The 3rd & Final Debate, foreign and domestic repairs

It took but half an hour or twenty minutes or so before businessman Romney veered off into more comfortable domestic terrain, done on purpose and killed a small block of time and Obama happily took the bait (geez Dad can we rap about birth control again?  I see an opening!).  Not exactly two Kissingers squaring off against each other and sure enough Obama obliquely got his pills in (I'm beginning to think he takes bc pills himself) when he said Romney has social policies more from the '50s, a Mormon cross between Robert Young and Leave It To Beaver but onto to Syria and some other more pressing matters.  Bashar al-Assad to date has killed about 30,000 of his own citizens, brings to mind Stalin's old quip that one death is a tragedy 30,000 is a statistic to paraphrase.  Obama kept talking sanctions up the kazoo whereas Romney agreed but said while there would be no military involvement under his administration we really need to arm the rebels the right ones anyway.  I pretty much watched the whole thing with a quick sidetrip for a whizz and a refill and in my notes there's everything.  Obama took out Osama bin Laden which in a foreign policy debate is perfectly fair to point out and also somehow took out Khadafy.  The evening started out with Mideast terror/Benghazi of course and perhaps the best line of the evening was when Romney said we can't kill ourselves out of this terror situation but really need to engage the Muslim world to reject extremism (hey Sat the real War Against Women can best be capsulized in the pic of little Malala recuperating in her British hospital room, just thought I'd get that in).  So how'd that reset go with Putin Mr. Obama?  Romney sees Putin more as a geopolitical foe, I see him as nostalgic for the Cold War and not wanting to move on but Obama somehow sees him in less menacing terms, dunno.  Iraq, status of forces agreements, the Red Line with Iran, future talks between the U.S. and Iran not being true, tensions with Israel which even many Dems are concerned about, Obama's global apology tour.  Geez this blogpost is beginning to resemble an updated version of We Didn't Start the Fire.  Rom's feeling is that the world's worst leaders saw weakness in Obama and this made events in the world worse and yeah China was ripe for discussion (we'll save that for the comments section).  Leaving Afghanistan in '014 (we hope) and Romney was quite straight about Pakistan being an ally after all they have about 100 nuclear warheads and if Pakistan somehow became a failed state we wouldn't want them getting into the wrong hands.  DRONES, education, a strong economy and the overwhelming need for a strong military which in my view Obama seemed particularly weak on, kind of stammered.  I finally figured out the media's formula for determining the winner in these things, if Obama didn't do horribly then he won.  Of the three debates this was the most pivotal imo.  Of course when I go to my e-mail later and find out who's trending today on Yahoo I may revise that.  Oh yeah Bob Schieffer a class act:) 

The 2nd Debate not quite the debacle of the first

I watched a good chunk of it the town hall affair of undecideds at Hofstra but wasn't familiar with the Crowley CNN woman as mod.  Obama was better but lately I've become distracted by Romney's hair, get a Wahl guide comb out please!  There must have been some polling done on the whole BC thing as Obama seems to feel very comfortable bringing it up, go social.  I was tired from work and all but Obama seemed to bring it up apropos of nothing really but it's predictable by now, when Obama feels a lack of confidence arguing the economy it's like he holds out his hand, opens it and says "look I have a contraceptive pill, I'm for it."  He brings up PP as if it's some kind of charity run by the Dalai Lama and a cross with Big Bird and you have to be evil to even think of defunding it.  Let me flesh something out here as there was the vaguest hint of a future ad-hominem by one of my more liberal commenters.  Um if I might parse something here I never said Sex is not necessary only that it's not medically necessary.  An orgiast and a monk can both live to be 102 and it's a philosophical thing to judge who is the happier but their bodies function just the same although the monk has his abbey ale to dull the pain.  Now BB and I are both pro-drinking and pro-pipesmoking but that doesn't make them medically necessary so there's a hell of a lot that Life has to offer but that doesn't make them critical from a purely medical the barest minimum to continue life POV (for the life of me I don't know why this is such a controversial point).  I think what it is is that Sex is such an integral part of human life that many of us feel that medical insurance needs to cover at least certain aspects of it and if it's not covered then by golly there needs to be a Law.  Look soap could pay for twenty free lap dances for me with a special visit to the VIP Room thrown in and my position would still be the same and I'd blog the same comments.  Logic doesn't change but for many folks we get into Icky Territory in a hurry when folks like Sandra Fluke want some aspect of picking up the tab for their sex'chal needs.  All of a sudden you have images of pumping buttocks and slapping scrotums whereas before you were quite tolerant because folks paid for their own lifestyle choices.  I myself would never think of billing my insurance company for some Trojans or making an issue of it with the Catholic Church.  Look if I worked as an usher in a church somewhere I wouldn't expect the local Bishop to reimburse me, wouldn't even cross my mind but that's because I'm not ideological and Obama and his supporters are.  Ideologues always have to ramp it up a notch and get you in line with their way of thinking and if Romney had any cojones he would have simply said on national TV pay for your own shit.  Anyway getting back to the debate Romney was strong as usual and had a good command of the, yes facts as when he pointed out Obama cut permits and licenses for drilling and energy exploration on federal lands.  Now Obama said no I didn't but if he were honest he'd simply say yes I care for the snail darter and Al Gore so it's like you always get sucked into your opponent's points instead of standing your own ground but at any rate it was a good show.  Obama's sexual socio/economic message -- when the economy sucks it's always PP+BC+RC which somehow you might be out of a job but I got ya covered, I'll hook you up:)

