2012 presidential debates

  On 10/19/2012 at 4:27 PM, lumpenprol said:

  On 10/19/2012 at 11:46 AM, compson said:

  On 10/19/2012 at 11:03 AM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 10/18/2012 at 4:19 AM, lumpenprol said:

totally agree on that, there was one surreal "I'm getting my ass whipped moment" when Romney pressed Obama on something and Obama, being not quick on his feet, couldn't think of anything else to say but "please go on." And Romney was like "um...you're not disagreeing with what I'm saying?" Was pretty facepalm.

 

you're completely misinterpreting what went on in this exchange if you think romney came out on top. when obama said "please proceed, governor", he was getting out of the way to allow romney to embarrass himself.

 

In hindsight but at first I thought it was possible Obama had made a small slip up on wording. I was unfamiliar with his speech after the attack.

 

same, from my far remove over here in China I still can't tell if Candy erroneously supported Obama's position, or if Obama did clearly state it was "an act of terror." Too much disinformation flying around.

 

Edit: in any case, I don't think Obama was laying a trap with the "plz proceed." He didn't want to give a clear answer one way or another (he probably forgot what he actually said) - imo.

yeah the election is about the economy, but you have to understand making the prez look weak on terror, when as awe correctly said the Obama administration has only increased and further perfected the Bush era anti-terror tactics (and i use the term perfection loosely) can win over a lot of blue dogs and centrists in this battleground states. to a lot of them its the same thing, for example a recent poll I read over in Time (i think?) was talking about how a lot of these centrists consider the need for defense spending as integral to continued economic growth. A lot of these blue dogs are in northern Virginia, where the aerospace and defense firms are. They dont want to hear shit about slowing down defense spending, because that equals losing a job or getting a pay cut.

At the same time, the miners in Ohio and the midwestern battleground states think that if Obama is "easy" on the new Egyptian government and Iran, it means increased dependency on foreign fuel sources, thus continued stagnation.

Im not saying what they say is true, but they vote with the firmly held belief that this line of thinking is true. Hence the usually successful tactic of the Republican party from making a seemingly military issue an economic issue without even really having to try that hard.

The whole Romney Benghazi misstep isn't just about the actions on the surface of the debate. It also exposed a rather dirty semantic side of the Republican attack plan- You didn't mention terror enough or immediately, and other jingoistic bullshit. Which obviously, if Im a president, the LAST thing im going to do is declare an act of terror without a complete view of the situation. Without getting into it too deeply, when Pearl Harbor happened FDR and the cabinet knew almost immediately who was responsible for the attack. This is a whole different can o' worms with decentralized rebel movements.

Im not trying to jump on the Obama bandwagon here, but there is no doubt that Romney fucked up big time there. Maybe Obama didn't "plan a trap", so be it. But shit, debates are a chess game; half the reason the player wins is because he capitalizes on the mistakes and slip-ups the loser walks into.

im also interested in knowing how Jill Stein, Virgil Goode and Gary Johnson are polling in these battleground states...as most of the polling sites are completely ignoring them....i wonder if the race is close enough for these candidates to tip the balance either way?

just for fun putting together the electoral map, so far I still have Obama with a slight lead, 217-191. But Romney has a very good chance of winning PA, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, and Florida, so its still damn tight.

  On 10/19/2012 at 6:58 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

im also interested in knowing how Jill Stein, Virgil Goode and Gary Johnson are polling in these battleground states...as most of the polling sites are completely ignoring them....i wonder if the race is close enough for these candidates to tip the balance either way?

Me too, but I have a feeling the dems/repubs have entirely occupied the public mindshare in battleground states this time around.

Jill's lockout a few days ago barely registers but herpderp binders of winminz durrr

  On 10/19/2012 at 4:55 PM, lumpenprol said:

Ok, after viewing some youtube clips, I've changed my mind. Guess he knew very well what he said. But he was playing semantics; it seems he was speaking generally about "acts of terror", not the Benghazi situation specifically.

 

In any case, the reason it probably didn't resonate around the world as a smackdown is anyone with half a brain realizes "shit happens" and everyone has the potential to be blindsided by terrorism. The economy is what this election is about.

the speech in which obama said "no act of terror" was a speech about the benghazi attack given the morning after the benghazi attack. the entire context of the speech was the benghazi attack. if you don't think that was what he was referring to, you're just not being reasonable.

it definitely resonated as a smackdown. I know this because fox news responded by criticizing candy crowley for fact checking during the debate, then they denied that she was correct with an argument similar to yours. a big part of their job is to provide comfort and plausible deniability to republicans.

another thing about fox news channel and other conservative media: the whole meme of obama not calling the benghazi an act of terror or terrorism for two weeks or however long comes from them. it's likely someone from romney's campaign repeated this lie to him, and that's why he thought he had obama under his thumb in that debate moment. this was a moment when, for once, romney seemed to actually believe the untruth he was spouting; he seemed genuinely shocked to learn otherwise.

  On 10/19/2012 at 11:47 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 10/19/2012 at 4:55 PM, lumpenprol said:

Ok, after viewing some youtube clips, I've changed my mind. Guess he knew very well what he said. But he was playing semantics; it seems he was speaking generally about "acts of terror", not the Benghazi situation specifically.

 

In any case, the reason it probably didn't resonate around the world as a smackdown is anyone with half a brain realizes "shit happens" and everyone has the potential to be blindsided by terrorism. The economy is what this election is about.

 

the speech in which obama said "no act of terror" was a speech about the benghazi attack given the morning after the benghazi attack. the entire context of the speech was the benghazi attack. if you don't think that was what he was referring to, you're just not being reasonable.

