Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told CNN that President Barack Obama was “listless” in the first debate of the election on Wednesday.
Vermont’s junior senator criticized the president for staking out areas of agreement with Gov. Mitt Romney, the GOP candidate, during the debate.
Sanders said the president’s approach was “disastrous.”
He told CNN: “The truth of the matter is, Mitt Romney right now is the head of a right-wing extremist party called the Republican Party. And if the president cannot differentiate himself clearly from right-wing extremism, we have a lot of problems as a nation and he has a lot of problems as a candidate running for re-election.”
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It seems the Rove/Romney camp carefully considered the George Lakoff messaging play book, and, carefully choosing their words, successfully feigned morality, common purpose and vision, while the Dems (whom we thought might have actually had some) ignored it. Oh well. I guess they think they know better.
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Actually, Sally, the GOP tends to channel pollster Frank Luntz, who popularized the term “death tax” that has gained so much traction. George Lakoff, who is a linguist, tends to advise Democrats, who often don’t take his advice.
By the way, back years ago, I once worked with a very young, callow Karl Rove, who was then in the early stages of perfecting his dark arts. Please don’t hold that against me.
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Obama looked asleep at the wheel and permitted Romney to take one more side on health care and other issues. Had Obama been awake and alert, he could have pointed out two things:
1. Whoever was in that room with him and Lehrer was not the Romney of the Republican primaries or the stump speeches with Paul Ryan, because the words and the messages were entirely different from what Romney serves up to the Republicans who come to listen to him. His pronouncements were the rankest type of pandering one might imagine.
2. One can document so many contradictory Romney pronouncements on health care (Republican primaries, stump speeches, Sixty Minutes interview, Meet the Press interview)and the debate, that if Romney were a pancake, he’d be an exceptional one, because he’d be well done on five sides.
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And the next day, the chattering class was talking about Big Bird and dissecting Romney’s lies more than anything else. And there are two debates left, neither of which fall on the President’s 20th wedding anniversary. If your wife looked that hot after 20 years married, you might be a little worn out on your 20th anniversary too. I think Bill Maher has that right.
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I for one am disappointed in Senator Sanders’ choice of words. In no way do I see nor do miillions of Americans see former Governor Romney as an “extremist”. Would our Senator welcome a reciprocal tag as a “left wing extremist”. Maybe we could lose such labels altogether and instead debate the individual issues, policies etc. that would be part of a healthy democracy.