Posted on 10/23/2012 4:31:30 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I think it's unequivocal, Romney won. And he didn't just win tactically, but strategically. Strategically, all he needed to do is basically draw. He needed to continue the momentum he's had since the first debate, and this will continue it. Tactically, he simply had to get up there and show that he's a competent man, somebody who you could trust as commander in chief, a who knows every area of the globe and he gave interesting extra details, like the Haqqani network, which gave the impression he knows what he's talking about. But there is a third level here, and that is what actually happened in the debate.
We can argue about the small points and the debating points. Romney went large, Obama went very, very small, shockingly small. Romney made a strategic decision not go after the president on Libya, or Syria, or other areas where Obama could accuse him of being a Bush-like war monger. Now I would have gone after Obama on Libya like a baseball bat, but that's why Romney has won elections and I've never had to even contest them. He decided to stay away from the and I think that might have actually worked for him.
What he did concentrate on is the big picture. People don't care what our policy on Syria is going to be. They care about how America is perceived in the world and how America carries itself in the world. And the high point is when he devastatingly leveled the charge of Obama going around the world on an apology tour. Obama's answer was ask any reporter and they will tell you it wasn't so.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Two great analyses. One by Krauthammer, one by Old Teufel Hunden.
>>just a resident...sorry for saying what I saw, I knew it would not be popular.
>>I heard two politicians explaining how they could fix an unfixable mideast.
Never apologize for speaking the truth! There is a big difference between being honest and being a troll.
Many of those who have posted honest disappointment about the debate have echoed some of my thoughts. But many of the responses to those posts have been insightful as to why we should not be disappointed.
IMO, this debate was like a game-winning bunt in baseball. It may not have been the swing-for-the-fence strategy we’d hoped for, but our goal was to win the World Series, not to set a new batting record. After a bit more thought, I believe this was a game-winning strategy by Romney. I plan to be celebrating on Nov. 7.
Best regards to all the honest posters out there! Whether I agree with you or not, your posts make me think. That’s why I come here.
ObaMao was really struggling to remember the topic/question at the same time as his preprogrammed strawman response. He came off sounding childish, condescending, obtuse, and unfocused (as well as a compulsive liar).
I thought when he said “attacking me is not a policy” was a great line. It underscored the point that Hussein has had no policy -neither foreign nor domestic (unless you count destroying the economy as a policy, of some sort), and showed up Hussein for the empty chair he is without being blatantly insulting. If Hussein had said that line, the media would be comparing it to past lines from debates which have gone down in history.
Perhaps he was looking for the proverbial 'cavalry' to come and save him?
the infowarrior
I agree-that was undoubtedly the one topic on which Hussein expected to be grilled, and his team rehearsed and rehearsed him for it, probably with a zinger or two in there as well as passing the buck to many others. Romney took away what he may have planned as his high point.
The undecideds in one CBS focus group decided to vote for Romney after this debate. It’s not indicative of anything broader of course, but at least it shows that undecideds in one group came away with a favorable enough opinion to decide to vote for him.
Of course there was - and unfortunately it was a trap a Gingrich or Perry or Palin would have stepped right into. By sidestepping it, Romney frustrated Obama into talking in a bellicose way about Israel and killing terrorists, trying to score the point he missed out on when Libya passed without discussion. And that is guaranteed to irritate the progressive Left elements of Obama's base, who just might stay home or vote Green now.
How he will govern remains to be seen, but Romney is the smartest Republican campaigner to come along in decades.
You wanted Bruce Lee/Steven Seagal and what Romney delivered was James Bond.
Thanks to all for the cudos. I have to say, win or lose I have no complaints about Romney(with the caveat he does nothing idiotic in the next two weeks). He’s done just about everything to unseat Obama. It’s not easy to unseat a sitting President. I think he will do it, but if he comes up short, I truly put the blame on all the dufuses we now have in America. Not Romney. He’s no McCain or Dole.
>> “I heard two politicians explaining how they could fix an unfixable mideast.” <<
I think you mean Near East, but anyway the Lord is going to do the fixing.
Psalm 83 is what is going to happen there, and possibly in part of the Middle East (Iran)
Any normal adult grown American should be able to look at Obama and quickly realize that "somethin' wrong with that boy." Or at least "He ain't from 'round here, is he?" So what we are really hoping is that there are enough rational voting people left who can figure this out.
Coulter says, "Romney took it easy on a retard." The strange facial expressions, weird phrasing, and contorted postures made Kid Kenya look like some sort of mental patient. I got the impression his suit was wired as an audio teleprompter and that he was struggling to hear his instructions.
