Heading into last night’s debate, I didn’t believe Candy Crowley would be an honest broker or that the room would be filled with “undecided” voters. Both doubts were proved true at the same moment.
Of all the statements that Crowley decided to fact check, why that particular one about what Obama said or didn’t say about terrorism the day after Benghazi? Why not, for example, his statements about gas and oil leases? Or his claim of five million jobs created? Why the “terror” claim?
For five weeks now, the story about what really happened on September 11 in Libya has leaked out in dribs and drabs, strongly suggesting a cover-up of scandalous proportions somewhere in the administration’s pipeline.
No one with the least familiarity fails to remember that in the earliest days, right up through Obama’s speech to the United Nations, a “filmmaker” in the U.S. was being blamed for inciting the violence. And no one who doesn’t remember that should rightfully have reason to recollect the anodyne comments Obama made on September 12 in the Rose Garden right before jetting off to Vegas.
So why did Crowley recall seeing or hearing the word “terror” in the generic phrase “acts of terror”?
The obvious conclusion—and, for me, the only logical one—is that she was tipped off ahead of time to Obama’s argument, which he had prepared, when the issue came up. (But bad on Romney for not having a devastating two minutes rehearsed ahead of time. It was a sickening loss of opportunity.) Without paying particular attention to the context, she inserted herself into the debate to say, yes, the president did say it was an act of terror.
As for the people in the room, if they were truly undecided, why did they applaud when she “corrected” Romney?
That revealing moment instantly put the lie to the whole premise of the debate, both in terms of the “impartial” moderator and the “undecided” participants. Crowley and the majority of the audience were Obama partisans.
Why Romney and the Republican political leadership believed either premise enough to go along with this format and this moderator can best be explained by two words: stupid party.
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Comments
I can understand that the Republicans being the challenger they really can’t “push a string,” but 4 years from now that won’t be the case and they should fix it then.
By the way that “push a string” phrase some from the two most important truths of physics:
1) F=ma
2) you can’t push a string
Dealing with Progressocrats is more like punching water.
It is the stupid party. We’ve proved that over and over again. That whole “women making 72% of what men make” has been disproven so many times – why did a supposedly astute, informed moderator pick that question?
I’m sick at heart today. I see the handwriting on the wall. We let William Ayers win by continuing to send our kids off to government schools where they have been brainwashed into hating their country and everything it stands for.
That whole “women making 72% of what men make” might not be so untrue, at least with this White House.
What is that ? 84.5%
The problem is not that the GOP is “the stupid party”, it’s that the Democrat Media machine runs the debates, decides the rules, and chooses the “moderators” from among themselves. The GOP must live with those terms or have no debates. They go along because televised debates, no matter how “rigged”, give them the only real opportunity to get their message out without going through the Democrat media filter. Look at how well Romney did in the polls after he was able to destroy the media-created Strawman Romney in the first debate.
I mean, deep down inside, did anybody really expect anything else ?
So correct.
The options are (a) take the debate on their terms & have a chance to speak to people without the spin machine; or (b) refuse, be called “chicken” (and everything else) for refusing and don’t get to speak past the spin machine.
Professor, please do not interrupt the story with facts.
/so
There was a large audience in addition to the undecided voters. Many of them were from Hofstra University.
What’s the point of having a town hall debate of undecideds in a state that is so solidly non-swing? The sit down, like the VP debate, or the podium debate wouldn’t matter. But, why wasn’t the town hall in swing state Colorado and have the podium debate at Hofstra?
Republican muckety mucks need to start thinking these things through and stop getting rolled. Also, get rid of the press as moderators. Try a college debate coach.
If you say you’re undecided at this stage of the game, you’re either lying or you are so obtuse and oblivious … you shouldn’t be voting.
I wondered the same thing. She aids the president and the “undecideds” applaud. Strange behavior for “undecideds.”
And the question about Bush? Seriously? Why not Carter?
It felt good to see that Frank Luntz’s group of former Obama voters overwhelmingly said they have shifted to Romney, and, of a group of undecideds at MSNBC, only one said she was moving towards Obama, while three said they were now favoring Romney.
The one who said she was moving towards Obama cited gay marriage as one of her reasons. Gay marriage? It hasn’t even been discussed at the two debates, Ms. “Undecided.”
