by Benjamin J. Kirby
I won't re-hash too much of the debate for you. Spend about ten quality seconds with Google, and you can get the analysis which best fits with your particular worldview.
Of course, Obama cleaned Romney's clock, which is why the idiots at Fox News went ahead and made a bunch of crap up. Yeah, "bayonets and horses" was pretty good. And I'm sure they really did get a tweet from a Marine. None of that, of course, was really the point. But that won't deter Fox News -- the same organization that gave us "declaring something an act of terror doesn’t mean you’re declaring it a terrorist attack."
Anyway, I thought the real line of the night went to Obama:
...when I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn’t take donors, I didn’t attend fundraisers, I went to Yad Vashem, the — the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself the — the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable.
This was Obama in response to the silly complaint from Romney and the GOP that he had not traveled to Israel as President. Neither did paragon of conservative virtue Ronald Reagan.
It left Romney looking exactly like what he is: a bully who just got a heaping helping of what he likes to dish out... and it didn't go so well.
As somebody else said, though, it's hard to imagine there are any real undecided voters out there now. And if there are, they're likely not that interested in foreign policy, I'm sorry to say.
Besides, it was football night, not to mention a big baseball game between the Giants and the Cardinals (sorry, Cards).
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Speaking of Romney falling apart -- and maybe no one caring -- I genuinely hope this is somehow all a big mistake, or in some way just not true: Gold Star Mother: Romney Skipped Funeral, Left "Bullying" Messages
But Mitt Romney did not attend every soldier’s funeral; there were at least two cases where he did not.
And in one of those cases, a Gold Star mother claims that, far from comforting, Romney left insensitive phone messages – messages that she calls “bullying” and her husband describes as “abusive.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t returned my call,” Romney said on one of the voice mail messages, according to Stephany Kern, speaking at her Westerly, Rhode Island home this past Saturday. “Here I am making a second call; I haven’t heard from you.”
Kern did not save the messages. This is the first time she has spoken publicly about them.
Kern’s son, Marine Lance Corporal Nickolas Schiavoni, was killed by an IED explosion in Iraq on November 15, 2005. He was born and lived his entire life in the Haverhill, Massachusetts, area, and his funeral took place in Haverhill on November 26. His grandfather, David Swartz -- Kern's father -- was a well-known attorney, prosecutor, and city councilor in that city.
I guess I'll have to once again link to my post from June when I declared this the "bully election" -- but god, I wish I didn't have to.
This is why people are so sick of this election. This is why even those of us who usually enjoy the political process are turned off. Because nothing -- nothing -- is now off-limits. Is this a true story? Who knows. Lord, who cares. All I know is that it does nothing to honor the memory and the service of Marine Lance Corporal Nickolas Schiavoni, it does nothing to help his grieving family.
Just awful stuff. Thank god it'll be over in a couple of weeks.
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Hurricane season isn't technically over until next week -- so keep your eye on this, fellow Floridians.
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I'll say this: politics nationally may be disheartening, but here in Pinellas, it is always interesting.
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I'll make this plea again, but if you have the opportunity to early vote, then go do it. Please vote.
-- More later --
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