Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) admitted this morning that he was “disappointed” with last week’s presidential debate, but said he believes President Obama has learned his lesson from the disastrous performance.
“We’ve always said it would be a close election, and I believe it will be. And I’m, of course disappointed with the debate. Believe the president understands his challenge now. He was shocked and surprised. Many of us were,” he said.
But Durbin wasn’t going to pin all of the blame on the president. “Mitt Romney came on that set at the first debate and said things which completely contradicted what he said in the campaign before. I think it caught him a little bit by surprise,” Durbin said. “He won’t be surprised again.”
CNN host Soledad O’Brien countered Durbin. “You cannot tell me that his poor debate performance was he was sitting there, stunned in front of the American public as opposed to presenting his side of the argument,” she said.
“I’ll just tell you that the president understands the challenge of the debates. More importantly, he understands the challenges that face us in our country. Take a look at what happened just a few days after the debate,” Durbin responded. “The good news that we received about the increase in jobs in the private sector, the fact that the unemployment nationally had gone below eight percent, 31 straight months of private sector job creation. That is the kind of good news that I think will have more lasting, staying power than any one single debate.”
As far as the polls that have turned in favor of Romney, Durbin said, “We have four weeks of vice presidential debates, two presidential debates, a lot of campaigning and some events that you and I can’t even predict are going to occur in the next four weeks.”
Well, it can’t be an October Surprise then, since anyone could predict that.
Soledad has it exactly right. If Obama felt Romney was contradicting himself he could have easily pointed that out. Saying that Romney contradicted himself during the debate after the debate defeats the whole point of having debates.
These guys believe their own lies, and when corrected without the media filtering, the reaction is to be stunned. WOW! Zero has zero ability to think on his feet. If it is not tee’d up for him (no pun intended)he cries for a mulligan, because it is just so unfair!! Bwaaahaaahaaahaaahaaa.
And this is they guy they want representing our interests in Foreign Policy, when he can’t even debate someone that he consistently represents as duplicitous and dumb? Either Obama is incompetent at defending his point of view, or his point of view is indefensible. On the former, it is a sorry recommendation for a President, and on the later… well.. the truth hurts.
Obama was surprised because, for the past our years, he has not been paying attention and developing a plan that works. America cannot afford more of the same failed Obama economic policies.
Obama saw the REAL Mitt Romney at the debate. Previously he only saw the Mitt Romney being attacked and portrayed in Obama attack ads and by the liberal media. No wonder Obama was surprised that he had been drinking nothing but Democrat Kool Aid.
“Mr. President, NORAD reports multiple missile launches from North Korea. Initial impacts appear to be Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju, Daejeon, Ulsan and Sejong on Korean mainland. Second flight targeting multiple cities on Honshu.
Request release codes…Sir…Mr. President… Yongsan Garrison requests release authority.
Sir…
Sorry, gotta get off to Vegas for a fundraiser, then it’s off to LA to meet with George Clooney. Ah, you guys handle it.
To quote a Seinfeld episode ( and a good visual metaphor for the Obama campaign):
“…And you want to be my latex salesman?”
Honestly, if you cant stand up to Mitt Romney, how can you stand up to Iran?
“The good news that we received about the increase in jobs in the private sector …”.
Sorry, Mr Durbin, that was no spike in private sector jobs. It was a spike in part-time, public sector jobs.
This was the same trope that Labor Sec tried to palm off in her CNBC interview. Those honchos were having none of it. I guess Soledad O’Brien or CNN are not in the same league.
There is some truth to what Durbin is saying here, but it is still profoundly unflattering to Obama. That truth is simple. The real Romney was something altogether different than the media narrative construct that apparently was the one Obama prepared for. Obama created something of a straw man that he could abuse with impunity while surrounded by an adoring media and those whose political views are driven by a singular simple issue.
In the debate, the straw man did not show up and Obama instead had to debate the actual candidate. He was not up to the task. That task will be no easier in the future either as the Obama campaign has doubled down on the straw man method, this time by adding ‘liar’ to the mix. Romney knows his stuff and will prove who the real liar has been all along.
– to be dying out.
The only surprising thing is that people are surprised. What else did you think Obama would believe? That HE had failed? Impossible.
I’ve been arguing for years now that, unlike Clinton, Obama is basically honest, because he is truly delusional. Truly, invincibly ignorant.
As a president, for me, I’ll take the liar, warts and all, over this.