Big Bird for President..
Good morning, Netizens...
This morning, we have the return of cartoonist David Horsey to Community Comment, which couldn't come at a more fruitful point in historical time.
After watching the debate between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, I have come to the conclusion that in the next debate, we should replace moderator Jim Lehrer with Sesame Street's Big Bird. I felt uncomfortable when Mitt Romney stated that, if elected President, he would cut subsidies for PBS, dumping Sesame Street, thus firing Big Bird in the process. Given the choice between four years of Romney's politics and four years of watching Sesame Street, I would take the latter, hands down.
Of course, given the choice between either political candidate, including the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, I believe Big Bird might be a worthy write-in candidate, better than either political candidate. Big Bird, however, would definitely be a better moderator for the next debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama because, the first time Romney interrupted him, Big Bird would immediately peck the Big Mormon on his carefully-coiffed head and tell him to shut up, he'd had his say.
Romney clearly rolled over moderator Jim Lehrer with seeming impunity, treating him rudely, rougher than he deserved. After all, this was Lehrer's 12th debate and, as he has already told POLITICO, his last. However, he already had made that promise once before. Furthermore in Lehrer's defense, the format of the debate, itself, had changed from a stricter debate format in which the moderator controls the flow of the discussion to a more open-ended format where the debaters are more-engaged with each other. Jim Lehrer aside, couldn't this debate format be viewed as more an exchange of talking points rather than debating the issues? It might seem so, at least to me, although your opinions may differ.
However, in his style, cartoonist David Horsey watched the debate with friends, none of whom originally supported Mitt Romney, nearly all of the people in attendance gave Mitt Romney the winner's laurels in this debate. According to David Horsey, a few days before the televised debate, “Obama told a crowd that Romney is a very good debater while characterizing himself as just "OK." Apparently, he was not just being modest.”
I could not agree more that Mitt Romney won the debate, if you can call it that. However, as in nearly everything that is stated by either candidate in this pre-election gabfest, you need to deploy a comprehensive Internet fact-checker because during the debates, not everything is as it appears.
Dave