Category: Debates

Another Sad Installment in the Series: ‘Why the Hell Is Chris Matthews on TV?’

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My usual habit after debates has been to switch to MSNBC and see what their reaction is. I know that the Fox News crew is always cheerleading for the GOP, so I find it more useful to gauge reaction at the liberal network, especially the wildly unstable barometer Chris Matthews.

As lurid comedy, the guy’s irresistible, and I simply can’t imagine any other reason why they keep paying this clown. Last night, however, Matthews unleashed a bizarre rant that genuinely shocked me:

“I think they hate Obama. They want him out of the White House more than they want to destroy al Qaeda. Their No. 1 enemy in the world right now, on the right, is their hatred, hatred for Obama. And we can go into that about the white working class in the South and looking at these numbers we’re getting the last couple days about racial hatred in many cases … this isn’t about being a better president, they want to get rid of this president.”
— Chris Matthews, Oct. 22, 2012

Look, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O’Donnell are all strident left-wing fanatics, but I will nevertheless grant that they are also fundamentally serious people who care about facts. On the other hand, there is Chris Matthews, whose tortured emotionalism must be an embarrassment even to his ideological allies. He makes Ed Schultz seem a paragon of rationality by comparison.

Why do the executives at NBC insist on inflicting this laughable imbecile on their viewers — and paying him $5 million a year?

FINAL 2012 DEBATE: ‘FOREIGNERS’

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UPDATE 11:09 p.m. ET: Well, I’ve got to write something longer than 140 characters for the American Spectator tomorrow, so I’ll leave you with this:

A couple of hours until deadline. I need more coffee.

UPDATE 10:33 p.m. ET: Really, I don’t hate foreigners. I just hate listening to debates about foreigners.

Did Obama win this one? If you like Obama (and hate America), yeah, it was a walkover. I’m watching the MSNBC after-show, BTW.

UPDATE 10:12 p.m. ET: Forgive me for not doing more original blog content during this debate. My 19-year-old son got in a car wreck (he’s OK, and it wasn’t his fault), which meant my wife had to go to the hospital, so I had to fix my own chicken nuggets for dinner. Anyway, he’s more snark from my Twitter feed:

When I’m ambassador to Vanuatu, I’ll never have to fix my own chicken nuggets. Or blog presidential debates, for that matter.

UPDATE 9:52 p.m. ET: More snark:

We’re somewhere near the halfway mark and, unless I’m mistaken, Obama’s losing the debate with his arrogant college-professor act, lecturing Americans as if we were a bunch of idiots.

UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET: Some of my Twitter snark:

Why? Because I’m too lazy to write it twice, that’s why.

UPDATE 9:22 p.m. ET: Obama just boasted of his “steady, thoughtful leadership.” Ambassador Stevens could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE 9:18 p.m. ET: You see how hard Obama is straining to pretend that he’s an expert, and Mitt’s a clueless moron.

UPDATE 9:12 p.m. ET: Obama lays out the Howard Dean/Michael Moore/Roseanne Barr critique of Bush-era foreign policy. As if it were relevant.

UPDATE 9:10 p.m. ET: Mitt aims his words specifically at the “Muslim world” and “jihadists.” Specificity has been lacking lately, eh?

UPDATE 9:08 p.m. ET: Obama wants to “make friends around the world.” And … how’s that workin’ out for ya, buddy?

UPDATE 9:05 p.m. ET: First question: “What would you do about the crisis in Vanuatu?”

No, just kidding. It’s Libya, of course.

EXPECT FURTHER UPDATES . . .

* * * PREVIOUSLY (8:30 p.m. ET) * * *

Thank God, tonight’s debate is the last of this presidential campaign. Republicans endured 20 debates during the primary campaign, and we’re ready to stop debating and start stabbing out Chris Matthews’ eyeballs with sharp sticks voting.

So, yeah, I’ll be liveblogging, kinda, and also snarking it up on Twitter. I’m sure VodkaPundit will be drunkblogging. And our good friends at the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity will have a livestream at their Watchdog.Org site.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has highlights of Bob Schieffer’s most biased debate moments. I actually kind of like Schieffer, who is a liberal, but an old-fashioned kind of liberal, as opposed to these smart-alecky Ezra Klein types. The debate starts at 9 p.m. ET, and I’ll be watching the MSNBC post-debate show, because I’m still able to resist the stab-his-eyeballs-out urge toward Chris Matthews.

Just barely, though.

UPDATE II: Here’s the thing: I hate discussions of foreign policy.

