Want to dialog about the debate as it happens? pt 3?

Obama seems a lot more confident tonight than he was last debate.

Sorry dude, no. I really dig you, but, I am in the middle of a refreshing Stella Artois and a wee bit o’ the herb. I’m all about watching this adorable toad on my patio right now and the debate is about as big of a buzz kill as one could ask for.
I’m not asking.
I can ask Mr. Toad if you like? lol

@Coloma LOL I’m actually enjoying the same right now, minus the toad that is :P. The alcohol is so I can listen to Romney though :P

@uberbatman I don’t blame you, anyone would have to be under the influence of something to get through Romney. Funny enough on my way home tonight I spied some hand written posters my neighbors put up about Romney. I am in fear for them. lol

Romney is being a douche.

@Coloma
Add some swastikas to the posters, and make it look as if they were part of the original design.

@Mama_Cakes you mean being himself?

Romney is finally providing details.~

@uberbatman that’s right.

I can’t wait to hear him debate foreign policy. That guy doesn’t know shit.

I tried to watch but it just makes me too tense.

I’m probably going to watch the Tigers game instead.

Mitt started a small business? What a fucking lying piece of shit.

@johnpowell What details? He hasn’t provided shit.

@Adirondackwannabe his definition of a small business is pretty fucked from what I can tell from hearing him talk.

@Adirondackwannabe the ~ denotes sarcasm

Oops. @johnpowell I sincerely apologize. I was way off base.

Bush was against Planned Parenthood, I think.

Romney doesn’t look so good.

@wundayatta My office at work is directly over the Planned Parenthood Office. I get a steady stream of people looking for the office. I just say thank god for PP.

http://www.romneytaxplan.com/

@johnpowell saw that today, it was great. And, true to form, no details.

And on immigration: “How would you help people here now without a green card” “I would make sure they can’t get driver’s licenses”

Umm…

@johnpowell nice lol

Oh, there’s self deportation.

that was a trainwreck

Hahaha…admittedly I am lurking, but the toad is still the more captivating stream. lol

Gotta say, so far I’ve enjoyed the Biden/Ryan debate the most so far…

Agreed. But this is better then the first.

Apology tour! Man, greatest hits today.

For sure. The first one was pretty bad, but this honestly hasnt been a whole lot better. I think part of the reason Biden/Ryan was so good was the moderator. I feel like she so much of a better job at keeping both parties on topic and kept the debate flowing nicely.

People in the audience broke silence over Obama calling it an act of terror in the Rose Garden and Candy said it was so.

Yeah, that was fantastic. Fuck yeah for finally getting a blatant lie called out.

Lotta hatin on China this debate. Don’t personally have an opinion on the whole matter, just noticing the trend.

Um, anyone know what ‘trickle-down government’ means?

Also, as much as I like Obama, tying guns to jobs was just… what? I thought my feed skipped.

Still waiting for details.

@BhacSsylan Like trickle down economics but actually works.

Ooh, Fact Check! “Obama quadrupled regulations” FALSE

@johnpowell lol

<——Thoroughly underwhelmed with this debate

Martha Raddaz for last moderator?

Though Candy’s not doing terribly. Just not particularly good.

@BhacSsylan didnt read your whole link but “Obama’s regulations are expected to cost businesses between $100 million and $4.1 billion more than Bush’s, Bloomberg finds.” what a fuckin range….

@uberbatman Yeah, it’s wacky, I’ll grant you. Looking at buisness data is always wacky, sadly. I mostly linked that just for the one line.

I did try but found myself watching “Maru, the world’s funniest cat” videos instead.

http://maruthecat.tumblr.com

Oh joy, bringing religion into it – _ -

Obama won this one.

I’m feeling better already. They both want automatic weapons off our streets now. It’s one thing they can actually accomplish~

they have been illegal since 1986.

Obama did win I think, but agreed with @uberbatman that is was very underwhelming.

Also, totally biased, so I have no idea how the media will go with this.