Faith & Politics

OR leave your Bible at home.  Been wondering though are liberal politicians ever motivated by their faith? and if so is this invalid too as when us Christian fundiecons do it and why is it never pointed out?  Gay marriage, equal pay for equal work, social justice, reproductive rights, low-income housing (desegregation), immigration reform, health care and the liberal list goes on but can laws or legislation to pass these things have a religious underpinning and do liberal politicians ever get motivated by their very own personal liberal understanding of faith to take action politically on these and other important matters?  So far nobody's sayin'  Sure there's politics in the Catholic Church but is Nancy Pelosi ever inspired in her House actions by her Catholic faith?  Certainly Martin Luther King Jr. was openly motivated by his faith and talked about it in marching for civil rights so that was a good thing but if a pro-lifer......well you get the picture.  Bibles, Korans, Torahs I don't care put it on the table and while we're on the subject does that old fragment of a papyrus paper show Jesus had a wife perhaps Mary Magdalene? and oh btw why do atheists use God's name in vain from time to time say when they're stuck in traffic?  Some new pro-Islam ads just went up in the NYC subways in some cases right next to the controversial ones about Support Israel and be against the savage.  This is the RIGHT way to handle speech you don't like - GET IN THERE!  I'm kinda tired of Tim Tebow wearing his celibacy on his sleeve, you can brag about your sluttery or your chastity and it's all the same to me and some woman's gonna seduce him and my other thing is if he's only the backup QB for the Jets why is he getting far more presstime than Mark Sanchez?  These and other matters feel free, coffee's perkin':) 

Maybe he had a fight with his wife

Cramps? or maybe Obama's strategy last night at the First Debate in Colorado was to keep his head down to make Romney look like he's picking on the black guy.  By universal acclamation Romney won the debate and even Chris Matthews said he was excellent.  Jeff Greenfield said Obama seemed clueless about the most basic political points and many feel Obama should have went after Romney on his 47% comments and Bain Capital.  Oh I know what it was he was depressed about that Samuel Jackson video.  The economy, taxes, job creation and education and Jim Lehrer as moderator, get the nachos out.  I don't get why Savage keeps calling Lehrer a baggy-eyed Bolshevik and other conservatives like Michelle Malkin hate the guy but at any rate Rom was up-tempo, controlled the direction of the debate and was aggressive this according to the Today Show which I popped on this morning because truth be told I deliberately surfed right past the debate on most channels but even here some new Chinese digital station was covering it from Beijing so I got some snippets in English.  OK so Romney didn't exactly speak as an arch-conservative and won't exactly win the hearts of the Ron Paulians, not even sure who they're voting for.  He denied Obama's $5 trillion in tax cuts assertion and said there's a place for government in health care, that's not exactly hardcore libertarianism.  Axelrod said Romney's was a strong performance but still a performance so that's one of them half-compliments.  Look Obama has very strong base support whereas Rom is going for the 7% swing, he's a swinger and Obama's a baseman.  O's weak performance won't affect his base of course, it was more embarrassment than abandonment.  Clearly though when Chris Matthews no longer gets The Tingle in his left nut something's wrong:)