by Benjamin J. Kirby
Not a big post tonight, but I just wanted to ask: is there an event in national politics as demeaning, degrading and soul-crushingly banal -- so depressingly predictable -- as the expectations games before the debates?
President Obama's team has set the bar remarkably low. He's too busy being President to have prepared much for the debates. I suppose that's comforting, in a strange way. But isn't the fact that they have to say it at all just a little bit disappointing? Shouldn't the work of being President itself prepare you for what we'd all hope would be a robust debate of the critical issues facing our nation today?
Well. That's the deal, isn't it? I've heard the President say a number of times that this is the clearest choice in an election in a generation. He's right about that. There is indeed a lot at stake.
And so it shouldn't give anyone a lot of confidence -- on either side of the political aisle -- that Mitt Romney's strategy in preparation for the debates on everything at stake national is to have prepared a portfolio of "zingers."
Gotcha, Mr. President! ...I guess.
I am not the historian I'd like to be, but I'm pretty sure Abraham Lincoln didn't prepare for his debates with Stephen A. Douglas by trying to come up with crafty, too-clever one-liners designed to make him look like a dope ("Hey Steve! How's that Dredd Scott decision workin' out for ya'? DREDD-ful, amiright?").
Maybe I'm wrong.
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