- There's the ultra-conservative teabagger Mitt Romney who's been running the campaign ads against the incumbent Obama, who's been more or less reactionary in those ads.
- The animated, no-doze popping Mitt Romney we saw at the first presidential debate up against the subdued "I wish I was celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary instead of arguing with this asshole" Obama in Denver.
- The foot-stamping, arm-crossing, spoiled brat Romney debating the Obama that someone must've finally woken up in the second debate in Rhode Island after the VP debate between Joe "Get the fuck off my lawn" Biden and Paul "I didn't know we were moderate now" Ryan (and I include these because, let's face it, it's their first debate before they both set their sights on the 2016 bid).
- Now we have Mitt "I agree with you there" Romney up against Barack "you didn't a few weeks ago" Obama for the third and final debate in Boca Raton... a city known for its old, retired jewish population. Note that, because it's important later.
Mitt the Twit agreed with the president... a lot... about seven separate times, and that's not including the secondary agreements he acknowledged in the course of the major agreements. In other words, Romney's foreign policy is exactly like the president's, but with more of a "CRIPPLE! KILL! ROMNEY SMASH!" feel to it.
A mere four minutes into the debate, Mitt "we need to make Iran go boom, but that's not all" Romney jumped Obama's Bin Laden card, and Obama was glad he agreed. About 12 minutes in, Romney tried a passive-aggressive somewhat condescending route by agreeing with something he thought Obama said about some stuff, and the POTUS attempted to set him straight on what he actually said. Candy Crowley wasn't there to back up the facts like last time, so this went largely unnoticed, and was such a mish mosh of rhetoric that I completely forgot what the question actually was. This raised the question, "Who's who?" We have Our moderate yes man (as opposed to the cuddly robotic suit we've all come to know and loathe), Romney citing Bin Laden's death 4 minutes in, and 13 minutes in, Obama lays out five points. Around 24 minutes in, Mitt "China isn't playing fair" Romney agrees with the President on Egypt, and again less than a minute later, but about a half hour into the debate, Mitt the Twit was back to the five point plan.
This is one of the highlights for me, at about 36 minutes. Obama finally calls Romney on the assertion that he brought Massachusetts up to it's current rank in education by pointing out that the state attained that rank some ten years before he took office. I've been wondering throughout this whole debate series when someone was going to call him on this shit. I suppose it's a good tactic to wait until the last debate, since this is the one most people will actually tune in to.
Mitt has laid out his entire first day in office already. Apparently, he's got a plan to save the civilized world on day one. he can't tell us that plan, because it's just so good, and he doesn't want anyone to steal it. Again, a magician never reveals his secrets. So amongst all the agreeing with the president, Mittens is also going to get rid of Obamacare on day one, because we all know that's the single most important thing leading this nation down the path of becoming a third world country. He's also going to declare China a "currency manipulator" on day one, because they keep holding down the value of their currency, and let's face it, they just aren't playing nicely. I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with Romney's Chinese investments (that must just be an odd coincidence, like the whole Bush / Middle East oil thing... just... you know... serendipitous). He'll also give control of medicaid over to the states to run on day one, because we all know how well the states do when it comes to caring for their populations in a nationally cohesive way. in short, he's going to start shirking his responsibilities right away. No sense in wasting time, right?
After all this hullabaloo, a little over a half hour into the debate, Obama went into flat-out condescending mode. He poignantly asserted that he didn't think Mitt knows how the military works, and why should he? He's a rich white guy applying for the job of sending YOUR kids overseas to fight, not his own! Barack "I can't believe I've got to hold this guy's hand and walk him through this" Obama informed the newly moderate Romney that "we have fewer horses and bayonets, we have these things called aircraft carriers that planes can land on. We have these ships that can go underwater called nuclear submarines."
He schooled him.
He sank Mitt's battleship.
Romney asserted that the POTUS went on an "apology tour." Well, what do you expect after the eight year clusterfuck in the previous administration? If we're going to maintain our global position as a nation that deserves respect, we're going to have to acknowledge and address the various ways in which the last fucktard has flipped off all the other countries occupying this little rock called Earth. It wasn't an apology tour, the president was simply going around the world explaining that we don't really know who that last guy was, or how he managed to hack into our Facebook account, but we've got a sane person as a representative now, so let's let bygones be bygones.
Schieffer asked what I think is a rather important question later on in the exchange. "What if the prime minister of Israel called you right now and said 'our bombers are on the way [to Pakistan]?'"
Mitt "I think I have to poop" Romney's face contorted like someone just force fed him a handful of sour gumballs coated in dogshit. "Let's not deal with hypotheticals"... uh... let's get back to something else... I'm not going to answer that question. EVADE! EVADE! He very quickly turned it into an opportunity to address the two or three things on which he doesn't agree with Obama. The president addressed Romney's jabs, and offered a little clarity on clarity, but was pretty clearly unclear on the clarity of Romney's clarity. Also: I killed Bin Laden, and here's a little story about why.
Immediately afterward, Romney wants to fall back on his "moderate the moderator" strategy, insisting that Shieffer can't just let the president lay out a bunch of points like that (this, by the way, right after Obama addressed the half-dozen points Romney had just laid out).
On Afghanistan: Romney now agrees with the troop withdraw by the end of 2014. Apparently, he forgot to tell his running mate, because as you may remember, Biden and Ryan had a bit of a row about this a few weeks ago.
The debate on foreign policy seemed to be a lot more like a debate about Israel with bits of "Let me backpedal a bit here" and "also, on the issue of domestic policy" sprinkled in. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the concept of playing for your audience, and Boca raton definitely has an audience that is very interested, and personally invested in relations with Israel (put your pointing fingers and cries of anti-semitism away, it's an observation, not a judgement), but the debate was to be about foreign policy, not Israeli policy.
Overall, this last debate left me woefully unsatisfied. I have a litany of questions, some of them old, and still unanswered, like "why is it so fucking difficult for a college-educated white guy in his mid-thirties to get a job, when everyone seems to think that college-educated white guys in their mid-thirties always live the life of Reilly?" Others are new, like "Who the fuck is this guy debating the president? I thought Mitt Romney was the GOP candidate. Did he drop out? Where did he go? What the fuck is going on here? Why are we tickling Israel's asshole? Is anyone paying attention to North Korea?"
I was really hoping to see a more concise display of exactly what each candidate intends to do with regard to foreign policy and national security issues, which is what the debate was supposed to be about, but instead all I got out of it was:
- Israel is our buddy.
- China is a poopyhead.
- We stand with Israel.
- Syria needs bigger guns, but we shouldn't get involved... well maybe we'll get involved... it depends, but we need to make sure they're well-armed... or not... dunno...
- We're working with Israel.
- Iran is going nuclear unless we seriously fuck them up, but not militarily, because that's a last resort... unless we have to go in and kick some ass... which we should... I think.
- Israel is our ally.
- I agree with the president.
- Israel is our friend.
- I'm glad Mitt agrees with me.
- Israel good, Iran bad.
- Libya... um... A little help, Mr. Reagan? Oh, yeah, that's right...
- Let's all move to Israel, eat cake, and sing Kumbaya.
No comments:
Post a Comment