Maureen Dowd has a hilarious column pretending to be post-mortem debate practice for Obama on what he should have said in the first round. The whole column is worth reading, but here’s an excerpt:
Opponent: I want to take that $716 billion you’ve cut and put it back into Medicare.
Obama: The $716 billion I’ve cut is from the providers, not the beneficiaries. I think that’s a better idea than cutting the exact same $716 billion and replacing it with a gift certificate, which is what’s contained in the plan that’s named for your running mate.
Opponent: Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.
Obama: Not unless you’ve come up with a new plan since this afternoon.
Opponent: You doubled the deficit.
Obama: When I took office in 2009, the deficit was 1.4 trillion. According to the C.B.O., the deficit for 2012 will be 1.1 trillion. Either you have the mathematics aptitude of a Shetland pony or, much more likely, you’re lying.
Opponent: All of the increase in natural gas has happened on private land, not on government land. On government land, your administration has cut the number of permits and licenses in half.
Obama: Maybe your difficulty is with the words “half” and “double.” Oil production on federal land is higher, not lower. And the oil and gas industry are currently sitting on 7,000 approved permits to drill on government land that they’ve not yet begun developing.
Opponent: I think about half the green firms you’ve invested in have gone out of business.
Obama: Yeah, your problem’s definitely with the word “half.” As of this moment there have been 26 recipients of loan guarantees — 23 of which are very much in business. What was Bain’s bankruptcy record again?
Of course, to see how it should be done you could watch Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly debating.
4 Comments
Dowd is brilliant and hilarious, here, and at the same time, right on the money. Via artfully crafted humor, she’s produced a savvy instruction manual which should be required reading as the debate prep for the next round plays out. Let’s hope the President’s team (and Biden’s, for that matter) have read it. And read it again. Too much at stake not to. We need a take-down, Mr. President. Playing nice isn’t working.
The FULL article is SO worth a read! As are the spot-on readers’ comments.
He could of asked Romney about the republicans house killing tons of job bills as well.
Hell Romney said he was going to cut funding to the damn moderator, Obama could of spun that into a job loss, but he didnt.
Is this Aaron Sorkin’s work, or Maureen Dowd’s fan fiction?
It’s brilliant either way. Barlet 2012!