What debate were YOU watching?

Last night was another stellar performance by Mitt Romney. In fact, I'd argue that last night was perhaps the single best indictment of the Obama economic record ever publicly made by a candidate for office. And just as an aside, maybe I'm wrong but I'm getting the feeling you found Romney's first debate performance less than impressive. Buddy, even that bastion of right-wing propaganda CNN had that debate polling at 72% to 27%, Romney. The first debate performance single handily changed the momentum of the race. It's why Chris Matthews had a melt down, about which you posted. Look at these post-first debate swing in numbers from the Pew Research Center:

This was a direct result of the first debate. I mean what more do you want man?

To last night... yes he did allow the Benghazi issue to get away from him, but (unlike I thought) it is the third/next debate that is solely focused on foreign policy and Romney will have more than adequate opportunity to expose the inconsistency in that scandal. And in fact the missed opportunity may have caused the chance for a greater opportunity in Monday's foreign policy debate because Romney got the POTUS "on the record" (Romney's actual words) claiming he was calling the Benghazi assault a terrorist attack starting on 9/12. On Monday night he can now compare that claim to the 9 days that followed in which the entire administration, including Obama's speech at the UN (where he mentioned the video 6 times), emphatically reiterated that the attack was a result of spontaneous protests. Now we can get into whether Obama was directly referring to Benghazi on 9/12 when he used the phrase "terrorist attacks" or not, but that argument, essentially over what the definition of "is, is", is not the point. The point is the POTUS is now claiming that from day 1 he thought it was a terrorist attack. That's incredible! It means he purposely misled the world for the 8 days that followed. And by the way, it's now clear that State Department officials watched the attacks unfold in real time. The woman at State whom claims this is true, her name has been made public. We have someone specific to point to and say "she knew." So what do Biden and the rest mean then when they say "we were told it was due to protests"? By whom? When? How come State has a tape of it, yet the POTUS was informed of a fictional protest? Trust me, this will prove fertile ground come Monday. Obama ducked it Tuesday, thanks largely due to Candy Crowely, but he dug himself into a deeper hole for Monday.

But here's the more important point in this presidential race as of 10/17/12: Romney has  owned the room on the economic issue since that first debate, and did so again last night. And it's because, in my opinion, he employed a simple, potent strategy for defeating the flowery "hope and change" rhetoric of 08'- compare it to the now established record. When that black gentleman said to the the president (via his question) "I'm less than enthusiastic this time around", the answer Romney gave during his 2 minute follow up starting with, "I think you know we can do better", was a specific, uninterrupted prosecutorial style verbal indictment of the Obama failures (including this fallacy of creating  5 million jobs) that has never been accomplished by any sitting member of the GOP in four years. And Romney repeatedly returned to this list of failures, including the fact that the president had four years, two including control of both houses of congress, to fulfill his promise that he'd pass "sweeping immigration reform in my first year" yet failed to even propose legislation. Romney succinctly compared the cost of gasoline today at nearly $4, versus that of January of 2009 when the national average was $1.86 a gallon. Obama's only retort to gas prices was, "The reason prices were so low then was because the economy was on the edge of  collapse." What does that even mean, that now that we're away from the edge they're back to normal at $3.86 a gallon? WTF? That was perhaps the most pathetically weak answer of the night, and it should leave every undecided voter scratching their heads and wondering if this guy grasps even the most basic of economic issues. For example, most registered voters today remember that gas was cheap under the Clinton era dot.com boom ($0.99/gallon). Romney won that exchange in a walk. Romney also crushed the POTUS on the oil and coal issue, in particular the topic of oil leases on federal land. That exchange was borderline emasculating for the CIC. He articulated at every opportunity that the president promised health care costs would go down two-thousand five hundred dollars, and yet they went up by two-thousand five-hundred dollars on average per family; that 32 million Americans were on food stamps in January 09', now 47 million fill those roles; that 1 in 6 Americans are now living in poverty; that the president promised, at this point, that we'd be at 5.2% unemployment and the difference between that number and where we are constitutes 9 million Americans out of work (which is a more effective way of comparing 5.2% and 7.8%); and that the president promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term and instead has doubled it. And in a statistic I thought particularly provocative, that even wonks like us haven't heard, there are 3.1 million more women in poverty now than when the president took over. These are simple, easy to grasp failures that people see and feel in their everyday lives and Romney relentlessly exposed them last night. Obama routinely had to look to Candy Crowely for a bailout of the conversation. It was a prosecutor with a hostile witness on the stand and quite frankly I feel it was a devastating performance by Mitt. I'm being serious when I ask if you watched the entire debate, uninterrupted? If not, watch it again.

