Summoning Testosterone To Blast Currency Manipulation



He certainly will be busy on January 21, 2013 if he's elected President next month.  "Over the past several years," Mitt Romney said on October 13 at a rally at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, "the president has failed to call China a currency manipulator.  Let me tell you, on Day One of my administration I will label China a currency manipulator.  We have got to get those jobs back and get trade to be fair."

Somehow, he will have to fit that in while he issues waivers from the Affordable Care Act in all 50 states, reinstates the Mexico City policy, eliminates funding for the United Nations Population Fund, "ensures that organizations like Planned Parenthood are not funded by the U.S. government, "reverse(s) every single Obama regulation that attacks our religious liberty and threatens innocent life," and takes seven other vague, but far-reaching actions which rival Obama's promise to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet.

Romney might immediately reinstate the Mexico City policy, which was rescinded promptly by Barack Obama once he was inaugurated, in what was one of the first and greatest acts of his presidency.  But the others he is unlikely to do "on Day One," which otherwise would will leave him no time to eat, sleep, or confer with advisers.   And in the unlikely event he were to decide (as he should) to declare mainland China a currency manipulator, he would be a towering hypocrite or, more generously, have pulled off a Nixon Goes To China moment.

In the spirit of never doing for oneself what another already has done, I repeat below a portion (summarized from, and attributed to, this New York Times article) of what appears to be an October 14 editorial from timesfreepress.com, the online edition of Chattanooga Times Free Press:

• Romney had as much as $2.25 million invested in at least eight Chinese factories that export heavily, including a company, Asimco Technologies, that bought out and closed two Grand Haven, Mich., auto camshaft factories that employed 500 workers in 2007.

• Romney has invested additional millions of dollars in Bain funds that, since 2006, have quadrupled their investments and now hold a controlling $2.6 billion stake in shares of Sensata Technologies, a 4,000-employee Chinese manufacturer of vehicle, aircraft and electric motors. Two years ago, Sensata bought a Freeport, Ill., plant that makes auto sensors; It is now in the process of shutting down the 170-employee plant and moving it to a government built-and-subsidized plant in the Chinese coastal province of Jiangsu, which gets tax breaks for export-oriented companies.

Freeport workers, who had to train their Chinese owners, have pleaded futilely with Romney to reverse the deal. They also discovered in bankruptcy hearings that Asimco's Chinese owners had the company transfer money to China to obtain a tax rebate there for relocating the company and most of its equipment and jobs to Jiangsu Province's special export zone. The bankruptcy, of course, now threatens the Illinois workers' benefits and future.

• Bain Capital had invested $234 million in China's Gome Electrical Appliances in 2009, despite an accusation by Microsoft that the Chinese retailer was selling computers with software pirated by Gome. It also invested in a Hong Kong appliance maker that was sued for copying a French company's deep-fryer.

• Romney has invested as much as $1 million each in Bain's Capital Funds IX and X, and as much as $250,000 in Bain's Capital Asia Fund, all of which are held by Bain in entities in the tax-haven of Cayman Islands, and are used by Bain to invest in China.

• The Bain Capital Asia Fund 2007 also invested $39 million in Feixiang Group, a manufacturer of chemicals which had qualified for government tax subsidies for "high-tech" industrial exporters. Though Romney claims to have put his holdings in a blind trust, it is managed by the same law firm that has long represented both Romney and Bain, including some of the Bain funds in which Romney is invested.

"These findings," the editors note, not only show that Romney's investment strategies support China's continued export success and profits. They also coincide with other off-shored jobs and plant closings in the United States that Bain engineered after taking on heavy debt to finance lavish executive pay-offs in highly leveraged buy-out deals.

Presidential candidates typically promise a crackdown on China, then quietly reverse field once elected.   The pattern likely would continue in a (obscenity ahead) Romney-Ryan administration.   The guy who would disdainfully toss aside 47% of Americans is hardly likely to flinch at the prospect of more American jobs going overseas, as demonstrated by the promise in his acceptance speech to "make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements" and in the first presidential debate to "open up more trade."

Hasn't Barack Obama done enough (damage) in this area already?   (Warning:  outrageous euphemism ahead).  The Obama Administration has signed three new "free trade" deals, with Columbia, Panama, and South Korea, and currently is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, whose danger extends beyond exporting American jobs abroad.  Into this reality steps one Mitt Romney, who recently vowed he "will reverse that failure" of a President "who has not signed one new free-trade agreement in the past four years."

