The Council Has Spoken!

This week's results for the Watcher's Council vote are in, they've been posted over at Watcher of Weasels.  The winning entry for the week was "False Benghazi Narrative Exposed, Bizarre Finger Pointing, a Leaderless White House" by The Independent Sentinel, and the winning non-council entry for the week was a video of Lara Logan's speech "We're Being Lied To" over at YouTube.  Congrats!

Thoughts on the final debate

I was hoping that Obama would get clobbered on Benghazi in the foreign policy debate, but that didn't happen.  Romney's strategy seemed to be to just make himself look like a plausible commander-in-chief. I thought he succeeded in doing that.  Not only was he plausible, I thought he looked much more presidential than our current commander-in-chief.  Obama was behaving more like an internet troll than a sitting president.  If Obama's only goal was to show independent voters what a petty little creep he is, then I'd say it worked beautifully.

This was supposedly Obama's best moment:

All I got out of Obama's condescending answer was that he likes to substitute snark for substance.  At no point did Obama attempt to explain why the Navy was wrong to ask for the 350 ships that Romney was talking about.  Also, I doubt Obama's snark will play very well in Virginia.

I thought Romney's best moment came when he was talking about Obama's Apology Tour:

Obama didn't really have an answer for that, other than to lie and try to hide behind the corrupt media's skirt.  And he won't have an answer for all the coverage Benghazi gets over the next two weeks, either.

The Council Has Spoken!

This week's results for the Watcher's Council vote are in, they've been posted over at Watcher of Weasels.  The winning entry for the week was "The girl’s guide to visiting the USS Makin Island" by Bookworm Room, and the winning non-council entry for the week was Findalis' post "Muslim Persecution of Christians: August, 2012" over at Monkey in the Middle.  Congrats!

Romney's best town hall debate moment

Tuesday's town hall debate was mostly a wash.  Romney won on substance, but Obama won on style.  And by style I mean interrupting constantly and telling outrageous lies in that stupid voice that sounds like he's trying to do an impression of Fred Armisen's Obama impression.  

This was Romney's best moment:

Obama got a lot of shots in, but he didn't have any single moment in the entire debate that even came close to being as effective as that moment of Romney's.  Romney completely laid waste to Obama's pathetic record and all Obama could do was just sit there and take it.  What was supposedly Obama's best moment came during an answer to a question about Benghazi... but after the debate was over even Obama had to concede to the questioner that Romney's point was correct.  I have a feeling this point will be revisited in the next debate, which will focus on foreign policy issues.  Hopefully by then Romney will also have a better response ready for Obama's faux outrage.  And in the meantime the rest of us will be talking about Benghazi:

The Man Who Laughs

I really don't think Joe Biden's maniacal laughter during the VP debate did Obama any favors:

It's hard to take someone seriously when he's acting like such a clown during a serious discussion about Iran's attempts to get nuclear weapons.  Lots of people keep making comparisons to Jack Nicholson's portrayal of The Joker... it actually made me think more of Nicholson's performance in The Pledge, the scene where he is sitting there all looking disheveled and muttering crazy thoughts to himself.  But speaking of The Joker, did you know that a film based on Victor Hugo's novel The Man Who Laughs was the original inspiration for The Joker?

The Council Has Spoken!

This week's results for the Watcher's Council vote are in, they've been posted over at Watcher of Weasels.  The winning entry for the week was "Infiltration, Treason, Jihad – Welcome to The Project" by The Noisy Room, and the winning non-council entry for the week was Ace's post "The Normative Power of Law and the Emotional Power of Drama" over at Ace of Spades HQ.  Congrats!

Predictions for tonight's VP debate

You should expect several obvious Obama campaign plants among the "undecideds" asking questions at the town hall tonight... they will try to put Ryan on the spot with stupid gotcha questions being asked by victims trying to play the absolute moral authority card.  At least one of these gotcha questions will end up backfiring on the Obama campaign in a major way, but they will be too dumb to realize it before it's too late.

Despite an entire week of debate prep, Joe Biden will still be Joe Biden.  He will say a lot of very dumb things but he will say them all with the utmost confidence. and the media will do their best to declare him the winner no matter how badly he does.  Biden will loudly blurt out some idiotic lie about Republicans, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation... and then he'll put a big shit-eating grin on his face afterward.  Most of the media will call this absurd lie the best line of the night and the moment that Biden won the debate.  A few of the smarter lefty media folks won't even bother trying to defend Biden's awfulness, they'll just try to downplay the overall importance of the VP debate.

Paul Ryan will do great.  He'll make a lot of really great points, and back up what he's saying with a lot of facts and figures.  The media will do its best to portray Ryan's proficiency with math and familiarity with the budget as some sort of gaffe... they will try to say his reliance on numbers makes him seem cold and without empathy, or some such nonsense.  They will also try to find some terrible problem with Ryan's body language, even if there is nothing to find.

Update: Doh!  The VP debate wasn't the town hall debate, so you can scratch my first prediction... though I think that prediction will still hold true of the next debate between Obama and Romney.

Update: Lots of folks on the left want to think Biden won the debate.  I think it's very telling that so many Democrats seem to think being a good debater means loudly interrupting and acting like a clown.  He may have won the hearts of Democrats with his buffoonery, but I don't think he did himself any favors with independents.  I was right about Biden throwing up his hands and blurting out a stupid lie about Republicans... he did that when he tried to put 100% of the blame for the "Great Recession" on the GOP, despite the fact that Democrats controlled both houses of Congress when it happened.  I'm sure most Democrats loved hearing that sort of garbage, but I have yet to find one who's willing to call it the best line of the night.

Update: I was right about them trying to call Ryan cold.  WaPo's Richard Cohen calls Ryan "cold", "plastic" and "too actuarial"... but Biden was somehow both "real" and a "hack with heart", whatever the hell that means.

The Council Has Spoken!

This week's results for the Watcher's Council vote are in, they've been posted over at Watcher of Weasels.  The winning entry for the week was "Shoot The Messenger – US State Dept Blasts CNN For Revealing Its Misrepresentations On Libya Attack" by Joshuapundit, and the winning non-council entry for the week was Mark Steyn's post "Bowing To The Mob" over at National Review Online.  Congrats!

Romney 1 - Obama 0

I've seen Mitt Romney debate before, so I knew what to expect... but based on Barack Obama's pathetic performance in last night's presidential debate, he must have been expecting to debate John McCain all over again.  He was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Obama's never really been challenged by anyone his whole life.  Now he had to suffer through one actual debate and he completely fell apart.  I can't wait to see how badly he does in the next one.