Hate it. Because foreign policy is really simple, yet the intellectuals and “experts” get paid to pretend we need their advice. This is all just expert rent-seeking, you see.

There are two kinds of people in the world: Americans and foreigners. And there are three kinds of foreigners:

  1. Enemies who want to kill us;
  2. Allies who want to help us kill our enemies; and
  3. A bunch of irrelevant people who don’t really need a “policy.”

Simple, as I say, and once you’ve got the basics of who’s who figured out, everything else is obvious. Yet there are “specialists” with advanced degrees from prestigious universities who need jobs telling us what to think, and I get so tired of hearing these know-it-alls, I want to stab out their eyeballs with sharp sticks.

Romney Debates Crowley And Obama On Benghazi, Wins

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by Smitty

Benghazi was the pivotal moment in the town hall debate, in my opinion, and that of some others:

 

Via BlueGrass pundit:

What a sad, pathetic joke that Obama has to have a woman attempt to stand up for him. Romney’s five sons were no doubt writhing at the raised eyebrows at 0:20 in the clip, recalling their own sad attempts at sliding one by dad, and getting thoroughly crushed by the Brows Of Doom.

The Administration’s pathetic attempt to walk back the 12 September Rose Garden speech is thoroughly debunked here. If Obama’s claim is true, that he properly labeled Benghazi terrorism initially, then shifted ‘narratives’ to call it a spontaneous riot due to Nakoula’s handiwork, then Obama’s sordid performance would be an example of postvarication, where the truth shifts to a lie upon the retelling, instead of the truth remaining in the forefront.

However, what we have here is a creep show Administration that owes Americans straight answers, but can’t even tell itself a straight story. Maybe Petraeus could offer such. Where is that guy? Stuffed under the bus behind Clapper?

Kudos to Mitt. You could see that hours of preparation that went into this debate on display. That the topic would come up was fairly obvious. But the delivery was polished, and Obama’s body language and shout to Crowley for a lifeline were sweet, sweet tells. Romney should have ended his exchange with Crowley by saying “Thank you, Madame President.” As graphically put:
And Crowley then walked back her shilling. Fortunately, these Lefty creeps no longer retain an iron grip on matters. While viewers at the time called it a draw or gave the edge to #OccupyResoluteDesk, further analysis is going to show that, as in the previous debates this season, the Republicans are holding their own despite having two opponents.

Say whatever else you want about the debate: seeing Romney have the sack to call out Obama for lying, to his face, was pure chewing satisfaction. As with the previous debate, I may have to trundle over to the Romney campaign site for a wee donation, I’m so pleased by this. And as for Candid Candy, I hope she doesn’t spend all 30 pieces of silver in one place.

Further linkage at Instapundit, but don’t miss Michelle, violating the rules, clapping in support of falsehood. I’m not ashamed of my country, in general, but the 2008 election sure was a hiccup. And, for those wondering what the debate would have looked like if you dropped some acid before viewing:

In the second presidential debate, President Obama stood up proudly for his record, offered a positive vision, called out Romney’s lies in a calm and cool way, and, most importantly, showed some real fire in the belly.

Update: Memeorandum thread, also linked at Protein Wisdom, Daily Pundit, WyBlog, and Obi’s Sister.

‘STAKE THROUGH HIS HEART’: Your Official Town Hall Debate Thread

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UPDATE 10:50 p.m. ET: Watching MSNBC so you don’t have to:

UPDATE 10:22 p.m. ET: WHAM! Mitt just hit Obama with “Fast and Furious.”

UPDATE 10:16 p.m. ET: That was a very long back-and-forth about Libya.

UPDATE 10:11 p.m. ET: Obama gets specific question about failure in Libya, and doesn’t even begin to answer, but instead lectures about how AWESOME his policy is.

UPDATE 10:07 p.m. ET: Obama LOVES him some illegal immigrants.

UPDATE 10:03 p.m. ET: Obama loves him some illegal immigrants.

UPDATE 9:58 p.m. ET: Now for Romney, immigration question from El Votera Del Undecidia.

UPDATE 9:54 p.m. ET: Obama is now ahead 5:34 on the time-split.

UPDATE 9:51 p.m. ET: As Obama ends this answer, he is ahead 2:55 on the time-split.

UPDATE 9:46 p.m. ET: A Bush-hating woman asks Romney how he’s not like Bush. She’s an “uncommitted voter” (nudge nudge).

UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET: Some chick asks a question about the alleged “pay gap” between men and women — straight out of the bogus statistics they teach in Women’s Studies classes — and we’re supposed to believe she’s an “uncommitted voter.”

