The first presidential debate is over. Every sheep in the herd has now had plenty of time to listen to their favorite pundit, comedian, and/or talking head to learn what their opinion is. Most of ewe decided Romney won.
It seems many measured the debate performances of Mister Romney and President Obama using the criteria of High School Debate Team judges...and if this had been a High School debate, I might agree.
Why has nobody pointed out the obvious? We all saw President Obama not debate, not engage, and not argue. Instead, he speechified. He stuck to the talking points, re-hashed, and never raised his voice.
In a game of American Football, if the clock shows several minutes remain in the final quarter, your score is 300 and your opponent's is 238 (and one only needs 270 to win) a quarterback may choose to "take a knee" and run down the clock.
President Obama did just that. He didn't fumble, didn't try for a hail mary pass, and—most important—didn't give any ground. He seemed to be aware that debate performance has rarely, if ever, been important in a US Presidential election (although some point to the first Nixon-Kennedy debate as a game changer). He chose not to participate and, today, he still has the same amount of (more than enough) electoral college votes to be re-elected (if the election were today).
I understand the desire to watch both teams bang into each other and scramble for the ball until the last second. When your team is winning and your own quarterback takes a knee, one feels a twinge of regret, because (having been there before) we empathize with the other team. Wanting to watch a more thrilling game, we may even wish our own team's quarterback wouldn't make the tactfully-justified and technically-intelligent choice to run down 40-seconds on the clock...and we may voice our derision.
Give President Obama some credit. He knows what he is doing. If you have forgotten, just U-Tube a few of his 2008 dust-ups with Hillary or McCain.
He took a knee. Stop bleating about it with all the other sheepish Monday-moaning armchair quarterbacks.
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