I think Al Sharpton had a lot of great analysis about the debate that a lot of people are missing. There are a lot of complaints about President Obama's performance, but in a day or two after the dust settles, I think we're going to see a bigger picture emerge. We've seen this before. How many times have we complained and complained, and then after the fact gone back and said, President Obama was right.
Here's the quote that stood out to me tonight from Al Sharpton. I'm working on getting the video clip plus another video of Rev. Sharpton expanding on his reaction to Mitt Romney's performance tonight. (I transcribed this directly from the television set, and am not having any luck finding the video clip. I will embed it if I do find it.)
I agree that it's going to be two or three days before we get the verdict, so I would suggest to the court that he [Romney] made a good testimony. But he will be indicted for perjury because he's lying. When you take what he said tonight and compare it to his proposals, to what he has said, to what he's represented, to the Ryan plan; it does not match what he said tonight. So how are we going to be impressed with someone that made a very passionate and a very articulate series of lies tonight.
This clip was Rev Al Sharpton's first response to the debate. He had the same reaction that I did about the fact that Romney thinks we live in a different century. I keep saying the 20th Century, because Romney acts like we don't have the ability to go back and play the tapes from the past.
Romney's problem is that this debate is in 2012, not 1812. We have things like we can hit a button and say, show what he has said before. No doubt Mitt Romney was at his best tonight but his best is not good enough. when you look at the fact that he's saying that taxes will not go up on the middle class, yet he is proposing all the way through this campaign, dealing with deductions in terms of mortgage investments, dealing with deductions in terms of charity, it will in fact go up on the middle class and a much lower tax rate for the rich. The facts will not bear him out. When he stood there all night advocating states' rights across the board, what is that saying to women about who is going to decide on women's issues? What is that saying to minorities about immigration, civil rights, and voting rights?
This man went back to the 19th century on states' rights all night long. When we hear him stand up there and talk about things that are patently contradictory to his position, what I'm surprised at; he cares so much for the poor, so much for the disadvantaged. Would that be the 47% that he said were moochers and had no responsibility? Is this the 47% that he had a Damascus Road experience walking up to that rostrum tonight? So his problem is not going to be Barack Obama or Lehrer, His problem is going to be Mitt Romney because when they play Romney as opposed to the Romney tonight, he's going to look like a flagrant and blatant flip flopper.
A little further in the discussion on MSNBC about the debate tonight, Al Sharpton had this to say:
Al Sharpton: I think it's very important before we close the chapter on this, Mitt Romney made, mark my word on this Ed, very serious mistakes tonight. He committed himself to things that starting next week, with Joe Biden, is going to haunt Ryan and haunt him in these next three debates.
Ed Schultz: I don't see that.
Al Sharpton: I think whatever your judgment or my judgment or anyone's judgment on President Obama, it will come back to serve him well that Mitt Romney committed himself to things that the right and he are not going to live up to. A fish would not get caught if they kept their mouth shut. He spoke often tonight. He's going to have to back it up in three debates.