I’ve come to the conclusio that the undecideds just want attention.
they can’t want it as much as “Liberals”. moral superiority in name only is all about attention
“Undecideds” are liberals who don’t think they’ve been pandered to enough.
“If you say you’re undecided at this stage of the game, you’re either lying or you are so obtuse and oblivious … you shouldn’t be voting.”
In the past I would have heartily agreed with this statement – however, this year there are a lot of liberals who are agonizing over their vote. They are, for the first time in their lives, undecided. So be gentle on them.
There were a lot of liberals undecided in 2008. If after four years of Obama in office, they still can’t see what a disaster he is, they easily fall into the stupid category. I voted for Jimmy Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry and Clinton both times. But Obama’s war on women (which actually existed, unlike the one he has falsely accused Romney of) made it easy to vote for McCain.
The “undecided” clapping was started by the First Lady. Not very undecided!
So who was the “plant” ? The woman who asked if Romney was different that Bush ?
Tipped off ahead of time?? Crowley was herself a part of this very issue’s discussion on September 30 with David Axelrod on September. Here’s what I posted on your earlier blog post this morning:
Anticipating this very issue when she saw David Axelrod and others already trying to repair the obvious damage done to the “video narrative” by Dear Leader, Alana Goodman of Commentary wrote an entire article about it more than two weeks before the debate, on September 30. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/30/no-obama-didnt-call-benghazi-act-of-terror-in-speech/
I’d only add one thing to Alana’s analysis here. If you read the entire speech he delivered on September 12 before flying off to Las Vegas, long before his generalized and very UNcommitted use of the phrase “acts of terror” in the context of 9/11/01 (not the attack of 9/11/12), Obama FIRST made it a priority in his speech to highlight the theme of his Cairo Embassy’s Apologia to the Muslim World: We must not provoke the Muslim world by making statements that would “denigrate” their “religious feelings.” This was, of course, the theme of taxpayer-funded advertisements he and Hillary appeared in in Pakistan long after the Rose Garden speech and this was of course the theme of his UN speech in which he warned that “The Future Must Not Belong to Those Who Slander the Prophet of Islam.”
I forgot to mention in my previous post about Alana Goodman’s article at Commentary. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/30/no-obama-didnt-call-benghazi-act-of-terror-in-speech/ that her article shows that Candy Crowley HERSELF spoke to David Axelrod on September 30, 2012 about this very issue of calling the attack an act of terror. So we now know that she took great dictation from Axelrod.
Obama Takes Charge and Wins Debate.
Oh, that’s not me saying that.
I just went to Yahoo! to check my email and that is the main news headline at Yahoo!
Well, it’s decided then.
The main Yahoo News headline last night was this:
Obama Waxes Presidential While Waxy Romney Melts
So, I suppose we should consider today’s an improvement.
Yahoo has been impossibly biased since the campaign started. I used to keep it as my homepage so I could check mail. Several weeks ago I switched my homepage to LI. I will only go to Yahoo to check those mail addresses.
I said it twice last night, and I’m repeating this again:
Do a Town Hall-Style Presidential Debate near Cincinnati with truly Undecided voters, and then we can talk.
Again: A debate of that kind in New York’s LONG ISLAND. NASSAU COUNTY. A stone’s throw from Queens. “Undecided” voters in a state that has voted overwhelmingly Democrat since FDR? Please! Who are those people trying to fool here?
Another gripe for Crowley, which none of this morning’s commentariat have picked up on:
Her shutting Romney up to prevent any further details on Fast and Furious from polluting her preferred outcome.
I can see the future …
… we’re going to have “Undecided Fact-Checkers.”
That will be the new and improved thing.
Speaking of fact-checkers, why did Candy Crowley have a transcript in her possession that could verify that Obama muttered about “terror” in a speech the day after the terrorist attack?
Quite a coincidence, if I do say so myself.
And remember when Obama said, “Check the transcript”? It was a setup.
It appeared to me that the room was filled with Kings Point campaign contribs and local bigwigs. And a few selected folksy folks (one Code Pink activist) who played stupid, stumbling while reading questions someone else wrote.
What I want to say about Candy Crowley… I can’t here.
I’m fuming.
“It appeared to me that the room was filled with Kings Point campaign contribs and local bigwigs.”