I’d say Obama won (cause he didnt make an ass outta himself like Romney) , but this debate sucked IMO.

Obama won.

But what did the undecided think?

And would anyone who started leaning to Romney lean the other way now?

It was truly predictable, so much so I decided to put my dog’s new vaccination/ registation tags on his collar during. They look really sharp and blingish. We’re both delighted.

@woodcutter They do say the dog collar makes the dog.

They say that, right?

@woodcutter What I heard both of them say about being asked how the would get ak-47’s off the streets was “Nothing, we already have laws”.
Other than platitudes, neither one offered any concrete thoughts or ideas on how they would actually reduce the number of autos and semi-autos out here even with the current laws.

@BhacSsylan LOL Never heard that one, but after they have been on these guys for a year they are really dog eared . Brand new ones are nice, and they get a new color every time.

dog eared…get it?

@rojo The whole question was leading I thought. First off , AK’s were used as the evil gun in the question. AK’s are only a small part of all the different kinds of semi auto weapons that are currently legal to own. Why the chose that particular make was for theatrics I’m sure. No matter what gun a bullet comes out of, its gonna hurt but anyhoo, Obama did say he still is hoping for a new AWB which any sitting prez really hates to say out loud, and Romney who signed one into law in Mass suddenly claimed it was a bi -partisan effort, which was a little white lie. I suppose he was discounting every gun owner there who had them, As they both quickly tangented away from that trap Crowley tried to pull them back but those suits were too slippery for even her.

As an aside. I don’t think that the president has much room to maneuver when discussing how to have fewer rifles in private hands. The best way for ownership to multiply exponentially is for him to be elected again. The guy is an assault weapon magnet.

@wundayatta I doubt any Romney leaning people would be leaning away from him now due to this debate.

So is Romney’s “big mo” still intact or has it been stopped, or just slowed down some?

@woodcutter I still think Romney is looking good to a lot of people, including independents. Have you seen any polling or focus group information that was done regarding the debate? I haven’t had a chance to look for that.

@JLeslie, all the snap polls I’ve seen gave the debate pretty handily to Obama.

I think Romney came off looking creepy and dishonest. This was in complete contrast to his performance in the first debate where he seemed knowledgeable and confident.

I mean, after Obama declared he would not play politics with the Benghazi attacks, and Romney proceeded to play bullshit politics with it—the moderator basically pointed out that he was lying, and the audience clapped. I don’t think that’s going to go over well for Romney with undecideds or even with moderate Republicans.

My favorite part of the debate was when Obama brought up Romney’s 47 percent comment

AT THE END OF THE DEBATE

SO THAT ROMNEY COULDN’T RESPOND WITH SOME BS PRE-SCRIPTED MEA CULPA

Good tactics. :)

@Qingu I am watching right now a focus group of Ohioans (is that what they are called) on MSNBC, and of the 8 people only 2 are decided now, the other 6 are still undecided, and those 6 felt the debate was a draw.

On my facebook one of my very very right wing fb friends pisted a status that Obama did not make it clear he was referring to the embassy attack when he used the phrase “acts of terror” in his speech on Sept 12. Total bullshit in my opinion, but it just demonstrates to Romney loyalists there was no gotcha. Not sire how independents look at it.

@JLeslie, well, I think there is an asymmetry at play.

When Obama did poorly in the first debate, Democrats did not rally behind him and say he won because that’s not what Democrats do. Democrats were pissed that he was passive and didn’t bring out the knives and agreed with Republicans that he lost. So there was bipartisan consensus that “Obama lost.”

Republicans, on the other hand, tend to stick with their team leader no matter what. So they will reflexively say Romney won this debate.

It’s looking like for Obama to win lengths ahead, he would have had to killed ,while Romney sucked balls concurrently. I don’t thing either did. It’s going to depend if you are a dem or a rep, which then ,made it a total waste of time.

Zzzzzzzzzz…......

@ucme It may be “zzzzz” to you but our future is at stake.

