CNN's Candy Crowley has been accused of "committing an act of journalistic terror" by Republican loudmouth Rush Limbaugh in the wake of the political shellacking that President Barack Obama visited on GOP standard-bearer Mitt Romney in the second Presidential Debate in New York. The day after the drubbing the political right-wing, extremists of all stripes and Republican conservatives were trying to blame the moderator for Mitt Romney's lies, badgering and overall "junior league" performance.
Yeah, Romney got slapped around -- bad. And he did not like it one bit.
But no amount of trying to change the topic and blaming everyone but Mittens is going to change the fact: he delivered a series of Republican talking points; tried to engage the President of the United States in a kind of schoolyard bully game, and he got slapped and was taken down with a dose of reality -- hard and painful. The man embarrassed himself and his Republican supporters.
Reeling off statistics and figures as an accountant-in-training, Romney had nothing else but rhetoric and was caught like a deer in the headlights balking about his relationship with George W. Bush whom he ran away from as if Armageddon was coming. The fact that this is the very first time that Romney was forced to mention the former president's name is most instructive. His campaign has pretended that Bush II does not exist even leaving him out of the party's much ballyhooed convention. And he tried desperately to distance himself from one of America's most unpopular presidents of all time.
By contract, Democrats highlighted Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. In fact, Bill Clinton has become one of President Obama's major surrogates. None of the former presidential hopefuls - Newt Gingrich, gaffe-prone Rick Perry or any of the failed GOP presidential hopefuls - have or had a major role in Romney's campaign. He's avoided them as the plague.
But President Obama was having none of that and socked it to Romney by hanging Bush II around Romney's neck like bright red scarf. And as if that was not enough President Obama continued his unrelenting, but stylish, attack on his challenger's record at every turn exposing his lies, half-truths and meaningless rhetoric. In the end the REAL Mitt Romney was exposed -- a vapid, shallow, power-hungry man who feels that he's entitled to the presidency.
His stupid characterization of "a binder of women" served to eloquently underscore Romney's essential character makeup -- he is a successful, white alpha male who likes to talk to people as he pleases and hates it when there is push back. We saw that during the Republican Primaries where his own colleagues branded him a flip-flopper and a person who can't be trusted. Newt Gingrich called him an out and out liar -- and he's as conservative as Republicans come.
So imagine ole wind-bag Rush rushing to Romney's defense by attacking a well-respected journalist who did a great job of reigning in an arrogant, combative Romney who felt that he was entitled to speak for as long as he wanted -- to hell with the moderator. Who was she anywhere? This is a man whose campaign AGREED to direct questions at the moderator and then started by breaking those rules. Again, that this kind of thing that happens with the 1% who as President Obama says "don't play by the same rules."
But it backfired and he got a royal beating down that got the frat boy angrier and angrier as he faced a "Cool Hand Luke" president who was content to allow him to ramble, badger and recite his talking points and vapid answers to uncomfortable questions. If boxing gloves were allowed in presidential debates Romney would have attacked the President of the United States from the get go.
So his comeuppance was always in the works and President Obama demonstrated that he was "the boss" during the debate on Libya that sparked the anger and fury of Limbaugh and company. For the past month Romney and Ryan have been repeating over and over a nuanced untruth claiming that President Obama took two weeks to call the Banghazi attack an act of terror. Ole Mitt was having a political orgasm with this lie and was waxing all self-righteous and indignant. President Obama sat and listened a sardonic smile on his face.
The sprung he sprung the trap and Romney was caught again in the headlight and had nowhere else to run. Candy Crowley, trying to give him a hand and end his descent into untruth, fact-checked and declared that the president had called the events an act of terror the very next day at the Rose Garden -- just as the president said. But instead of taking the life-line and apologize -- or shut up - he arrogantly started to badger the moderator.
He then went down in flames"with his pants on fire.
But President Obama was not finished yet. Romney, who now believes his own lies, finished up with the phrase that he supported and wanted to represent "100% of the American people" -- opening himself and exposing his soft underbelly that President Obama surgically and stylistically inserted the "47% lance."
It was over and Romney left - a man who had just gotten slapped around in front of over 50 million people. Payback is a B.
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