Let's face it. Obama is all speech and no substance. He's a great campaigner but a horrible executive. You don't enter a room as a rookie and hoping to get support by announcing "I won the election". Translation: My way or the highway.

What kind of complete nonsense is that I read coming from tom, the Fox-educated ignoramus. Evidence-free assertions? Other than outright lies, that's all you wingnuts have, isn't it?

On the contrary, Tom. Obama is all substance and no rhetoric. In policy terms, there should be an absolute checkmate. The actual Romney proposals on nearly every issue are unpopular with the majority of Americans, and the actual Obama proposals have majority support among Americans. Obama couldn't win the style last night. He couldn't translate that substantive advantage into a speaking advantage.

Tom, I have to disagree with you-and I just gave you a thumbs up start towards green star, to prove that differences make great debates.

I think Obama was a bit naive coming into office- "I won the election". Yes, and silly lad, he thought that meant he was President of ALL the people, not realizing that McConnell and Co, from Inauguration Day on, were only intent on destroying his presidency.

He was so naive he thought he could work with a Republican congress to get something done for ALL those Americans.

They say that age brings wisdom, and with another year of marriage celbrated, perhaps "Honey" can put some starch in his shorts. Quickly.

he will correct, President Obama did not have to do anything, Mitt Romney was eager to talk and contradict himself. Now all the people will see that Romney and Ryan are on two different pages. When Romney faces Obama at the third debate, he will have to face all his lies and it will be too late for him to rally up support after his lies are revealed.

Regardless. Mitt's been pinned down now, on the record, in front of America, his stance on several key issues. The White Horse's flip flopping days may have just ended.

You don't sit down on Inauguration Day with a bunch of your colleagues and vow to obstruct everything the duly elected President of the United States does TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE PEOPLE YOU ARE SWORN TO SERVE either.

. He's a great campaigner but a horrible executive.

How is he a horrible executive? For the record let's say his my-way-or-the-highway statement were true: how does this excuse members of congress from passing legislation?

The President could not spend the whole night playing Whack-A-Mole or he would not have had time to get his message out!

You also have to remember -- the scum - oh I mean Drudge, Fox et all all put out the message to watch for the 'angry black man' which would have been the headline today if he did play the whack-a-mole game.

Many of the pundits speaking that Obama called it in -- check the color!! They've not walked in his shoes -- that message that's pounded into you from the time you were born. He didn't bite and will 'get back' along with support with 'facts' -- that which Romney is totally devoid of.

The spell of the shape changers just caught the President off his guard.He was just unaware of this peculiar personality that emerged from the smirk King. He be hypnotized.

I just want to know how much longer is he going to continue to play "the nice brown guy" trying not to set the right off? but politics IS a bloodsport no matter what Clinton says and Americans love that about it. Mitt's been a lying flip flopper since he's been on the political scene why would he not prepare all and launch all the legitimate attacks he had against him? That was dumb move.

Go, lemmings! Go.

How often does he have to do this to the GOP before you see the trick?

President Obama is a dam good President, who have brought this country back from destruction, with no help from those right wing radical Republicans. No we are not all the way back, but all those who can think, think of were we were before G.W. Bush left office. If the Republicans had put this country ahead of their party, the recovery would be further along. Any one remember there is a jobs bill sitting in Congress gathering dust because the Republicans block it. A jobs bill which would have put millions back to work. But the Republicans could not have that, it would help the President re-election. It's just another sign that it is not only Mitt Romney who don't care about that 47 percent, it the entire Republican Party. As for as the debate goes, to me truth matter more that anything else. And we didn't get one ounce of truth from Mitt Romney, but yet he can be call a winner because of style. Okay Americans next time your kids lies to you about something, pay it no attention, special if he lies to you with style. When we stand before the Almighty someday, you think he is going to say, you're a liar, but you lied in style. Come on in. I don't think so.

Now Mitt Romney say he regrets the comments made about the 47% of Americans being free loaders, who sits around depending on the Government for free healthcare, housing, food. They don't pay income taxes, and he can't make them be responsible for their lives. Well when the video first came out, Mitt Romney didn't regret what he said. He only start regretting it when he got behind in the polls. If the truth were told, what was on that video was coming from Mitt Romney cold lying heart. He meant every word he said, and anyone with any common sense won't fall for more of his lies. What you saw and heard on that tape was something you rarely hear from Mitt Romney, the TRUTH. To show such disdain for people he knows nothing about.

I sure hope you are correct and that people will be paying attention to the counter punches!

Can I borrow your rose colored glasses? Like Benin, you ignore reality.