Given Mitt Romney's history at Bain, his past and current investments in a (not so blind) blind trust, and his promise of a free-trade policy on steroids, a question pursuant to his pledge on currency manipulation leaps to mind:  Is the former governor actually referring to mainland China?




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Support For Earned Benefits, To A Point



Evidence that ABC's Martha Raddatz effectively moderated the Veep debate is demonstrated by criticism from Rush Limbaugh, who today claimed

So it was predictable that she was gonna do that, and she did it. I mean, you've seen the stats of how many interruptions and how many questions versus how many interruptions of questions for Biden. It was clearly stacked, clearly unfair, and it was obvious to everybody. If you thought it was unfair, you're not in a vacuum. Everybody thought the same thing. 

Ah, yes. Questioning a Republican:  proof positive of bias.   And although Raddatz did a good job (particularly compared to the hapless Lehrer), she did whiff on at least one substantive question.  (The last question of the debate simply was not substantive.  Chris Hayes nailed it.) Midway through, she asked "Let's talk about Medicare and entitlements. Both Medicare and Social Security are going broke and taking a larger share of the budget in the process. Will benefits for Americans under these programs have to change for the programs to survive?"  CAP's Pat Garofalo explains

The media consistently fuel the misconception that Social Security is bankrupt or going broke, whipping itself into a frenzy of doomsday scenarios and asking politicians when they will deal with this supposedly grave threat to the U.S. budget. However, Social Security can pay full benefits until 2037, and nearly full benefits for years after that, even if literally nothing is done to change the program. Reporters would surely be shocked if infrastructure projects, child nutrition programs, or any other federal effort were fully funded for more than two decades, but no credit is given to lawmakers for achieving just that with Social Security.

Furthermore, Social Security is statutorily barred from adding to the deficit: the program can’t add to the gap between revenue and spending. Plus, one very simple tweak — lifting the cap on the payroll tax so that it is applied to more of the wealthiest Americans’ income — would ensure that Social Security can pay full benefits for more than 70 years.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has said, “Social Security has not added a single penny, not a dime, a nickel, a dollar to the budget problems we have. Never has. And for the next 30 years, it won’t do that.” But Ryan consistently raises alarm about the program in an effort to promote his desire to privatize it entirely. In this instance, Raddatz helped him spread his misinformation with her abysmal framing of the question.

The Affordable Care Act has extended the solvency of Medicare from 2016 to 2024.   The threat to Medicare, further, comes not from the program itself but from the escalating cost of health care, which has long been higher in the U.S.A. than in any other nation of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (chart, from OECD using mostly 2008 data, below). Administrative costs of private insurance are 17% of revenue; of Medicare, they are approximately 2%. Partly as a result, Medicare spending grew at an annual rate of 4.3% between 1997 and 2009 while private insurance premiums grew 6.5% per year, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The good news is that, unlike a Romney-Ryan administration, a second Obama administration apparently will not privatize Social Security or replace Medicare with a voucher.  Biden on Thursday emphasized

We will not, though, be part of any voucher plan eliminating -- the voucher says, "Mom, when you're -- when you're 65, go out there, shop for the best insurance you can get. You're out of Medicare." You can buy back in if you want with this voucher, which will not keep pace -- will not keep pace with health care costs. Because if it did keep pace with health care costs, there would be no savings. That's why they go the voucher. They -- we will be no part of a voucher program or the privatization of Social Security.

The bad news is that the Vice-President was responding to Raddatz's query whether "if it could help solve the problem, why not very slowly raise the Medicare eligibility age by two years...?"  Rather than explain that the cost of health care- not Medicare- is the problem to be "solved," Biden hinted that President Obama is open to increasing the eligibility age for gaining access to the program, presumably as part of a Grand Bargain.  He had begun his response with

Look, I was there when we did that with Social Security in 1983. I was one of eight people sitting in the room that included Tip O'Neill negotiating with President Reagan. We all got together and everybody said, as long as everybody's in the deal, everybody's in the deal, and everybody is making some sacrifice, we can find a way.

The PPACA should have included a public option.  Better yet would have been scrapping it entirely for a single payer system, preferably one framed as "Medicare For All."   Now, the only major non- right wing party appears to be preparing us for an increase in the eligibility age, thus decreasing access and reducing its lifetime benefit.

