Both liberal and conservative pundits that I have read came to a consensus…President Obama lost the first debate. We must concede that, but only if you believing lying is winning. But informed voters can see right through this gimmick. For those that can’t, (and now I am not speaking to my fellow Kossacks but the American people at large) this Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi is a must read. Taibbi dispels Romney’s BS during the debate. It is necessary that everyone informs themselves before casting their votes.
Taibbi says:
I read the transcript of the debate and all I got from Romney was either outright factual lies, or total rhetorical dishonesty. He even tried out a version of the for-years-debunked death panel business:
In order to bring the cost of health care down, we don't need to have a -- an -- a board of 15 people telling us what kinds of treatments we should have.
Really? Hey, Mitt – what do you think health insurance is? It is, by definition, a bunch of people deciding what kinds of treatments we should have.
Of course, Romney's point is that there's allegedly going to be a bloodless government board somewhere deciding upon treatment options, as opposed to some bloodless corporate board making those decisions, but even that's not true at all. Romney was talking about the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which exists solely to make cuts in Medicare if its costs rise beyond a certain level and congress doesn't do anything about them.
That board is specifically barred by law from making the kinds of care decisions Romney is talking about. Obama did at least point this out, but weakly, and that's not even the point. I mean, practically in the same breath of his "unelected board" attack, Romney criticized Obama's plan because it cut Medicare. So he's clearly not against government bureaucrats making decisions about treatment, because what the hell does Romney think Medicare does? He should try getting an eye job and billing Medicare for it. The whole thing was a non-sequitur, insincere and substantively meaningless – but if you had no clue what you were watching, it looked like Romney was confidently attacking and Obama was backtracking.
Romney’s debate merely ignored substance and exchanged it for style. He left reality at the door and fashioned his speeches based on rhetoric not logic.
Romney's entire debate performance was like this. He said absolutely nothing, but got lots of credit for style points. Here's Romney's answer on what budget cuts he would make, addressing perhaps-soon-to-be-ex-PBS employee, Jim Lehrer:
I'm sorry, Jim. I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it. That's number one.
Number two, I'll take programs that are currently good programs but I think could be run more efficiently at the state level and send them to state.
Number three, I'll make government more efficient, and to cut back the number of employees, combine some agencies and departments. My cutbacks will be done through attrition, by the way.
So the answer to the question, "What will you do to rein in the biggest budget deficit in history?" comes down to, "I'll cut PBS, which is about one millionth of the federal budget, and some other stuff."
This is the man who won the debates, folks…according to pundits and polls across America!