It's a tough call how to debate an experienced used car salesman who simply makes bold contradictions of fact. One trap is to spend all your time pointing out the absurdity of the wild statements.

Obama had confidence that the truth about Obamacare would eventually overwhelm the disinformation spread in 2010. While the political reality is that he appears to have been correct, his critics are also correct that he comes up short on explanatory reductions of his policies. The critics in the progressive media have made this point repeatedly about Obamacare in particular, wondering why the President did not present the program in 2009 in the simple terms he used in 2012. Obama's reluctance to descend into sound bites with popular appeal as Bill Clinton is adept at is ultimately a reluctance to represent complex policies in the emotional terms that the electorate can quickly grasp. It comes from his rational analytic approach to governance. He believes the electorate needs to move towards the same sort of evaluation of complex topics, and so he really does not want to participate much in "silly season" distillations into appealing sound bites.

This goes to the frustration that Axelrod and Ploufe had prepping Obama for the debate with Clinton.

My view is that you need to fully engage the electorate both emotionally and intellectually. It's not either or. It is essential that the volume can be turned off on the debate and any viewer can understand who the winner is. Try it with last night's debate.

Appearances do matter. In fact they are the primal backbone to the literature of politics. That is what the commentators got right last night. On rational fact based grounds though, the debate was not even close.

Romney's positions were preposterous.

I agree, Romney has to take a stand. Either you stand for something or you fall for anything.

Preposterous...and now on record.

If you think the President "did fine", you were watching a different debate than I was. I get it, Obama thinks debates are beneath him, and that nothing substantive can be intelligently boiled down to 30 second (or less) sound bites. He all but looked down his nose at the whole thing, like he was better than to have to stand there on TV and debate someone. "Haughty" is an unflattering personality trait. But the fact is, whether Barack Obama likes them or not, debates are a necessary part of the political process - just like stump speeches and yard signs. Plus, he had an audience of over 60 million viewers to which he could have imparted his message - whatever that is - it was hard to tell last night.

He never said a word about R'money's 47% tirade. He never said a word about R'money's dismal failure creating jobs as Governor of Massachusetts. He let R'money stand there and repeat the BIG LIE about how Obama "stole $716 billion" from Medicare to pay for the Affordable Care Act. Not one word to call him out and make clear to 60 million potential voters who don't necessarily follow politics on a daily basis that the Rabid Right's concise bumper sticker-sized catch phrase is pure, unadulterated bull-pucky. I can imagine some of them exclaiming to one another, "I had no idea that's how he was paying for Obamacare!" Obama can campaign til hell freezes over before he'll get another shot at a good first impression in a Presidential debate.

On the plus side, when it was all said and done, I was ready to buy a used car from the Mittster. That was the most sincere I've ever seen him pretend to be!

Mittens "acted" brilliantly, but it was all an act. Here is hoping that our president was laying low and holding back so Mittens could talk more and dig himself in deeper; and the big surprise will be the strength of his closing arguments in the last debate. The mendacity column is going to write itself simply from the debate lies this week.

I really think everybody just needs to accept that Obama stunk last night. It's OK to do that. He was flabbergasted to be face-to-face with somebody who has absolutely no compunctions against flat-out lying to not only him, the President of the United States, but to the nation. That he was so taken by it is extremely surprising, but hey, that's the case. It's time for Obama to go about correcting it, and it's better for us just to realize he was taken aback by the brazenness of it all.

It is Obama who got a +4 Point bump, today! Look up gallup.com

Hang on, the job approval numbers you refer to are a 3 day rolling average completed prior to the debate. Most agree Romney will get a good bump in his numbers.

Romney needs to tell the truth. The American people--particularly those who are considering voting for him--deserve no less. Fact-checkers have been out in force all day, exposing Romney's lies. That won't do him any good with undecided voters. He has been outed as the pathological liar he is, and people ought to be running as fast as they can in the opposite direction.

Sure, but the president needs preparation not on attention to optics, but attention to metaphors which convey the concepts accurately. He must appeal to the intuitive capacity of voters to grasp complex subjects.

This need not be an existentially exhausting exercise. Our political thinking is far far too burdened with hyper rational analysis. The balance is not going emotional and superficial with edutainment visuals. The balance is with metaphor.

It is a lot tougher than it looks, but this is the substrate that makes the American political psyche tick. It's not ID that both the right and the left are focusing on, they are focusing on the id. Current neuroscience is showing that that bag of the non conscious is a lot more complex that Freud or even Jung imagined. Reagan's appeal cannot be dismissed simply as mindless emotionalism. He connected events to coherent well known narratives and engaged the listener's imagination with the skill of his story telling. These had clear resonance with moral themes that struck moral and national pride chords.