Recognizing that Obama-Biden has unwisely decided not to make "an unequivocal promise not to cut benefits," Firedoglake's Jon Walker argues "Effectively, Obama has decided he would rather lose the election with his vague message on entitlements than win the election, if it means using tactics that would significantly restrict his ability to cut Social Security in his second term. This should make any actual liberal very nervous."





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Roadkill Ryan


Allowed an opportunity by Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski noted of Representative Paul Ryan, Vice President Biden "ate him for dinner, then spit him out on the table."

Grudgingly, much of the mainstream media is acknowledging that if it was to be assessed "on points," the vice-presidential debate last night was won by Joe Biden.  Yes, on points: and in Super Bowl 20 (1986) in New Orleans, the Chicago Bears won "on points," 46-10; in Super Bowl 35 fifteen years later (but you knew that), the Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants (slim solace for a Philadelphia Eagles fan), 34-7.     The front-page of the venerable The Philadelphia Inquirer (whose editorial board skews Democratic) was not atypical with its headline last Thursday "Romney Puts Heat on Obama" and today, "Biden, Ryan spur on issues."

As Salon's Joan Walsh noted, "the pearl-clutchers might have the vapors" as "pundits squabbled about Biden’s delivery, and Fox’s Chris Wallace declared 'I’ve never seen a candidate as disrespectful as Biden.'"   Chris might want to watch the face-offs on some of the Sunday morning news talks shows, perhaps even his own, at which time he might notice politicians chuckling at the statements of the guy from the other party (not if "the other guy" is a woman, however; that would be considered disrespectful).

Despite being the deer caught in the headlights, Ryan did try, at one point inserting his rehearsed line "I think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way."  But Biden immediately responded "But I always say what I mean.  And so does Romney."

That hits at a major electoral strength of the Republican- that he really, couldn't mean all those extreme, radical things he has said.   Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, A Prayer for the City, and described here (in an otherwise magnificent take-down) as "the brilliant, narrative journalist," recently endorsed Romney.  He reasoned "I believe that Romney's move to the center is not yet another flip-flop sleight of hand, perhaps naively.  I believe he will send to the political Guantanamo those dirty old white men of the party ready to bomb Iran."  

Those sleights-of-hand are proving convenient for Romney, and Slate's Dave Weigel explains Bissinger is "a low information voter who happens to be extraordinarily good at writing.  He saw Romney in the debate, and saw Obama, and said 'Jesus, really, that's the president right now?' There are millions of people like Bissinger."

(Bissinger, entertaining but not very informative, describes himself as "the afternoon talk show host for CBS WPHT-AM in Philadelphia."  He is, in fact, co-host of "The Buzz Bissinger Show with Steve Martorano" from 3:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m.   Michael Smerconish, who has a periodic gig substituting for Chris Matthews on Hardball, holds down the 12:00-3:00 p.m. slot on WPHT and is syndicated nationally.  He is "the" afternoon talk show host on the station.)

In part, Democrats, or liberal pundits, have themselves to blame.    Though most Republicans are reacting to Ryan's failure in much the same way as Wallace of GOP TV, Obama partisans responded to the President's failure a week earlier by publicly panicking while admitting that it would bolster Romney's campaign.   It might not be surprising, then, that there are only a few mainstream journalists, such as Brzezinski and Chuck Todd (who commented "this was Joe Biden's debate; Paul Ryan was at it"), who are acknowledging what they saw.  

Meanwhile, more are bending over backwards to avoid offending the GOP. Otherwise, they might otherwise be frozen out by Republicans, as trade associations and corporate lobbyists were by Tom DeLay as a tactic of his K Street Project.   Or they might be subjected to intimidation, as Mitt Romney effectively displayed against Jim Lehrer in the first debate.  Hopefully, the public recognized, as journalism professor Allan Schroeder wrote at CNN's site, "For much of the debate, the super-charged veep kept his opponent in a defensive crouch.  At times it looked as if Ryan was afraid Biden might ground him and take away the car keys."






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Slaughter In Kentucky



Paul Ryan, as this is written at 11:17 p.m. eastern time, is taking a shower.   He has to get all the dirt and grime off after Joe Biden wiped the floor with him at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.

Consider the common critique of the Obama-Romney debate.   Romney was engaged and enjoying himself; Obama detached, looking as if he was bored; Romney plain spoken, Obama caught up in bland detail; Romney, optimistic, Obama mundane;  Romney in control, Obama dominated.

