QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:05 A.M. ET:  From Brit Hume, Fox news analyst.  Hume takes issue with the idea that the Obama debacle last week was simply a matter of performance.  What he says makes a lot of sense:

What I would say about this is that this idea that Romney won the debate because Obama basically didn't show up, I don't buy that. The Barack Obama, I heard on that debate stage was the Barack Obama I have been listening to now for four years. He sounded very much like himself. I don't think he was terribly bad. I think he has a very weak case, and I think the circumstances in the country present the challenging candidate with all kinds of opportunities. Mitt Romney was on his game and took advantage of those opportunities. The president is saddled with weak circumstances and therefore a weak case, and it's not surprising to me that he didn't argue it very well. And the other thing is, despite the -- his reputation as being a world class orator, and maybe he is with a set speech, but there is not a lot of evidence he was a great debater, and put them together and I don't think it is as big a shock as the president's supporters on the left feel. I think they thought he was ten feet tall and he's not ten feet tall and never has been.

COMMENT:   I hope that theme is hit hard in the coming weeks.  The debate wasn't just a show.  It was an exposure of substance, or lack of it.

Obama has always been something of a media creation.  He's also been a legend in his own mind.  He actually said in Hollywood a few nights ago, explaining his debate performance, that he can't be flawless night after night.  The idea that he thinks he's been flawless on any night is disturbing. 

Obama has, as Hume points out, a weak record.  And, as Hume also points out, he's never been the speaker he's cracked up to be.  (Another one in that category was Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956.  He was also hailed as a brilliant speaker, but no one could recall anything he'd ever said.  Can anyone think of a Stevenson quote?) 

What Obama does have is a willing press.  An in-the-tank press.  And it is based largely on the media's vision of Obama as their 1960s dream.  We keep emphasizing that over and over at Urgent Agenda.  Press bias was critical to Obama in 2008.  If he wins this time, it may well be the single most important deciding factor.  Press bias has much to do with what is asked, and what isn't asked.  If you ran 2008 interviews with Barack Obama side by side with interviews with, say, Sarah Palin, you'd be shocked at the difference. 

Someone recently sent me some DVD's of several "Meet the Press" programs from the early sixties.  The difference between then and now was stunning.  How serious they were back then!  How intelligent the questions were!  How respectful the participants were.  What a comedown to today's "Meet the Press."  It's the difference between Rodgers & Hart and hip hop.

The emperor has no clothes.  Brit Hume was brave enough to point it out.  Pass it on.

October 8, 2012