UPDATE 9:35 p.m. ET: Candy Crowley always gives Obama a chance to talk back to Mitt, but keeps cutting off Mitt — or trying to cut him off — when Mitt tries to answer.

UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: Obama slams “top-down economics.”

UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET: Now Mitt gets to talk numbers. He loves him some numbers.

UPDATE 9:21 p.m. ET: There was all kinds of fireworks now. My wife and kids thought they were getting ready to fight.

UPDATE 9:16 p.m. ET: Romney “I was in coal country and people grabbed my arm and said, ‘Please, save my job.’ ”

UPDATE 9:15 p.m. ET: Romney: “Let’s look at the president’s policies, instead of his rhetoric.”

UPDATE 9:11 p.m. ET: Obama just said Romney “doesn’t have a five-point plant, he’s got a one-point plan.” And Obama’s got 57 states! When Mitt wants to argue back, Candy cuts him off.

UPDATE 9:04 p.m. ET: “First-time voter” is college student named Jeremy who asks about jobs — straight into Mitt’s wheelhouse. This is encouraging.

UPDATE 9:02 p.m. ET: And we’re live! Candy Crowley introduces her close personal friend The President of the United States, and also, that Republican guy over there.

* * PREVIOUSLY (8:30 p.m. ET) * *

Let’s start with this: The very notion of undecided voters in New York three weeks before Election Day is implausibly absurd. So we’re probably going to see a steady barrage of lefty “gotcha” questions aimed at Mitt Romney, while Barack Obama gets questions like, “Mister President, why do these hateful racist homophobic Republicans want to steal Social Security checks from Grandma?”

Can Mitt possibly win this debate? Can Obama possibly stink it up worse than he did in the Oct. 3 debate? This seems too much to ask, so you need to pray very hard right up until the debate at Hofstra University starts at 9 p.m. Eastern, and don’t stop praying until it’s over.

Miracles sometimes happen, and this is what Ace is describing:

So there was, I think, a preference cascade potential. But that potential only became real during the debate.
If Romney had not given what could well be the most dominating debate performance in the entire modern age of politics (since TV, in 1960), it seems very possible — possibly likely — that none of this would have happened.

Read the whole thing. Events can’t be predicted, but contingencies — the “if/then” consequences of events — are predictable.

Going into the Oct. 3 debate, nobody expected such a one-sided win for Romney, but we could have predicted that if Mitt did exceed all expectations (and if Obama disastrously underperformed) then the polls would shift dramatically toward Romney.

The interesting thing? The polls were already starting to shift toward Romney before the first debate. Check the RCP national average, and you see that Obama’s lead maxed out at 4.3 points on Sept. 29, and by Oct. 3, had shrunk to 3.1 points. Why?

It’s got to be Libya: By early October, it was becoming obvious that the Obama administration’s “blame the YouTube video” excuse was false, and that the administration was trying to hide its failures in the Sept. 11 attack on the Benghazi counsulate. So Obama’s lead was already fading and his disastrous performance in the first debate exacerbated growing perceptions of his incompetence.

Romney moved ahead in the RCP average Oct. 9. Beginning with the first full three-day track by Gallup after the first debate, five polls have shown Romney ahead, three have shown Obama ahead and two have shown a tie. So while there has been a shift toward Romney, the bottom hasn’t fallen out for Obama . . . yet.

A few headlines from Memeorandum:

Romney Holds Advantage Tonight,
Regardless of Format
— Real Clear Politics

Obama feels ‘fabulous’ in advance of second debate
— Politico

Tuesday’s debate moderator confirms
plan to ask follow up questions
— The Hill

And finally, from Toby Harnden at the London Daily Mail:

The Romney campaign goes into tonight’s second presidential debate confident that the race has shifted decisively in their direction and that a below par performance by Barack Obama could doom him to defeat on November 6.
A senior adviser to Mitt Romney told MailOnline: ‘The President could drive a stake through the heart of his own campaign tonight if he’s not careful.
‘If he doesn’t give a vigorous enough defence of his last four years in office, if he tries to place blame everywhere else, if he doesn’t articulate what the next four years will look like beyond just giving away free stuff – if he fumbles all that, he drives a stake through his own heart.’

The debate starts at 9 p.m. Eastern, but Duane Lester and the Campaign Trail Report have begun their debate hangout already, so check it out, and I’ll be back to do some live-blogging, as well as the usual Twitter snarkfest.

 


Ross Perot Endorses Romney, New Polls Confirm Shift, Will #p2 Dems Panic Now?

