ever talked publicly about caring about anyone in a way that didn’t seem utterly calculated? Has he ever talked about anyone who worked for him?
hueyplong
It says something that conservatives are terrified that something untoward might happen to the Benghazi perps.
Not sure why they’re freaking out. We already know they’d just spin our retaliation as an attempt to “politicize” foreign policy by killing the killers of Americans.
You know, kind of like killing bin Laden, which is only a Good Thing untainted by politics if done while a GOPer is president.
jwb
@Napoleon: Raven, in the previous thread, provided a transcript of Crowley’s clarification. It’s not a walk balk, but an acknowledgement that the administration did spend two weeks talking about the tape. But she never walks back the basic claim that Obama had in fact called it an act of terrorism immediately afterward.
Villago Delenda Est
@Rathskeller:
OK, so I’m being a conspiracy nut here, but is it possible that Faux and Ailes, realizing that Rmoney is going to get creamed by Obama, knows that this is fail and is setting Rmoney up for the “Rmoney failed ‘Conservatism'” meme during the postmortem of 2012?
jwb
@PeakVT: Conservatives see the Libya incident as a way to Carterize Obama. It’s as dumb as that, trying to get the 1980 playbook to work.
Dork
@Villago Delenda Est: And when’s he going to insist that East Germany tears down that wall, like Raygun did?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@General Stuck:
Fact-checking and journalism disrupt the RW business model.
Few things scare them more than what Crowley did last night. If it becomes a habit in the profession, they’re in trouble.
sherparick
@Quarks: Most upper middle income and middle income people who have savings and investments have them in IRAs and 401Ks or 401K like plans where all the income, interest, dividend, and capital gains are tax defferred. We don’t pay any taxes on that stuff so he is really giving another (in his case small) gift to those who earn their incomes from dividends, interest, and capital gains by make the first $250,000 tax free. It is also revealing about how out of touch he is with most folks who don’t have $50,000 lying around to attend a private fundraiser.
“The Liberal Media” is of course a very old myth. There may may been a germ of truth in the 1950s through 70s, when most reporters were happy get a $75 dollar appearance fee to come on Lawrence Spivak’s “Meet the Press,” but we are now dealing with a group who live very much in their own bubble, who (for those working in D.C. and New York) mostly attended Ivy League schools, and many of whom or second and 3d generation denizens of the Village (Luke Russert, Chris Wallace, and many more). They are also relatively indifferent to losing audience among the proles, who have less and less discretionary income in any event. Most of the ads of the Cable Shows are directed and retirees with assets (and between ED drugs and reverse mortgages) mostly directed at separating those people from their assets. So of course the like the Mitttser. He is going to defenestrate Social Security and Medicare and cut their taxes in the bargain. Meanwhile they may have to pay tens of thousands more in taxes if Obama is relected and the New Deal will survive another election cycle.
jwb
@Elizabelle: Interesting. So we know who DoD believes is going to win…
Villago Delenda Est
@kd bart:
Then DoD created, with the help of Vint Cerf and others, another entire industry built on the industry that NASA created, which developed, once again, digital computing that was created by Department of War back in the 40’s to compute artillery firing tables.
raven
@jwb: Nobody pays attention to me!
Redshift
@RaflW:
There was also an earlier point when Romney strung together a bunch of wingnut talking points (“apology tour!”) as his time was running out, which must have come off as pretty bizarre to anyone outside the bubble.
Ah here it is. I’m imagining this word salad as a preview of the foreign-policy debate:
flukebucket
@jwb:
True but that is not keeping Boortz from flogging the hell out of the “walk back” this morning. I expect Limbaugh will do the same. I think I will get to hear him next. But it is nice to be able to hear the Boortz flop sweat coming in loud and clear over the airwaves.
jrg
I LOLed at that one. Romney is applying for a government job, for fuck’s sake.
The way he delivered that “Government doesn’t create jobs” bit reminded me a lot of Dubya. That self-satisfied smirk when delivering something he’s sure is right, but is so transparently wrong.
kindness
At one point after the debate last night I went over to Redstate to see what they were saying and they were doing high 5’s and a victory dance over ‘Obama’s lies about calling the Bengazi attacks terrorism’.
I knew Obama had done well after that because if those chuckleheads could figure nothing else to try to crow about to make them feel better then they were in deep deep shit.
I feel better about our prospects today.
patrick
@jwb:
no, I think that was his Republicany way of conceding the night to Obama, and that had Barack performed like this 2 weeks ago, the election would be over.
And I have to admit, for a republican, a lot of times in his analysis he seems relatively reasonable and logical from a right-wing POV, and not totally caught up in the wurlitzer….not like the smarmy douchepickle alex castelliano or whatever his name is on CNN…makes you wonder how much worse of a trainwreck McCain/Palin would have been without him…
Cacti
@Elizabelle:
That’s unpossible. Military personnel always love the Republican!
I’m not listening! La, la, la, la.
Culture of Truth
What’s behind door number three?