@ucme, I’m also confused as to why you think the debate was boring. I mean the first debate was definitely boring. But I thought this one was pretty exciting! It was probably the least boring debate I’ve ever seen, actually.

@Qingu I absolutely agree. I also, to continue on the embassy attack topic, can’t for the life of me figure out why it is a horrific thought for a Republican to consider or know that Obama did refer to the embassy attack as an “act of terror.” It’s idiotic to dwell on it. Even if Obama had not used those words, what does it really matter? And, you already know I am annoyed the 2008 attack in front of our embassy in Yemen is completely ignored as an attack on us by us.

@JLeslie, it matters because many Republicans, and particularly those in Romney’s inner circle, were the same neocon jackasses from the Bush administration, and if you remember Bush always talked about terrorism. He couldn’t go a day without mentioning the word “terrorism.” And to Republicans, this meant Bush was a big tough guy.

Obama has not thrown around the word “terrorism,” with Benghazi or with any other incidents. And so to Republicans, this means they can say Obama is weak and apologizes for America… despite the fact that he’s overseen the killings of hundreds of actual al-Qaeda terrorists and their leader.

Also, what attack in Yemen in 2008? I don’t remember…

Did you see Candy Crowley walk back her defense of Obama during the debate regarding Obama’s speech in the Rose Garden? She was on CNN.

@bkcunningham, what did she say? I can’t watch the video.

Obama did call it an act of terror in the Rose Garden, as you must be aware.

If I recall the the NPR report this morning, Obama said, ”acts of terror,” and it was at the end of his remarks and it appeared to be more general; not necessarily specifically about Benghazi.

And as to the 47%; Romney brought it up first, when he said he cared about 100% of the people. If he hadn’t brought it up, I don’t think Obama would have mentioned it. Perhaps they had a contingency plan for if he had last word, but they couldn’t count on that, obviously. Even so, they could even less count on Romney bringing it up in his last turn, when Obama had the final turn.

Compared to the first debate, Obama totally smoked Romney. It made me feel like he was actively trying to lose the first one. You can’t be that good after being that bad if you weren’t trying to be bad the first time. Obviously he has no reason to “try” to be bad, but perhaps it was subconscious on some level.

But this time he killed. Romney didn’t have a chance. He was on top of everything Romney said, and he brought out evidence and rebutted almost every point.

One thing I wish he would have done is explain how good Obamacare is for small business. He let that one go, and Obamacare allows small businesses to offer everyone insurance, even low paid workers. They couldn’t afford to do that before. That needs to be pointed out.

@bkcunningham, nevermind, I found it myself. From Fox Nation

Candy Crowley: Well you know again i heard the presidents speech at the time i sort of reread a lot of stuff about libya because i knew we would probably get a libya question so i kind of wanted to to be up on it.

so i knew that the president had had said you know “these acts of terror will not stand” or whatever the whole quote was. and i think actually – because i did turn around right after that and say “but you are totally correct that they spent two weeks telling us this was about a tape and that there was a you know this riot outside the benghazi consulate which there wasn’t”

so he was right in the main i just thing he picked the wrong word.

And you know they are going to parse and we all know about what the definition of is is.

but i think in the end i think john is probably right this has a lot more to do with jobs and the debt crisis and all of that kind of stuff.

I just think probably it was one of those moments and i can even feel that here. You know when you say something you are not expecting – it was just that was the natural to come out of me going actually “you know he did call it an act of terror” when half of the crowd claps for that and the other half claps for “you know they kept telling us this was caused by a tape.”

you know in the main the thrust of what governor romney was saying – which is why i went back and said that um but i think he just picked the wrong kind of way to go about talking about it if that makes sense

…

How on earth is that “walking back”?

Anderson Cooper asked her to speak about her thoughts during that moment. Crowley, “Well, you know again, I, I heard the President’s speech at the time, I sorta reread a lot of stuff about Libya because I knew we would probably get a Libya question so I kinda wanted to be up on it, so I knew that the the President had said you know,‘these acts of terrors won’t stand’ or whatever the whole quote was. And I, I think actually, youuu, youuu know right after that I did turn around and say you are totally correct, but they spent two weeks telling us this was about a tape and that there was a this riot outside the Benghaza Consulate which there wasn’t.

