Jon Stewart leveled Mitt Romney with a devastating critique of his debate performance. Stewart described Romney on foreign policy as, ‘Follow me, I’ll be right behind the President’
Here is the video:
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Stewart said,
Gov. Mitt Romney appears to have made the calculated decision that his bellicose and hawkish performances in the Republican primaries would be less appreciated by the normals. But’s here’s the crazy part, after basically casting off what were months and weeks ago his bedrock principles and beliefs to copy Obama’s policy positions in a transparently cynical appeal to moderate undecideds, guess which quality Romney decided to highlight as the difference between the two men.
(Video of Romney repeating the word leadership.)
Follow me, I’ll be right behind the president.
I gotta say by the end of last night I was beginning to worry we were in some kind of Freaky Friday situation where Barack Obama, they somehow peed in the same fountain, and switched bodies. Remember two weeks ago when Romney was the one that was all confident and staring daggers at Obama? The president was looking at some rapturous dreamland that only he could see. Well last night, it was the Obama delivering the death stare while Romney suddenly found something on his podium incredibly fascinating. And that’s not all, Obama who we all remember was f**king asleep during the first debate was hitting Romney left and right with the zingers.
Later, Stewart closed the segment with, “All in all though, last night made a fine conclusion to the trilogy of debates. Between the two candidates, sincere belief in a peaceful world, and their eager acceptance of remote control hell fire drones to achieve that end. We learned Mitt Romney has basically come around to Barack Obama’s position on foreign policy, and Barack Obama’s come around to the Bush administration’s policy on aggression overseas.”
Stewart was correct. Romney’s me too foreign policy debate strategy made him look weak. In fact, it made Romney look like he was leading from behind. The perception that the Republican nominee is candidate with absolutely no ideas of his own was reinforced by his debate performance. There is a fine line between looking non-threatening and weak, and Mitt Romney crossed that line.
As Rachel Maddow discussed on her show, Romney’s lack of knowledge of and disinterest in foreign policy should ring the George W. Bush alarm bells for many Americans.
The Romney campaign has long suffered from a delusional hubris that has caused them to act like they are winning when they are really losing. Romney’s third debate strategy was that of a candidate who thinks he has this election in the bag. He acted like he had this thing won when the reality is that he is still losing or tied in all of the battleground states.
If Mitt Romney thinks Barack Obama’s foreign policy is so great, why wouldn’t voters cut out the middle man and support Obama?
Jon Stewart was right. The third debate was total role reversal from the two candidates’ first encounter in Denver. The Daily Show host’s argument leads one to the conclusion that unlike Obama, Mitt Romney really did lead behind in the foreign policy debate.
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