Friday Funday: Truth, Lies, And Friendship

By the time you read this today, chances are good that one or more members of our staff will be at the 2012 North Central Chapter National Cartoonists Society meeting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Not only is the North Central Tooners a professional group of incredibly talented individuals - they're also our friends.

Like any group of professionals, we don't all have the same ideas about important topics like politics, the future of cartooning, and what beverage tastes best after a late night of roaming the streets of Sioux Falls and having some pirogis.

For the member of our Daily Felltoon staff who also toils in the national broadcast media, Wednesday night's unprofessional reaction by some of our broader media colleagues was a bit of a surprise. We're all used to overreaction by the extreme media blowhards, especially those in right-wing radio, who've become experts at making mountains out of molehills.

What surprised us - and especially our broadcast staffer - was the level of pure whorish groveling that so many in the mainstream media fell to immediately after the Presidential debate.

As we stated yesterday, at best, the debate was a wash for both candidates. President Obama's performance didn't meet the high expectations too many had set on him, while Mr. Romney's petulant, mendacious performance had neither facts or details in it anywhere. That didn't stop most of the media having a massive knee-jerk reaction after the debate Wednesday night.

By Thursday morning, however, members of our staff and a few other ethical journalists had been working late into the night, making sure everyone knew exactly how many lies Mitt Romney told in that debate. By Thursday afternoon, some of our media colleagues began to feel guilty about selling out and hopping on board the Romney wagon - so they began to turn their opinions around about who actually won, based on the fact that Romney had given no facts.

Many professionals in the larger media are now grudgingly accepting what we first noted - or sagely following our lead - that the debate was, in fact, a wash, mostly because of Mitt Romney's horrendous lying.

While we're glad our broadcast staffer now feels a bit more vindicated, the rest of our staff has to say - we're glad our main focus is in physical and digital print. For cartoonists especially, there's an unwritten rule that we create and draw what we do - and we don't worry about responding or apologizing. Our work stands on it's own, for better or worse - and then we move on.

Many of our friends in the North Central Tooners feel the same - and those who don't, don't judge the others.

We hope this weekend, whatever group of friends you have, they accept you for who you are, whatever your opinions are.

We also hope your friends pick up the bar tab, as we're certain our friends in Sioux Falls will. Right, guys?

The Debate: Who Won, Who's Lying About It

Heading into last night's debate, much of the discussion in the media was about the "expectation game" and whether each candidate would meet or exceed expectations. In other words, most members of the media hedged their bets - meaning they didn't have the guts to tell you what they really thought.

The fact is, Mr. Romney's campaign set the bar so low, if he didn't make an outright ass of himself - as he did in many of the GOP primary debates - he was going to have exceeded the expectations of most Americans who expected the President to win the debate handily.

As you may have noted in our Wednesday edition, unlike much of the rest of the media, we didn't hedge our bets. We don't lie - and we won't start now. We thought the debate wouldn't live up to the media hype - and it didn't.

That didn't stop many of our ethically challenged colleagues in the wider media field, who began spinning the debate in favor of Mitt, the moment it ended, as though their careers depended on it. Chances are, their careers do depend on their lies making the presidential race appear closer than it actually is, so their corporate master's ratings, clicks, and copies stay at high levels. Funny how the threat of losing something important can focus one's ability to lie.

As we already noted, though - we don't lie. So here's what really happened at the debate last night.

At best, the debate was a tie. At worst, Mr. Romney lost.

The debate leaned heavily on the economy, with four of six sections devoted to the economy. The moderator, PBS' Jim Lehrer, was surprisingly weak, allowing for Obama to talk much longer than he should have, while allowing Mr. Romney to walk all over him. Multiple times, Romney bullied his way past Lehrer and attempted to take control of the debate, much as he did with Gov. Rick Perry in the GOP primary debates.

We'll agree that President Obama spoke a bit longer at times than he should have. That said, his answers were highly detailed and fact-filled. On questions of jobs, taxes, debt & deficit, education, and earned benefits (entitlements), President Obama patiently went through details of his plans, their positive effects, and what progress had been made the last four years. On Obamacare, Obama simply bearhugged Romney to death with the facts.

On the other side of the stage, Mr. Romney was aggressive and at times petulant, like a spoiled child. As we already noted, Romney interrupted, bullied, and pushed his way through much of the debate. Romney also had virtually no details on ANY of his plans.

