US presidential debate: Barack Obama attacks Mitt Romney's integrity ... Two weeks ago in Denver Barack Obama appeared content to tackle Mitt Romney in the abstract, musing directly to the American people almost as if his opponent was not even in the room. It was a disaster, and he didn't make the same mistake twice. Last night it was personal: from the very first exchange in this combative town hall encounter in Hempstead, New York, the president went after Mr Romney, repeatedly and deliberately picking at his opponent's policy positions – past and present. – Encyclopedia, YouTube
Dominant Social Theme: Obama picked up his game after a disastrous outing.
Free-Market Analysis: On October 8th, we posted a video-analysis asking if US President Barack Obama had done badly in the first debate on purpose. You can see it here: "Was Obama Debate Failure a Ploy?"
Now we see in numerous analyses of the second presidential debate that Obama learned from his mistakes and that he is generally seen as having won this second debate.
But our conclusion is that he likely DID throw the first debate on purpose.
This one saw a different Obama. He was "aggressive" and even "confrontational." He didn't let challenger Mitt Romney set the debate's tone and parameters.
We quoted above an excerpt from a narrative posted by "Encyclopedia," who presents perhaps the most controversial few moments of the debate on YouTube. (The narrative seems lifted from various news reports.)
During this confrontation, the moderator Candy Crowley corrects Mitt Romney's inference that Obama was slow to place the blame for the recent Libya attack on "terrorism."
Crowley is currently under attack for her interruption. But the issue runs a good deal deeper than that. It is actually a sad moment, as the entire incident was seemingly manufactured by US Intel or at least inspired by a movie that seems to have US Intel fingerprints all over it.
You can see our analysis here: "Who REALLY Produced the Film 'Desert Warrior' That is Now Convulsing the Middle East?"
As far as Obama and the debate goes, we're not surprised by this sort of manipulation. Almost every issue in play is in a sense phony or whipped up, and thus the idea that the debates themselves are a kind of pre-arranged theatre is not a stretch, in our view.
What is interesting is that the alternative news media is in full cry about the system and its lack of alternatives. In a sense, this may be the last time this particular sort of politics is staged.
What we call the Internet Reformation has done so much damage to the meme of representative democracy that we tend to believe the powers-that-be will have to find some other, more credible methodology of control.
Alternatively, the whole rotten system may simply come tumbling down, hopefully without serious violence. That's the best we probably hope for. The worst would be a serious expansion of the authoritarian state. We have in mind that the power elite would prefer the second option.
You can see the video here:
(Video from ENCYLOPEDIA's YouTube user channel.)