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“Disaster is now coming at Democrats from multiple unexpected directions.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, Oct. 11

A lot of news today, starting with this Hot Air headline:

Romney hits 50%, leads by 4
in PPP/Daily Kos national poll

And it’s also 50-46 in the latest Gallup tracking poll.

This is the quite specific circumstance — Romney leading national polls by four points going into the second debate — I described Oct. 7 as the “Fear and Loathing” scenario that could trigger a complete meltdown among Obama supporters. They’re up against the wall and they know it, and if Obama doesn’t score a clear win tonight . . .

Well, “don’t get cocky,” eh?

Monday night I had a phone conversation with Ali Akbar in which he wanted me to give odds on tonight’s debate result, which I refused to do. We simply cannot predict such an event in advance. It could be a disaster for Obama or a disaster for Rommey. We know that if Obama does OK — if the debate is no worse than a draw for him — the liberal media will spin it as an Obama “win,” just as they initially cheered the “Crazy Uncle Joe” show last week, before it became obvious that swing voters were turned off by Biden’s weirdness.

As Ed Morrissey says, it’s unlikely that tonight’s debate will be the kind of game-changer we saw Oct. 3 — hey, who called it, huh? — but you just never know, especially with the “town hall” format. When we were kids, we played a card game called “Dr. Pepper,” which is poker where 2’s, 4’s and 10’s are wild. With twelve wild cards in a deck of 52, just about anything was possible, including five of a kind. So it is with a “town hall” debate, and nobody can predict the outcome in advance. However . . .

We can reasonably predict contingencies — “If X, then Y” — and therefore: If Mitt somehow pulls off a second clear debate victory tonight, then Democrats will go into Full-Blown Freakout Mode. And here’s another predictable contingency:

Citing bad economy, Ross Perot backs Romney

If Perot had endorsed Obama, then this item would have sailed to the top of Memeorandum, with all the liberal bloggers trumpeting it as the ultimate proof of Obama’s worthiness for re-election. But instead — if/then — we’ll see the Perot endorsement either ignored, or else subjected to scoffing as the act of an irrelevant dingbat.

Remember the scorn heaped on Lindsay Lohan for her Romney endorsement? Celebrities routinely line up to endorse Democrats, but let one starlet stray from the Hollywood herd, and suddenly “slut” becomes an acceptable term among otherwise oh-so-“civil” liberals.

Likewise predictable: If there is any glimmer of encouragement in polls, then Nate Silver starts whistling past the graveyard again.

So while it is still wwaaaaayy too early to predict the outcome on Nov. 6, we are beginning to see possible signs and omens of future events.

‘All Is Proceeding as I Have Foreseen’

UPDATE: Yet another panic signal? “Romney Closing In On Obama In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds.” If Obama can’t turn it around in tonight’s debate, so that the momentum shift toward Romney continues enough to put Pennsylvania genuinely in doubt, the whole thing could fall apart for Democrats.
 




 

RECENTLY:

Does This Explain Something?
UPDATE: What a Cover-Up Looks Like

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Why is Obama still leading Mitt Romney in Ohio, but trailing in Florida? This puzzle might be explained by the early blitz of attack ads the Obama campaign laid down against Romney in Ohio back in May and June, which created a sort of “opinion deficit” that Romney has had to try to make up during the past four months.

Yet Obama also hit Mitt early in Florida, and Romney has bounced back pretty strong there in the past two weeks.

Is it Libya? And is it possible that the deadly Bungle in Benghazi has raised concerns about the administration’s Middle East policy among a key constituency in Florida? A friend on Twitter called attention to an article by my American Spectator colleague Jay Homnick:

MIAMI — The Jewish outreach of the Romney campaign leaves a great deal to be desired, about which more on another day. One good thing this wing of the overall effort has been doing is involving Ambassador John Bolton in presenting to Jewish groups. His powerful pro-Israel record and reputation make his name a good draw in the circles of the more knowledgeable Jewish voters. It does not hurt that he has astonishing breadth of knowledge, pristine clarity of thought, and crystalline clarity of expression.
Sunday night he appeared here in Miami at a synagogue bordering the two communities of Surfside and Bal Harbor. The biggest concentrations of Jews in the Miami area are not near that spot, but its equidistance from Miami Beach and North Miami Beach situate it perfectly for such events.
The room was packed to the rafters, and there were no hecklers or provocateurs. The crowd listened raptly and applauded lustily. It is difficult to extrapolate from this to voting patterns on Election Day, but this much was clear: there is a strong Romney-Ryan contingent among both the religious and secular Jews of Florida. . . .

