"You don't normally see the temperamental difference between liberals and conservatives so

[Pirate Smile]

dramatically on display"

Dems could have focused on Romney's lies instead of on railing on Pres. Obama to the insane degree MSNBC did.

Ryan's convention speech was initially treated as a good speech stylistically - but in the aftermath, Dems turned the story of his speech into one about all the lies. I thought that was where we were at the end of the debate. That should have been the main story - not Chris Matthews screaming about Pres. Obama.

The Hack Gap Rears Its Ugly Head Yet Again
By Kevin Drum on Mon. October 8, 2012 9:49 PM PDT

-snip-
Here's how things would have gone if liberals had their fair share of hacks. Obviously Obama wasn't at his best on Wednesday. But when the debate was over that wouldn't have mattered. Conservatives would have started crowing about how well Romney did. Liberals would have acknowledged that Obama should have confronted Romney's deceptions more forcefully, but otherwise would have insisted that Obama was more collected and presidential sounding than the hyperactive Romney and clearly mopped the floor with him on a substantive basis. News reporters would then have simply reported the debate normally: Romney said X, Obama said Y, and both sides thought their guy did great. By the next day it would barely be a continuing topic of conversation, and by Friday the new jobs numbers would have buried it completely.

Instead, liberals went batshit crazy. I didn't watch any commentary immediately after the debate because I wanted to write down my own reactions first, and my initial sense was that Obama did a little bit worse than Romney. But after I hit the Publish button and turned on the TV, I learned differently. As near as I could tell, the entire MSNBC crew was ready to commit ritual suicide right there on live TV, Howard Beale style. Ditto for all their guests, including grizzled pols like Ed Rendell who should have known better. It wasn't just that Obama did poorly, he had delivered the worst debate performance since Clarence Darrow left William Jennings Bryan a smoking husk at the end of Inherit the Wind. And it wasn't even just that. It was a personal affront, a betrayal of everything they thought was great about Obama. And, needless to say, it put Obama's entire second term in jeopardy and made Romney the instant front runner.

For a moment, ignore the fact that these talkers had a stronger reaction than I did. That's why God made lots of different kinds of people: so that we could all have different opinions about stuff. What's amazing is that, as near as I can tell, hardly any liberal pundits held back. Aside from paid campaign workers, no more than a handful decided to pretend that Obama had done well because, hey, that's how the game is played, folks. Those refs aren't going to work themselves, after all. Instead it was a nearly universal feeding frenzy.

You don't normally see the temperamental difference between liberals and conservatives so dramatically on display. Most conservatives simply wouldn't have been willing to slag their guy so badly. Liberals, by contrast, almost seemed to enjoy wallowing in recriminations. It was practically an Olympic tournament to see who could act the most agonized. As a friend just emailed me a few minutes ago, "I can't tell you how many liberals I've had to talk off the ledge today."

In the end, I doubt this will make a big difference. The polls were always going to tighten up a bit after the huge post-convention, post-47% runup for Obama, so I don't attribute as much of his recent poll decline to the debates as most people do. Obama has plenty of time to come back, and the fundamentals — his incumbency, the economy, and Romney's stiffness as a candidate — still suggest a modest Obama win in November. But if I'm wrong, and this does make a big difference, it will be 100% attributable to the hack gap. Without that, Obama's debate performance would barely have registered. This was a completely avoidable debacle.

http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/10/hack-gap-rears-its-ugly-head-yet-again

[msongs]

1. 2 conservatives debate and liberals "went batshit crazy"? liberals are not that welcome in the

democratic party under current management. now that obama and romney have "similar" positions on social security liberals who want to protect social security have gooood reason to feel batshit crazy

[CBGLuthier]

8. Conservative and Conservativer: The True state of American Politics and its "two" party system.

[MADem]

2. Pull the string. This scenario might be slightly less likely than the "The network needs more

campaign ad buys--we need you guys to make this a horse race so we get more ad revenues from the campaigns" sort of speculation.

Anyway, here's the alternative scenario:

The NBC franchise owns GE.

RMoney has promised the DoD two trillion bucks that they do not want.

GE would love a piece of that two trillion dollar pie.