Look - you must bare in mind two very crucial things in regard to last night's debate. 1) everyone (especially the Left) agreed that Obama's first debate performance was a disaster. In fact when we look back on it, perhaps historically so. Romney emerged with an 8 point swing nationally and in 7 of 11 battleground states as a result of that first debate (you can read its devastating impact on the polls from Leftist columnist Andrew Sullivan here.). My point being is all that Obama had to do to be successful in the second debate was show up because he could have hardly done worse than his first performance. 2) Most analysts/polls are claiming that overall the second debate was a draw or a slight edge to Obama (again, see point #1). It was not an equivalent knock out as Romney had in the first. However, when asked whom won the economic portion of last night's debate CBS has it Romney 55%, Obama 37%. CNN has it at 65% Romney to 33% Obama. And this is a critical stat Titus - a sitting president can not lose the economic argument and win the election. And the proof, as they say, is in the pudding: on Monday morning the grand puba of presidential polling, USA Today/Gallup opened up Romney at a 50% to 46% lead over the president. As the challenger, reaching that 50% mark was a crucial a milestone. This morning USA Today/Gallup has it 51% to 45%, Romney. The task of last night's debate for Obama was to stave off Romney's momentum. Obama failed.

Do me a favor. In fact, do yourself a favor - you, Jambo, me, people like us, we have a litany of visceral, factual debates with team Obama on a regular basis. In our heads, in the car listening to the radio, watching television. So don't fall into this trap where you compare Romney's arguments to the ones you would, and have, made. He'll never measure up to that standard, believe me. But that's ok. With 20 days left to the election he's not going after the Titus/Jambo/Ryan vote. He's got us. His job at this late date is to move anyone that is movable from 08', into his camp. And winning the economic issue at a 2:1 ratio is exactly how he's going to accomplish that goal. So pack your pipe, have a swig of Jameson and relax, he's gonna bring this thing home buddy. The polls are bearing that out.

Who wants Candy?

Candy Crowley... utterly useless as a moderator.  Wow.

Well, I'd say that Obama has kept one promise in his first term... he certainly threw the "polite" factor out the window, didn't he?  He was angry, confrontational and very defensive.  For me, that does not read as "confident", which is a word used frequently in describing Obama's performance in the media this morning.

Romney was less than stellar, again.  In fact, I'd grade his performance last night as "poor".  Especially on such basic topics as immigration, taxes and gun control.  He should have owned those topics, but muddled through with almost no point made.

How many times did Obama say "We need to create jobs in this country."?  Why wasn't it brought to his attention that he has had four years to create jobs, and routinely says he created 5 million of them?  Why wasn't it shown that, even if he did create 5 million jobs, 9 million were lost in the four years he's already been President?  There has been NO gain in unemployment since 2008... none.  Why not?

When asked about gun control, and the danger of certain weapons being in the hands of people who shouldn't have them (i.e. the Aurora shooter), when was it going to be explained that the weapons owned and used by criminals are ALREADY ILLEGAL?  The tragedy that was the shooting in that Aurora, CO theater isn't the result of what weapons were employed to execute those people... it was the result of an unbalanced mind committing a horrific crime.  Using the Aurora tragedy as an example of why a new weapons ban is needed is tantamount to saying that all cars should be outlawed because someone kills another person while drunk driving.  We can't blame gun violence in this country on a breakdown of the nuclear family, for Pete's sake... we need to see it for what it is:  a biased view of a symptomatic aspect of ANY multi-cultural, diverse population wherein 380 million people coexist.  Liberal media pundits look at Aurora as THE symptom, but in reality the problem lies in the FACT that every 45 seconds in this country, someone is held at gun-point by an assailant in a crime.  These guns are procured illegally, are possessed illegally, and are utilized in an illegal activity by CRIMINALS.  Denying law-abiding citizens their rights does NOTHING to stop the problem.