One may find such art to be existentially exhausting, but this is true only for the rationalist. For the artist, this is the essential fabric of existence. Mold that fabric and the material world will resonate with it. It's only exhausting and full of dread if you start from the point of view of the hyper rational analyst- because from that perspective it looks like the manipulations of a propagandist.

If you look at the Michael Lewis interview with Obama, the president is quite honest about it. He knows he does best when he is authentic. So there is that friction between art- artifice and authenticity. So the direction of the flow is not arbitrary. It is everything. If you begin with the rational goal you want to achieve and construct the visuals and memes that conform to it, then you are inauthentically crafting propaganda. If you begin with the story and metaphors that are operative in your own mind, then surface those images and metaphors so that they are clear enough to you that you can communicate them, then you are proceeding from the animating ideas behind your thought. It is profoundly authentic and the antithesis of propaganda.

From a mechanical analysis, the constructions are barely distinguishable. This is what is so maddening to the rationalist- because it appears to be the height of dishonesty: Persuasion through "emotional" "irrational" devices. Voter id is not like that. Someday our relationship with our non rational cognitive activity will not be couched in the extreme pejorative terms of Enlightenment hyper rationalism. That is the burdensome construct that most MSNBC analysts have to be able to occaisionally step out from under.

I don't see it like that. I see a big liar thinking he's won by lying and I have the feeling most people who watched (Ed and Chris M excluded) will see a salesman trying to get his foot in the door. That's all.

Romney's constant changes to his proposed policies (and the added confusion of Ryan touting his own policies during his campaign speeches, leaving the voter wondering whose policies are whose) make it difficult to pin him down. He pretended more than once last night that he didn't know what the POTUS was talking about. When he did deign to explain something, he spoke far too quickly for most of the audience to follow, and took up time Obama could have used for followup challenges. I think the debate format and Lehrer's reluctance to interrupt in order to adhere to time rules, worked in Romney's favor. I think Obama was disgusted, frankly, but he kept his dignity and his cool. Romney's hyper demeanor was neither dignified nor courteous.

I see it like Lilly-Little Rock. Obama was simply unprepared for the onslaught of in-your-face lies. He should have been prepared for it. There's no way to know what the lies would have been, but there are ways to forcefully point out that what is being presented are lies.

And you know what? The proof of what I just asserted is right in Obama's remarks today. They should have been prepared with "I don't know the guy I'm standing here talking to.... For a year now, he's said <X>. Now he's saying <Y>." And on and on.

Obama stunk last night. He was intimidated by a bald-faced, in-your-face liar and he and his debate prep team should have never been surprised about that. Never.

Transcripts of the debate:

DWIA, I tend to agree with that. I've been saying for months on the boards that Kerry would need to play Romney as an insane con man in order to properly prepare the President. Maybe he did and the Prez was just tired. Whatever happened, Romney got away scot-free yet again with being The 65-Year-Old Brat.

If everyone agrees that Romney is a disgusting liar, than POB wins.

The goal of the GOP was to make Romney likable. If you don't like him after the debate, he lost. He failed in meeting his goal of making you people love him. PBO won.

My thoughts exactly. Mitt lied 38 times in 18 minutes (see Karen Finney's story) and if president Obama had joined in the fray a shouting contest would have ensued. Not up to our mans standards. Mitt even shouted Mr Leher down more than once. The next debates will be in a format, not a free for all, and watch the President shine.

Obama actually did the right thing last night. He as well as most Americans went into this debate not knowing what romney stood for or what his policies entailed. By laying back and letting the hyper governor work himself into a frenzy, the president got his opponent (I use the word loosely) to state for the record what he is all about - which suprise surprise did not match up to anything else he has said before- ... now we wait for the next debate and see what new lies turn up. Obama needs to turn up the aggression for sure and come off as a tough president next time for sure. That being said... most people who have decided (because their families have always done it or because they are too lazy to look up or research the facts) to vote GOP will never sway from a debate. When I ask my GOP friends what exactly it is that they see in Romney and the GOP, all I ever get is a glazed look and the constant phrase "that they can have a different opinion than me and that is their American right..." yes agreed... but please answer the question.

Cnovo

I agree.When I ask people why they want Romney their response is we need a change. Not one of them can tell me why. When I ask if the change they need has to do with the color of their skin, I get a smile and no answer. So, you can deduce from that what the real deal is for some voters. Not all are like that, but, some are and will not admit it. Some would rather go back to the Bush days of black hole economy instead of the upward mobility that Obama has started than let a black man or anyone who is not a middle aged white man lead this country and that is a shame.