The network heads grab a cattle prod, and tell those talking heads to get frantic and scream that the sky is falling--or they'll be fired! Foment panic, gloom and doom--your paycheck depends on it.

If RMoney wins the White House, GE wins a bunch of bogus defense contracts.

It could happen!

[Cha]

4. Oh yeah! Jack Welch even though retired was not

rabidly lying and frothing at the mouth for nothing because of the good Job numbers.

[Cha]

3. There it is..

I and others were trying our Damndest!

It was practically an Olympic tournament to see who could act the most agonized. As a friend just emailed me a few minutes ago, "I can't tell you how many liberals I've had to talk off the ledge today."

But if I'm wrong, and this does make a big difference, it will be 100% attributable to the hack gap. Without that, Obama's debate performance would barely have registered. This was a completely avoidable debacle.

Muchas Gracias, Pirate Smile

[veganlush]

5. i tweeted ed shultz

And told him that he was embarrassing himself and I said with friends like him who needs enemies. I said there was no reason for them to be doing the rw's job. he tweeted back: "clean your ears out"

[BigD_95]

6. Dont throw them all under the bus

right after the debate Al Sharpton was saying Romney was lying and he would pay for it later. He was the only one though.

[Pirate Smile]

7. True.

[Cosmocat]

9. Absolulely the difference between Rs and Ds

Rs rally behind their people even if they are a raging disaster.

They drug Bush II to reelect knowing he was a complete failure in his first term.

Ds are FAR to ready to run around with their hair on fire.

If the situation were completely reversed, the Rs would have found a narrative to defend their guy and stood behind him 100 percent.

You don't have to say the president was great if he wasn't

but, romney was a lying, bullying sos. Call his performance unpresidential, say he is lying and that people will believe what he says. Hammer HIM!

[Pirate Smile]

10. Kick

[Cha]

13. I reposted this

in this thread, Pirate..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251127676#post12

[MrSlayer]

11. Because we're honest.

The debate was so bad that there just was no other way to spin it. Saying the President did ok or even won would be lying, he got run over and destroyed. Whether or not Mitt was lying is irrelevant when the people watching have no idea that he is and Obama wouldnt call him on it. Perhaps it is bad thing that we don't walk in lockstep and hold the line like the Republicans do but it simply wouldn't be honest to do so in this case.

[Cha]

12. K&R!

[anAustralianobserver]

14. Yes! And Rachel Maddow unfortunately was still sticking to her guns

Last edited Wed Oct 10, 2012, 12:44 AM - Edit history (2)

yesterday saying most everyone accepts Romney clearly won.

If Obama and Romney's performances were switched, Republican media would have said that Obama was manic, rude, phoney, bizarre, a loose cannon and completely unpresidential - while Romney was presidential, calm and dependable but a bit too passive.

If half the pundits on MSNBC had insisted that Obama came across more presidential and less flighty than Romney - so there was no clear winner, and held that ground for a day or two - I think it would have had a substantial effect.

[flamingdem]

15. screw her too, they're all so full of being right they'll lose us this election nt

[ProgressiveEconomist]

16. FINALLY! Someone tells it like I saw it. The transcript

of the October 3rd Presidential debate (at http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/presidential-debate-transcript-denver-colo-oct/story?id=17390260 ) shows clearly that the President displayed far superior command of the facts of every issue. But Ed Schultz amd Chris Matthews on MSNBC and Bill Maher on Twitter fell for the Republicans' Jedi mind trick. You would expect Fox "News" to spin Romney's aggression unchecked by "moderator" Jim Lehrer as a "stunning victory". But vocal Democtats did not even argue that Obama won the "seminar" but lost the debate.

Have the media become so anti-intellectual that the meat of policy issues carries no weight?

IMO President Obama calmly reached out to independent voters who wanted facts and analyses on which to decide between the parties.

Read the transcript! Clearly, the Presient's arguments were far superior to Romney's every time.

If the President "lost", how come nobody can point to a "gaffe" or even a memorable sound byte that would convince those who never saw the debate that Romney "won"? I heard one commentator allege that 15 percent of Republicans thought the President had won the debate. The percentage of Democrats who think the President won ought to be at least four or five times that 15 percent by sheer party spin, IMO.

But the shallow MSNBC media led Democrats astray.