Romney Handily Handled in Second Debate, Cries Foul

The second presidential debate is in the history books, and unlike the empty chair present at the RNC and the first debate, Obama came out swinging and made Governor Mitt Romney look like nothing but a third rate amateur… so he cried foul.

He didn’t blame the altitude or jet lag, but he might as well have. Instead the conservative media is blaming CNN moderator Candy Crowley for being openly pro-Obama, when what she actually was, was pro-fact.

RIGHT: If looks could kill, this bloodshot visage of the Republican nominee would certainly be enough to do the trick. (CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE AND SEE IT IN ITS FULL, HORRIFIC GLORY).

It’s a well known axiom that reality has a well-documented liberal bias. If you don’t believe it, check out Conservapedia for their unskewed take on it. Or better, take UnskewedPolls for an even fatter dose of the madness.

But Romney’s biggest opponent today isn’t Candy Crowley, and it isn’t Obama. No, Mitt Romney’s biggest opponent is himself and his record of half-truths and outright lies.

I worked in a bi-partisan manner

Well first of all, no you didn’t. When you were governor you vetoed 800 bills that came across your desk, and when they were sent back down to the house, 707 of them came back with veto-override. So while your state accomplished much, it did so in spite of you, not because of you.

Obama went on an “apology tour”

This was repeated again at the town hall debate, and if I hear it again, I might just have to punch a baby. No, I’m not a monster. I don’t mean an American baby, but a conservative baby. I just don’t want them growing up with the lies of their parents. Put simply, there was no aplogy tour… period, end of story. Do you even know what an apology is?

I created a small business

Well first of all, no you didn’t, but second of all, no you most certainly did not. What you created had millions in startup capital before you applied for your business license, and thanks to Bill Bain, you had no skin in the game. You couldn’t have lost a nickel in the venture if you tried, and from all appearances, you did try. It quickly grew into a multi-national conglomorate, and that’s by no mistake.

But more importantly, you never founded anything, save for Bain Capital. You bought existing businesses on margins and credit, stripped them of their worth, shipped jobs overseas even when they were profitable, looted pension funds, layed off workers by the hundreds, and whether the company had enough value on paper to sell or just go bankrupt, you walked away with millions in profit.

I’ve worked in small businesses. They never traded in business like this. There was always a down-side, and it was always just around the corner. To say that you know what small business go through is insulting to the millions in this country that work 60-80 hours a week just to put food on the table.

I balanced the budget at the Olypmics

Yes you did, and only with a BILLION DOLLAR bailout from the federal government. So how will you “balance the budget” when you’re the president? By taking a ten trillion dollar bailout from the last country standing with that much money to invest? I’d have to guess that’s China, but you promised to crack down on them and declare them a currency manipulator on day-one, so I can’t imagine they’ll step up to the plate.

Obama waited 14-days to call Benghazi an act of terror

I’m glad Candy Crowly called you out on this lie, because it’s one you’ve been telling for weeks. Even if it was true, it wouldn’t mean anything, but you’ve harped on it, and it still isn’t true. Pick something you’re right about and go with that, or just stick with something you’re wrong about, and don’t be surprised when you get called on it and it results in an applause break in a televised debate in front of tens of millions of voters.

Employers should decide women’s health issues

You spent an awful lot of time on the campaign trail touting your credentials as a religious conservative, even though your religion is quite different from those you’ve taken contributions from. You’ve promised in no uncertain terms to curtail women’s health rights.

At the debate you suggested women should have the right to choose their own health decisions, not their employers, but this is in direct contradiction to what you’ve said before, and we took you at face value then. So which Mitt Romney is lying, governor?

Refused to take a side on Fair Pay for women

Romney touts an ounce of love for the ladies. He even said he once supported a woman going home to make dinner for her kids, assuming she worked on flex time and came in to make up the overtime at a later date. What he refused to do was take a stand on fair pay for women, specifically the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would take a great step forward towards the equity of pay for hard working American women in the workplace. He was asked, quite directly, if he would support it, but he refused to answer. Instead he offered platitudes about women he has known and women he has worked with, without ever providing any meaningful details about their actual working conditions or scale of pay.

If he supported it, it would be an easy answer: yes, I support fair pay for women. I support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But that answer never came. Instead he talked about “binders of women”, which was even worse than not anwering.

I got a binder full of women to choose from

When asked about women in the workplace and fair pay, rather than just saying he supports it, which would be easy and unverifiable, he chose to point out that he requested a study be conducted to find women capable of taking men’s jobs in his home state of Massachusettes. He said he commissioned this request, and that it was provided. The problem is, that’s a load of what Joe Biden would call “Malarkey”.

The binder was on his desk before he even got in office. It was put in place by women who knew even better than he did that women were going to face an uphill battle in the state of Massachussetes. He never requested that information, it was already there waiting for him.

But the bigger question is why, after 25 years in business, did he not know any capable women to fill leadership roles. He had run countless businesses, many of them into the ground, admittedly, but surely along the way he had met dozens of women who were educated, motivated, competent and eager to take positions of influence in his office. Why did he have zero names on the top of his head? Does he really think so little of women that he had to “reach out to women’s groups” to find them?

This is not just insulting to women, this is insulting to Mitt Romney. I know he had to go to his wife to understand women’s issues, even though her only job in life has been raising five creepy robo-sons, but even this is beyond the pale.

The government doesn’t create jobs!

Never mind that Governor Romney spent the last 90-minutes telling you how his administration would create 12 million new jobs in four years, a figure that analysts predict will happen regardless of who is president, at the eleventh hour he’s saying government can’t create jobs… so which is it? Both? Neither? It seems he wants to take all sides of every issue, so let’s just leave it at that.

So who am I supposed to vote for?

Should I vote for the “hope & change” guy that only delivered half of what he promised, or the guy with no moral compass willing to lie about anything and everything to win the last odd vote?

It’s a tough choice.

I haven’t cast my ballot yet, so maybe you can persuade me. Post your comments below telling me who I should vote for and why, and I’ll let you know what I come up with.