"So who do you think won, honey?"

Via The Washington Examiner.

At the same place, Michael Barone argues Obama's Loving Media has smothered him and left him unable to fend for himself.

Romney was looking confident, with consistent smiles; Obama was constantly looking downward, on the defensive, irritated and—astonished.

Astonished, because during most of his public career Obama has been received by his audiences with undiluted adulation. He has been totally unused to being challenged on his talking points.

At the Washington Times, it's Reagan-Carter Redux.

Party like itÂ’s 1980!

Bewildered and lost without his teleprompter, President Obama flailed all around the debate stage last night. He was stuttering, nervous and petulant. It was like he had been called in front of the principal after goofing around for four years and blowing off all his homework.

Not since Jimmy Carter faced Ronald Reagan has the U.S. presidency been so embarrassingly represented in public. Actually, thatÂ’s an insult to Jimmy Carter.

The split screen was most devastating. Mitt Romney spoke forthrightly, with carefully studied facts and details at the ready. He looked right at the president and accused him of being miles out of his depth.

Mr. Obama? His eyes were glued to his lectern, looking guilty and angry and impatient with all the vagaries of Democracy. This debate was seriously chaffing him.

People are talking about body language, which was annoying me, because I thought Romney was winning on words. As I was live-blogging, I "saw" the debate as a radio debate, only occasionally looking up from my screen.

However, I do now see the big difference in body language. From the Corner:

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Posted by: Ace at 02:19 AM | Comments (76)
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Bryan Preston, who linked that cool gif above, has one warning about Romney's domination: There's no place of Obama to go but up.

Romney was so dominant that he can only get worse from here. Obama was so awful that he can only improve.

Do you see what the mainstream media can do with those trajectories?

TheyÂ’re already writing the script at the New York Times. Now Obama just has to look better in the next debate than he looked last night.

So the advice for Romney: Treat tonight like a loss and do even better next time.

Weekly Standard runs down some takeaways from the Mile High Massacre, primarily: What the hell was Obama or his debate prep team thinking?

I think @exjon said something like this: The problem is that Barack Obama was prepared to combat his favorite opponent -- a strawman. But a genuine man showed up, and he didn't have flint enough to set a real man on fire.

Obama was genuinely surprised to learn that Mitt Romney's plan has always been to reduce rates while keeping taxation revenue-neutral. He had prepared a Strawman Bonfire. It turns out he wasn't alone in that ignorance: Watching CNN, I was shocked to discover these "reporters" who presume to inform The Common Man were learning this for the first time, too.

I don't bother linking the irrelevant liberal Andrew Sullivan anymore but I will strongly encourage you to drink his sweet tears. And he blubbers up a lot of them.

He doesn't think Obama won a single exchange, and started calling it a "rolling calamity" for Obama fairly early. Then his mood got bluer when Romney got even better, and Obama got even worse.

Hot Air runs down a lot of stuff you probably know, but maybe you missed some.

On Intrade, Obama lost 11% in one bad night.

CNN's flash poll has lots of good news for Romney. Registered voters (D+4) say he won 67-25, the highest margin of victory since CNN started flashpolling debates.

As far as "edged your vote in one direction:" Romney 35% more likely, Obama 18% more likely. 47% say no effect.

Did Obama do better or worse than you expected? Better, 21%; worse, 61%.

Romney -- better, 81%; worse 10%. (And that's just liberals who are lying, or who are trying to express outrage at all the LIES Romney told.)

In all areas the debate was about -- economy, leadership, taxes, health care, debt -- Romney won the night by fat margins, in the fifties to Obama's forties. Romney's lead isn't so great on health care, but he is in fact leading on Democratic issue, 52-47.

On favorable/unfavorable, Obama split 49/49, while Romney actually goosed an already decent number (which surprised me) further up to 56/42. (!!!)

On who is more likable, they're tied 45/46, with Romney with that (very MoE) edge.

So... I dunno. Romney's ahead on likability?

Finally -- among independents (not all RV's), Romney decimated Obama, 75-17.

Seventy-five to 17.

Good Lord.

If you haven't watched Frank Luntz's focus group of dunces well-informed and dutiful undecided citizens who make all the correct decisions, in time, I suggest you rectify that oversight posthaste.

It was a good night for Romney, and he now has the momentum, if not quite yet the lead. That'll take a few days.