Now substitute Biden for Romney and Ryan for Obama.  Now double it.   In election cycles past, Republicans and the news media have happily trumped the "gloom and doom Democrats" meme.  But tonight (debate transcript here) it was Democrat Joe Biden who pointed out

And I've never met two guys who're more down on America across the board. We're told everything's going bad. There are 5.2 million new jobs, private-sector jobs. We need more, but 5.2 million -- if they'd get out of the way, if they'd get out of the way and let us pass the tax cut for the middle class, make it permanent, if they get out of the way and pass the -- pass the jobs bill, if they get out of the way and let us allow 14 million people who are struggling to stay in their homes because their mortgages are upside down, but they never missed a mortgage payment, just get out of the way.

Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take responsibility.

Eugene Robinson, commenting at 12:25 a.m. (eastern) summarized succinctly: "They want to be critical, but they don't want to do anything different."  Only Joe Biden could have said it as well, and he may have.

Characteristically, Ryan stumbled into a discussion of the Administration's stimulus program, slamming "this. $90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors and special interest groups," to which Biden responded

And I love my friend here. I -- I'm not allowed to show letters but go on our website, he sent me two letters saying, "By the way, can you send me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin?" We sent millions of dollars. You know..

After Ryan admitted to moderator Martha Raddatz that he had asked for stimulus funds, Biden added

I love that. I love that. This was such a bad program and he writes me a letter saying -- writes the Department of Energy a letter saying, "The reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs." His words. And now he's sitting here looking at me.

It is a truism of American politics that Republicans hold the advantage on taxes.  Not so on Thursday night as the V.P. explained

We want to extend permanently the middle-class tax cut for -- permanently, from the Bush middle-class tax cut. These guys won't allow us to. You know what they're saying? We say "let's have a vote -- let's have a vote on the middle-class tax cut and let's have a vote on the upper (ph) tax cut; let's go ahead and vote on it."

They're saying no. They're holding hostage the middle class tax cut to the super wealthy. And on top of that, they've got another tax cut coming that's $5 trillion that all of the studies point out will in fact give another $250 million -- yeah, $250,000 a year to those 120,000 families and raise taxes for people who are middle income with a child by $2,000 a year.

This is unconscionable. There is no need for this. The middle class got knocked on their heels. The great recession crushed them. They need some help now. The last people who need help are 120,000 families for another -- another $500 billion tax cut over the next 10 years.

The Wisconsin congressman was so out of his element, so flummoxed that he forgot to mention that in Charlotte on October 2, the Vice-President himself had remarked "How they can justify — how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that's been buried the last four years. How in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts?"As Barack Obama failed to repeat during last week's debate some of Mr. Romney's most outrageous comments, so did Paul Ryan miss his golden opportunity.

And dominance was even more demonstrated when talk turned to Afghanistan.    After Ryan was unable to enunciate a clear policy, Biden asserted "That's why we should send Americans in to do the job, instead of the- you'd rather Americans be going in doing the job instead of the trainees."  Confused, Ryan stated "No. We are already sending Americans to do the job, but fewer of them.  That's the whole problem," to which Biden responded "That's right. We're sending in more Afghans to do the job.  Afghans to do the job."

The thoughtful, boy wonder of the Republican Party believes "the whole problem" is fewer Americans are being sent into combat.  That will go over so well with Independents.  

At another point, the Democrat argued "The last thing America needs is to get in another ground war in the Middle East, requiring tens of thousands, if not well over 100,000 American forces."     That hit the right note among Americans of almost all political stripes, suffering from battle fatigue and just plain tired of war.

Shortly after the debate concluded, NBC's Chuck Todd stated that Ryan had accomplished his objective, to "do no harm."   And sure, the nominee didn't blurt out a racial epithet, dribble, or burst into tears, though at times he appeared he was about to.   But Todd concluded accurately that Joe Biden "controlled the debate, controlled the agenda," and for now, that will do just fine.





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Starving The (Security) Beast

In a memorandum (text, here) yesterday, staff to the minority on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote Democratic members "The fast pace and lack of clarity surrounding the attacks leads some to wonder if Republican Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and his majority are prioritizing election-year gains over uncovering the truth behind the violence in Libya."

Do you really have to wonder?    The House committee chaired by Representative Issa (R-Ca) today began its hearings into the recent attack on the American consulate which left Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.   Issa has promised an investigation conducted on a "bipartisan basis" but

The Chairman and his staff failed to consult with Democratic Members prior to issuing public letters with unverified allegations, concealed witnesses and refused to make one hearing witness available to Democratic staff, withheld documents obtained by the Committee during the investigation, and effectively excluded Democratic Committee Members from joining a poorly planned congressional delegation to Libya.