Agree. Yes, Mitt was red hot yesterday because his pants were on fire more than ever. The President, cool, patient and wise, let him fry in it, not only yesterday, but until and including Nov.6. Omit Mitt.......he'll self deport.

Heres a good explanation of what happen last night,

At Last Night’s Debate: Romney Told 27 Myths In 38 Minutes

1) “[G]et us energy independent, North American energy independent. That creates about 4 million jobs”.

“I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale that you’re talking about.”\

3) “My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I’m not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people

4) “My — my number-one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. I want to underline that: no tax cut that adds to the deficit.”

( that one reminds me of Papi Bush's "Read my Lips, no new taxes)

5) “I will not under any circumstances raise taxes on middle-income families. I will lower taxes on middle-income families. Now, you cite a study. There are six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it’s completely wrong.”

For a more detail report go to:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/10/04/958801/at-last-nights-debate-romney-told-27-myths-in-38-minutes/

While I don't think Obama brought his "A" game, I don't think it was a failure either. I really don't buy into the narrative that I am surprised to see from many supposed left leaning pundits. There seems to be a lot of pearl clutching on the left today. Obama made some good points and overall I don't think Romney was very good, I just think he was agressive and boisterous and he lied alot. I think he appealed to his base, but (I hope) not to many others. Romney with an all too willing media tried to make it a Bread and Circus event with the American people in an audience w/ a thumbs up or down approach. I saw a President trying his best to get something substanative out to the public in the only vehicle available, especially with a very subdued almost cowed moderator. Lying down with the dogs was not going to benefit him at all though it may have provided for the folks seeking bloodshed. Make no mistake, the President really did not have any options to shine here, only to mitigate damage (which I think he did OK, though not spectacular).

Sorry for the massive amount of mixed metaphors.

Romney's line about borrowing from China makes a red meat sound byte, but think about it: first, whenever we "borrow" money, it isn't done with a specific program in mind. Second, the way we borrow is to issue treasury bonds and then sell them to bidders; we don't issue them directly to any country or group of investors. Third, one could look at aboslutely any program (PBS, Education, Defense) that costs any amount of money, and make an arbitrary statement to the effect of "well to fund that that we would need to borrow money for China" and base a decision to end funding to the program accordingly.

I could go on, but I think the point is clear; Romney's "criterion" for deciding what gets cut and what does not is completely flawed and ridiculously stupid.

Agreed, with one exception we do now sell direct to China, the only nation that has that privilege basically in an effort to keep them in the game and as an inducement to stop them from dumping too many Treasuries on the market.

Both very excellent points and banned you beat me to the punch. Great minds, 'eh? =)

Speaking of 'winning and losing" I am reminded of some of the great Hitchens and Dawson debates about Atheism vs God. Much high jinx, but having a winner- as in God exists/no he doesn't- is impossible.

What we saw last night was two men, and we got to pick which one we preferred. I'll stick with out Commander in Chief.

Off topic but you brought it up Day. In the God's existence thing, the burden isn't on the doubter to show non-existence. It's on the believer to prove the assertion the believer is making. Surely you know why.

He own's it, he lied 27 times in 38 minutes,

that was just last night, factcheckers are just

an inconvenience, for proof just visit this site.

Its detailed and factual, something Romney

finds offensive.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/10/04/958801/at-last-nights-debate-romney-told-27-myths-in-38-minutes/

I'd pay to see that. I'd pay more to place the electrodes.

If, as the GOP expects, Romney will just exist to sign the bills they pass, his knowledge of policy (foreign and domestic), war craft, diplomacy, tax law, etc. is moot. He will simply be an outrageously dishonest rookie among professional liars, and any attempts to bully will receive the contempt they deserve from the Party of Bullies (and, one hopes, the American people).

@happybooker - do you really think Joe Lieberman was going to vote for single-payer, or that any of the Blue Dogs - whose every single vote was needed to pass HCR - would have voted for that legislation? The Obama who showed up last night is the same one who didn't waste time on that meaningless pursuit, but did get passed the type of reform that's allowed millions of young people to have health insurance and that is saving lives today and keeping people out of medical bankruptcy. That Obama is the same one who offered the GOP $4T in spending cuts which they backed away from, and in addition was not willing to let the GOP run out the clock and force the nation into default . That same Obama is the one who did his best to deliver on his campaign pledge to change the tone in Washington, but now gets blamed by both left and right for the GOP's despicable behavior. That Obama is the one who has called out Congress time and again and successfully rallied Americans to pressure Boehner, et al.. I may have found Obama's debate performance last night to be lacking, but I haven't lost my mind enough to buy into this leftover of what the "professional left" was selling in 2010.

Bravo, June! Our President doesn't deserve fair weather friends.

