Many of us who support Mr. Obama in the upcoming election may have
been disappointed in his performance last night. While I'm unqualified
professionally to offer debating advice, I'll offer some anyway. Feel
free to add your own to the comments section on this series of posts.
Some possible retorts for the president to use in the remaining debates:
Number 1:
Mr.
Romney, I have a great deal of respect for your accomplishments in
business and in your personal life. In many ways, you're a great
American. No debate there. As I've listened to you speak about tax
policy and the role of government the past few minutes, I have to say
that I'm struck by the degree to which you seem to be agreeing with many
of the policies and much of the philosophy that I and the Democratic
Party support. So, I have to ask you a question on behalf of all the
American people. When exactly did you decide to reverse yourself on
nearly every single issue that you argued for during 18+ debates in your
party's primary season and reverse yourself on everything you've been
campaigning on at your convention and on the road? You sound very much
like a Democrat tonight and not terribly much like the "severe
conservative" you claimed to be a few months ago. Which set of positions
are we to conclude you believe in -- those you've promoted for the past
year and a half or those very contrary ones you claim to support now?
We all want to know.
Every single time that Romney
then contradicts himself or reverses course, Mr. Obama then needs to, as
his campaign surrogates did in the post-debate spin, draw attention to
the utter disconnect between Mr. Romney's own statements before and
during the debate. He can't have it both ways and the president needs to
make pointed references to these reversals.
Either Mr. Romney doesn't
believe what he said before or doesn't believe what he's saying now. He
makes mutually exclusive statements. I won't exactly call him a liar
(just yet). Perhaps he's actually changed his mind. For a human that's
okay. But as a presidential candidate, if indeed he's changed his mind,
he owes it to Republicans (who took a chance on him during their
primaries based on what he told them) and Democrats and independents to
come clean about what he really means. If, on the other hand, he hasn't
changed his mind, then indeed, he must have either been lying to his own
party or be lying to the rest of us now. Either the suspicions voiced
by primary opponents such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich prove to be
well-founded or Mr. Romney is trying to bamboozle the rest of us now.
SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents,
he would promise them missionaries for dinner.
Henry Louis Mencken
A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep
both ears to the ground.
Henry Louis Mencken
You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool
some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all
of the people all the time.
Abraham Lincoln
A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the
ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out
of if elected.
Carl Sandberg
Many a politician wishes there was a law to burn old records.
Will Rogers
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man.
In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so
many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he
becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
Henry Louis Mencken
He is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree,
then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.
Adlai E. Stevenson
My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a
whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly
any difference.
Harry S. Truman
Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
Alfred E. Newman
Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician
will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because
the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.
Marshall McLuhan
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have
come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the
first.
Ronald Reagan
The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president?
What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national
television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated
piece of industrial waste?
Dave Barry
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican
friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats,
we will stop telling the truth about them.
Adlai Stevenson
Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful
and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity
to pure wind.
George Orwell
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge
even where there is no river.
Nikita Krushchev
The magician and the politician have much in common: they both
have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.
Ben Okri
Get thee glass eyes;
And like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not.
William Shakespeare
No comments:
Post a Comment