# The second presidential debate: 10/16/2012 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 16, 2012, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847 "2012-10-16T04:35:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 38
**Author:** ![Andiethewestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Andiethewestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andiethewestie)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/741 "2012-10-17T14:36:17Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Crowley shouldn’t have said anything to support Obama over Libya as she did. Likewise, she shouldn’t have said anything to support Romney either, which she did immediately after, a fact that people are already conveniently forgetting. Otherwise, she ran the debate as good as could be expected, keeping it pretty much on track, while allowing the occasional overstepping of the time limit or various interruptions. As for loaded questions, I really don’t want to go back and see exactly what the questions are, so could you give me some examples of how they were “loaded.” Truth is in short supply these days. Kudos to anyone who moderates it. ---
**Author:** ![Andiethewestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ba9def/32.png) [@Andiethewestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andiethewestie)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/742 "2012-10-17T14:37:46Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > I think even Candy knew right away that she shouldn’t have said anything, which is why she made a token effort to say that Romney was also right (how could both be right?), but the damage had been done. > > What Obama said on 9/12 and how he meant it is obviously open to interpretations, so the moderator should have let the candidates debate the point rather than interject with her own interpretation. What is there to interpret? Truth is you can’t handle it. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/743 "2012-10-17T14:38:19Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > You are 100%, totally, completely wrong, and your talking points will only impress others like yourself. Obama didn’t refer to the attacks in question as terrorist attacks. Not during that speech and not for a week and a half afterwards. The fact that he’s debate prep people could only find this and one other example of him _almost_ calling the attack terrorism in the twelve days following the attack is proof of this, not proof to the contrary. Romney was right. Obama was being misleading and Crowley got it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/744 "2012-10-17T14:38:52Z")
Where on earth was last night’s Obama two weeks ago in Denver? He kicked Romney’s ass. The question, then, is whether that will move the needle in the polls at all. Will it? Fuck, I don’t know; my best guess is that the national polls will revert back to where they were pre-conventions with Obama sitting at +1 or +2 of the vote. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/745 "2012-10-17T14:39:20Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Unbelievably unprofessional. Fine, it was unprofessional. But you just called it a “slip”, implying not bias, but just a screw-up. It is not evidence that she was in the tank for Obama. She could have just left the first comment alone. Maybe you’d have an argument then. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/746 "2012-10-17T14:41:57Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Come on, guys. You’re just sore losers. I freely admitted that Obama sucked major ass in Round 1. Romney sucked nearly as bad in Round 2. Obama sucked huge in round 1. To say that this was the equivalent in round 2 is just mindless cheer leading. Obama showed up to this debate and held is ground. But he didn’t win. The polling shows this. It was about even. Obama and Romney were disagreeing more this time because Obama was fighting back. But it’s interesting to note that they were almost always disagreeing about Romney’s statements. Obama puts words into Romney’s mouth and then they argue about what Romney’s position is. In fairness, Romney is only a candidate, so it’s more debatable where he stands than Obama who has a clear track record of failure for Romney to attack. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/747 "2012-10-17T14:42:35Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > She did not “support” Obama over Libya. She called out Romney when he did not tell the truth about what Obama said the next day. She was there. She heard Obama’s words. It’s a sad day when a moderator is not allowed to tell the audience when someone is lying, when she has directly knowledge about the actual truth. But that’s ‘taking sides’! Waaaaa! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/748 "2012-10-17T14:43:13Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Obama didn’t refer to the attacks in question as terrorist attacks. Let me ask you then, what is the implication about Obama and the lack of the use of the word “terror” or its variations, anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/749 "2012-10-17T14:43:50Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Because saying something is “an act of terror” is SO much different than saying it was a “terrorist attack”? > > Come on, guys. You’re just sore losers. I freely admitted that Obama sucked major ass in Round 1. Romney sucked nearly as bad in Round 2. This. Like a pollster said, Give Republicans bad news, they want to kill you. Give Democrats bad news, they want to kill themselves. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/750 "2012-10-17T14:44:37Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Romney managed to tie despite a hostile moderator, a hostile crowd and hostile questions loaded towards Obama every single time. > > He was playing the Patriots in Gillette stadium. There was the equivalent of an extra man on the field. He did well to keep his losses to a minimum. > > To balance this out the next debate would have to be held at Fox and Friends with Glenn Beck as the moderator. Even he would probably refrain from actually lying about the candidates during the debate. Not even you believe a single word of that. Including the last sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/751 "2012-10-17T14:46:37Z")
