Obama's Debate Debacle

From: Jill M.

Sent: October 8, 2012

To: undisclosed recipients

Subject: Fw: 

There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust." --James Madison

Just keep looking down.
If you were among the 67 million Americans who tuned in to Wednesday night's presidential debate, you saw Barack Obama utterly outmatched by Mitt Romney in such dramatic fashion that Obama's Leftmedia sycophants could only wail and gnash their teeth. The irony is that the media had a hand in his defeat.

Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto several years ago devised a theory that the Leftmedia so pamper leftist politicians that they are unable to defend themselves when presented with a strong conservative argument from a determined opponent. Certainly we saw the "Taranto Principle" in effect Wednesday, as Obama could do little to deflect Romney's rhetorical blows other than simply repeat his feeble demagoguery.

The debate began with the economy. Obama has a demonstrably abysmal record on this subject, so he had to start where he always starts -- by blaming Bush: "[F]our years ago we went through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression." Though he boasted about creating five million jobs over the last 30 months, he quickly skipped over his own term in office, saying, "[T]he question here tonight is not where we've been, but where we're going."

This left the perfect opening for one of Romney's best zinger's of the night. "I'm concerned," Romney said, "that the path that we're on has just been unsuccessful. The president has a view very similar to the view he had when he ran four years ago, that a bigger government, spending more, taxing more, regulating more -- if you will, trickle-down government -- would work." After answering Romney's charge by listing a few of the government programs he had or will set up -- trickle-down government -- Obama spent the rest of the evening smirking grimly and staring down at the podium, which was in stark contrast to Romney, who looked directly at Obama whether he was speaking or listening.

Moving to taxes, Obama accused Romney of planning a $5 trillion tax cut that we can't "pay for" and that only benefits the wealthy. We were pleased to see Romney thoroughly debunk such nonsense and explain why his plan to cut tax rates by a further 20 percent across the board would lead to economic growth and, therefore, more tax revenue "by more people working, getting higher pay, paying more taxes. That's how we get growth and how we balance the budget."

Romney also reminded voters that Obama's policies have squeezed the middle class, not helped them. Obama might call this "economic patriotism," but as Romney noted, "Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a tax in and of itself." Meanwhile, prices for gasoline, electricity, food and health care costs are soaring. All told, as Joe Biden helpfully put it the other day, "[T]he middle class has been buried the last four years."

Cue Obama looking down at the podium.

During the argument over taxes, Obama left one major question unanswered. If, as he says, "we should go back to the rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president, when we created 23 million new jobs," why wasn't that his economic prescription four years ago, or two years ago, when he and other Democrats agreed to keep the Bush tax rates for fear of hurting the economy if they raised taxes? Not only that, but they passed the payroll tax cut. Obama didn't explain how raising taxes on small business owners now will help them create jobs when the economy is once again listing toward recession.

It was Romney who provided the answer. "[W]hy lower the rates?" he asked. "[B]ecause small business pays that individual rate; 54 percent of America's workers work in businesses that are taxed not at the corporate tax rate but at the individual tax rate. And if we lower that rate, they will be able to hire more people." Furthermore, regarding Obama's claim that "under my plan, 97 percent of small businesses would not see their income taxes go up," Romney replied, "[T]hose businesses that are in the [top] 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half of all the people who work in small business. Those are the businesses that employ one-quarter of all the workers in America. And [Obama's] plan is to take their tax rate from 35 percent to 40 percent."

Cue Obama looking down at the podium again, clearly hoping that a teleprompter would somehow appear among his notes.

On health care, Romney is perhaps ironically the perfect candidate to oppose Obama because as Massachusetts governor, he signed into law a plan that provided the template for ObamaCare. After naming a few of the differences, however, Romney eventually hit the key point: "The federal government taking over health care for the entire nation and whisking aside the Tenth Amendment, which gives states the rights for these kinds of things, is not the course for America to have a stronger, more vibrant economy." From a purely political standpoint, this makes it hard for Obama to reach voters in the middle with a message of Romney's supposed extremism.

In his closing remarks, Romney laid out the choice before voters: "This is an important election and ... I'm concerned about the direction America has been taking over the last four years. ... I know this is bigger than an election about the two of us as individuals. It's bigger than our respective parties. It's an election about the course of America. What kind of America do you want to have for yourself and for your children? There are two very different paths that we began speaking about this evening, and ... they lead in very different directions."

We hope that Wednesday's debate was an indication of which path will prevail.

This Week's 'Braying Jackass' Award

"Why wouldn't we eliminate tax breaks for corporate jets? My attitude is, if you got a corporate jet, you can probably afford to pay full freight, not get a special break for it." --Barack Obama

This from the guy who spends so much time at taxpayer expense on the most expensive jet in the world, Air Force One. A just-released book compared the Obama administration's record-breaking expenses to the British Royal Family, for which British taxpayers spent $57.8 million last year. Robert Keith Gray writes in "Presidential Perks Gone Royal" that, just last year, American taxpayers spent $1.4 billion on the Obama family.