Romney also dropped the ball on the Benghazi question.  Yes, the President said "terrorist attacks" in the Rose Garden... but attributed the "attacks" to an anti-Islamic video, just as Romney was alluding to.  Why would he allow himself to get tripped up like that?  Where was his head?

A very poor performance indeed.

On Ryan's "scandal" post...

Seems someone in Wyoming County, PA is as pissed off as F. Ryan is about the 9-11-12 questions being raised by Congress.

They've set up a table with large signs just outside of the Post Office (the only Federal building in the county) and are handing out impeachment literature to anyone walking by.  Liz, my wife, seems to think this is more election drama than it is serious impeachment concerns... but I'm not sure that's true.

This part of PA is pretty conservative, in a general sense.  I do think the county voted for Obama, but it was awfully close if I recall correctly.  What I do know is that the NRA has a HUGE presence here, and that they are all over this like flies on feces.  I personally wouldn't be surprised if the table in question was paid for by the NRA itself.

Fifty years ago today...

On this day in 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the first session of the Second Vatican Council.

I'm constantly amazed at the level of misunderstanding that still, half a century later, surrounds this event.  Since the Council's closing in 1965, most Catholics and nearly all Protestants view the history of the Catholic faith as falling into two parts:  pre-Vatican Council and post-Vatican Council.

Angelo Roncalli came to the papal conclave in 1958 with a round-trip train ticket... convinced he'd be returning to Venice once a new Pope had been found.  His election was seen as a "stop-gap" measure... truly, a continuation of the interregnum following the death of Pius XII, until a more long-term candidate could be identified and elected.

You'd be hard pressed to find a man who did more to change the face of the Catholic Church than John XXIII did... and I am serious here.  Francis of Assisi comes to mind, as does Benedict.  Loyola and Xavier. These are the names that I think of when I think about who shaped the Church as we know it today... and I simply cannot imagine keeping John's name off that list.  I realize he didn't do it alone... but he wasn't afraid to do what no one had done in the Church for nearly a century, and he took on issues that had troubled the Vatican for more than 500 years.

scandal

I just saw the Reaganomics post and will respond at my first opportunity. I just popped on today to link to a detailed account of a story I've had a particular interest in ...

The State Department held a press briefing today in which the most detailed account of the Benghazi Embassy attacks was laid out. Found HERE this story reads like something out of a Vince Flynn novel. The attacks, firefights, driving against traffic with two flat tires in an escape attempt, and most damning of all is State flatly saying that "others in the administration" whom claimed this was all a result of protests (spontaneous or otherwise) were wrong noting, "that was never our conclusion."

Now you might ask yourself why State would come out against its' own administration (read: its' current boss). Well, State Department officials, career State Department officials are testifying under oath to congress starting today and a security official that fended off the attack has already testified that security was "inappropriately low", and repeated requests for enhancing it were denied. The bottom line - career State Department and security professionals are not about to commit perjury for a CIC that looks to be on his way out of office.

The POTUS clearly and repeatedly lied. UN Ambassador Susan Rice, SoS Clinton, and Press Secretary Jay Carney all repeated this lie, emphatically so. A sign of how bad this is getting - Carney does a daily press briefing... he hasn't been seen nor heard from in two weeks; and what is described as an "emergency meeting" between Hillary and the President is said to be taking place this very afternoon.

And guess what? The next presidential debate is on foreign policy.

On Ryan's defense of Reaganomics...