I bet you the only Kings Pointers there who supported Romney were those from The Duke’s good-ole’ college. (Wink-wink!)
The report of that “Code Pink” activist has been debunked as a similar name, different person.
http://www.volokh.com/2012/10/16/was-undecided-questioner-catherine-fenton-media-coordinator-of-codepink-long-island/
“(But bad on Romney for not having a devastating two minutes rehearsed ahead of time. It was a sickening loss of opportunity.)”
Sickening indeed. This is what staggers me about Republicans. They never see it coming — the set-up, the sucker-punch or the opportunity. How much abuse do they wish to absorb? Is there no threshold of disgust? What is it about them? It can’t be stupidity. An endless blindspot? Crippling cowardice? Just staggering to consider what the serial failures of Republicans on this count have cost us all.
I really don’t see that Romney handled it so poorly. He was nailing down obastard’s new contention about the Rose Garden speech when Crowley interrupted him after obastard beckoned Romney to move on. I really don’t know what else he was supposed to do or say, considering the circumstances of the stacked deck and that POS, Crowley. Then, in typical leftist fashion, the knuckle-dragging FLOTUS starts clapping, against the rules.
The real sand-bagging came from the GOP itself for putting Romney in this position to begin with.
Hi, raven! — I agree.
And this is why so many of us preferred Newt. Newt gets it and Newt counters this nonsense brilliantly. Newt would have given us something to cheer about if they did that to him in a debate.
Why don’t the Republicans see it coming? Why, why, why?
I hope and pray that the Romney administration will hire Ryan types and not romneyesque establishment-republican types.
The Left, with assistance from the Republicans through stupidity or compliance, as put in place a soviet/crony system of “reward our friends, punish our enemies” that is a corrupt alliance among Wall Street, banks and Washington, D.C.
We have to clean house.
I hope and believe that we Tea-Party citizens will keep the pressure on in the coming years to return to a SMALL federal government that confines its activities to the scope provided in the Constitution.
Breitbart has footage that seems to point to FLOTUS starting the clapping. So having an audience plant helps.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/10/17/Michelle-Broke-Rules-Led-Applause-At-Debate?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BreitbartFeed+%28Breitbart+Feed%29
It seems as though were stuck in an election time-warp. Lately, every presidential election has controversies concerning election laws, fraud, the role of the media, the debates (who televises, where to be held, style, moderators, etc), and both sides trying to play to the public ear rather than demonstrate who is the best leader for this nation. When are we going to break the mold, or are going to have this same conversation in 2016?
It wouldn’t matter if a fair set of rules were set in stone. The ‘rats will always try to game the system to gain any sort of unfair advantage. It is their driving M.O.. It’s what they are, what they do. For them to stop cheating would be no different to them than to stop breathing. Look at how they bastardize the constitution. That’s all you need to know about their methods. As long as they exist, they will lie, cheat and steal.
I suppose you’re observation is on the mark. It just seems a shame that our presidential elections, in particular, have turned into our once-every-four-years-exercise-in-lunacy!
via Ace:
Crowley On September 30th: Administration Took Weeks To Admit Benghazi Might Be A Terrorist Attack
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/333937.php
So, in all her preparation for being Moderator, she completely forgot her entire line of questioning for Axelrod so she could push Obama’s latest version of the story. UGLY with a capital Crowley.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Republican party is the “Stupid Party”. There is a bit of naivete in going with the Town Hall format, which I believe is a disaster for serious debate. But Mitt held his own, in spite of missing some prime opportunities to lay into Obama. Perhaps, this was a factor: That Mitt didn’t want to seem too aggressive in such a venue? Again, this is fallout from the terrible format chosen, but sometimes one has to wade through the muck, in order to reach the objective.
So we’re compounding the ignorant and weak decision of consenting to the format by suffering its completely predictable consequences in order to prove we can “wade through” it like good soldiers? It’s all so completely stupid and unnecessary.
But I don’t believe this format had work against us at all. In fact, it could have been a huge breakthrough, an OPPORTUNITY. Romney had the perfect trap for THEM. We all knew how Crowley and Obama we’re going to tag team (i.e., anybody who isn’t stupid or has any political awareness at all knew). So, as Joel suggests, the answer was to be prepared with a simple, dignified and devastating response.