So, he was right in the main. I just think he picked the wrong word. And and, I know, you know there are going to parse and we all know about what the definition of is is. But uh uh in the end, I think John’s probably right…

Okay. LOL I just tried to transcribe it for you.

At the debate, Crowley said that Obama talked about the tape for two weeks. So this is what Romney was supposedly “right” about—that Obama, in a broad sense, talked more about reaction to the tape than the big scary T word.

But he was certainly wrong about Obama not calling it an act of terror. He did. And Romney’s broader point, while perhaps semantically valid, is absolute bullshit. Something can simultaneously be an “act of terror” AND a response to a video. And in fact this is exactly what Libyans say happened, and the group who launched the attack on the consulate has itself said it was in response to the video.

@Qingu Yeah, they love to talk about terrorism for the reasons you mentioned, and the most extreme of them because they love their hate for Muslims, and they believe Obama is “on the side” of Arabs and Muslims. They believe Obama is happy to destroy Israel and America. Just a couple weeks ago an acquaintance and I were chatting and he suddenly turned to politics and said, “so do you think we will finally get rid of that Muslim horrible person we call President this election?” It was said in a horrible, loathing, angry tone.

The attack was at the security perimeter of our embassy. Here is the wikipedia page on it,

@bkcunningham and what exactly was the point of inserting the “uh“s into your “transcript”? Oh no wait, let me guess. It is an attempt to characterise her as a bumbling moron, is it not?

@bkcunningham Do you think maybe she had a little regret commenting, since her job was to moderate? No matter what, Obama did call it an act of terror in the speech, whether both Obama and Romney are correct is not the point (well Romney is incorrect in his point about Obama not saying those words in the speech, and I would bet money if he actually watched the speech, which I guess he will now, he will be pissed at his people or homself for going along with that line) the point is the Republicans, some republicans, want to say Obama did not say it. It’s stupid, There are videos and transcripts and people who watched it live.

It seems to me Republicans are obsessed with terror only being done by Arab Muslims, terrorizing is done by other groups also. To me the Republicans refusing to believe that Obama acknowledged the embassy attack was a terror attack, is another read between the lines insinuation that Obama wants Arab Muslims to succeed in destroying Israel and America.

@JLeslie, wow, I seriously knew nothing about that attack. And it was on an embassy, not a consulate mission. Funny how conservatives never bothered to ask how Bush let that and other numerous terrorist attacks happen during his presidency.

One more thing about this Benghazi business. One day after the attack, Clinton gave an interview. She didn’t use the word “terrorist,” instead she called the attackers “vicious” and “savages.” And I actually prefer this language to the word “terrorist.” And I actually prefer this language. It’s not clear that the attackers were actually linked to known terrorist groups. It’s not clear to what extent the attack was pre-planned; it obviously took some planning and military experience, but many people in Libya are heavily armed and experienced in gunfights. And it has never been clear if the attackers were or were not responding to the video—reports from Libya now indicate they were.

What is clear, however, is that the attackers are vicious savages and deserve to be hunted down and either strung up by the Libyan government or, if that is impractical, shot in the face by US special ops or blown up by drone-launched hellfire missiles. And you know what? I think Obama and Clinton have been remarkably consistent in this regard since the day of the attack.

@Qingu I actually prefer not overusing the word terrorist and terror also. But, many of the American people seem to respond to it and want to hear it.

When McCain ran for President the republicans said over and over Bush kept our country safe and there had been no terrorist attacks on America, and democrats said nothing! I don’t know who I am more angry at about it.

The cognitive dissonance involved with Bush “keeping our country safe” vs. Obama is just astonishing.

