Despite Media Complaints, Obama Spoke 4 Minutes Longer

Here’s the major excuse offered by the Obama campaign and their minions for the historic Romney juggernaut last night: Romney dominated the debate because Jim Lehrer, the moderator, lost control and let Romney talk too much.

Guess what? Romney’s total running time when he spoke was four minutes less than Obama’s. Four minutes.

When you have something significant to say and can articulate it well, you don’t need all the extra time to figure out which story to tell.

But that didn’t stop Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter from making up this excuse for Obama’s disastrous performance: “I sometimes wondered if we even needed a moderator because we had Mitt Romney,” Cutter told CNN.  Later she tried to walk back her swipe at Lehrer in an email: “Jim Lehrer absolutely did his job as a moderator, as only Jim Lehrer can do. But Mitt Romney wanted to play by his own rules, and that came across loud and clear.”

She wasn’t alone in attacking Lehrer; CNN’s Roland Smith (a non-partisan journalist, of course) tweeted: “I can already tell when this debate is over I’m going to go off on Jim Lehrer and these questions! #EssenceDebate”

Bill Maher tweeted: “Hey Lehrer, you’re the fcking ref, stop letting the Mittbot bully you – he can’t fire YOU.”

And wetleg Chris Matthews ranted:

“I don’t know what he was doing out there. He had his head down. He was enduring the debate rather than fighting it. Romney, on the other hand, came in with a campaign.   He had a plan … he was going to dominate the time, he was going to be aggressive, he was going to push the moderator around, which he did effectively…”

But here’s the perfect example of how Obama and his apologists are lying when they say Lehrer’s passivity helped Romney win the debate.

 

Obama was speaking about ObamaCare and said, “The last point I’d make, before … before – ” Lehrer interrupted, “2 minutes, 2 minutes are up, sir.” Obama then pointed to the clock and said “No … I … I think I had five seconds before you interrupted me.” Lehrer then allowed Obama to speak for another 35 seconds.

Jim Lehrer had nothing to do with Romney’s towering performance last night. Romney spoke less, but boy, did he carry the bigger stick.