Why is this so difficult for Republican leaders to grasp?
raven, so true, so true! And I ask with you — why, why why? Why are the Republicans so clueless?
Except for Reagan and Newt. Of course, I still and always prefer Reagan and Newt, who GET it.
As I said above, I see that RR are going to win this, and win big.
The tone and tenor of the whole country are completely different from 2008 — because we’ve got to have jobs!
Then, once RR win, it will be up to us, the American people, who are the TRUE GUARDIANS of the Constitution and freedom and liberty, to insist that we clean up our government.
We need to make the federal government small again, as it is meant to be under the rules set forth in the Constitution.
RR are going to win. And big. And thank heavens for that, because that’s the beginning.
The Taiwanese animators call it for Obama, but admit it was an unfair win.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb4UHFlzvpo&feature=player_embedded#!
There is no law saying an incumbent President has to debate. Had the Republicans been more demanding we might not have had any debates at all. Rather than criticize the formats and moderators I am blessing our good luck that Obama and his people so overrated his decidedly mediocre skills that they agreed to three debates. Remember that the hapless Carter only agreed to one debate to be held in the waning days of the campaign. Before then most voters outside of California only knew Reagan the politician through the media narrative as a too old, stupid war monger who relied on scripts prepared by his staff. That they got to see a charming, well-informed humorous man who was quip with the humorous ad lib made all the difference.
As for the undecideds I think that in most states they are going to be heavily from the left side of the spectrum. In 2008 these people gobbled up what the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass calls “the Hopium”. They’ve now been in withdrawal for some time and they truly don’t know what to believe anymore.
I suppose you’re right. I’m still smarting at the treatment Gov. Romney had to endure.
Surely the Republicans can do better than Alan Simpson and John Danforth to put on the commission. How about Newt Gingrich? And how do these moderators get chosen? Candy Crowley, really?
Exactly. Right now, I bet the Obama team is wishing they had refused to participate in any debates. It would have cost them a point or two, but their narrative that Romney is a out of touch, rapacious Mormon, war monger would have been fully supported by the MSM and the election would have been in the bag.
The disaster was allowing the US voters to see Romney NOT through the MSM/DNC (I repeat myself) carnival mirror. No, he isn’t superman, but not the ogre that was pretty much sold.
GOP the “Stupid party?” How DARE you insult the stupid by comparing them to the likes of GOP!
On a more serious note: don’t underestimate my argument that the corrupt GOP ‘establishment’ does not want the responsibility of power, when they can instead reap the benefit$ of ruling the major minority party and take it easy.
OK, didn’t Obama and Clinton say they were responsible/accountable?? Where are the resignations!? Romney needs to ask for them next week. Let’s see accountability.
Surprise, surprise, surprise, Guess who was perhaps the LOUDEST applauser in the hall for Crowley’s Benghazi-Romney linguistic trap attack. None other than above-the rules Mooch Obama.
http://politics.kfyi.com/cc-common/mainheadlines3.html?feed=104707&article=10501092
Check it out, right at the 19 second mark…
Americans hate cheaters.
Last night, Mitt Romney was faced with some obvious cheating from several directions, and he handled it with clarity, strength, and dignity. I think we will see another big shift in his favor, and he may well seal the deal on Monday. I believe part of the momentum for the swing is because of the cheating.
As for the debate format, I think we should insist on something besides a reporter as a debate moderator. I’d prefer a retired judge. They already know the rules, they’ve seen it all, they know how to keep control without injecting themselves into the debate.
[…] -Joel Engel on the audience: As for the people in the room, if they were truly undecided, why did they applaud when she “corrected” Romney? […]
Joel Engel: So why did Crowley recall seeing or hearing the word “terror” in the generic phrase “acts of terror”?
Fox News manufactured a controversy about it, so people who checked into the controversy were already aware that Obama had referred to an “act of terror” the day after the attack. Then for the next several days, Obama traveled the country promising to go after those who perpetrated acts of terror. You really had to fully immerse yourself in the right-wing echo chamber to be aware of the controversy without being aware of the facts.
What’s funny is that Romney and much of the right swallowed their own propaganda. He really didn’t know.
It wasn’t a simple act of terror. It was an assault and murder of Americans by an organized, well armed, focused force. Obama’s ambiguous reference does not help his standing. His credibility was further damaged when he presented a cover-up story about a conventional video which motivated a mob (i.e. spontaneous) action.
n.n: It was an assault and murder of Americans by an organized, well armed, focused force.
