OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
WASHINGTON — Thanks to the debates, we now know our country is being run by a couple of stoner college kids who spend most of their time slouched on the couch, watching TV, playing video games and doing drugs.
Vice President Biden goes for the laughing gas and thinks everything is hilarious. President Obama prefers reliving his glory days in Hawaii chilling with the “choom gang” smoking weed and dropping Xanax.
Thankfully, the president sobered up for last night’s debate and offered a much improved performance. Still, he averted the gaze of Mitt Romney and bore a sullen expression when called upon the carpet.
Mr. Obama’s only real obstacle last night was, well, his own record. The facts of the past four years weighed him down miserably. He tried spinning and weaving, but it was pitiful.
“I think you know better,” Mr. Romney told the audience after Mr. Obama went on a long jag about everything he has done to improve the economy.
“I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get,” he said. “You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years.”
All the statistics and details so fluidly commanded by Mr. Romney draped around Mr. Obama like kelp in the ocean.
At one point, the president actually said: “The commitments I’ve made, I’ve kept.”
To which everyone responded with quizzical stares considering we had just heard about all the commitments he had failed to keep.
Then he said: “And those that I haven’t been able to keep, it’s not for a lack of trying.”
What? You kept them, Mr. President, or you TRIED to keep them? It’s that loss of brain cells.
But just to put in a plug for one more term, Mr. Obama added regarding all the commitments that he “kept” but actually failed to keep: “We’re going to get it done in a second term.”
So, he’s like the contractor who totally screws up your bathroom and then stands there while your toilet is overflowing onto the floor, perfectly willing to charge you again to fix the mess.
Mr. Obama also slid back into his old addiction to hope.
One poor fellow asked why Mr. Obama’s energy secretary keeps saying he doesn’t care how high gas prices are and whether the president shared that disregard.
Mr. Obama did not answer the question but told the man that before long, “Any car you buy, you’re going to end up going twice as far on a gallon of gas.”
Four years ago, that sounded hopeful. Today, he sounded like an oily used-car salesman pitching his latest clunker to a helpless customer.
And, still, he showed that occasional flash of audacity — which we now know is utterly unfounded.
He called Mr. Romney’s tax plan, “such a sketchy deal,” and said “the math doesn’t add up.”
Really, you want to be venturing into math and throwing around terms like “sketchy,” considering your, you know, record?
Mr. Romney simply ticked off all the budgets he has balanced in businesses, running the Olympics and as governor. And then delivered the killer line.
“When we’re talking about math that doesn’t add up, how about $4 trillion in deficits over the last four years,” he said. “That’s math that doesn’t add up.”
• Charles Hurt can be reached at charleshurt@live.com.
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