Nevermind the fact that Bush failed to stop 9/11. This is the dumbass who managed to give terrorists around the world a string of massive propoganda victories by killing tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq, torturing Muslims in Abu Ghraib, and standing on a fucking aircraft carrier and calling on al-Qaeda to “bring it on” or whatever the fuck he said. He oversaw constant attacks on the Green zone in Iraq, not to mention the worldwide violent protests against the Danish cartoons that killed hundreds of people — plus the Yemen attack you mentioned.

And now we’re supposed to believe that Obama is “weak” because heavily armed Islamic fundamentalists in Libya got a lucky shot at one of our non-fortified consulates there and killed four people—before being overrun and forced to run out of town by thousands of pro-American Libyans in response? It’s infuriating.

@Qingu Do you think when Romney actually looked up the speech in the Rose Garden he told his people they are idiots? I have no problem thinking he just went along with what everyone was saying, and never actually watched it or read it himself. Is Romney saying anything about it today?

Romney probably got his “facts” from Fox News.

Maybe. The fact that Obama really was on record saying “act of terror” did seem to blindside him.

Or maybe Romney himself just doesn’t give a shit about the truth. He has been constantly repeating the utter lie that Obama “went on an apology tour” in the middle east.

I think it’s likely that he knows he’s lying, or at least a part of his brain knows what he’s saying is not true, and he just pushes it down until he can’t hear that part anymore. I suspect this is how a lot of conservatives operate when they debate, actually.

Gawd I would love for Romney to just say, “I was wrong, Obama obviously did say it was an act of terror. I was given incorrect information, and should have checked it myself before saying it.” I think it would lift him in the polls with the independents. Seriously, he would look good to me on that point.

@ragingloli, I was transcribing from an audio and I typed it as she said the words.

Be honest, @Qingu. Post the transcript from the Rose Garden speech and let us see the actual words the POTUS said the the context of those words.

@bkcunningham, here are his remarks on Sept. 12 in the Rose Garden, the day after the attack:

“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 also said something similar the next day. “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.”

I think that’s “good enough” for 47% of us!

The two paragraphs prior to the quote you posted: ...“Of course, yesterday was already a painful day for our nation as we marked the solemn memory of the 9/11 attacks. We mourned with the families who were lost on that day. I visited the graves of troops who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hallowed grounds of Arlington Cemetery, and had the opportunity to say thank you and visit some of our wounded warriors at Walter Reed. And then last night, we learned the news of this attack in Benghazi.

“As Americans, let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases, lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.”...

Why do you think there was such confusion from the White House about whether or not this was an act of terror or an out of control protest?

I was just talking to a friend of mine who said that Romney was a school yard bully in this debate. He pointed to that moment where Romney was bullying Obama about his pension.

I reminded my friend that Romney indeed has a history of being a school yard bully. He cut off the hair of a gay classmate back in high school. Other classmates held the guy down. He later died of cancer or something, a few years back. Romney claims not to remember the experience.

Romney is a bully, and his foreign policy suggestions are ample evidence that he thinks like a bully. This is not good for either our reputation or world peace nor is it in the best interests of our country.

@bkcunningham, let me get this straight. By “act of terror,” you believe that Obama was referring not to the attacks on four Americans mentioned in the next sentence, but instead to something he mentioned several paragraphs prior?

Seriously, come out and say whether you believe this. I don’t think you’re dishonest enough to actually stand by that claim.

….

As for “confusion in the White House,” the main source of confusion seems to be whether there was a protest that the attackers used as a diversion. That was an initial theory, but now it appears it was wrong. There was definitely a crowd by the consulate, but it wasn’t clear if the crowd were gawkers or were protestors.

Why was there this confusion? Wow let me think, maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Obama administration is not magically omniscient and had to rely on scattered after-the-fact eyewitness accounts from the scene of a four-hour-long honest-to-god battle with small arms, mortars, and RPG’s. There is such a thing as “the fog of war,” you know.