Yes. Two days after the attack, traveling to Colorado, the president said “So what I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. I want people around the world to hear me: to all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/13/remarks-president-golden-co
Um, that really isn’t saying the attack in Libya was an act of terror, you know. But, I suppose it’s ambiguous enough for denizens of the MSNBC echo chamber to claim it is.
I quote from your selection: “And I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime.”
Key word is the last: crime. He did not say “act of terror.” Acts of terror are sui generis and require a specifically mandated legal response. They are not considered crimes, especially to former constitutional law lecturers and inarguably esteemed Harvard Law Review presidents.
Thanks for pointing that out for us.
Joel Engel: He did not say “act of terror.”
Um, yes he did. On more than one occasion.
Really? Then why did Crowley correct herself afterward if she thought Obama had referred to Benghazi as an “act of terror”? Romney was right.
Obama said in the Rose Garden: “…And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi.” This was the time to call it an act of terror, if that’s what the greatest orator of all time wanted to say. It’s not until after a full paragraph that gets to “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation…”
Notice that he uses the plural, not singular, so it’s entirely unclear what the antecedent is of the phrase. Earlier he’d spoken of 9/11/01. But of course, at the time, he told us that this was a reaction to the film. Echo chamber indeed.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/16/crowley-was-out-of-line/#ixzz29ajBmTsZ
Joel Engel: Romney was right.
Let’s check the transcripts:
Obama 9/12/2012: No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.
Obama 9/13/2012: So what I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. (Applause.) I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America. (Applause.)
Obama 10/16/2012: The day after the attack, Governor, I stood in the Rose Garden, and I told the American people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened, that this was an act of terror. And I also said that we’re going to hunt down those who committed this crime.
Romney 10/16/2012: I think it’s interesting the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack, he went in the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.
Romney was simply wrong.
Please address how those statements weren’t simple boilerplate generalizations.
Or not. As we know you can’t.
Pasteurized: Please address how those statements weren’t simple boilerplate generalizations.
Obama 9/12/2012: No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation … We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act.
Obama 9/13/2012: So what I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. (Applause.) I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished.
You can’t possibly parse this fine enough to ignore the fact that the president was referring to the Benghazi attack as an “act of terror”, just as said in the debate. You really had to fully immerse yourself in the right-wing echo chamber to be aware of the controversy without being aware of the facts. What’s funny is that Romney and much of the right swallowed their own propaganda. He really didn’t know.
Merely repeating the quotes doesn’t prove anything, except that you’re incapable of doing more.
It’s not a matter of parsing, it’s a matter of understanding Rhetoric. Some things are specific references, and some things are general appeals which are not specifically tied to a particular (unless and until it is convenient for the speaker to claim in retrospect that they were).
In the press gaggle where Jay Carney shifts from ‘It’s the Video, stupid’ to ‘Of course, it’s self-evident that it was an act of terror’ he was specifically asked if the White House had called it an act of terrorism before. Either Jay Carney doesn’t listen to the President when he speaks (which I’m sure we could all understand) or at that moment it had not yet been decided to repurpose the general into the specific.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/20/press-gaggle-press-secretary-jay-carney-en-route-miami-fl-9202012
Furthermore, while on the plane to Las Vegas on the same day as the Rose Garden statement Jay Carney was asked the following:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/12/press-gaggle-press-secretary-jay-carney-en-route-las-vegas-nv-9122012
If the President had intended to call Libya an act of terror in the sense that 9/11/01 involved acts of terror, or the Embassy bombings in ’98 were acts of terror this question would have been an unqualified “yes.” It wasn’t, so at most the President was thinking of it as the same kind of ‘act of terror’ as when a large group of drunken Yankee fans surround and harrass a lone Red Sox fan outside Yankee Stadium after a game. They’re committing an act and it’s terrorizing someone, right?
Then again, maybe crashing planes into the WTC didn’t involve “acts of terror” in the President’s view. Also from the 9/20 gaggle:
I guess since Al Qaeda didn’t strike a diplomatic facility in that instance, just commercial buildings, they weren’t “acts of terror” to our good friends in the White House.