I'm so happy to see that someone else saw it the same way I did..... I felt from the very outset that Mr. O smelled something stinky and withdrew in order to not get any of it on him.... he let that fool run off at the mouth, being a rude and overbearing twit who would not pay attention to the moderator, and let him bury himself nicely.... I saw several times where the President really wanted to tear into that man, but held back and wrote down something that I'd really pay good money to see in his notes!!!....I am waiting for the third debate... the one on 'foreign policy'...we'll see then the difference between a President and a CEO....

Obama: a word of love. Michelle first and foremost, no matter how important this debate. Got him respectful silence.

Romney: a joke about the same. Got him a cheap laugh for a failed try at being human.

Who won?

Behind that smirk and those watery, half closed, non moving eyes pretending to look at the President: the school bully desperately trying to remember the next aggressive lines that his handlers taught him to utter (this time.....)

Please. Just accept that Obama stunk it up last night. It's better that way because pretending otherwise just isn't credible. It doesn't pass the smell test.

I can only assume from your comment that you are conceding last night was yet another demonstration of failed Obama strategy.

I can only assume from your comment that you are conceding last night was yet another demonstration of failed Obama strategy.

Nope. I'm saying Obama failed only in confronting the never-ending series of Mitt Romney lies. He should have not been surprised by it, but he was flabbergasted at the audacity of Mitty's mendacity. You have to admit, Romney's lying is simply awesome. Disgusting, obnoxious, nauseating, but still awesome in the extreme.

Ahh, some three dimensional chess! (Remember, Nate Silver has an Obama win by 84.7%.) Perhaps the thinking was 'no need to shine'. Rope a dope, indeed!

The same thought crossed my mind. Hope so.

And many of Romney's positions are now firmly on record. The flip flopping will take a hit. Mitt switching positions come the next debate will also be on record.

The more I think about this, the more I think it's quite plausible this was planned. Obama's way too bright to have performed like that last night, letting all those lies by Romney go by unchallenged. So Romney gets a little bounce in the polls, but not enough to sway the crucial swing states - and the big money keeps pouring in to him, rather than switching to Scott Brown, or Todd Akin, or....

Most reliable on Mitt: his lies. Very consistent, more frequent, and now with renewed emphasis. If he misses one, Ryan will do it. His sons sometimes do it (he said so himself, but can you believe that?). It's all in the family, in the genes.......

What the President was doodling on his paper was: rope....rope...rope...In his face you could see the effort of swallowing all the snappy, intelligent answers that surely were on the tip of his tongue (and could have made some short sighted supporters feel good), but the call of the evening was clearly: restraint! Let him entangle himself more thoroughly. A plan. I mean: plan A. With this opponent, it works.

When Obama let Romney's lies go effectively unchallenged, that served as a de facto validation of those lies. From the $5T tax cut that Romney isn't going to do to the $716B in Medicare "cuts", those few undecideds who don't tune in to the political talk shows on a nightly basis can look at that debate and come away with the sense that Obama is the one stretching the truth. Those of us who DO tune in to politics know when each of these guys is contorting the truth, but there are not 40 million of us as there was watching the debate last night.

I agree with Damaris

Mitt's lies have been thoroughly fact-checked and exposed all day on television, in newspapers, and through social media. The truth is getting far more exposure by authoritative sources than it would have had via a 2-minute challenge in the debate. Also, Romney has been exposed for the braying jackass that he is.

Nonsense. Obama was given the equivalent of a sucker punch for which he should have been prepared.

I agree! He a;so needs to let his supporters see "an angry man" when justified!!!

@Diann: That "angry (black) man" image would be exploited by every right-wing news agency for the next couple of weeks, and clips of same would be turned into ads to run in battleground states.

The thing I'm disappointed in is the fact that msnbc panel after the debate has not done a fact check on each lie that Romney told. This should be the media's job, not decrying that Obama got rolled over. I want to see Rachel do a piece on the "false facts" that Romney used during the debate.

Those "lies" are now Romney's official position - no matter how hard and how quickly his campaign tries to backtrack. Romney's now on record as, basically, being a Blue Dog Democrat. How does he square that with his base? And if, in order to satisfy his base, Romney tries to say that last night's answers were just "politics", he's really, really a true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool RWNJ...well, let's say references to 1936 wouldn't be inappropriate.

President Obama didn't kneecap Romney? Why should he? Romney slipped a noose around his own neck last night and the President, among others, will be spending the next four weeks tightening it. I'm satisfied.

@Keith: There are very few "undecideds" left--definitely not enough to justify your self-centered angst. Do you think you could have done better, or are you just one of those people who enjoys judging others?