These polls are so good for Romney I expect the left to indulge in a bit of Poll Trutherism and suggest that naturally the audience was more Republican than Democrat because, I don't know. Whatever.

Even if that's so -- even the Huffington Post declares Romney the winner. It's not as if people who didn't watch the debate will be confused about the outcome of it. It's very clear who won. Even James Carville admits Romney wanted to be there, and Obama didn't.

Can Romney keep the momentum? Well, he's giving a "major" foreign policy speech next week, and of course Obama's best hope of reversing the momentum is... a Joe Biden victory over Paul Ryan.

Plus, the unemployment numbers for September come out Friday. We don't know if they'll be good or bad, but they're rarely good, and we haven't seen any signals suggesting that help for Obama is coming on this front.

This could be a very, very bad two weeks for Obama.

Blame the Moderator! The big liberal line is that Romney beat up both Obama and poor Jim Lehrer. The wanted Jim Lehrer to do what journalists do most of the time, protect Dear Leader from criticism.

Of course Obama actually spoke for four more minutes than Romney.

However, this argument is about juicing the refs for the next game -- because they know Biden is weak, and now know Obama needs some special TLC, they're trying to get the moderators to dog Ryan and Romney. They know their candidates aren't up to it, so they want the press, as usual, to ride to their rescue.

This will intensify all this week-- the calls will be for moderators to vigorously challenge the Republicans in order to aid Obama and Biden.

Expect it.

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Posted by: Ace at 09:17 PM | Comments (298)
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Ah.

That was tremendously enjoyable.

Chris Matthews melts the eff down.

Luntz's Dunces are on Fox, and for once, they've got some definite opinions.

Luntz: "I have not had a group that swung this much. This is overwhelming for Romney. This is a big deal."

Posted by: Ace at 07:06 PM | Comments (1162)
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Threesomes Are The New Couple

So Brazil is now registering 3-person civil unions:

A public notary in Brazil has registered a three-person partnership as a legally recognized civil union. Brazilians are waiting to see how other public officials treat the notary's action.

The notary, Claudia do Nascimento Domingues, who serves the city of Tupa, "said the move reflected the fact that the idea of a 'family' had changed. 'We are only recognising what has always existed. We are not inventing anything. For better or worse, it doesn't matter, but what we considered a family before isn't necessarily what we would consider a family today'."

And there are already 3-parent baby fertility treatments out there:

A fertility treatment which eliminates hereditary disease by engineering babies to carry healthy DNA from a third biological parent could be legalised next year.

Three is the future, baby - and my other baby!

Woo Hoo: Foreign Investment in the US Surging

Why? Because for all of our problems which we continually beat ourselves up over - the rest of the world is still far more fucked up than we are. And their issues tend to be fundamental social ones that no one there is willing to talk about.

Of all the major economies in the world, the U.S. is doing the least poorly. Europe faces a colossal self-created currency disaster, Russia sees its energy-profits wither as the U.S. energy revolution unfolds, Brazil is still the perpetual country of the future, and both China and Japan have massive problems lurking beneath the surface as a trade war looms. For now, the U.S. will remain a relative beacon of stability and profit-and foreign investors recognize this.

So we have that going for us.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:25 PM | Comments (569)
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It's been a while since we did this, eh Morons and Moronettes?

So long, in fact, that the CoveritLive software we used went to a new pricing model that eliminated their free version for our purposes. That wouldn't be so bad by itself, but I'll be damned if I can decipher the fee schedule for their pay version. As best I can tell, one of our usual debate liveblogs would cost somewhere between $50 and $150 that could be put to better use elsewhere. And by elsewhere, I mean the liquor store.

Plus, frankly, I've never been comfortable that CoveritLive's user stats were right to begin with. So we're trying some new software tonight. It's not free either, but the pricing model is much better.

Same scheme as with the old software, though. All comments are moderated and will only be posted if they're funny, witty or if you bribe one of the moderators.

I'm starting it early and unmoderated so everybody can kick the tires.

Let's do this thing! more...

Posted by: andy at 04:30 PM | Comments (2062)
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I gotta tell ya, I thought it started at 8.

Here's the news: It doesn't. 9.

So I was counting down the minutes at 7:45.

Anyway, prognostications?

Via Breitbart, Andrea Mitchell will be serving as NBC's "Fact Checker," so we're covered on that front, baby.

George Stephanopolous, who has declared the Democrat the victor in 8 of the 9 debates he's covered as a "journalist," will do ABC's wrap up, so, again, Gold Standard.

