AbsurdBeats

I have no idea how this debate will play.

Obama seemed strong* to me, Romney less so, but, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney supporters thought he won.

And the undecideds?

Oh, do you want to hear another curse-filled rant? No, I am not feeling kindly toward those folks who haven’t decided between Romney and Obama.

Deciding between 3rd-party candidate (conscience) and Romney or Obama (compromise)? Okay. Between voting (principle, ideal) and not voting (resignation)? Okay.**

But between Romney and Obama ? Not okay, because in this case there are clear policy differences between the two candidates, differences which will not change between now and election day. If you don’t know if you want Romney or if you want Obama to be president then you don’t know what you want.

Oh, I’m picking on those poor undecideds, who insist that they’re really high information! Really!

Consider Buzz Bissinger, who’s so, so disappointed in Obama and so, so dispirited by his first debate performance that he’s decided to support Romney:

Jamelle: There’s no evidence anywhere that government is on our way to becoming the major employer. In fact, the economy has lost 600,000 public sector jobs in the last three years. It’s been a huge burden on the recovery, actually.

Buzz: I have absolutely no issue with Obamacare. It was right and it was bold. [emph added] I do think the costs are going to be far more prohibitive than we think. Placing cost containment in the hands of a panel is a joke: It never works.

But didn’t the stimulus and the auto bailout, all funded by the government, create private sector jobs?

Jamelle: They did, but that’s not the same as the government becoming an employer. If I get $100 from the government, buy some stuff, and that allows a business to hire more, those new jobs aren’t “government jobs.”

Buzz: You are splitting hairs. It is the government as the funder with taxpayer money.

. . .

Buzz: Call me a naive idiot, but I think Romney does care about a hundred percent of all Americans. More than Obama. All Obama is doing now is pandering to the middle to win. He does not like the wealthy, even though he has been fairly kind to them tax wise. [emph added] He has created class warfare. The wealthy in this country are not outsiders. They are not pariahs. They are part of the country. He treats them like outcasts.

Okay, unlike your interlocutor, I’ll call you a naive idiot. Especially when you continue to blame the president for the obstructionist policies of the Republicans in Congress and complain that he hasn’t done enough to reach those Republicans while simultaneously complaining that he hasn’t been tough enough.

Oh, and for saying that what really did it was that first debate performance: “I will never forgive Obama’s performance.” [emph added]

Actually, naive idiot [emph added] might be too kind.

And then there’s Scott Adams, who’s turned on the president over the continued war on drugs:

One could argue that the President is just doing his job and enforcing existing Federal laws. That’s the opposite of what he said he would do before he was elected, but lying is obviously not a firing offense for politicians.

Personally, I’d prefer death to spending the final decades of my life in prison. So while President Obama didn’t technically kill a citizen, he is certainly ruining this fellow’s life, and his family’s lives, and the lives of countless other minor drug offenders. And he is doing it to advance his career. If that’s not a firing offense, what the hell is?

Romney is likely to continue the same drug policies as the Obama administration. But he’s enough of a chameleon and a pragmatist that one can’t be sure. And I’m fairly certain he’d want a second term. He might find it “economical” to use federal resources in other ways than attacking California voters. And he is vocal about promoting states’ rights, so he’s got political cover for ignoring dispensaries in states where medical marijuana is legal.

So while I don’t agree with Romney’s positions on most topics, I’m endorsing him for president starting today. I think we need to set a minimum standard for presidential behavior, and jailing American citizens for political gain simply has to be a firing offense no matter how awesome you might be in other ways.

And the evidence that Romney would be better than Obama on the drug war? He’s a slimier bastard than the president!

I don’t care if these guys are voting for Romney, I really don’t, but when Bissinger claims he’s a high-info voter and Adams waves the rationality flag in support of his support for Romney, I have to wonder if we have the same understanding of the meaning of “high-information” and “reason”.

~~~

*Not that I loved everything he had to say (defense spending, drones drones drones) or didn’t say (anything about Mexico, Latin America, the drug war), but I’m not put off by a moderate-liberal Democratic president not veering too far off the America-is-aces path—given our politics, it’s gotta be done.

**Won’t explain tonight why it’s different—maybe because these are more forthrightly mood-affiliation choices as opposed to those which are allegedly about policy. Maybe if the undecideds were more honest about the fact they don’t know what they want and are simply waiting for their pleasure-buttons to be pushed I’d be less frustrated. But probably not.