F. Ryan reminded me that he had, indeed, responded to my questions about GOP taxation policies, but in a comment rather than a post.  I wanted to keep that discussion front and center, so here are his salient points:

"I don't think we can have a proper discussion on "Reaganomics" & what aspects of it jump started the economy if we simply define it as the raising & lowering of personal income tax rates, which is the way I read your posts. lets get a common definition of Reaganomics first. "

"In other words, if he compromised on taxes in 86' because he made the executive calculation that the USSR was now a greater threat than the once faltering/now recovered US economy, then that makes his decision part of history, but not necessarily part of Reaganomics. "

"...we need to establish whether we mean Reaganomics the theory, as articulated by Reagan, or the reality of what legislation was produced post political compromise, because "supply side" is traditionally thought of as the polar political/economic opposite.of Keynsian, and Reagan's ideology is certainly one of a supply sider "

Fair enough.  I define "Reaganomics" as the policies and agendas laid out by Reagan from early in 1980 (once his campaign came full swing) though his entire terms in office.  In short, "Reaganomics" is the economic policy, in all its subtle nuances, of the man as he ran for President AND of the President himself through both his terms in office.

Let's begin with Reagan's Republican National Convention Acceptance Speech, given in Detroit, MI on July 17, 1980.  In that speech, Reagan made four fundamental promises for the first term of his Presidency:

1)  Massive spending cuts to reduce the Federal deficit and secure a balanced budget by 1984, including the elimination of such wasteful and redundant organs as the Department of Education and the Department of Energy,

2)  Massive tax cuts to reduce marginal income tax rates across the board, lower the capital gains tax, eliminate loopholes and simplify the tax code,

3)  Reduce the rate at which the Federal government grows,

4)  A return to the "gold standard" to ensure a strong, inflation-proof US Dollar into the future.

With the help of history's unwavering eye, we see that there was no balanced budget, that Education and Energy are still sucking up tax dollars and clogging the machine of government, there still is no gold standard (nor will there ever be), and that government spending doubled from 1980 to 1989.

Now, I know Ryan is foaming at the mouth because Reagan spent $991 billion in 1987 (up from Carter's last budget of $541 billion) specifically to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War.  One can't win a war without spending money, I agree.  What I question is why we have to separate "Reaganomics" from any efforts to "win" the Cold War.  Either the country is fighting a war to win, or we are not.  I've often heard Ryan defend Bush Jr. and his spending as all part of the effort to win the "War on Terror"... but Obama hasn't lowered the amount of money spent on the military since his inauguration, either.  Why is his spending less important than Bush's?

Winning the Cold War had to have been, and (indeed) WAS, an integral part of Reagan's economic agenda from the very start.  Thus, it was part of Reaganomics and can't be separated from it.

Furthermore, I contend that the pundits of Reaganomics today use the term and "theory" of the policies in ways that are not only contradictory to the actual Reagan vision, but do so in the most un-factual manner (not a real word, I know) possible simply to make a talking point.  I want to be sure that we, as members of this proud brotherhood, DO NOT fall into that same trap.  We are more than capable (and yes, I am including myself in this generalization) of taking the truly objective path and seeing history for what it is, rather than what we want it to be.

I'm the first to admit that Reagan restructured the tax rate, and lowered the top marginal rate from 70% to 28% (33% in '88).  Capital gains went from 44% to 32%.  However, the amount of revenue stemming from payroll tax went from 58% to 88% in the same time frame, meaning more and more of the government funds come from our paychecks... especially the paychecks of the top 25% of wage earners.  These are the same wage earners that today we are told are paying the bills in this country.

The rate at which government grew was lowered from 5% to 2.5% in 7 years... probably his greatest achievement, economically.  However, he was spending nearly twice what Carter was spending, in any way you care to present it.  As a percentage of GDP, as gross dollars, as a percentage of total revenue... all were more than 80% MORE than what was spent in the four years of Carter's term.  His deficits were nearly three times what Carter's were... and his national debt figure was the first to take the US out of the world's primary creditor to the world's primary debtor... something 3 of the next 4 Presidents would emulate in the years that followed.

Thoughts?

Let's talk "priceless"...

Did anyone else see the Chris Matthews meltdown?  I swear, the man was actually in tears!

He all but said that Jim Lehrer's fairly objective position within the framework of the debate made Obama's position in the debate untenable.  What does that say about the President and his policies?  Without the support of MSNBC and the rest of the sycophantic liberal press, Obama can't make his points, let alone win them against rational opposition.

Does that about sum it up, Mr. Matthews?