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So I Made The Mistake of Watching Part of the Third Debate...

October 24, 2012, 9:10 am

It was an amazing spectacle.  Two men fighting for 90 minutes to stand on the same patch of ground.  None of the issues I care about -- escalating drone strikes, rendition, indefinite detainment, Presidential kill lists, warrant-less wire-tapping -- were discussed because both men supported all of the above.  Somehow in just 11 years since 9/11, all of these issues seem to be beyond debate.  Amazing.   I have the third party debate Tivo'd, and I hear these issues got more play.  By the way, here I am in my debate gear

PS-  I am increasingly coming to the counter-intuitive conclusion that if one cares about ending these abuses of Executive power associated with the never-to-end-because-it-is-so-useful-to-politicians war on terror, then one should be rooting for Romney to win.  Not because he will end these practices -- no, I would expect him to enthusiastically embrace them.  But because the natural opponents of these practices on the Left will finally start to speak up and oppose them once they are not being practiced by their guy.  Right now, these practices are being expanded in a vacuum with almost no push-back.

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Category: Politics
  • Bill

    My reaction to the presidential debate. (HT, Scott Lincicome)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0&sns=tw

  • http://www.facebook.com/matthew.slyfield Matthew Slyfield

    I agree with you, I watched almost the whole thing and I struggled in vain to find any point on which the two candidates substantially disagreed. For this reason I score the third presidential debate a draw and a colossal waste of time.

  • sabre_springs_mark

    Romney was trying to not militant. His vanilla approach to politics is working well for him. He didn't look like a raving war mongering loonie the way Obama wanted. (Reagan was a poor choice for War mongering loonie example by Obama - what major war did Reagan get us into? We bombed a building in Libya, and conquered Grenada. Was there something else I missed?)

    To be honest I read mostly post debate stuff. I watched about 15 minutes and couldn't stomach the debate. Romney on China was just sad.

  • Matt Landry

    Wow. That's...not even remotely close to _thinking about_ being approximately what I guessed you would look like. :)

  • LarryGross

    re: agreement. Well, PRIOR to this debate - there was a LOT of DAYLIGHT between them as Romney was channeling George Bush's NEO Con advisers who now are on his staff.

    but apparently , debate prep - Romney's other advisers banned the NeoCons and what you saw in the
    debate was a Neo-Con-less Romney.

    It begs the question once more as to what views Romney himself actually holds other than whatever will get votes.

    the wing nuts and FAUX NOISE... were CERTAIN that the Libya deal would blow up, with Romney's help in Obama's face.

    hardly a whimper... why?

  • sabre_springs_mark

    Neo-cons are Democrats. What are you talking about?

    Your argument is almost as silly as the debate was. If you have to blame neo-cons, and say Romney banished neo-cons to make a point, your argument is hopeless. Why not argue about what was or wasn't said in the debate, and equate that with what the candidate(s) may or may not have said at other points in the campaign.

  • LarryGross

    Neo Cons are usually GOP and a lot advised BUsh and quite a few of them now advise Romney.

    Read this: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/12/the_romney_cheney_doctrine?page=full

    prior to the Debate Romney had much more hawkish policies than he stated in the debate.

    In other words, he changed and went to the middle.

  • sabre_springs_mark

    Point to Libya. It is blowing up in Obama's face just fine without Romney's help.

  • http://www.facebook.com/matthew.slyfield Matthew Slyfield

    There was plenty of room for Romney to disagree with Obama without sounding militant. How about on the issue of the drone strikes? And yet what we saw was two men arguing about how much they agree with each other.