> [@Andiethewestie](#): > > What is there to interpret? Truth is you can’t handle it. The part that’s open to interpretation is that his “acts of terror” remark on 9/12 came after speaking about the 2001 attacks. Therefore, it’s ambiguous as to which attack he was referring to as a terror attack. In the days directly after that, neither he nor his staff would call it an act of terror, which also lends some ambiguity to his original comment. I’m not sure what it is that I can’t handle. I said above that Obama performed very well last night. I’m just saying the debate as a whole, and that instance in particular, was very poorly moderated by Crowley. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/752 "2012-10-17T14:47:14Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Fine, it was unprofessional. But you just called it a “slip”, implying not bias, but just a screw-up. It is not evidence that she was in the tank for Obama. She could have just left the first comment alone. Maybe you’d have an argument then. I’m not sure what you’re trying to parse this into but it was clearly a biased debate. She was hostile to Romney the whole night. Her “slip” was that she blatantly entered the debate on the side of her candidate. It certainly showed her bias. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/753 "2012-10-17T14:47:36Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Obama puts words into Romney’s mouth and then they argue about what Romney’s position is. Did you see how Romney _attempted_ to put words in Obama’s mouth during the contentious exchange over drilling of Federal lands? He wanted Obama to say something about the decline of their use, but Obama clearly had the upper hand with his explanation of why he acted as he did, and his stressing of the fact that oil production is at the highest levels here in years. It was just one example of how try as he might, Romney wasn’t able to counter the stronger debater last night. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/754 "2012-10-17T14:48:48Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > Obama didn’t refer to the attacks in question as terrorist attacks. Wow. How little we knew when we snickered at “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is” that the art of pathetically pedantic parsing would advance by leaps and bounds over the next decade and a half. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/755 "2012-10-17T14:49:19Z")
Wow. Can you guys EVER not take a punch. You run around bitch-slapping people who don’t hit back, but when one of them finally winds up and lands a killer right hook to your jaw, all you can do is criticize the referee? Face it, you got your ass kicked HARD last night. When you did that to us two weeks ago, we got up off the canvas and punched back. See how this whining about Ms. Crowley goes over with the independent voters in swing states. I don’t think most of them will even know or care what you’re whining about. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/756 "2012-10-17T14:50:10Z")
The reason Romney made the false accusation about Obama taking 14 days to call it an act of terror is that he lives in a cocoon. If something appears in three right wing blogs it is taken as gospel truth and can be used in the campaign. If you can find six right wing bloggers who agree with your tax philosophy, then you cite them as “independent studies” that show your math adds up. You can’t say Romney didn’t suck major ass. He utterly failed in the response to the equal pay for women question, with the laughable “binder full of women” line and his courageous stand for flextime. Notice that he didn’t endorse the Equal Pay Act. He failed in any attempt to outreach to Hispanics. Again, in the right wing blogosphere you can call people “illegal aliens”. Not so much in the real world. What did he offer the middle class? Tax free capital gains. Whoop-de-fucking-do. He assumes everybody reports capital gains. What a putz. He lookd every bit the petulant entitled bitch that he is. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/757 "2012-10-17T14:52:34Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Let me ask you then, what is the implication about Obama and the lack of the use of the word “terror” or its variations, anyway? You really don’t know the answer to this? There are a couple of possibilities: 1. Obama’s administration, at every level, truly didn’t know that there was a terror attack at the embassy for 12 or so days. This would obviously be a huge intelligence failure that SecState Clinton is now attempting to take the blame for. 2. Obama’s administration is embarrassed that their middle east policy is a failure and that organized terrorists are able to plan and carry out an attack on our embassy. They spin the events for a few news cycles that it was all a protest gone wrong over a video no one has seen before. This results in other actual protests because now everyone has seen the video and buries the real story that there was an organized terrorist attack. It almost worked. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/758 "2012-10-17T14:53:28Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > The Dems would never allow a conservative moderator, they prefer the dice loaded their way. Psychological projection in action; you’ve just described Republicans, not Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/759 "2012-10-17T14:54:02Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > I’m not sure what you’re trying to parse this into but it was clearly a biased debate. She was hostile to Romney the whole night. Her “slip” was that she blatantly entered the debate on the side of her candidate. It certainly showed her bias. If you’re saying that Crowley planned ahead of time to be in the tank for Obama, then I don’t think it makes sense to call it a “slip”, that’s all. And her comment immediately after to Romney, hurriedly put forth, plainly suggests to me that she knew she had screwed up. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/760 "2012-10-17T14:54:46Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > And as pleased as I was to hear the Mr Romney is a man of deep faith, I was struck by the line about serving as a missionary, and then as a “pastor”? Mormons have “pastors”? I know for a fact Methodists do, also Lutherans, any number of Protestant denominations do. But Mormons? Is that an effort to make Mormons more “normal”? He was actually a Bishop in the Mormon church. It was in that capacity that he reportedly encouraged an expectant single mother that she should give up the child for adoption into a two-parent Mormon family, in accordance with the will of the church. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847.md?page=37) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847.md?page=39)