source: gifwich tumblr
What a great night for President Obama! He had zingers ready and Mitt didn't get away with most of his silly flip-flops and lies.
The theme of the night was "Mitt is Old-Fashioned" and Obama pointed this out at every opportunity:
Full Transcript of the Debate on ABC News
OBAMA: Gov. Romney, I'm glad that you recognize that al Qaeda is a threat because a few months ago when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia.
The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War's been over for 20 years.
. . . Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s.
The most famous lines of the night harkened back into history, evoking WWI or the Civil War to the days of warefare with "horses and bayonets" came during a discussion of military spending. Hilarious, and the best comeback line of all time! Twitter and Tumblr went nuts for this. At my house, we laughed and cheered.
source: weneedmorehorsesandbayonets tumblr
ROMNEY: Our Navy is old -- excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now at under 285. We're headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That's unacceptable to me.
I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947.
We've changed for the first time since FDR -- since FDR we had the -- we've always had the strategy of saying we could fight in two conflicts at once. Now we're changing to one conflict. Look, this, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the President of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people.
And I will not cut our military budget by a trillion dollars, which is a combination of the budget cuts the president has, as well as the sequestration cuts. That, in my view, is making -- is making our future less certain and less secure.
source: havelogicwilltravel
OBAMA: Bob, I just need to comment on this.
. . . I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works.
You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.
via gifwich
And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting slips. It's what are our capabilities. And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home.
And that is not reflected in the kind of budget that you're putting forward because it just doesn't work.
Obama also reminded Mitt of his "Romneyshambles World Tour" last summer, in which Mitt schmoozed and raised money in Israel from the likes of Sheldon Adelson. And to me, this quote is really all you need to know of the debate and the differences between Mitt and President Obama:
ROMNEY: ...Mr. President, the reason I call it an apology tour is because you went to the Middle East and you flew to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia and to Turkey and Iraq. And by the way, you skipped Israel, our closest friend in the region, but you went to the other nations.
And by the way, they noticed that you skipped Israel. And then in those nations, and on Arabic TV, you said that America had been dismissive and derisive. You said that on occasion America had dictated to other nations.
Mr. President, America has not dictated to other nations. We have freed other nations from dictators.
OBAMA: Bob, let me -- let me respond.
If we're going to talk about trips that we've taken -- when I was a candidate for office, first trip I took was to visit our troops. And when I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn't take donors. I didn't attend fundraisers. I went to Yad Beshef (ph), the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable.
And then I went down to the border towns of Storok (ph), which had experienced missiles raining dowm from Hamas. And I saw families there who showed me there where missiles had come down near their children's bedrooms. And I was reminded of what that would mean if those were my kids. Which is why as president, we funded an Iron Dome program to stop those missiles.
So that's how I've used my travels, when I travel to Israel and when I travel to the region. And the -- the central question at this point is going to be: Who is going to be credible to all parties involved? And they can look at my track record, whether it's Iran sanctions, whether it's dealing with counterterrorism, whether it's supporting democracy, whether it's supporting women's rights, whether it's supporting religious minorities.
And they can say that the President of the United States and the United States of America has stood on the right side of history. And that kind of credibility is precisely why we've been able to show leadership on a wide range of issues facing the world right now.
It was quite elegant the way Obama went through a check-list of the Romnesiac's previous positions. The biggest fib of the night was Mitt trying to walk back an Op-Ed that he wrote for the New York Times titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." He tried to make it seem as if people misunderstood his position, forgetting that he put it in writing, and everyone knows there was no private money willing to bail-out the industry, so the government was their last hope. And it worked! And now he wants to take credit for what Obama did because people like himself, connected to Michigan and children of the auto-industry moguls did nothing to help a dying industry. Epic. Freakin'. Fail.
I'm a son of Detroit. I was born in Detroit. My dad was head of a car company. I like American cars. And I would do nothing to hurt the U.S. auto industry. My plan to get the industry on its feet when it was in real trouble was not to start writing checks. It was President Bush that wrote the first checks. I disagree with that. I said they need -- these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy. And in that process, they can get government help and government guarantees, but they need to go through bankruptcy to get rid of excess cost and the debt burden that they'd -- they'd built up.
And fortunately...
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: Governor Romney, that's not what you said...
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: Governor Romney, you did not...
ROMNEY: You can take a look at the op-ed...
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: You did not say that you would provide government help.
ROMNEY: I said that we would provide guarantees, and -- and that was what was able to allow these companies to go through bankruptcy, to come out of bankruptcy. Under no circumstances would I do anything other than to help this industry get on its feet. And the idea that has been suggested that I would liquidate the industry, of course not. Of course not.
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: Let's check the record.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: That's the height of silliness...
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: Let -- let -- let's...
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: I have never said I would liquidate...
(CROSSTALK)
OBAM: ...at the record.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: ...I would liquidate the industry.
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: Governor, the people in Detroit don't forget.
. . . ROMNEY: ...if -- if you're...
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: ...you've had the floor for a while.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: ...get someone else's.
OBAMA: The -- look, I think anybody out there can check the record. Governor Romney, you keep on trying to, you know airbrush history here. You were very clear that you would not provide, government assistance to the U.S. auto companies, even if they went through bankruptcy. You said that they could get it in the private marketplace. That wasn't true. They would have gone through a...
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: You're wrong...
By the end of the debate, Obama had eviscerated Mitt, who was stammering incoherently about things he loves, as he does when he is thrown for a loop. Incredible.
Look, I love to -- I love teachers, and I'm happy to have states and communities that want to hire teachers do that. By the way, I don't like to have the federal government start pushing its weight deeper and deeper into our schools. Let the states and localities do that. I was a governor. The federal government didn't hire our teachers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor?
ROMNEY: But I love teachers. But I want to get our private sector growing and I know how to do it.
SCHIEFFER: I think we all love teachers.
(LAUGHTER)
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