It is difficult for a very bright and honest man to debate a facile liar like Mitt Romney. Andrew Sullivan put it this way:
Let’s look back a bit:
With President Obama holed up in a Nevada resort for debate practice, things can get pretty boring on the White House beat right now. Pretty boring for Obama too, apparently. “Basically they’re keeping me indoors all the time,” Obama told a supporter on the phone during a visit to a Las Vegas area field office. “It’s a drag,” he added. “They’re making me do my homework.”
Too arrogant to take a core campaign responsibility seriously. Too arrogant to give his supporters what they deserve. If he now came out and said he supports Simpson-Bowles in its entirety, it would look desperate, but now that Romney has junked every proposal he ever told his base, and we’re in mid-October, it’s Obama’s only chance on the economy.
I disagree with Sullivan. Romney is such an effin liar that he would then attack Obama for all the things Simpson Bowles would mean. I think the way Obama must play this is by d by asking “Which Mitt is here toni8ght?”
A very good way of doing this would be by turning the inevitable question on the candidates economics into a debate on Mitss’s tax return:
My script:
“Mr. Romney says he wants to cut everyone’s taxes by 20% while making up for this five tr4illion dollars tax expense by cutting loopholes for the wealthy. Well, Mitt you are one fo those wealthy guys, can you tell us what cuts do you see in your loopholes that would raise five trillion? “
Here is more from Sullivan:
I’m trying to see a silver lining. But when a president self-immolates on live TV, and his opponent shines with lies and smiles, and a record number of people watch, it’s hard to see how a president and his party recover. I’m not giving up. If the lies and propaganda of the last four years work even after Obama had managed to fight back solidly against them to get a clear and solid lead in critical states, then reality-based government is over in this country again. We’re back to Bush-Cheney, but more extreme. We have to find a way to avoid that. Much, much more than Obama’s vanity is at stake.
Yep!