Romney won the debate: So he lied and cheated, get over it

OK, the quick conclusion is Mitt Romney won the first debate. Not on substance, but on style. The former Massachusetts governor was far more aggressive than the president.

Neither the president nor the moderator, Jim Lehrer, brought up Romney’s “47 percent” speech. Neither the president nor Lehrer pressed Governor Romney on what loopholes and deductions he would eliminate from the tax code. Neither the president nor the moderator challenged Romney on his lies and drastic flip-flops, some of those position stated just days before the debate.

And, to top it off, Romney cheated by bringing notes into the debate.

Chuck Todd of NBC said Romney elevated himself to be a credible alternative to President Obama in this debate. All the newspapers followed suit with headlines declaring the presidential race was back on —“ROMNEY WON!” — the debate and in Romney world, that’s tantamount to winning it all.

Damn Democrats. Always rolling over for them lyin’, two-faced Republican bastards. Grow some cojones, Mr. President and fight back!

Effin’ president. Too confident, comfortable in his measly lead before the debate, he looked like he was bored and didn’t want to be there. Okay, it was his anniversary and dang it, who wouldn’t want to be with their spouse on this, their 20th wedding anniversary? Well, I’ve never been married, but from what my married friends and family tell me, anniversaries are important, especially milestone dates like the 20th.

By god, Mr. “I’m-for-the-president” Chris Matthews was absolutely livid Thursday! He was scolding, in very hardball fashion, the president and his re-election team for the president’s lackluster performance in this debate. It looked like Matthews was about to have a coronary right there on the air!

Just out of curiosity: does NBC employ a full-time medical staff?

And it’s true: the president’s performance sucked Wednesday Night. No one, not David Plouffe, David Axelrod, or even MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell can spin it any other way. Mitt Romney came out looking better than Barack Obama. The optics don’t lie.

Mitt Romney lied his ass off, but let’s face it: many Americans don’t pay as much attention to the message and the substance as they do how somebody looks and carries himself or herself. It’s how cult leaders gain followers. You don’t need to be emotionally vulnerable to become a member of a cult. Lots of people follow a cult, for a while. And then they finally hear the message and think, “What the fuck was I thinking?”

But the optics of Romney being confident, tough, bullying the moderator, that effin’ Jim Lehrer from that lefty-commie-pinko-fascist PBS, yeah baby, that’s what we Americans really like — I think.

Mitt wants to fire Big Bird and Elmo too? Wait, we like Sesame Street. Who will tickle Elmo?

But dammit! Mitt was one helluva bully! He exceeded all expectations. Most people thought that if Romney just showed up he’d look like a success, but he did so much more. And he got a bump all right, you betcha! One point.

But then, as Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out on his show Thursday, not everybody sticks with the cult leader, so to speak. At some point in the old story, the snake oil salesman gets run out of town on a rail. Despite the longings of the good intentioned and lonely old widows who still clung to the snake oil coattails.

Same with many of the people who follow cult leaders. At first the message sounds good and the way the cult guy delivers his spiel, he looks good doing it. But at some point, after your sister makes a cogent point that contradicts the leader, you think, “Eh, Really?” And then adios cult.

There you go Tim, mixing metaphors.

Thursday saw the president back out on the stump, this time asking, “Where’s the real Mitt Romney?” The president began ticking off every lie and flip-flop uttered by his opponent. And reminding everyone that in the debate Romney said he wanted to fire Big Bird. And Elmo. In every other regard, according to the president, Mitt Romney got an extreme makeover. Apparently the president, and possibly Mrs. Obama, watch pop culture TV.

One percent isn’t much of a bump. Doesn’t matter who is talking about it, one percent means nothing. Thanks to the magic of the twenty-four hour news cycle, both candidates have become a part of our lives, talking about their policies and philosophies every day. The same themes, the same ideas, hell the same damn speeches at every stop in the battleground states. If you pay close enough attention you might be able to recite the stump speeches verbatim.

Of course, because of this first debate we’ve had to learn a few new lines.