The staff to the Democrats on the Committee explained that funding for security had been cut by the GOP-controlled House, with a portion of the reduction restored by the Democratic Senate.   As Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote yesterday

For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program — well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration’s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. (Negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate restored about $88 million of the administration’s request.) Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans’ proposed cuts to her department would be “detrimental to America’s national security” — a charge Republicans rejected.

Ryan, Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryan’s budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security.

Even now, Republicans are loathe to admit they made a mistake in exposing American diplomatic personnel to a terrorist attack.  Asked by CNN's Soledad O'Brien whether it (is) true that you voted to cut the funding for embassy security," Utah's Jason Chaffetz responded

Absolutely.  Look we have to make priorities and choices in this country.   We have... 15,000 contractors in Iraq.  We have more than 6,000 contractors, a private army there, for President Obama, in Baghdad.  And we're talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces.  When you're in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices.  You have to prioritize things.

That's quite a sacrifice for Republicans- supporting private contractors in a combat zone to supplement a war begun and waged by a Republican President.   They're doing it "for President Obama" as something of a favor to him.

But provide security for living human beings- worse yet, public employees?  That, we cannot have.

The FBI or Issa's witch hunt committee may uncover serious malfeasance on the part of State Department employees on some level.  Meanwhile, the GOP gets its wish, a government which failed to prevent a tragedy and thereby opened the public sector to criticism, which Republicans will gleefully exploit to cut essential government spending further.



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Still, Opportunity



During last week's presidential debate in Denver, President Obama stated

When it comes to corporate taxes, Governor Romney has said he wants to, in a revenue-neutral way, close loopholes, deductions — he hasn't identified which ones they are — but thereby bring down the corporate rate. Well, I want to do the same thing, but I've actually identified how we can do that.

And part of the way to do it is to not give tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas. Right now you can actually take a deduction for moving a plant overseas.

Former governor Romney replied in part "The second topic, which is you said you get a deduction for getting a plant overseas. Look, I've been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you're talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant."

First, pundits expressed wonderment at Obama's failure to jump on Romney's quip "I maybe need to get a new accountant."   Perhaps he could have asked Romney for the name and number of his accountant so that he, too, might be able to pay at a rate of 13.7%.  "While you're at it," Obama might have mentioned, I'd like to consult your financial consultant, so that maybe Michelle and I could make $21.7 million too; I know a lot of other Americans would like to get in on that."

Of course, in terms of policy (rather than politics), how Mitt Romney made his millions is more significant than how much he got, though reactions from the debate demonstrate that in politics, style trumps substance.

Fact-checkers eagerly analyzed Obama's contention that companies receive tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas, which prompted Romney's denial that such an IRS preference exists.   The consensus, it appears, is that companies receive a deduction for moving expenses for shifting jobs anywhere, abroad or domestically.

Jobs moved from one community to another- as private equity firms like Bain Capital practically specialize in- disrupt communities (permanently damaging some), slash benefits for its employees, and slash the jobs of other employees. Nevertheless, the damage done to the country is eclipsed by offshoring.    That is one way, the guy who claimed Wednesday a President should be "fighting for jobs for the American people" was right in the center of the drive to destroy the American workforce.   The Washington Post in June found

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

During this Administration, congressional Democrats have twice (twice!) attempted to lure jobs from abroad- and both times been thwarted by the Gas and Oil Party.  In October, 2010

Senate Republicans, aided by four Democrats and Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, torpedoed the proposed law, which sought to stimulate U.S. jobs with a tempting two-year tax break for businesses that brought overseas jobs back to the country and a new tax on products imported back to the U.S. from companies that ship production out of the country. The bill also would also have made it illegal for off-shoring companies to deduct expenses that they incur when shipping jobs overseas.

Almost two years later, a similar effort failed in Congress.  ABC News reported

Under existing law, employers may take tax deductions for the costs associated with moving jobs out of the country. The proposed legislation would have eliminated that, and used the resulting new revenue to fund a 20 percent tax credit for the costs companies run up “insourcing” labor back into the U.S. The bill failed by 56-42. A count of 60 was required to end debate and move to a final vote.