Rathskeller
@jwb: I agree with you, but my inner conspiracy nut makes me want to ask: who paid for those fucking videos? Romney’s smirk in that press conference made me think that he believed he had obtained his own October surprise.
To be clear: I think Al Qaeda had a planned 9/11 attack in the works, and this killed our ambassador. That’s unambiguous.
Nevertheless, at the same time, someone paid a Coptic Christian enough to fund a small movie production, then have it translated into Arabic, then also released on 9/11. This movie could probably be done for 1-2mm, which is basically a rounding error for Sheldon Adelsen.
Laura
Christ, what exactly is the issue here? There was chaos on the ground all over the middle east and it took a while for people to figure out exactly what happened, OH THE SHOCK AND HORROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dww44
@catclub: As one who retired from the operational side of a brokerage firm, I attest to the verity of your take that withdrawals of tax deferred income from an IRA (after 59 1/2) are taxed as ordinary income. Wonder who wrote all these rules? I was present at the creation of all forms of IRA’s and well remember how the big Wall Street guys lobbied for these rules. Any sane person who promotes the privatization and individual control of Social Security is simply criminally greedy or stupid. I saw what brokers and, in many cases, the account owners did with those retirement funds. Far more accounts went down than up and by large degrees.
Face
What polls are you smoking? Romney up 50-46 in a DKos poll, fer chrissakes.
Redshift
@sherparick: The thing is, it’s easy for Republicans to bamboozle people about tax rates and such, because few people really know what they’re paying beyond “look at that big number!” But knowing that capital gains aren’t a big part of your tax return is really easy.
Cacti
Is Face the new incarnation of Political Derp, or is s/he a new dancing monkey?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@RaflW:
I’ve been thinking this, too.
Chuck Todd, Dave Gregory and the rest will bear no personal loss or suffering in a Romney-driven world. But their jobs would certainly be a hell of a lot more interesting.
It really might be that simple.
Villago Delenda Est
The Arabic translation of the video in question didn’t come out but a few days before the demonstrations in Benghazi and Cairo.
The interesting thing is, the demonstration in Benghazi seems to have been used as cover for the attack on the consulate, and Chris Stevens must happened to be there at the time, and was a casualty after the fact of the attack. Libyans did there best to try to treat him, without regard to who he was, and furthermore, when they found out who it was, were utterly appalled, and a popular movement emerged to take out those though responsible for the attack in the first place.
Quarks
And just to double back on my investment income taxes point:
Romney was attempting to focus on economic problems, and at least initially I think he was successful at this — pointing out the very real high employment figures, ongoing deficits, China is Very Evil and so on. Had he just stuck to that, fine.
But by pointing to taxes on investment income as an actual financial problem for Americans he just showed how completely out of touch he is with most Americans. Unlike Romney, I talk to real Americans, and the economic issues they bring up, regularly, are the rising price of gas, higher tolls, rising cost of milk, high medical bills, the fact that Allstate just raised the homeowner’s insurance bill again, rents going up, getting only a tiny raise, not being able to believe how much money they just had to spend on school supplies, bosses that won’t let them adjust their schedules because of some deadline or other which means they miss the kids’ soccer game, and so on.
These are legitimate, daily issues that people discuss and understand. Not once has anyone said to me, oh, my life would be SO MUCH easier financially if only I didn’t have to pay so much taxes on my investment income. I’m sure that conversation does happen, and frequently, in Romney’s social group. But it’s just not a conversation most Americans are having.
Villago Delenda Est
@Face:
Pay no attention to the popular vote polls, moronic shitstain.
Redshift
@dww44: Hmmm, the same people are saying it will be more “efficient” if we all buy individual insurance rather than ACA insurance pools and Medicare. I wonder what their motivation could be?…
Chris
@MattF:
When the hell was THAT?
I remember when the public saw them as experts in foreign policy because the words on their teleprompters more closely matched the Rambo script than those of the Democrats, but that’s about it.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Cacti: Or just you know, DougJ. Or someone.
Redshift
@Cacti: I was just thinking the same thing. New ‘nym, obviously, since the MO is pretty distinctive.
Nothing says VICTORY like trying to hide under a new handle!
Quarks
@sherparick: Exactly. Romney is so surrounded by these $50,000 a plate people that he really doesn’t know what normal people talk about when they talk about economic problems. And the small conversations he may be having on the campaign trail are clearly not piercing that bubble.
Just Some Fuckhead
The whole Fox/Hate Radio bizarre “didn’t call it terra for two whole weeks” attack is the sad result of living in a rightwing bubble. It reminds me of Congressman Dan Burton shooting pumpkins in his back yard in the 90s to prove the Clintons killed Vince Foster.
Even so, THE VERY NEXT DAY in Colorado, Obama again referred to the Benghazi attack as “terror”.
I repeat, I’ve no idea why this is important at all but there you have it.
patrick
yeah….my world will be transformed because I don’t pay taxes on the $14 of interest my savings account earned last year…..
Quarks
@patrick: You could buy a very small cup of coffee with those savings. ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION!