Here is Fox trying to twist it. Really incredible to me. I guess they want obama to refer to what happens only as a terrorist act over and over again. Most people think it sounds a little better to not repeat the same word or phrase over and over and, to use synonyms, and other ways to convey what they are talking about. At least, that is what my English teachers taught me. It seems to me if Obama and his administration at times use different words like acts of violence, the republicans latch onto that, forget he did say act of terror to refer to the same acts in the past, even in the same speech, and pile on. It is such bullshit. I still don’t understand why this is so important to republicans? Aren’t there enough differences between the policies Obama and Romney believe in that trying to catch Obama in not calling an attack a terrorist attack right away is ridiculous. Forget that he did say it, what if he hadn’t? So?

It’s important to Republicans because they have jack shit to run on in foreign policy, they have an absolutely terrible record on it, Americans hate the fact that Republicans are warmongers who want to waste trillions of dollars on utterly useless aircraft carriers and tanks, so they need to invent a scandal as a distraction.

@Qingu
They probably expect Obama to do this
Just replace “developers” with “terrorist”.

@Qingu That is exactly what the facebbok friend wrote on my facebook that I mentioned above. That Obama was referring to 9/11 2001 and not the embassy attack when he said, “acts of terror,” they all listen and email and facebook the same thing. I really have a very very hard time Romney really agrees with this way of twisting the speech. I just don’t want to believe it. But, I do think he will let his followers go ahead and believe it if it helps him. He would have been better off not saying anything during the debate on the topic.

The obvious question of course (and one for @bkcunningham as well), is why he would possibly tie the attack to other terrorist attacks, and why he would specifically mention ‘acts of terror’ right after talking about the attack, if he didn’t mean to characterize it as an act of terror.

They’re acting like conspiracy theorists. “Oh, but he didn’t use this exact wording, so aliens!” Though with less aliens (and more Muslims). They’re trying to argue that since he didn’t say the specific sentence “This was an act of terror”, that that was not the obvious and plain interpretation. How they are actually able to maintain this illusion, though, is beyond me.

Also, divergence from current topic: ‘Binder full of women’ was even a lie (servers are being slammed, give it some time. It’s worth it).

My moment of zen is when Romney looked so pissed he was going to start screaming. Next time the debate should just be a smack-down.

Someone online said that it should be a dick swinging contest!

Zzzzzz….....

Oh look! @ucme feel asleep right there on the floor! The debaters are walking all around him. Gosh, I don’t even want to think about what he’s dreaming, him being naked and all.

Listen, he’s talking in his sleep. What’s he saying?

”.....Sloooowly, slooooowly, not so hard, remember it’s quantitative ‘easing’....honk…...Give me all 47% of it!........snuff…grunt….. nooooo!.........no more trickle down!....I don’t do that anymore…......umf…..snufffggll…....”

Awwwwwwwwww, how cute!

You know what? You guys have a bad attitude.

This is the first presidential campaign I can remember where the issues were not dominated by complete bullshit, like “death panels” and “Obama is a secret Muslim socialist,” or Bush’s trotting out guns and gays. Clinton’s sex scandal. The candidates are actually talking about real economic issues and foreign policy.

I think one candidate obvoiusly is doing a much better job, and the other’s positions are bullshit. But look at what’s not being discussed or debated: Romney’s mormonism. Rev. Wright saying “God damn America.” Who people would rather have a beer with. The tone and content of the 2012 is downright enlightened compared to past elections.

Some times ya gotta laugh to keep from crying.

@Qingu Yeah, but I think part of the reason is the Republicans don’t want any focus on religion, because Romney is a Mormon, imagine if the democrat was Mormon and the Republican was good old fashioned Baptist or Methodist. And, they want to keep the focus on the economy, because they think that topic is something most Americans are frustrated with. And, everything international has a subtext of Obama being a Kenyan, Muslim, Arab empathasizing, anti Israel, Hussein is his middle name man.

Here is a useful link for Romney tax plan. It explains everything.

I love this so much I have mentioned it in another answer.

http://www.romneytaxplan.com

Binder joke

^^ spammer :)

Damn, Auggie. Why ya gotta interupt the flow. ;)