{"id":2538,"date":"2012-10-05T03:43:52","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T03:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=2538"},"modified":"2012-10-05T04:02:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T04:02:16","slug":"winning-a-battle-of-wits-with-a-half-wit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=2538","title":{"rendered":"Winning a battle of wits with a half wit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>by Ilana Mercer<\/p>\n

It was hard not to feel sorry for President Barack Obama during what was the first of three presidential debates. The dejected demeanor and the perpetually lowered gaze conjured an unprepared student peppered by a pedantic teacher with questions he could not possibly answer.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s pose spoke to the beating he was receiving at the hands of his opponent, Gov. Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n

Obama campaigner Chris Matthews \u2013 a proxy for this president, who cloaks himself in the raiment of a newsman \u2013 demanded to know: Why was Obama staring down at his \u201cnotes\u201d and scribbling? What was he waiting for?<\/p>\n

To describe what Gov. Romney had done in the course of the 90-minute debate, Matthews, who possesses a nimble intelligence his candidate is without, reached for wild man Charlie Sheen\u2019s zinger: \u201cWhat was Romney doing? Winning!\u201d<\/p>\n

Moderator Jim Lehrer is an old-school newsman who has never in the course of a long and distinguished career revealed his own political bias. Now the pack men of the media were piling on the PBS anchor for not controlling the debate\u2019s outcome, and for allowing a free to-and-fro between the men.<\/p>\n

Order lIana Mercer\u2019s brilliant polemical work, \u201cInto the Cannibal\u2019s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa\u201d<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

And since Mitt won hands down, the moderator must have been bad. Or so goes the loser\u2019s lackluster logic. Never mind that reasoning backward is an error in logic. So how does post hoc ergo propter hoc<\/a> work? Had Obama won the debate under the same emcee\u2019s minimal intervention, Lehrer would have been lauded.<\/p>\n

\u201cPassive and unprepared,\u201d chimed another MSNBC regular.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stunned,\u201d confessed thug extraordinaire Ed Schultz of \u201cThe Ed Show.\u201d The vulgar and venomous Schultz has openly and repeatedly referred to Republicans as \u201cthe enemy,\u201d on his MSNBC extravaganza. If what we saw was indicative of what was to come, Schultz lamented, Obama was in serious trouble.<\/p>\n

Arrogant to the end, press pack animal Chuck Todd conceded that Romney\u2019s debate on Oct. 3 qualified him for the first time as a \u201ccredible candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the left\u2019s peanut gallery<\/a>, comedian Bill Maher is a philosopher-prophet. Tweeted Maher: \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m saying this, but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow provided the ultimate rationalization, which her co-hosts on the network and elsewhere quickly embraced. \u201cThe presidency spoils your ability to be a good debater.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn psychology and logic, rationalization (also known as making excuses) is an unconscious defense mechanism,\u201d writes Wikipedia. It is intended to shield the fragile ego from reality.<\/p>\n

Like Maddow, presidential hagiographer Douglas Brinkley took cover from real life on Fox News\u2019 \u201cCavuto.\u201d The yang to Lincoln idolator Doris Kearns Goodwin\u2019s yin, Brinkley diminished Romney\u2019s intellectual victory by applying that most stringent historical test to the governor\u2019s performance: It was without a Reaganesque zinger. Obama, however, had not damaged his brand, claimed Brinkley. He was still a gifted \u201cretail politician.\u201d (Read community organizer.)<\/p>\n

Indeed, CNN\u2019s ecstasy meter \u2013 a monitor of women\u2019s response to the candidates \u2013 crescendoed whenever Obama noodled on aimlessly.<\/p>\n

To their credit, the groupies at MSNBC were far more cognizant of the failures of their man than their colleagues at, say, the Huffington Post. \u201cObama played offense and defense admirably well,\u201d diarized one diarrhetic blogger during the Wednesday night \u201cwipeout.\u201d Or the New York Times, which framed the president\u2019s intellectual flubs as no more than a tactical or stylistic tic. \u201cCool Hand Barry\u201d they continue to call him.<\/p>\n

Once an enthusiastic supporter of Bush\u2019s invasion of Iraq, crunchy con Andrew Sullivan has for some time struggled to stay relevant. (I won\u2019t bore you with the hackneyed hoaxes Sullivan once spewed for Bush, only to say here that there was not an occurrence he didn\u2019t trace back to Iraq: anthrax, September 11 and too few gays in the military \u2013 you name it; Iraq was behind it.) Sullivan\u2019s latest (always forgiven) faux pas<\/em> was splayed on the cover of Newsweek, just the other day, and was provocatively titled, \u201cPresident Obama: The Democrats\u2019 Ronald Reagan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ever-wrong Sullivan is no longer salivating for the guy \u201cI love.\u201d \u201c\u2026 this was a disaster for Obama,\u201d he tweeted. (Never mind, Andy. America loves you, whether you urge her sons to go to war needlessly, or make literary love to her dictators. And love means never having to say you\u2019re sorry.)<\/p>\n

For one reason only was Obama on the ropes, while Romney floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee: Romney\u2019s superior intelligence, his ability to store immense amounts of information and apply it to bolster his arguments \u2013 abilities his rival, Barack Obama, manifestly lacks.<\/p>\n

The belated scoop is this: The Child was not born in a barn and was never a brainiac.<\/p>\n

Four years after his election\u2013and a week since CNN\u2019s Jessica Yellin<\/a> revealed nothing but her own adoration in \u201cObama Revealed,\u201d<\/a> an agonizing hour with the president \u2013 a Washington Examiner investigation divulged the following facts, belatedly:<\/p>\n

Obama was a child of privilege, not of hardship. He lived in Jakarta\u2019s most exclusive suburb. His white grandmother (whom he once tarred with the taint of racism<\/a> and with whom he lived in Hawaii) was a bank vice president. She sent him to an exclusive private school. Later on he was a shoo-in at Columbia and Harvard Law School. During his 12 years as a lecturer at the University of Chicago\u2019s Law School, his student-approval ratings were low. In fact, he was one of the lowest-ranked professors in his last five years at the university. There, did he teach tort law or bankruptcy law or civil liberties or civil procedures or criminal appeals, or, perhaps navigate the shoals of intellectual property law? No. Obama taught \u201cracism\u201d related law. He left no record of legal, scholarly writings.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake; should he succeed in vanquishing Obama come Nov. 6, Romney\u2019s brand of \u201crepeal-and-replace statism\u201d<\/a> \u2013 not to mention maniacal militarism and Sinophobia \u2013 will be no victory for liberty.<\/p>\n

If not for liberty, last night was, however, a small victory for reality.<\/p>\n

Read Ilana\u2019s blog.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Ilana Mercer It was hard not to feel sorry for President Barack Obama during what was the first of three presidential debates. The dejected demeanor and the perpetually lowered gaze conjured an unprepared student peppered by a pedantic teacher with questions he could not possibly answer. The president\u2019s pose spoke to the beating he … Continue reading “Winning a battle of wits with a half wit”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,80],"tags":[593,1607,1576,12254,1606,1605],"class_list":["post-2538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-ilana-mercer","tag-barack-obama","tag-bill-maher","tag-debate","tag-ilana-mercer","tag-jim-lehrer","tag-mitr-romney"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/ilana_mercer_and_book.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2538"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2544,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions\/2544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}