Cacti
@patrick:
President Mitt will also free you from that middle class-crushing estate tax.
karen marie
@Chris T.: The question has changed.
Culture of Truth
“Shoot the Pumpkin” is the political ‘jump the shark’
i.e., “With his Libya gaffe, Romney may have shot the pumpkin last night.”
Chris
@Redshift:
Yeah, I’ve heard multiple variations of “Obama claimed relations with the world would be different but terrorism still exists so HE LIED!”
I don’t remember Obama promising that his election would end terrorism, but, you know, there I go getting my news from outside the PJMediasphere again.
Tom Q
@patrick: I think Schmidt was totally right, that the ONLY thing that kept this race from turning into the Obama runaway it seemed like two weeks ago was an off-the-charts bad first debate for Obama.
As for Obama’s “Please proceed” — it reminded me of some movie where Bogart’s in a room with a bad guy. When the bad guy sees a gun within reach, Bogart taunts him with “That’s right: GO for it”
anibundel
@Ash Can: I love me some Bubba.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@jwb:
Yep.
Same thing when they were talking about oil. Obama (and probably Romney) know damned well about the future scarcity of oil. But you can’t really talk about it out loud just yet (at least not as a one-line soundbite at a debate geared towards low-info voters).
Can’t access any video at the moment, but there was one exchange (on gas prices) where it looked like Romney was trying to trick Obama into mentioning the dwindling oil resources (which is the real answer- cheap oil is gone, forever). I immediately thought of Carter and the famous ‘malaise’ speech (the one where he never actually used that word). Had Obama been pulled into the weeds on the subject, Fox etc. would have used it to Carterize him.
Instead, Obama pivoted and used the time to push his higher gas-mileage initiative, instead. Trap avoided.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Culture of Truth:
But he did not shoot the pecan pie.
flukebucket
@MattF:
That must have been the same time they were brilliant economists. At least it starts off, “Once Upon A Time” because it is damn sure a fairy tale.
Paul
@Laura:
Great point! And not only that, the alternative, Mr Romney acted like a junior high school student when he issued his stupid and frankly anti-American comments before he had all the facts.
Even Ronald Reagan when asked refused to comment on foreign policy issues before at least Carter and his team had had a chance to figure out what was going in the interest of our country.
Romney, like the rest of his party, loves the GOP a hell of a lot of more than they love their country they claim they care so much about.
amk
@Cacti: Beat me to it. Looks like a sock puppet since it’s peddling old polls just like the pos.
Comrade Mary
@karen marie: The poll about the debate is now tucked inside the story here.
Comrade Mary
(And oddly enough, when I followed that link again after voting about 10 minutes ago, it let me vote again. I don’t know if it was counted, though.)
karen marie
@dww44: I think it boils down to money – the punditariat earn enough that they know a Romney administration would enhance their bottom line.
Another Halocene Human
@RaflW: I thought Mitt yelling “Government never creates jobs! Government never creates jobs!” was another Foxified meme moment that undecideds kinda scratch their heads about.
It also sounded like dementia after over an hour of begging the room for a government job and claiming that as President he could create 12 million jobs.
Er…
Brachiator
@mistermix:
Very good. This is a consistent weakness on Romney’s part that Obama should continue to exploit. Romney makes a big deal out of small cheese, and attempt to hammer the point home with repitition.
Instead of worrying about the drizzle of Romney lies, Obama should continue to pivot around them and hit Mittens on the larger, more significant issues.
Funny thing, a conservative talk radio host this morning was whining about how unfair it was that a debate moderator would inject herself into the debate and do fact checking. He claimed that this proved that Crawley was in the tank for the president.
This seems to be an official GOP talking point.
Oh, the bias.
karen marie
@Cacti: If my memory serves, Obama also got more donations from the military in 2008.
Kane
After declarations of mushroom clouds and yellow cake, color-coded threat levels and politically convenient terror warnings, a noun, a verb, and 9/11 and a decade of politics of fear that left the nation shell-shocked with constant terror on our minds, it is understandable why a debate audience in Hempstead, New York would applaud when moderator Candy Crowley corrected Mitt Romney when he was making false claims in attempting to further politicize the Benghazi attack.
Ken
A very good debate by The Prez last night. I can’t wait until Election Day because;
1. Voting is a BFD
2. It’ll give me great pleasure to pull the lever for Obama
3. There are a lot of important down-ballot races that Dems need to win; specifically Hochul v Collins in western NY
Bruce S
Hey, he couldn’t get the GOP nomination if he wasn’t part of that epistemic closure thingamajig. You are what you eat.
Jay in Oregon
@Another Halocene Human:
The punchline being, projections say that if President Romney (/shudder) let the current policies stand…we’d get around 12 million jobs by 2016.
(Of course, the whole reason he wants the job is to fuck with those policies, so…)
The Other Chuck
@qwerty42:
They’ll be throwing flowers in the streets of Nineveh I tell you!
Brachiator
@The Other Chuck:
But watch out for the Tyre irons!