Go read the whole thing. And while we’re at it, remember during last week’s debate, when Joe Biden laughed while Paul Ryan talked about the seriousness of the Iranian nuclear threat?

Biden’s dismissive attitude toward the danger of a nuclear Iran, accusing Republicans of reckless warmongering for taking that threat seriously — how did that play with Jewish voters? Biden’s bulldozing aggression against Ryan may have cheered up demoralized Democrats, but the unseriousness of Biden’s attitude hurt Democrats among undecided voters. Jim Geraghty examines a poll that found the Republicans gained a 3-to-1 advantage from last week’s debate.

But why trust the polls, when we’ve got the word of the Lord?

“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee . . .”

You never want to get on the wrong side of a thing like that.

UPDATE: The big problem with the scandal now becoming known as “BenghaziGate” is that the Obama administration evidently decided to tell The Big Lie from the start, and so many officials repeated that lie so often that, once it became obvious they were lying, coming up with a plausible new lie was difficult. Ultimately, however, their problem is not their shifting lies, but rather the ugly truth of the administration’s failure. Even such a master of deceit as David Axelrod can’t hide from the facts:

Q. How soon after the attack did the President meet with the National Security Council, with people from state, with people from the…, the Director of National Intelligence, with all of the various people to try to sort out what happened in Benghazi?
A. Look. We are sorting out what happened there. Understand that the President the day after the attack called it an act of terror and charged everyone with responsibility for getting to the bottom of what happened. . . .
Q. Yes, the president made a statement and then he went to a fundraiser in Nevada. Question: Before he went to the fundraiser in Nevada, did he meet with his National Security Council to try to sort out the shifting stories. Because State says they never said it was a spontaneous demonstration; Intel, you are quite right, did. Did he meet with the National Security Council before he went campaigning in Nevada?
A. Chris, I assure you that the president was in contact with all those who had information and responsibility in the national security chain about this incident.

Via Memeorandum.

 

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 


VIDEO: Somebody’s Serious About Fiscal Discipline (Hint: It’s Not Joe Biden)

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The Romney-Ryan campaign’s latest ad:

“We can’t keep spending and borrowing like this. We can’t just keep spending money we don’t have. . . . Did they come in and inherit a tough situation? Absolutely. But we’re going in the wrong direction! Look at where we are. The economy is barely limping along. . . . Don’t raise taxes on small businesses, because they’re our job creators. . . . Leaders run to problems to fix problems . . . Mitt Romney is uniquely qualified to fix these problems.”
— Paul Ryan, vice presidential debate, Danville, Kentucky, Oct. 11

PAUL RYAN SCORES CRUSHING VICTORY OVER BIDEN IN DEBATE

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UPDATED 10:22 p.m. ET: Headline from John Nolte:

MEDIA HAMMERS BIDEN:
‘STOP SMIRKING!’ ‘WEIRD,’ ‘JERK’

UPDATED 10:19 p.m. ET: A few more thoughts from Twitter:

I’m going to have to start putting together my column for the American Spectator.

UPDATED 10:03 p.m. ET: It’s clear that Biden was advised to be aggressive, to bulldoze, interrupt and filibuster, to treat Ryan with contempt. The astonishing thing (or, maybe not) is how moderator Martha Raddatz is enabling that strategy.

UPDATED 9:39 p.m. ET: VodkaPundit is drunkblogging. Biden is drunkdebating.

UPDATED 9:35 p.m. ET:

UPDATED 9:12 p.m. ET: Biden interrupted Ryan’s second answer to accuse Ryan of “malarkey” — because Joe’s an expert on “malarkey”!

* * PREVIOUSLY 8:30 p.m. ET * *

This is rather a bold headline, consdiering that it’s now 8:30 p.m. ET and the debate in Danville, Ky., doesn’t even begin for another half-hour, but I’ve been saying for the past week that Ryan would make mincemeat of Biden, so there’s little additional risk in going all-out balls-to-the-wall with my headline.

Ace, on the other hand, is trying to tamp down expectations for reasons that are entirely factual and logical, which is OK, if that’s how you roll.

Me, I’ve got no problem going big. Dave Weigel asks, “Can Joe Biden Save Barack Obama?” And I say, “RAAAAACIST! How dare you say Obama needs a white man to save him?”

Anyway, consider this your Official Vice Presidential Debate Thread. There’s an NFL game on tonight, if you’d rather watch that, then check back here later to see exactly how Ryan stomped Biden.

EXPECT UPDATES . . . .