Last night’s Presidential debate was probably the most
heated and rhetoric laden debate in US history, at least in the modern age of
television. With Barack Obama’s supreme failure in the first debate it was only
natural that the President felt it necessary to overcompensate during this
debate-- and did so last night with extreme prejudice toward his opponent Mitt Romney.
Not willing to risk another cow eyed soft response to Romney’s
fact laden arguments, the President came out swinging Tuesday night. The
President was definitely on his game, insofar as both his style and substance
were concerned and probably picked up a few miles of lost ground on the ever
stolid and polished Mitt Romney. Obama was in good form and in all likelihood took this
debate as a winner by a small margin.
Romney held his ground well in the tough forum hosted by Candy Crowley who used a firm hand with Romney, while allowing the President a bit more leeway in his allotted time. Perceptively, Romney may have lost
a little in this round, but the President however, may have inadvertently given
away too much before next week’s foreign policy debate.
Won the battle, but possibly lost the war.
I’m referring to the comment that the President made on the
Benghazi issue, claiming that he called it an act of terror before anyone else
did, and that he did so in a public speech made in the Rose Garden the day
after the attack. While it’s true that the record reflects he mentioned it, it
certainly was not a speech that any listener would say “oh we were attacked by
Al-Qaeda last night”. A door was left open for political maneuver on the meat
of the matter.
Now the interesting point here is that perhaps the President
did indeed say this, but there is no doubt in anyone’s minds that the
administration in the subsequent days argued that the YouTube video attacking
the prophet Mohammed was the motivating cause for the deaths of four men at
the consulate n Benghazi.He talked about it several times, as late as two weeks later in his address to the United Nations.
Thus, sharper minds are left with a dichotomy—either the
President DID know it was a terrorist attack and tried to steer the argument
politically left by denouncing the YouTube video in the following days, or he
did NOT know despite him claiming he did last night, and is guilty of
malfeasance of office by skipping briefings and blowing off intelligence
reports of Al-Qaeda massing for an attack.
The worst part from a political point of view for the
President is that he also claimed full responsibility for the events at
Benghazi, which Romney wisely framed by saying “so you are responsible for the
failures at Benghazi?”
As always with the liberals, you have read between the lines
with what they are saying when they are talking about what they are doing.
Remember Bill Clinton “that depends on what your definition of the word ‘is’
is?” Same thing here—the President perhaps knew all along it WAS an Al-Qaeda attack, and that’s confirmed by State Department testimony to
Congress that they knew almost immediately.
This Congressional testimony, combined with Obama’s
admission last night, placed him in an awkward spot. We are now faced with the growing likelihood that the White House attempted to subvert the truth of
Benghazi for political purposes- that Team Obama wanted to bend the story to suit a
narrative that the rights of freedom of speech are too broad, too ambiguous and
must be controlled by government. They took the deaths of four innocent Americans and attempted to use them for political purposes.
Should the America people come to this same realization, it’s
likely the President will not be given another four years. The American people can
tolerate a lot of things, but subverting the truth and being lied to in the
face of a hostile enemy to suit a political agenda certainly is not one of them.
This is the huge hanging curve that was left out there for
Romney to smack out of the ballpark next week during the next and last
Presidential debate. Let’s hope he has the sense to see it when it came down
the pipe.
Listen to Jim Sharpe this November 6th on KFYI 550 AM LIVE on election night when Mr. Purcell will be a guest political analyst courtesy of FOX News Radio. You can catch this show nationwide through their website online through the IHeart Radio link, or the IHeart Radio app for your Iphone, or Ipad.