And there you have it folks. For more than two months, Mitt Romney has been prepping, cramming, rehearsing, practicing, drilling, whatever you want to call it, for his magnum opus; his grand finale...his aria...which is what we saw last night.
Meanwhile, President Obama has been going around, talking to the American people, building his coalition of volunteers, phone-bankers, canvassers, fundraisers, releasing strategic campaign ads both on TV and on the Internet, and building a solid lead in the likely voter polls, as much as 5-7pts nationally, and up to double digits in key battleground states.
So it boggles my mind when people seem to be derailed by a 90-minute, overly scripted, poorly moderated "debate" which was not really a debate because one side was all LIES (You can't really debate a liar). So the media (quite predictably) has decided that Romney won and Obama lost. Okay then. Let's just review some ways in which the MSM has shown themselves to be an "authority" in anything Obama-related. Follow me below the squiggly.
1. Feb 2010: Scott Brown wins the special election in MA - media declares that Obama's Health Care Reform bill is dead on arrival as a result. Well, fast forward to 2012, and Scott Brown is fighting to keep his senate seat, and Obamacare is LAW OF THE LAND.
2. Nov 2010: Congressional Republicans take over House and win some Senate seat during a midterms where media gleefully licks their chops over President Obama's so-called "shellacking" and starts calling him a "lame duck" President. Between DEC 2010 and May 2011 this is what the said "lame duck" President accomplished.
a. Repealed DADT
b. Extend payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits for Middle-class Americans
c. Ratify the START Treaty
d. Find and kill Osama Bin Laden (something which the Previous admin couldn't do for 7 years.)
3. March 2012: Media declares that rising gas prices will destroy President Obama's re-election bid.
4. July 2012: Media declares that jobs numbers will destroy President Obama's re-election bid.
5. August 2012: Media declares that President Obama has an "enthusiasm gap" problem and the RNC was likely to give Mitt Romney a good bump in the polls because Republicans are FIRED UP!!!.
I don't need to tell you the outcome for # 3, 4 and 5. You know the story because it happened recently. And these are just a few examples of a well-established pattern in the media when it comes to making superficial (and WRONG) predictions on what various situations or events mean for this President.
So yes, I think it's time we stopped freaking out over day-to-day events, but most importantly stop relying on the mediaCorp. (an extended arm of the Republican Party) to give an objective appraisal of what's going on where Barack Obama is concerned. Mitt Romney was given enough time and space to spew all his lies uninterrupted. But his lies are now on record as being uttered during a PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE in October 2012 (not some obscure tape from 2006 or 1993), and there will be no etch-a-sketching from the Romney campaign, OR the media.
The media who, in thinking that they were condemning Obama's performance, actually admitted on national TV that Mitt Romney is a LIAR (something they seemed unwilling or unable to do before last night) are also on RECORD as admitting that Romney is a LIAR who LIED to the American people when they needed to be told the truth.
So while Mitt Romney may have "won" the debate, that is an end in itself for him. The consequences of this win are going to be far more damaging to Romney than you, I or anyone else in the media or elsewhere could have ever imagined. I would advise the Republicans to savor their "win" because they won't have much more to celebrate going forward.