"When the explorers laid anchor in the Bahamas, they met indigenous peoples who had inhabited the Western hemisphere for millennia. As we reflect on the tragic burdens tribal communities bore in the years that followed, let us commemorate the many contributions they have made to the American experience, and let us continue to strengthen the ties that bind us today.”
- President Barack Obama, Presidential Proclamation, Columbus Day, October 8, 2012
October 10, 2012
By: Linda Case Gibbons
On the third grade playground they call them "cry babies.” In presidential debates, they call them Democrats.
In the aftermath of Romney’s debate victory last week, Obama and his campaign committee were hard-pressed to be good sports. And for good reason. Obama couldn’t handle the truth.For the first time in a long time, Obama had to face questions that he had to answer, before an audience of 67 million people, without the benefit of a doting press filter to protect him, without "his people” running interference and without a Teleprompter.
He couldn’t refuse to answer as he usually does. He couldn’t walk away from the Rose Garden press conference, as he usually does. And he couldn’t depend on "his people” who run his administration while he campaigns and golfs, as he usually does. And it made him hopping mad.
Alone on that stage, he was forced to think on his feet. And he couldn’t do it. The gifted orator, the Harvard Law School Law Review editor was unmasked for who he really was. And he was furious.
He couldn’t spew his usual racially divisive or class warfare rhetoric. He couldn’t whip up this crowd by ridiculing his opponent because his opponent was standing across the stage from him.
He couldn’t disclose his leftist, anti-colonialist, anti-American, pro-Islam stance because the people in this audience were too diverse for this community organizer tactic to work.
He would not talk about his indefensible record. He never has. He couldn’t get away with bringing "muffins with real cloth napkins” to this gig. And off script and off Teleprompter, Obama didn’t have much to say.
Starting out with a pitiful and inappropriate wedding anniversary announcement, Obama expected to hear the usual delighted applause and to "feel the love” as he does on Letterman and The View.
Instead he soon realized he was at a job interview, that the American people watching were interviewing him and Gov. Romney for the job of president of the United States.
During the debate, he found out it’s easier to get away with high flown rhetoric, buzz words and ridiculing your opponents on the streets as a community organizer, or politicking and speechifying at Harvard, but in a real job there is accountability. With this debate the American people – his bosses -- wanted Obama to tell them what he has done as president that entitles him to lead our country for another four years.
With no Gibbs or Axelrod to spin Romney’s debate accusation that Obama and Pelosi and Reid pushed his Obamacare through without one Republican vote while Romney passed Massachusetts health care in a bipartisan fashion, Obama was at a loss for words.
When Romney told the president his investment in failed green companies would have paid the salaries of the teachers for whom Obama was promising jobs, Axelrod and Gibbs were not there to protect Obama.
And when the debate went beyond the answers Obama and Kerry had rehearsed, Obama simply stared at his feet and was angry.
The Obama machine, it is reported, sprang into defensive mode even as the debate was happening. They couldn’t blame Bush this time, but they found plenty of other things to blame for their candidate’s lackluster and weak performance: Mitt Romney for being a liar and not being "the real Mitt Romney;” John Kerry for being a lousy debate practice partner; and the state of Colorado for its high altitude.
They even tried to blame 78-year-old Jim Lehrer for being too silent, but let’s face it, as a Romney spokesperson pointed out, "You’ve lost the debate when you start blaming the moderator.”
They blamed everyone but the person they should have blamed: the man who to their dismay, turned out to be an empty suit in an empty chair.
It is clear Romney stands for everything Obama abhors. He is a self-made man, he epitomizes American capitalism and he is successful. He actually did build it.
What Obama could not accept after the debate was that the real Mitt Romney didshow up. This is Mitt Romney the businessman who built Staples and Bain Capital. This is Mitt Romney the businessman doing business, a man Obama has never met and who does business in the real world, something Obama knows nothing about.
It took the Obama camp off guard. After all Romney was the candidate the White House was praying for during the Republican primaries because they believed he would be easy to beat.
If the president had wanted to address his opponent on any points, he could have done so on stage that night. Romney did. If he believed his opponent was "lying,” he could have accused him on stage that night. Romney did.
But Obama didn’t. Instead he let his "spin-team” loose after the debate, but when face-to-face with his opponent, he had nothing to say
Once he left the debate, Obama headed to his comfort zone, the Hollywood community where he was able to gently poke fun at himself for his inconsistent debate performance and feel the love he needed and on the campaign trail where he could ridicule Romney about Big Bird. But not on stage that night.
In fact, according to published reports, Obama was annoyed at having to debate Romney at all. After all, he is the president.
While practicing in a luxury resort in Nevada, Obama was bored by the whole deal, so he opted to blow off practice sessions to pay a visit to Hoover Dam and to a campaign field office. There he told campaign workers that his advisers were "keeping me indoors all the time” to practice. "It's a drag,” he said. "They're making me do my homework.”
It was the familiar arrogance, pot-smoking, I'm-just-like-you bonding he does with other college-aged students for which Obama is famous, but somehow it rang hollow when you realize what is at stake in our country and what Obama chooses as his priorities.
It is disconcerting that Obama thought he won until his handlers told him otherwise. In fact, he maintains that he had been "just too polite,” but we know unprepared, uninformed and uninvolved when we see it.
The most distressing thing was that when the debate dust had settled, all Obama came away with was that Romney intended to take Big Bird off the government dole because the chicken pulls in about $50 million per year in endorsements.
Yes, you guessed it. Big Bird is a "One Percenter.” And Romney’s right. The American people cannot afford to borrow from China to keep Big Bird in bird seed.
But maybe Joe will make out better in his vice presidential debate with Paul Ryan now that ABC’s Martha Raddatz will moderate the event. Obama attended his law school buddy’s Julius Genachowski’s wedding to Raddatz in 1991 and then nominated Genachowski to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
This may very well be the advantage Democrats were waiting for when Jim Lehrer so roundly disappointed them. This is the kind of playing field Obama likes.
It was easy for Obama to make promises in 2008, but commitments are tougher, and now his chickens have come home to roost.
Now, four years later, the American people want to know what he has done with their country, what commitments he has kept. And that’s tough. Promises, easy. Commitments, not so much.
Hope and change sound good to everyone, but as Gov. Romney said: "I know the President hopes for a safer, freer and a more prosperous Middle East allied with the United States. I share this hope. But hope is not a strategy.”
Hold the line, America.