DC Trawler

Big Bird, binders, and bayonets

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Courtesy of Elizabeth Price Foley, here’s the brilliant Obama campaign at a glance, after three presidential debates:

It would’ve been nice to fit another “B” in there — Benghazi — but yet another “B,” moderator Bob Schieffer, made sure to get that one out of the way right up front. And Romney let him. I guess he didn’t want to be rude? According to our friends on the left, that means the murder of an American ambassador on 9/11 because of Obama’s negligence, and Obama’s subsequent lies about it, don’t matter. You need to stop talking about it, at least until after November 6. Is that clear?

Schieffer did a better job than Candy Crowley, but then, who couldn’t? He mostly stayed out of the way, only interrupting Romney when he disagreed with him personally. If he did the same to Obama, I missed it.

Schieffer did get in a good line toward the end: “I think we all love teachers.” This was supposed to be a foreign-policy debate, yet somehow one or both of the debaters managed to turn almost every question into a monologue about how great our teachers are. Too bad there’s not a fourth debate about which one of them loves puppies the most. Oh wait, never mind. We know that one already.

People who like Obama think Obama won, and people who like the truth think Romney won. Not as decisively as the first debate, or even the second one, but he won.

Obama’s attempts to belittle him backfired. Gee, do we really have aircraft carriers now, Mr. President? Here’s a hint, Barry: You didn’t build that. Oh, and our troops still use horses and bayonets, but it’s a bit much to expect the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces to know that. As has been pointed out, a horse and a bayonet are more than we gave Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

But here’s the main reason Obama lost, courtesy of NRO:

If not for the timestamp, this could be any point in the debate where Obama wasn’t lying and/or snarking. He set his jaw and fixed Romney with a death stare and showed America just how creepy a president can be. Watch the video, it’s unnerving.

Much like most of Obama’s behavior, this was driven by spite. “Everybody yelled at me for looking down all the time. Okay, fine, I’m not looking down. See? Check me out, this is me not looking down! Are you satisfied? Now I get to be president some more, right?”

This is what happens when you put a guy in the White House who has no experience dealing with people who disagree with him. Give him an opponent with no divorce records to unseal and he doesn’t know what to do. He has to force himself to look at the guy who’s pointing out his lies and failures, and he comes off like a robot with a Seething Petulance chip.

But you can hardly blame him for being no good at it. He’s not used to looking for any length of time at anyone who isn’t in his mirror.

For more on the debate:

Clips of Obama ‘apology tour’ undercut debate denial

Fact-check: Text of 2008 Romney op-ed debunks Obama’s auto-bailout attack

Romney tags jihadists as enemy, marking shift from Obama, Bush

Obama received more speaking time at all three debates

Obama debate claims about changing world attitudes largely untrue in Muslim world, Pew survey finds

Gibbs, Messina say Obama came up with ‘horses and bayonets’ zinger; Axelrod suggests someone else

Schieffer asks no questions about border security, Operation Fast and Furious