"A count of 60 was required" by the GOP leadership in the Senate, which has demanded that cloture be approved before practically any Democratic initiative.   All 53 Democrats, joined by New England Republicans Snowe, Collins, and Brow,n voted to impose cloture while all other Republicans voting (42) voted to keep jobs in foreign countries.

Let's take inventory.   The two efforts aimed at enticing corporations to bring jobs back to the country Republicans love so dearly garnered the support of 106 Democrats and the opposition of five Democrats, and the support of four Republicans and the opposition of 82 Republicans.

Certainly, it was the responsibility of Barack Obama to make this point in some fashion.  But not only did the President neglect to describe GOP obstruction of his struggle to help the country, he didn't even slam Congress.  That is political malpractice from a President facing re-election with at least one chamber controlled by the opposition party.

It wouldn't have taken much for President Obama to echo the words of the Senate Majority Leader, who noted "It's fairly easy to see why Republicans are blocking our bill to stop outsourcing.  They're obviously defending their presidential nominee, who of course made a fortune by shipping jobs overseas."    Harry Reid understands that Mitt Romney is vulnerable on outsourcing and the tens of millions of dollars he made off the misery of American families, and the Obama campaign needs to understand it, too.




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This Door Swings Only One Way


Paul Krugman, of course, was right Sunday when he told the audience of This Week

there's a contempt for the whole process. There's a contempt for us people, because he's thinking the news media will not cover me on this, as long as they say it forcefully they'll say I won, which is more of the ways...

And James Carville, of course, was wrong Sunday when he told the same audience

Look, they asked one time Lee Trevino, great golfer, who was having trouble with putting and they asked him if he thought he needed a new putter and he famously said, no, it's not the arrow it's the Indian. OK. It's not Jim Lehrer. President Obama was sitting right there. He would have confronted Governor Romney on any number of issues and drawn the distinction.

To the wealthy, perhaps, everything in life can be compared to the their favorite leisure time, athletic-free, activity.     Krugman, though, noted "But isn't our job, at least partly, to actually never mind that the quality of the theatrical performance but to ask about, were there untruths spoken in that debate and there were a lot."  Neither Krugman nor anyone has let Obama off the hook.

Not even Salon's Alex Pareene, who conceded he "had no issues" with the "anything goes" format but observed

Not counting follow-ups (SIMPSON-BOWLES, god help us), these were the questions: “How would you create jobs?” “How would you fix the deficit?” “Entitlements?” “Are there too many regulations or not enough regulations?” (The dumbest question of the night!) “Obamacare?” “Do you guys have a rhetorical disagreement about the impossibly amorphous concept of ‘the role of government’”?” And finally “how would you fix partisan gridlock?”  He laments "immigration, reproductive health, LGBT civil rights, the environment, campaign finance, the drug war, and voting rights: None of you matter as much as Simpson effing Bowles!"

Jim Lehrer's most famous encounter of all time was the hapless one with President Bill Clinton, fresh off revelation of his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky, who on three occasions asserted either "there is no sexual relationship" or "there is no improper sexual relationship."   Lehrer, apparently unaware that Clinton was replying only that there was nothing currently going on as was evident) let the Big Dog off easy, as he did Romney, whose lies had less to do with grammar than with substance.

No whining is necessary, however. Instead, moderating debates should follow the pattern of officiating in most sports.   In football, a faulty pass interference call against the defense on one play often is followed by a faulty pass interference a few plays later against the offense.  In that spirit, the questions in the second debate, as in the first debate, should be skewed, but in the opposite direction.   (This would be in a following debate, but is analogous; as in a football game, it is against the same opponent, with victory the goal.)

The second debate is scheduled to include both domestic and foreign policy issues.   Therefore, "How would you create jobs" might be replaced with "how would you bring jobs back from overseas";  "How would you fix the deficit" with "How would you stimulate the economy"; "Entitlements" with "Earned Benefits" (or at least "Social Security, Medicare, and Social Security"); "Are there too many regulations or not enough regulations" with "Does government do enough to protect consumers from predatory lenders, unsafe drugs, or rapacious defense contractors"; "the role of government" with "the role of the multinational corporation";  and "how would you fix partisan gridlock" with "how would you respond to a congressional party drawing up strategy on the day of your inauguration to obstruct your agenda."  And my favorite substitution: "Simpson-Bowles" with "Contraceptive Choice Project, on the impact of birth control on incidence of abortion."

It could happen! And it could snow in Miami tomorrow.

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