President Obama tried to dampen expectations for his Wednesday debate performance before a campaign crowd in Las Vegas last night, heading into a couple solid days of debate prep before heading to the University of Denver event.
“I’m looking forward to it. I know folks in the media are speculating already on who’s going to have the best zingers,” Obama said, referencing the weekend back-and-forth about who will and won’t be using “zingers” in the debate.
“You are!” shouted an audience member.
“I don’t know about that,” Obama responded. “Who’s going to put the most points on the board.”
“You are!” the crowd shouted.
“No, no, Governor Romney, he’s a good debater. I’m just OK,” the president said. “But what I’m most concerned about is having a serious discussion about what we need to do to keep the country growing and restore security for hardworking Americans. That’s what people are going to be listening for.”
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is playing Mitt Romney in Obama’s debate prep. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is playing Obama in Romney’s debate prep, which the senator also did for his colleague John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008.
“We also saw in reports that Mitt Romney and his team have been working on zingers and special lines for months. That’s not what the president’s focus is on. So if you’re expecting that, that’s probably not what he’s going to deliver on,” campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One yesterday.
“what I’m most concerned about is having a serious discussion about what we need to do to keep the country growing and restore security for hardworking Americans”
This is the howler of the century.
I would argue, btw, that it is impossible to know if obama is a good debator or not. The events he has participated in are more along the lines of campaign events, facilitated by his stooges in the press. The other guys are forced to debate, but obama is served up softballs to allow him to expound upon his lies.
He is pretty good though at the numerous methods of not answering questions; i.e., answering another question, knocking down straw men arguments, restating the qustion in his favor, demonizing his opponent instead of answering, filibustering, cheery picking “facts”, etc., etc., etc. It’s a skill he has undoubtedly spent years perfecting. It’s not just a matter of the techiques, it also requires appropiate body language, voice inflections, mannerisms, and a level of command of false facts and innuendoes. And of course, a psychopathic ability to say anything with a straight face. Normal people can learn the techniques, but cannot master the ability to lie convincingly. Normal people have consciences, so they give off verbal clues when they are lying. obama doesn’t. He may actually believe that anything he says is automatically the truth; or he may believe he is predestined to shape reality; or he may just get a thrill from conning people. After all, he is a psychopath (observe that his “foreign” policy consists of him picking the individual target for drone murders. Who would do that but a mentally sick individual. I’m not claiming drone attacks are always wrong. If a mentally healthy leader wanted that as a policy, any normal person would establish guidelines and then have the military select the targets based on the guidelines. Insisting on personally selecting targets is the sick part.) To find a skill equivalent to obama’s congenital lying, one has to look either in the prisons, or Congress.
Obama: “I’m Just OK’ at Debating”
Sure, his real skill is bullsh!!!ing.