Pasturized: Some things are specific references, and some things are general appeals which are not specifically tied to a particular (unless and until it is convenient for the speaker to claim in retrospect that they were).
Sure, but as we showed, the term “act of terror” was tied to the Benghazi attack. There’s no other reasonable way to read this:
Obama 9/13/2012: So what I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. (Applause.) I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished.
You haven’t shown anything. Like a dutiful Obama shill you merely repeat without the ability to provide cogent analysis.
If he had said “this act of terror will not go unpunished” (and we didn’t have Jay Carney’s wild definition of “acts of terror” from the 20th) you might conceivably have a case. However, given the nonspecific “no act of terror” and the fact that by the definition Carney gives on the 20th a spontaneous mob action such as those that resulted in the outer perimeter of our embassies being breached in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, etc were also “acts of terror.” That would make all those who participated terrorists. But, the White House is clear that they don’t believe that. So, we have events they would seem to say are “acts of terror” where the perpatrators weren’t terrorists. That way which ever way the wind blows they can say they were right. Leading from behind indeed.
Pasturized: You haven’t shown anything.
Of course we have: that we can read English sentences for meaning, while you parse them to make them fit your preconceived viewpoint.
There’s a legitimate issue concerning the security in Benghazi leading up to the attacks, but rhetorical games over “act of terror” are not it.
Zachriel, you’ve actually shown the opposite, that you can’t read English sentences for meaning. You have to rely on the President to tell you what to believe.
If Jay Carney had been specifically asked on the plane to Las Vegas later that day if the President was saying that Benghazi was a terrorist attack I am certain (given his responses to the question which were asked) that he would not have said “yes.” He most probably would have begged off with a “not going to speculate” answer as he did a number of times. That does not indicate the kind of forceful position the President is now trying to claim that he has consistently held.
As we said, you have to parse it pretty fine.
There are legitimate issues concerning security in Benghazi at the time, but your semantic interpretation is not the problem.
Pasturized: If Jay Carney had been specifically asked on the plane to Las Vegas later that day if the President was saying that Benghazi was a terrorist attack I am certain (given his responses to the question which were asked) that he would not have said “yes.”
From your own citation.
Carney: It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Our embassy was attacked violently, and the result was four deaths of American officials.
The “self-evident” quote is from the 9/20 gaggle where Carney shifted from the “spontaneous mob” meme to the “we’ve always said it was terrorism” meme, not the 9/12 “not going to speculate” flight from reality to Las Vegas. Of course, 9/20 is the same gaggle where he floats the terrorism definition that would include kids egging a counsulate. He’s a little silly sometimes.
The blatant bias exhibited by the moderator and the emotional responses of the supposedly neutral audience may actually work in favor of the Republican cause. More people than ever are not only aware of unethical journalists, but are witnessing confirmation of their bias first-hand. Their active partisanship has served to disenfranchise American citizens and increased risk for everyone. The debate was less about hearing and judging two presidential candidates, than it was about judging journalistic ethics. The journalists failed, miserably.
People are being too hard on Romney on this one. He did well for the night and my impression was that one guy has a vision for America and the experience to get it done, as well as the knowledge. The other person was their, and mad, and wanted to be playing golf or partying before he had to start shining shoes again.
Romney started to get in this stride on putting Obama down on the Libya issue, but Obama threw out a lie and that caused Romney to regroup, while he was doing this the “moderator” stepped in and supported Obama. Any prudent person would do just what Obama did and back off and get out of a situation were he knows the deck is stacked against him. He thus has everyone in the world talking about the issue and putting him in as an honest man and knows he can score points Monday. Then when elected president, he makes sure CNN is out.
It is hard to win the game when the referee huddles with the other team and then recovers fumbles for them.
Another thing, perhaps if both parites quit referring to any act as terror, and quit thinking that all of us are terrorist and understood that we are at war with Islam, then we might make head way in solving this problem.
It was quite evident that Crowley was a Democratic Party hack by choosing questions on old liberal topics that have NOT been issues this year at all. Lily Ledbetter law? Really? Assault weapons? How is Romney not Bush?
Not only was Crowley an obvious toady, but what sort of “undecided” voters ask stupid old liberal questions? Stacked deck.
And Crowley needs to be asked POINT BLANK where she got the transcript of that Rose Garden speech from over a month ago and how she knew what to point to so quickly.