At NR, the media's storyline of the night is already set.

Posted by: Ace at 04:18 PM | Comments (163)
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Sanctions are driving down the value of their currency.

The rial’s death spiral is wiping out the currency’s purchasing power. In consequence, Iran is now experiencing a devastating increase in prices – hyperinflation. As Nicholas Krus and I document in our recent Cato Working Paper, World Hyperinflations, there have been 57 documented cases of hyperinflation in history, the most recent of which was North Korea’s 2009-11 hyperinflation. That said, North Korea’s hyperinflation did not come close to the magnitudes reached in the recent, second-highest hyperinflation in the world, that of Zimbabwe, in 2008, nor has Iran’s hyperinflation – at least not yet.

This is spurring some light rioting.

Clashes and at least one spontaneous protest erupted in Tehran on Wednesday over the plunging value of IranÂ’s currency, as black-market money-changers fought with riot police who were dispatched to shut them down, and hundreds of angry citizens demonstrated near the capitalÂ’s sprawling merchant bazaar, where many shops had closed for the day. The official media reported an unspecified number of arrests including two Europeans.

...

“They spend billions of dollars to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power, but now they say they have no money!,” one garment seller screamed as he was cheered on by others, witnesses reported.

Posted by: Ace at 04:05 PM | Comments (52)
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You really need to watch the video.

So, first up. What is "butt-chugging"?

A person ingests alcohol from an orifice that is not the mouth, and thus alcohol is absorbed more quickly into the bloodstream. Basically, itÂ’s like mainlining alcohol via the rectum.

Or, as this lawyer calls it, an "alcohol enema."

So, why is there a press conference? Because some fraternity brother was rushed to the hospital with a very high blood alcohol content, and the media claimed it was due to "butt-chugging."

Well-- this lawyer wants you to know his client finds butt-chugging "repulsive."

Now, the video is funny, but let's also remember that the media does not know what it's talking about and frequently lies for the purposes of a sensationalist headline. (The Florida face cannibal was not on "bath salts," for example. And George Zimmerman did not use a racial slur. And Duke Lacrosse. And on, and on, and on.)

I'm pretty willing to believe the media made this all up.

Still, this press conference comes off funny.

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Posted by: Ace at 03:29 PM | Comments (226)
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It all evens out, except for a few bumps in the road funeral plot.

According to the Wall Street Journal, as the attack on the U.S. consulate was raging, Obama took a "wait and see" approach.

Ninety minutes after news of the attack reached Washington, Obama, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, JCS Chair General Martin Dempsey, and a national security adviser convened for an oval office meeting in which they ultimately rejected the course of U.S. military intervention. Instead, they decided to reach out to the Libyan government to ask if they would send reinforcements.

When the U.S. personnel at the consulate left the main building for what was supposed to be a safe house, questions regarding the deployment of forces seemed moot.

But the battle was still raging, and Ambassador Stevens' life was close to its end.

But you know Romney sent out a press release criticizing the Cairo Embassy, so.

Thanks to @johnekdahl.

Posted by: Ace at 02:47 PM | Comments (202)
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More of the same sort of rhetoric we heard in the 2007 speech, only not as strident.

In this clip, Obama fleshes out his views on empathy, applying it to the divide between rich and poor. This analysis is revealing as Obama suggests that there is a class struggle underlying society in which non-violence is only one option. He doesn't spell out the alternative but he does suggest that "accountants and tax loopholes" are used to keep people down in a way that is reminiscent of the way police treated blacks during the civil rights struggle. He says at one point "I don't know if you've noticed but rich people are all for nonviolence. Why wouldn't they be. They've got what they want."

I find that very revealing. The rich only oppose violence because they've "got what they want" and seek a rule to defend it?

Does that not mean that those who are not rich are justified in using violence, as they don't yet have what they want?

He also suggests that non-violence is a sound approach only if the rich "have empathy" for the poor, by which he surely means cash-money empathy.

What if they don't? What if they decide they're paying enough in taxes? Is non-violence out the window, then?

I asked on Twitter, to the media: Since Obama has, by the media's own admission, not said what he'd do in a second term (except "Not be Romney" and also "Not be Obama from his First Term"), and since all electoral considerations will be lifted from him in a second term, shouldn't we be sort of interested in what really drives Obama?

Posted by: Ace at 02:07 PM | Comments (207)
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