The only person who seemed more dazed and confused than Obama was moderator Jim Lehrer. To continue the boxing analogy, he reminded me of the typical punch-drunk champion who just did not know when to quit. Lehrer’s journalistic legacy, not Obama’s presidency, was the biggest loser last night.
(“Romney beats Obama,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 4, 2012)
No doubt you’ve heard former PBS anchorman Jim Lehrer trying to defend his senile performance by insisting that his role as moderator was merely to announce the topic at the beginning of each round and let the candidates go at it.
But someone should tell him that, if debate organizers just wanted a moderator to act like the ring girl at a boxing match, FOX News would have been happy to pimp out a girl from its harem. At least she would have looked the part.
Admiral James Stockdale, of course, is the geriatric candidate who began his opening statement at the 1992 vice-presidential debate by famously mumbling the immortal words:
Who am I? Why am I here?
To be fair, I should note that Stockdale came to his senses before the end of that debate. By contrast, Lehrer looked like a dazed and confused heckler throughout this entire debate.
If he had his wits about him, for example, he might have put the following question to Romney:
Governor, the general theme of your campaign seems to be that President Obama has taken away our freedoms by ‘substituting the government for free people.’ You even said during a September 12, 2012 interview on CBS that:
‘I want to restore the kind of freedom that allows America to lead the world.’
Not to mention the super PACs with names like ‘Restore America’ and ‘Freedomworks for America’ that are bombarding us with TV ads propagating this theme.
Therefore, can you please cite three freedoms that we had under the preceding Bush presidency that this president has taken away?
And when Romney finished spewing his litany of platitudes without citing a single one, Obama, if he had shown up to debate, might have responded by noting that Romney is the one who seems hell-bent on taking away our freedoms, among them:
- our freedom to live without fear that a catastrophic illness could bankrupt our family;
- our freedom to choose an abortion;
- our freedom to marry the person we love; and
- our freedom to vote without having to jump over Jim Crow-like hurdles….
Channeling John Kerry, I don’t know how Obama is losing to this shameless phony! But don’t mope, vote!