When pushed by both President Obama and Mr. Lehrer, Romney deftly and repeatedly avoided direct requests for specifics. Romney could not explain how he would pay for his $5 trillion tax cut - a plan he consistently lied about, multiple times during the debate. Romney insisted he wasn't going to reduce taxes on the wealthy - but refused to say how he would pay for any of his promises. What's more, Romney insisted his plans wouldn't cut other programs in the goverment, even though fact checkers have proven his math doesn't add up. Romney also insisted he was going to eliminate any Federal government program he didn't really think was necessary, including budget allocations to PBS - which is a power that Congress has, not the Presidency.

The truth is, Mitt Romney couldn't stop lying in the debate. As Jon Lovett of The Atlantic magazine pointed out:

Romney claims he never said Romneycare should be a national model. He did.
Romney claims he never promised to cut taxes for wealthy. His plan did.
Romney claims he won't change Medicare for current seniors; repealing Obamacare will do exactly that.
Romney claims he covers pre-existing conditions - in every meaningful way, his plan does not.

In short, Mr. Romney lied about nearly everything important, while giving next to no details. He even lied about Massachusetts schools being number one. That designation belongs to Maryland, actually - and has for the last four years.

Overall, the debate wasn't very exciting.

President Obama was measured, head down, writing notes throughout the debate. He was the fact-filled, wonkish scholar President that America has come to know and trust over the last four years.

Mr. Romney was the plastic corporate executive with the fake laugh, who's ready to push snap judgments, even when he has no facts. Romney had no details about any of his plans, had more than a few toned-down zingers, and had enough lies to keep the fact-checkers going until the next debate.

In a nutshell, Mitt Romney needed the debate performance of his life. He didn't give it - which means this debate wasn't a win for Romney - no matter how hard anyone tries to spin it.

Face Off

If you believe all the hype most of the American media has been pushing, tonight is supposed to be the 2012 presidential campaign event to end all campaign events. Forget the fact that the actual election isn't for another five weeks, forget the fact that - historically - political scientists say presidential debates don't usually matter much. Forget the fact that no one really knows which version of Mitt Romney will actually show up at Denver University tonight - as more than one pundit has mentioned.

The fact is, debates do matter, if in no other way than as an emotional rallying point for the supporters of each candidate, as we saw with the debates in Nebraska, Virginia, and Massachusetts on Monday night.

Of the three congressional debates, the most well-covered debate in the media on Tuesday was the Warren-Brown debate in Massachusetts. In short, Sen. Scott Brown acted like a coward and a bully, running from his associations with both 'Multiple Choice Mitt' and the Republican Party, while desperately trying to convince everyone he was independent.

Brown tried to smear Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren with attacks on her Native American heritage again, and was extremely condescending to Warren when the two candidates talked over one another at one point. Brown made a major mistake though, when asked to pick who his favorite Supreme Court justice was, by naming the most extremist Justice on the most extreme Supreme Court in history - current Justice Antonin Scalia.

Meanwhile, in Richmond, Virginia, retired Army colonel and Democratic House candidate Wayne Powell went into political battle with current Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. This was Cantor's first debate in a decade, having ducked out on his previous challengers - and it was obvious why Cantor had previously chosen the cowardly cop-out.

Powell nailed Cantor for abdicating his responsibility to Congress, to Virginians, and to the American people by refusing to even try to compromise with House Democrats. Cantor even tried to position a gutless one year extension of current tax policies as a positive position on tax reform. Powell blasted Cantor for that shirking of responsibility too.

Meanwhile, in the Nebraska Senate debate, former U.S. Senator and Governor Bob Kerrey got into details on multiple topics, including energy, campaign financing, taxes and spending. In contrast, Republican state senator Deb Fischer gave virtually no serious details - especially on taxes and budgets - while spouting slogans, platitudes, and what were obviously pre-scripted responses. Frankly, we wondered if extremist conservative anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist was hiding behind Fischer's podium the whole time.

In summary, all three debates had a massive amount of hype - and very little substance. While the Democratic candidates in all three debates seemed far better suited for higher office, we highly doubt any of these debates really changed the minds of serious voters.

That, in fact, is exactly what we expect from the presidential debate tonight: that the event simply won't live up to the hype. As we noted to start today's commentary, political scientists say presidential debates don't usually shift presidential campaign outcomes heavily one way or the other - and we tend not to argue with proven facts.

What might shift the effects of the debate more than anything President Obama or Mr. Romney might say is the post-debate spin. Frankly, no matter which Mitt Romney shows up tomorrow night, we highly doubt the overall spin will end up in his favor.