 

it definitely resonated as a smackdown. I know this because fox news responded by criticizing candy crowley for fact checking during the debate, then they denied that she was correct with an argument similar to yours. a big part of their job is to provide comfort and plausible deniability to republicans.

If true, Fox really knocked it out of the park with that one. I had to watch 4 different youtube vids to try to get to the bottom of it, and even the one that showed the president's words was cut right before the point where he said "acts of terror", so you couldn't be sure what preceded it.

regardless of what he actually said, Romney fumbled with the question. And i truly believe Obama wasn't referring to the Bengazi attack as a 'terrorist attack' but he used the catch all of 'acts of terror' anything that happens bad to American officials especially murder. It was only later that Obama's administration referred to them as being an organized attack by the so-called label of terrorists. So what i really believe is going on here is that after 9/11, any attack of this kind, regardless of the facts will be referred to in passing as a 'terrorist act' but the Obama administration decided over time that it was an act committed by career terrorists, they even suggest al qaeda. It's really a semantic argument that when you parse it out is meaningless anyways. Romney should have stuck to why the administration refused to acknowledge it was an organized attack for so long, or how it happened in the first place after they requested more security. Im not saying he would have scored more political points this way, but if the attempt was to Jimmy Carterize Obama, it failed in what was probably the only direct confrontational opportunity they had. I think that it's hard to argue however that the administration did not intentionally deflect the press away from what actually happened when they had facts to suggest otherwise. It was a complex situation, a video may have caused a massive protest in Egypt and a similar protest might have occurred in Libya as a result. And who knows, was the attack on the US embassy in Iran on 1979 a terrorist attack? From most accounts it was a very out of hand and well organized protest wherein armed revolutionaries took over the embassy. Would this be defined as terrorism in retrospect?

it's just semantics, like you said, but what i got from it is that we can see what the american people REALLY care about. i mean something like that gets more attention than important issues like what the candidates' stances is on the economy. i guess it's good enough for romney to say that he's sure he can fix the economy without offering an actual plan but god forbid we don't immediately label any aggression towards american people as "terrorism." this shit makes me doubt that democracy can be effective. people are so consummed with shit that doesn't affect them that they are totally forgetting about important issues that we really need to press politicians on.

and when people DO press polticians on these things, they're characterized as whiny liberals looking for a handout. like wtf people

RE: the benghazi debate

Obama (and his administration) were too quick too make a statement right after the attack, call it a misstep if you want, but they didn't want to interfere with the EU's meddling in Africa because of the US presidential elections.

You have to take into account that the most urgent worldwide issues are being put on hold because of the US presidential elections (and to another extent Germany's)

  On 10/20/2012 at 5:21 AM, Awepittance said:

regardless of what he actually said, Romney fumbled with the question. And i truly believe Obama wasn't referring to the Bengazi attack as a 'terrorist attack' but he used the catch all of 'acts of terror' anything that happens bad to American officials especially murder. It was only later that Obama's administration referred to them as being an organized attack by the so-called label of terrorists. So what i really believe is going on here is that after 9/11, any attack of this kind, regardless of the facts will be referred to in passing as a 'terrorist act' but the Obama administration decided over time that it was an act committed by career terrorists, they even suggest al qaeda. It's really a semantic argument that when you parse it out is meaningless anyways. Romney should have stuck to why the administration refused to acknowledge it was an organized attack for so long, or how it happened in the first place after they requested more security. Im not saying he would have scored more political points this way, but if the attempt was to Jimmy Carterize Obama, it failed in what was probably the only direct confrontational opportunity they had. I think that it's hard to argue however that the administration did not intentionally deflect the press away from what actually happened when they had facts to suggest otherwise. It was a complex situation, a video may have caused a massive protest in Egypt and a similar protest might have occurred in Libya as a result. And who knows, was the attack on the US embassy in Iran on 1979 a terrorist attack? From most accounts it was a very out of hand and well organized protest wherein armed revolutionaries took over the embassy. Would this be defined as terrorism in retrospect?

again, to ever expect a Republican to EVER criticise being harsh or unnecessarily overbearing on one particular act by a paramilitary group is madness. a pipe dream. it will never, ever happen.

I early voted today and actually avoided all news of the election since the last debate, ignoring all "headlines" unless something like this happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DGFxzXHvnw

maybe i'm just tired, but this third debate is boring me, and i've heard it all from both sides.

this debate is actually pretty funny between horses and bayonets and romney literally arguing with the moderator

ah, ok. i'm not paying close attention. so is obama winning?

i dunno i guess. he's gotten some good zingers in.

  On 10/23/2012 at 4:27 AM, Hanratty said:

ah, ok. i'm not paying close attention. so is obama winning?

if you're a democrat, obama totally won

if you're a republican, romney totally won

  On 10/23/2012 at 4:43 AM, baph said:

  On 10/23/2012 at 4:27 AM, Hanratty said:

ah, ok. i'm not paying close attention. so is obama winning?

 

if you're a democrat, obama totally won

if you're a republican, romney totally won

AN ELECTION DETERMINED BY ZINGERS YEAH HOLLA HOLLA

ROMNEY DELIVERED THE SMACK DOWN WITH HIS TWICE AS LARGE AMERICAN FLAG PIN, WENT ALL OH SNAP, YOU A MUSLIM OBAMA?

Ann Coulter ‏@AnnCoulter

Quote:

I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.

Obama: "We have fewer horses and bayonets than we used to"

Fox weirdos: "DUMBASS WE STILL USE HORSES AND BAYONETS FUCKING LOL"