The conventional wisdom and one person who didn’t get it

Charles Hurt writes in the Washington Times:

Bewildered and lost without his teleprompter, President Obama flailed all around the debate stage last night. He was stuttering, nervous and petulant. It was like he had been called in front of the principal after goofing around for four years and blowing off all his homework.

Not since Jimmy Carter faced Ronald Reagan has the U.S. presidency been so embarrassingly represented in public. Actually, that’s an insult to Jimmy Carter….

[Obama’s] eyes were glued to his lectern, looking guilty and angry and impatient with all the vagaries of Democracy. This debate was seriously chafing him.

That was the conventional wisdom, the overwhelming consensus, of the day after the debate. And I’m wondering, what’s wrong with me, that I did not see it? I didn’t see Obama bewildered, lost, flailing, stuttering, nervous, and petulant. I simply didn’t see it. Watching the debate, I thought Obama spoke well and articulately and was engaged with Romney and often effective in their many exchanges, though of course Romney was consistently the aggressor, and, as I’ve said from the start, Romney clearly won the first and most important exchange on jobs and Obama by his weak replies made it clear that he has no ideas on how to fix the economy.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 04, 2012 09:39 PM | Send