Did you all watch the debate Wednesday night? Are you laughing at the crybabies who can’t understand why Obama did so poorly?
Dana Milbank has part of the answer. Yes, Obama hasn’t been questioned harshly in a very long time, and when you spend your time going on The View instead of having press conference, you get out of the habit of dealing with hardball questions.
The excuses came fast, furious, and unbelievably ridiculous (Al Gore suggested it was the high altitude that affected Obama.) Oh, and it’s all Jim Lehrer’s fault. Only it wasn’t.
Lehrer was a great moderator. That was a great debate. That was the first actual debate I’ve seen in I don’t know how many years. The candidates spoke to each other, rebutted each other, and came back to issues again and again. The main reason liberals are freaking out over Lehrer is because he didn’t lob softball questions at Obama and hardball questions at Romney. He didn’t advance the narrative. And he allowed Obama to show that he was not the great orator and debater that he’s been made out to be.
They think that Obama will come roaring back in the next debate. I think that’s how it will begin. But I don’t think it will end that way. People are forgetting that President Obama is the Narcissist-in-chief. When a narcissist is not being told he is great and wonderful–when a narcissist is forced to back up his statements or being called a liar–he gets angry. And Obama can’t hide his pissiness when he is told he is wrong. He has never been able to, but nobody has ever called him on it, or shown him as the peevish, childish, temperamental narcissist he is–until Wednesday night.
So expect the president to come out the gate strong, but watch for Romney’s jabs to piss him off again. He’ll forget all that practice about not looking down and smiling a lot more. He will get frowny-face again.
Next time, I’m guessing the networks will not use the split-screen nearly as much. Because they know how much it hurts their candidate.
Wait and see.