What was the word that Candy was referring to? Terrorism rather than terror? Remember when the MSM gave Oblunder a pass for saying (oil & gas) reserves rather than proven reserves? Just like there’s a significant difference between reserves and proven reserves, I believe we’ll find the same between terror and terrorism. Under (US) law, doesn’t terrorism by definition include “pre-meditated”?
As the Oil and Gas Journal correctly pointed out, the “increase” in oil from public lands comes from the oil leases that were signed during the Bush administration.
Unlike in the make-believe world inhabited by Obama and the adoring Left, out here in the real world, it takes 2-4 years to bring new production on line, with the offshore and more remote wells taking the longest.
There seem to be swamp fumes (decaying corruption is pretty overpowering) in the Beltway. People who have spent their lives there can’t be trusted to think straight. One of the fume-byproducts is the idiotic idea that “Liberal Democrat” is the baseline philosophy for this nation, and that Democrats are the baseline party and arbiters of legitimacy. GOP corruptocrats like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell just go along with it.
That’s how we get An obnoxious, smarmy, self-satisfied 64-year-old leftist who still calls herself “Candy.”
I never cease to be amazed by people who monday-morning-quarterback political debates or campaigns, especially when they criticize things after the fact. In this case
I don’t suppose these critics ever consider the possibility that the moderator will be partisan, but that they can counter that during the debate. It might even be possible that the campaigners would consider such a “gotcha” as not likely to affect thing that much. They might even be right.
This is not to pick on the author in any special way, but in context of monday-morning-quarterbacking I do have one question for Mr. Engel: how many political campaigns have you won?
Every one is criticizing Romney for dropping the ball on Libya. But show me one person that could recover very fast when these two ya-ya’s said Obama called it an act of terror on Sept. 12. I couldn’t believe what I heard. I had to physically lift my jaw off the rug.
Was Crowley tipped off? While it’s not odd that Pres. Obama had a prepared response, in case Romney brought up the Rose Garden speech, I wonder how many political reporters, even those working the White House beat, would have remembered the president’s speech well enough to acted like Crowley did in the president’s defense. Since the exchange has happened, most journalists have had to indeed look at the transcript to find out what Obama said that day. Crowley apparently knew exactly what Obama was referencing.
My gosh, obama went before the UN and called this terrorist act a “spontaneous protest caused by the video”. His administration paid $70,000 in ads in Pakistan saying the same thing. This meme went on for two weeks. He never called it a terrorist act just like he has never called Fort Hood a terrorist act. The obama administration and their propaganda arm…the media… will not report any of these murders on our soil caused by muslims acts of terror. They call them acts of the mentally challenged instead. They think we are stupid. They hope our memories are no poor that we forget the real facts and accept their lies. This whole turnabout is what is called covering butt. Obama put out the wrong message for two weeks and is backtracking after all the information has come out refuting his statements. Obama proved to be a liar in the 2nd debate and so ddid Candy Crowley.
As far as the Rose Garden speech went, obama was as wooden as I have ever seen hilm. His whole attitude was boredom. He sounded like he was reading a script with his heart not in it. Where was the soaring rhetoric he has spouted over the years? His whole attitude was he was wasting his time making that speech. I’ll admit it was a good speech as written but not with his delivery.
I don’t see how anyone can say obama won this debate. He said nothing about his record. He couldn’t because it stinks. The only thing he has accomplished is a destructive economy with no jobs and loss of homes for our citizens and destruction of the health insurance. He flat out lied about Libya. He couldn’t tell us what he was going to do with four more years because if he did he wouldn’t be re-elected for sure. It was all platitudes and self congratulation and calling Romney a liar. This is a big comedown for a “messianic” figure who said in 2008 he could rol back the seas and heal the planet. I haven’t seen the seas rolled back and certainly the planet is not healed unless you count healing by fire. The world is in flames and it is his fault for being so weak. The rest of the world behaved themselves when we were strong but when we became weak they all took advantage knowing obama is what osame bi;n laden called a “paper tiger”.
There were obviously a number of failures which should be investigated and understood. But the question on this thread was whether Obama said “act of terror” with respect to the attack in Benghazi.
“Please proceed governor”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-17-2012/democalypse-2012—the-second-debate—now-including-the-president—benghazi