Goddamn it, MSNBC, get that loser Pataki off my TV screen. Stupid POS former governor.
How does looking vaguely presidential help him win Ohio?
Without Ohio, he’s got to take all the States where he’s neck and neck. How does he do this?
Yup http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/22/fact-check-irans-route-to-the-sea/
It’s clear that Romney has no compulsion to adhere to any position he ever took on any issue. So we find out that Romney agrees with 90% of Obama’s foreign policy. Who’d a thunk it?
The boxing analogy that Sharpton brought up on MSNBC was spot on. Romney’s job was to jab and clinch. He hugged Obama tonight more than Michelle.
I score this one as an Obama win and a pitiful Romney performance. He looked like he suffered from constipation.
That’s the thing,
In general my impression is that Obama is solid on foreign policy as a whole - there is little to attack him on.
There’s lots of indicators of this, and keeping it to a talking points level
- Following the Benghazi attacks - the local population protested AGAINST the extemists, said “this is not us” and showed strong support to the US. Say what you will about the attacks themselves being a failure, but the post attack response shows just how far the US has come (compare and contrast to the “staging” of the topping of the Saddam statue
- Obama got Osama
Say what you will about the proprietry of raiding a foreign soverign nation, but Obama got away with it - I think this is, in part, because he has largely built concensus and a bank of some goodwill, making it harder for Pakistan to cry foul - Although not fast enough for Israel, it’s pretty obvious that the Iran sanctions are working. And the whole world is on-board with this, voluntarily and enthusiastically rather than some bullied “coalition of the willing”
- Although not a major plank of Obama policy - North Korea post Jong Il is showing signs of moving in the right direction.
- The Arab spring - again, the US came out of this smelling of roses
I haven’t seen any major missteps from Obama in the last four years, there’s really not much to substanially attack him on except manufactured outrage over things like bowing to kings or loud screaming lies like apology tours.
some comments from him prior to this debate.
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: I really think that he is a product of a world where you do market research to find out what’s working, what’s not working. You do controlled experiments. And then you dovetail your product to suit the marketplace. And he’s looked at what the market wants and he’s looked at what niche there is.
DAVID BROOKS, Columnist, The New York Times: He went to where the market was, and he became the product he was selling. And that&— on the one hand, it’s sort of effective. On the other hand it’s sort of disquieting because you think, “Well, A, who is he? What would he be as President? Does he believe anything?” And these are the open questions that plague everybody who watches him.
WTF. How does this even need a “fact check”? Look at a goddamned map! How do you get up on a national stage and present yourself as a qualified candidate for president and not know Middle East geography?
Did he mean to say Iraq?
I’ve heard that in his college years, Mitt experimented with No-Doz. He denies it, of course.
Didn’t get to watch the debate but just dropped by to thank the Dopers for the blow by blow…very entertaining.Ill catch the replay when I get home.
From what I read, total win for Prez. Horribile performance from Rohmknee. Guess Trump’s gonna need to bring out his “Trump Card” on Wednesday after all…
Also on some other sites, I read that Tagg apologized to Pres.Obama…anyone else here see that?
I am somewhat surprised at the relatively moderate line that Romney took. I thought there would be a lot more “apology tour” and Benghazi attack lines. It’s not that I think Romney believes in that stuff but that he doesn’t have the same solid base of knowledge that he does on domestic policy and I thought he would rely more on right-wing talking points.
Nevertheless it was a fairly average performance on his part and he became weaker as the debate progressed. Obama was commanding and crisp throughout and I think he will win it quite comfortably in the polls.
Too much protectionist rhetoric for my taste. I would respect Romney a lot more if he would have the guts to make an impassioned defense of free trade and globalization but I guess that doesn’t poll well. Fortunately neither of them really believes their own rhetoric on the issue and for the most part they share a commitment to low trade barriers in practice.
It’s the last hour in this 24-hour news cycle. I’m going to call it. Obama won it. At this point, it seems, Libya meant something different to Obama and meant something different to Romney. Will be interesting in post-debate analysis.
And as MSNBC pointed out, and I forgot to earlier, there’s a little bit of land in the way between Syria and Iran called Iraq.
“*BREAKING: CBS NEWS INSTANT POLL Who won the #Debate? OBAMA: 53%; ROMNEY: 23%, TIE: 24% (Margin of Error: 4%; Sample Size: 521) *”
Some commentators have made good points: Romney looked confident and Presidential. Obama looked like a challenger on the attack. Many of his points were cromulent, but they looked petty and mean spirited in context.
I stand by: A split decision Romney win.
I didn’t say Romney will win the election, just that he did what he needed to do in the debate. Having said all that, I just listened to a radio interview with two undecideds and both said they were now leaning towards Obama. So perhaps Romney looked weaker than I thought - I was trying to be objective, but Romney’s such a fake that it’s not easy…
Maybe confident and Presidential if he was channeling Richard Nixon.
I figured he was garbling some established talking point, but his campaign doesn’t really seem to know what he was trying to say either.
Anyhoo, was just half-watching, but seemed a pretty clear Obama win to me, at least in the second half. Romney seemed increasingly flustered as the debate went on.
Confident? Romney was a lot of things, some good, some bad, but he was stammering and sweating and acting nervous. I’m sure he was more confident than I would be in a presidential debate, but between Obama and Romney it isn’t even close in terms of who is more confident.
See this is the part I don’t get -
OK, I’m not in the US, and don’t see the day by day news cycles. I have however read Dreams of My Father, and kinda followed the last campaign. Everything I have seen about Obama pretty much reflects the way he has conducted his foreign policy - i.e - respect for other cultures, consensus building, we will help you if are willing to work with us.
I don’t understand how that reflects some sort of marketing study or focus group output…
Or am I totally missing something?
Romney did NOT look confident and Presidential. Unless you mean Nixon, of course. He was red, sweaty and looked like he needed to take a crap during most of the debate. I actually wondered if some mischievous TV tech was screwing with the color balance on Romney’s screen, but his shirt was as white and crisp as ever.
He stuttered, he sweated, he came close to panic a couple of times. Anyone who saw that performance and went “presidential” wasn’t looking with anything but their bias-colored glasses on.