by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n The problem for Obama is not that his performance was disastrous, but rather that it was his normal workmanlike coasting. But this time, and for the first time, he was pitted against a skilled debater who had both the better argument and the better intellectual artillery to deliver it. Disengaged cool could not cut it. \u201cMy\/I\/me\/mine\u201d first-person overload was of no value. \u201cMake no mistake about it\/Let me be perfectly clear\u201d was of no use. \u201cBush did it\u201d is pass\u00e9. And the faux patois of a Reverend Wright\u2013like sermon had no place here. Obama was just Obama without the props.<\/p>\n The result is that it will be harder for Obama to change the dynamic because, despite the media outrage (or in some cases contextualizing, e.g., high-altitude sickness, Turkish\/Syrian fighting that day, etc.) over this thrashing, his performance was pretty normal \u2014 and looked bad mostly because of the contrast with someone who is quite good and because of the unusual venue that was without supporting media props.<\/p>\n Last night\u2019s performance by Obama might have been enough to edge Alan Keyes, Hillary Clinton, or John McCain, but it came off as terrible, again, because Romney is none of these, and there were not opportunities for the usual White House press obsequious follow-ups and ad-ons of the sort we see at press conferences or the tingle-up-the-leg commentary after Obama\u2019s customarily blas\u00e9 teleprompted performances.<\/p>\n In other words, Romney seemed like Romney and Obama like Obama and the result reflected that fact \u2014 and was considered unusual only because of the oddity that Obama was without his accustomed supports.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next? For Obama to win the next debate, Romney will have to be uncharacteristically bad, Obama will have to be uncharacteristically good, and the moderator will not only have to be engaged but also unashamedly hyper-partisan. All of the above can happen, but it is unlikely.<\/p>\n The final irony? The real culprit for Obama\u2019s disastrous night is not entirely Barack Obama, but rather the media training-wheels who assured Obama for years that he was riding on his own; when they came off last night, he immediately fell, and for some reason we are supposed to be surprised?<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner The problem for Obama is not that his performance was disastrous, but rather that it was his normal workmanlike coasting. But this time, and for the first time, he was pitted against a skilled debater who had both the better argument and the better intellectual artillery to deliver it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[96],"tags":[12,1026,32],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-6I","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":712,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-hope-and-change-to-fear-ad-smear\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":0},"title":"From Hope and Change to Fear ad Smear","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Barack Obama lately has been accusing presumptive rival Mitt Romney of not waging his campaign in the nice (but losing) manner of John McCain in 2008. But a more marked difference can be seen in Obama himself, whose style and record bear no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":454,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/let-bush-be\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":1},"title":"Let Bush Be","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The theme of the president's 2012 re-election campaign is that George W. Bush left such a terrible mess that Barack Obama could hardly be expected to clean it up in four years. In other words, 43 months of unemployment rates above 8 percent,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":392,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-game-changes\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":2},"title":"The Game Changes","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Usually after a presidential debate, both sides spin the results. But after the first face-off between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Obama\u2019s exasperated handlers made no such effort. How could they when most opinion polls revealed that two-thirds of viewers thought Obama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":536,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/100-days-is-a-long-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":3},"title":"100 Days Is a Long Time","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The presidential election is less than a hundred days away. President Obama and Mitt Romney are roughly even in the various polls, with Obama holding slight leads in the key swing states. A lot can happen in a hundred days. Napoleon went from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2386,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/whats-off-the-table-in-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":4},"title":"What’s Off the Table in 2012?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services What should we\u00a0not\u00a0expect during next summer\u2019s presidential campaign, given what was put off limits in 2008 and later? There is much talk about what some are perceiving as the fringe religiosity of Republican candidates such as Michele Bachman and Rick Perry. But the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5973,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/reap-what-you-sow\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":5},"title":"Reap What You Sow","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner In the next few weeks, we will probably hear more stories about journalists whose correspondence was monitored, and more creepy details about the corruption of the IRS. The fault, however, is not Obama\u2019s alone; he is what he is \u2014 a take-no-prisoners tough Chicago\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mainstream Media"","block_context":{"text":"Mainstream Media","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/mainstream-media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":417,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}