  • LarryGross

    like these:

    22 January 2002 Calcutta, India gunmen attack Consulate 5dead
    14 June 2002 Karachi, Pakistan al-Qaeda truck bomb detonates outside Consulate 12 killed
    12 October 2002 Denpasar, Indonesia Consular Office bombed
    28 February 2003 Islamabad, Pakistan Unknown gunmen attack Embassy 2 killed
    30 June 2004 Tashkent, Uzbekistan Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan suicide bomber attacks Embassy 2 killed
    6 December 2004 Jeddah, Saudi Arabia al-Qaeda gunmen raid diplomatic compound 9 killed
    2 March 2006 Karachi, Pakistan Car bomb explodes outside Embassy unknown 2 killed
    12 September 2006 Demascuc, Syria Gunmen raid US Embassy 4 killed
    12 January 2007 Athens, Greece RPG Fired at Embassy
    18 March 2008 Sana'a, Yemen Mortar attack against US Embassy 2
    9 July 2008 Istanbul, Turkey Armed attack against Consulate 6 killed
    17 September 2008 Sana'a, Yemen Two car bombs outside US embassy in Yemeni capital

  • LarryGross

    was George Bush held to account for these attacks the way some want to hold Obama to account for this one?

    is there a double standard here?

  • LarryGross

    Now you might ask about these attacks in terms of remembering them and/or remembering what Bush said or not or did or not to "protect" those who were killed and then others later on also subsequently killed in future attacks.

    I do not recall the same level of outrage about those attacks as this one.

    why?

  • Andrew Garland

    I think Romney is much less bad than Obama. He has a chance to explain our economy to the people in a way that Bush would/could not, and which Obama does not understand. But, even if you believe that Romney is as bad as Obama, then vote for Romney:

    ()  What Mr. Meyer said.
    ()  Removing the incumbent breaks up the consolidation of power.
    ()  There is more opportunity to punish Obama's cronies, sooner.
    ()  Romney is likely to appoint better Supreme Court and appellate judges.
    ()  Obama is an ideologue with unknown and suspicious background, which causes him to lie and make bad decisions.
    () A pragmatist Romney will be able to make better decisions in the face of the coming financial collapse. Obama will rush into it as a Communist inevitability.

    There is an argument that Obama should keep office and reap the horrible outcomes which his policies make inevitable (and some policies prior to Obama). This would teach the solid lesson that Liberalism doesn't work. But consider:
    ()  FDR was able to argue (falsely) that he needed even more power and control to meet the economic disaster which he was in fact causing.
    ()  Touching a hot stove teaches a lesson. Planting your hand on the hot stove and keeping it there teaches only the same lesson, but it isn't worth losing the hand.

    EasyOpinions.blogspot.com

  • obloodyhell

    }}}} I am increasingly coming to the counter-intuitive conclusion...

    NOT counter-intuitive, perfectly true and remarkably obvious. Notice the total lack of sound of any kind on the death toll in Afghanistan. Notice the total lack of sound of any kind on Obama thumbing his nose at the requirement that, to act for longer than a set minimum number of days in Libya, Obama needed permission from Congress....

    Not even Congress bitched!!

  • Stan

    Just watched third party debate. I wish Gary Johnson was that polished during the Republican primaries.

  • sabre_springs_mark

    Did George Bush pretend for two weeks that the event was all due to an anti - whatever movie, when he knew immediately that the attacks were acts of terrorism, and lie to the public about it, and have the movie maker thrown in jail?

    That might be the difference!

  • sabre_springs_mark

    I repeat

    Did George Bush pretend for two weeks that the event was all due to an anti - whatever movie, when he knew immediately that the attacks were acts of terrorism, and lie to the public about it, and have the movie maker thrown in jail?That might be the difference!

  • sabre_springs_mark

    Or were they droning :P

  • sabre_springs_mark

    Neocons were a movement started in the late 60's by Democrats who believe that the US should not be isolationist, and believed in liberal social good, but figured that the social good could be done via free market principals. it is these Neocons, that voted with Reagan and were frequently called "Blue Dog" democrats. Bush could be considered a neo-conservative, but i would suggest RINO would be a better term.

    Here is a wiki about it.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism

  • http://devilish-details.blogspot.com/ mesaeconoguy

    100% agreed.

    The absolute mortal danger Obama poses to the country cannot
    be overstated. The amount of executive
    power he has accumulated, and will likely expand, as he continues destruction
    of the private economy via “regulation” and other asinine intervention (same as
    FDR) will literally end this country in a few years.

  • me

    More debate reaction ;)
    http://www.hulu.com/watch/417475

  • DreamLiner