printThe current column, now on WND, is “Winning A Battle Of Wits With A Half Wit.” An excerpt:
“It was hard not to feel sorry for President Barack Obama during what was the first of three presidential debates. The dejected demeanor and the perpetually lowered gaze conjured an unprepared student peppered by a pedantic teacher with questions he could not possibly answer.
The president’s pose spoke to the beating he was receiving at the hands of his opponent, Gov. Mitt Romney.
Obama campaigner Chris Matthews—a proxy for this president, who cloaks himself in the raiment of a newsman—demanded to know: Why was Obama staring down at his “notes” and scribbling? What was he waiting for?
To describe what Gov. Romney had done in the course of the 90-minute debate, Matthews, who possesses a nimble intelligence his candidate is without, reached for wild man Charlie Sheen’s zinger: ‘What was Romney doing? Winning!’
Moderator Jim Lehrer is an old-school newsman who has never in the course of a long and distinguished career revealed his own political bias. Now the pack men of the media were piling on the PBS anchor for not controlling the debate’s outcome, and for allowing a free to-and-fro between the men.
And since Mitt won hands down; the moderator must have been bad. Or so goes the loser’s lackluster logic. Never mind that reasoning backward is an error in logic. So how does post hoc ergo propter hoc work? Had Obama won the debate under the same emcee’s minimal intervention, Lehrer would have been lauded. …
… Also at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow provided the ultimate rationalization which her co-hosts on the network and elsewhere quickly embraced. ‘The presidency spoils your ability to be a good debater.’
‘In psychology and logic, rationalization (also known as making excuses) is an unconscious defense mechanism,’ writes Wikipedia. It is intended to shield the fragile ego from reality.
Like Maddow, presidential hagiographer Douglas Brinkley took cover from real life on Fox News’ ‘Cavuto.’ The yang to Lincoln idolator Doris Kearns Goodwin’s yin, Brinkley diminished Romney’s intellectual victory by applying that most stringent historical test to the governor’s performance: It was without a Reaganesque zinger. Obama, however, had not damaged his brand, claimed Brinkley. He was still a gifted ‘retail politician.’ (Read community organizer.) …
… Make no mistake; should he succeed in vanquishing Obama, come Nov. 6, Romney’s brand of “repeal-and-replace statism”—not to mention maniacal militarism and Sinophobia—will be no victory for liberty. …
Read the complete column, “Winning A Battle Of Wits With A Half Wit,” on WND.
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UPDATED I: The Vicarious Pleasure Principle. Even if you dislike the philosophy of both men (which exists on the same illiberal continuum), there is some vicarious pleasure in watching the one who has caused you such unhappiness whipped good and proper.
UPDATE II: IN HIS excellent column about Romney’s creaming of Obama, Pat Buchanan also draws on the boxing and school teacher metaphors.
Pat calls Obama’s “performance one of the worst in debate history,” and Romney’s “the finest debate performance of any candidate of either party in the 52 years since Richard Nixon faced John F. Kennedy, with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan’s demolition of Jimmy Carter in 1980.”