After so many months of listening to Romney dis the 47 percent (which he now calls a mistake – probably one of  his math problems), call for the elimination of teachers, police officers and firefighters from the government payroll; after so many months of attacking women’s rights and affordable health care for all, most of the 67,000,000 who watched the debate Wednesday Night knew the snake oil salesman, the cult leader, up there on stage with his hidden cheat sheet. They knew Mitt Romney was lying his ass off. We all agree he looked good doing it, but, in the end, a lie is still a lie and Romney had plenty of lies for everyone.

Which probably explains why his bump was a measly one percent.

Then Friday Oct. 5  the September jobs numbers were released. What, 7.8 percent? Of course Romney wants to spin it differently than he was spinning the jobless number a month ago when it was 8.2 percent. Back then it was the product of President Obama’s policies. Now, well, if you count the people who have fallen off the job market the unemployment number is much higher.

For decades we’ve listened to people from both parties use that line to try and spin the jobs number if it didn’t fit their agenda, but long ago most Americans figured out that if the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says the unemployment rate has dropped, then it has gone down. No matter how anyone tries to spin it.

But there are the extremist voices out there who took it one step further today. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (which owns MSNBC) accused “Chicago politics” of manipulating the numbers and crazy Florida Congressman Allen West said, “I agree with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here.” West echoed Welch and said of the latest unemployment report, “This is Orwellian to say the least and representative of Saul Alinsky tactics from the book Rules for Radicals — a must read for all who want to know how the left strategize.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here, Congressman West and suggest that the Alinsky estate appreciates the plug.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is one of those government agencies staffed by lifer employees of the federal government, people who don’t work for one administration, they work despite who might be in the White House. Some of the people were working in the BLS when Ronald Reagan was president. They’re numbers-crunchers. They just sit there with the accounting degrees calculating this number with that one, carrying over this zero and subtracting that zero; it’s like a porn connoisseur flipping from one 10 minute internet video to another until he gets the conclusion, for that moment. He gets all excited, splurts and then smiles. Then, maybe the next day, he gets back online and starts the process again.

Numbers-crunchers are the same way. I live with one. He crunches numbers all day at work and then he comes home, sits down with his laptop and does mathematical–type puzzles and games for a few hours. When he comes to a successful conclusion he starts all over again.

Same with BLS employees. Doesn’t matter who controls Congress or is in the White House, they just do what they do with all those numbers and once a month — voila! Jobs and unemployment numbers. They take pride in doing their jobs correctly and having correct computations. They didn’t compete as mathletes in high school for nothing. They take the business of crunching numbers seriously. They don’t fudge or cook the numbers. It’s bad for their egos.

Just for the record, what I know about porn connoisseurs is from just what I’ve read and heard …

Anyway, President Obama losing the first debate isn’t such a big deal. After all, he’s still running against Mitt Romney as the former governor confirmed when, in closing remarks, he made these comments about “Obamacare: “If I’m elected, we won’t have ‘Obamacare.’ We’ll put in place the kind of principles that I put in place in my own state and allow each state to craft their own programs to get people insured.”

Seriously, you can’t make this up. In one sentence he denounces Obamacare, then says he’ll replace it with the program that begat Obamacare, but the individual states will be able to create their own health care programs. Of course the president looked dumb-founded in the debate: how do you argue against something that doesn’t make any sense?

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Tim Forkes

Tim Forkes started as a writer on a small alternative college newspaper in Milwaukee called the Crazy Shepherd. Writing about entertainment issues, he had the opportunity to speak with many people in show business, from the very famous to the people struggling to find an audience. In 1992 Tim moved to San Diego, CA and pursued other interests, but remained a freelance writer. Upon arrival in Southern California he was struck by how the business of government and business was so intertwined, far more so than he had witnessed in Wisconsin. His interest in entertainment began to wane and the business of politics took its place. He had always been interested in politics, his mother had been a Democratic Party official in Milwaukee, WI, so he sat down to dinner with many of Wisconsin’s greatest political names of the 20th Century: William Proxmire and Clem Zablocki chief among them. As a Marine Corps veteran, Tim has a great interest in veteran affairs, primarily as they relate to the men and women serving and their families. As far as Tim is concerned, the military-industrial complex has enough support. How the men and women who serve are treated is reprehensible, while in the military and especially once they become veterans. Tim would like to help change that reality.

www.forkesreport.com