Weekend of the World: Debate

1. Trying to discredit Obama by calling this the "Worst economic recovery" in xx years is a little like criticizing a coach for an ugly win. First of all, there haven't been that many recoveries since the Great Depression, so it's kind of a small sample size. Second, this recession was worse than all those others. And third, no growth still puts you in the middle of the spectrum. It's not as good as strong growth, but still better than a recession. Of course, Americans are optimists, so slow growth won't meet with their expectations. There are certainly things that Obama could have done to make the recovery better (It's almost always true that people can do better, but the more you expect the less likely that is to be possible), and I'm sure the administration would have done things differently if it had thought it might lose Sen. Kennedy's seat in early 2010 or known had bad things were, but still, this isn't as devastating an attack as people make it out to seem. It's like a college freshman complaining about how lousy his girlfriend is in bed - there are still a lot of virgins who would gladly trade places with him (Spain, Greece, etc..).

2. At the debate, Romney had the advantage of being able to behave as though we were in a crisis, but Obama had to behave as though we were not. He had to be calm and low-energy. Not that he didn't suck, but he had some disadvantages going in.

3. In the $20,000 pyramid category "Things Obama wished he'd mentioned at the debate" you can add this: when Romney was going on about his ability to reach across the aisle, Obama should have mentioned that Romney, in one term, used his veto power 844 times - and that 700 times the legislature overrode it.

4. What Joe Biden should have said after Ryan's laugh line about him knowing  "that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way".  "Y'know I've had my fair share of gaffes. In fact I might be an expert in gaffes. And that was no gaffe. That was him speaking from the heart." OR "I know gaffes. Gaffes are my forte, and that was no gaffe."