Really.
>> “WTF are you taking that screws with your cognition so effectively? Whatever it is, stop.” <<
.
LOL!
See my tagline :o)
Though I like much of what you've said, I think you've exactly hit on what Barry's up to with such killings--in the negative--that is I think you have the wrong answer, but at least the right question. Barry's message in the video game-like drone-based, Zap'em!, redounds through many of his activities: 1) to rile the Islamics against the US and 2) make the US out as the bad guy on whom Islamics should wreak revenge, and 3) keep Barry lookin' good.
Barry, with his smoker and netting is swatting at the bees' nest with his truncheon.
It's just as with the "Innocence of Muslims" video trailer episode. Point at the bad strawman--a Copt that produces an Internet-based insult to Islam, one that any Islamic with a computer can see sufficient times (at no further cost (unlike Hillary's $70k Pok-ee-stan commercial)) to get them riled enough throughout the ME to further empower the gathering strength of the Muslim Brotherhood and AlQaeda. Disavow US government connection to the video and see that the producer winds up in jail. In the midst of all that, he goes before his homies at the UN and proclaims that "the future must not belong to those that slander the Prophet of Islam."
As with the apology tour, as with the video, as with not lifting a finger against the consulate attackers, as with handing AQ and the MB weapons ostensibly to use against Qadaffy and the Syrians, such weapons are also meant to hand MB and AQ moral and military superiority throughout the Middle East, and even allow hundreds of shoulder-fired rockets eventually to wreck US aviation in the not-distant future, after he's no longer Pres__dent.
Barry's message is not in doubt: 1) He takes solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance against his mother's country, 2) He's standing with the Muslims as the political winds turn ugly, 3) he's an Islamicist himself. His aim is to bring down the US in every way he can, handing over country after country to the MB and other like-minded Islamics!
HF
You were where the Obama camp was -- hoping Romney would come out hyper-aggressive and swinging, increasing the odds that Obama could bait him into making a game-changing mistake. Romney is a brilliant, risk-averse business man who knows that when you are in the lead, then slow-and-steady wins a race like this.
Yes, I would have loved to see Romney pummel Obama in the debate last night. But I will much rather enjoy Romney pummeling Obama at the polls in two weeks. And Romney's low-risk strategy last night pretty much sealed the deal.
I live in the bluest of blue states, tough being a Conservative.
You’re right, I didn’t want Steven Segal quite but I did not want Mr. Agreeable either!
And you think the details were going to come out in a debate.
Romney learned his lesson from the last debate, Obama will simply lie and the MSM will cover for him.
Agree. O knows he’s in trouble but would never admit it. He would have fallen back on weasel word on terror and acting on info from intelligence.
Minus our seeing the film, and seeing the real transcripts we wouldn’t know
The truth , and at this point I don’t think Romney knows it either
It could certainly be that Barry is doing his fly-swatting to give us a bad rep. But I also think it’s because he’s crazy and in his tiny mind, everybody is a video game figure. Nobody is real but him, and he’s whatever he says he is at any given moment.
It probably gives him a great feeling of power to sit there with some advisor and draw up his “kill list.” He knows that danger will never be allowed to approach him and that there is an inexhaustible supply of crazy desert goat lovers to take out and probably few people will miss them. And as for those innocents (and there are some) who happen to be in the way when Barry’s bombs drop, well, they’re all just part of the video game.
I’m always amused by the way the left feels free to excuse or even praise this, while they did nothing but attack and undermine our troops who were fighting a legitimate war, trying to attack the combatants, spare the civilians, and actually carry out a long-term policy aimed at making things good again. (The policy failed only because Bush permitted someone to talk him into letting the Iraqis enshrine Islam in their constitution; we needed them to accept our secular system, not let them use us to reinforce their nutty religious system, worse now than it was under Saddam.)
That said, I used to worry about having a Muslim as president (and I still do) but having a Muslim psychotic as president is ten times worse. He’s so crazy that even while his short term objective may be the promotion of Islam, his long-term objective is the promotion of His Holiness Obama. Bambi really thinks he’s something so special that no one can comprehend him, advise him or restrain him.
If we don’t get him out of here next month, we’re going to be in seriously huge trouble.
The weird Obama demeanor during these debates seems to have escaped MSM notice completely. Tics, grimaces, inappropriate interruptions, constant hand motion, shifting in his seat, legs a-twitch, occasional stuttering, eyes rolling, smirking ... surely one shrink out there is taking notes?
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