First came the criticisms and the hand wringing of "why oh why did Obama do so bad????"
Then came the excuses, some real out-there ones too, like Al Gore, saying Obama did so badly because of the "altitude." They blamed the moderator, Jim Lehrer, for actually letting the candidates debate at a.... GASP..... debate. Then they blamed John Kerry for not being aggressive enough while playing Romney in the debate preparation against Obama. Then their catchall excuse, "but but but, Romney lied!"
It was everyone and everything's fault except for Barack Obama's according to his cheerleaders.
Despite high expectations by liberals, as I pointed out the other day, there was no way for Obama to win a debate on Domestic Policy when his policies over the last four years have failed, by the numbers.
Unemployment was 7.8% in January 2009 and the latest controversial BLS report issued puts it at the same 7.8% today..
U6 Unemployment, which is the total of unemployment, underemployed and marginally attached workers, was at 14.2% when Obama took office in January and it is at 14.7% now as of the latest BLS figures.
GDP growth only increased at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the second quarter of 2012, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
As Romney so succinctly put it at the debate "you're entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts.." It was the facts that gave Romney the overwhelming win. Obama could not counter the numbers showing his failures.
Now, we see assertions that Obama wants a redo, to reargue the points Romney made during the first debate, at their second debate.
“I think it's pretty obvious it was a one-sided performance, and Obama is now looking to make the rebuttal he somehow managed to avoid making on stage,” said Shanto Iyengar, a professor of political science at Stanford University.
Obama aides say the president himself will more forcefully make those arguments both at upcoming campaign stops and when the two meet at Hofstra University for their second faceoff in just over a week.......
New Flash for Team Obama, since they seem to be too rattled over the first debate to catch it. The second debate isn't just on Domestic Policy, it is worse for Obama, it is on Foreign Policy and Domestic Policy.
From the debate schedule:
Second presidential debate (October 16, 2012, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY)
The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which citizens will ask questions of the candidates on foreign and domestic issues. Candidates each will have two minutes to respond, and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion. The town meeting participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization.
So, not only can Romney reiterate Obama's failures on unemployment, GDP growth, high food stamp usage oder Obama, highest poverty levels under Obama and the range of his other Domestic Policy failures, but now Romney gets a bonus, he gets to nail Obama on his Foreign Policy failures, specifically the ongoing gross incompetence shown in the latest failure, the terror attack in Libya which resulted in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador to libya and three other Americans.
Just this week it was reported that Obama had withdrawn a team of 16 Special Forces members, who were specifically detailed to protect the U.S. mission staff in Libya, just one month before the terror attack occurred. The Obama administration did this despite requests for incresed security and evidence of 13 otherprior attack showing the need for more, not less.
Other details that have emerged since the 9/11 terror attack has shown that there were intercepted communications which warned of an impending attack. In the first 10 days of the ongoing attacks against American embassies, Obama attended over 10 campaign events. The day after the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other American citizens, Obama flew to Vegas for a campaign event! Obama immediately attacked the right of American free speech without attacking or retaliating against those attacking our embassies, one of which ended up with an al-Qaeda flag flying over it, while Obama attended another campaign event. Top all of it off with the administration's stories, all of them, falling apart before they were forced to admit that the 9/11 attack was a preplanned, organized terror attack against America.
If liberals, Democrats and the Obama campaign team are freaked out over how badly he performed when confronted with his Domestic Policy failures in the first debate, they should be terrified of those failures being highlighted again and his Foreign Policy failures being brought before another 70 million people in the second debate.
I mean, really, how many times during the debate can Obama utter the words "but , um, uh, bin Laden is dead?"
If Mitt Romney plays his cards right and hammers home Obama's failures and gross incompetence resulting in the death of four Americans on 9/11 in Libya, he will wipe the floor with Obama.
I will repeat what I said before the first debate... Obama can attempt to convince America he knows what Romney "will" do, but Romney can simply highlight to America what Obama has already done.
Obama has a record of failure now, and just as Romney put a spotlight on it in the first debate, he should do the same thing again.