It's not easy being green. At the recent debate, Mitt Romney offered to cut just one tiny, useless, inexpensive government program... PBS. Unfortunately for him, it turns out to be a very popular one. Mittens wants to fire Big Bird?!? BAD idea. People will remember that.
Mitt has apparently turned over a new leaf, and rewritten every position he ever had. The day after the debate, he came out and said he was wrong about the 47 percent. He even apologized. But it was too late. Obama, who everyone says lost the debate, had been careful not to let him make his apology in front of 50 million people.
Larry O'Donnell had the best take on the debate, borrowing from a Denver Post writer, who wrote, “Like a bull to a matador, Romney time and again turned toward Obama to deliver attacks on the president's job performance, portraying him as clueless to his policies' impacts and hopeless in trying to turn the economy around."
That is a great description of the debate. Now, I've actually seen a bullfight and I can assure you that this is exactly what happens. The matador pretends not to see the bull. He turns his back on him. He taunts him, getting him to charge again and again, until... until the bull is so tired he can't stand up any longer. Then the matador takes out his sword, walks up to the bull, and plunges the sword into the bull's heart.
During the debate, Obama pretended to be taking notes, just like John Stewart pretends to take notes. Obama acted as if he had an important meeting somewhere else. He scowled. But he never reacted to anything that Romney was actually saying, even when Romney said the most preposterous things. Romney flatly denied that he had a plan to lower taxes by five trillion dollars; he also stated that he had no idea how corporations could avoid paying taxes by using loopholes and overseas accounts. Both of those statements were jaw droppers, which would have prompted an ordinary person to exclaim, "Say, wha?"
Obama didn't bite. But he was taking notes all right-- notes about how best to turn Romney's outrageous statements against him.
Romney has already walked back a couple of his claims. If he truly intends to abandon his tax cut “plan” (now that he has denied that he ever HAD it, on national TV), he has less than a month to explain what, exactly, he will be doing instead. It will be interesting to hear what he comes up with, because that tax cut was the way he proposed to revitalize the economy.
The clock is ticking.
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