Mitt the Shape Shifter Falls on Obama’s Bayonet

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Let’s start with the blindingly obvious: President Obama won last night’s debate in Boca Raton, and won it easily. According to a CBS instant poll of uncommitted voters, his margin of victory was thirty points—fifty-three per cent to twenty-three per cent—a bigger margin even than the one Mitt Romney enjoyed in Denver a few weeks ago. On the question of who would better handle terrorism and national security, the split in Obama’s favor was almost as large: sixty-four per cent to thirty-six per cent.

These figures are hardly surprising. From Obama’s very first answer, when he said to his opponent, “Your strategy previously has been one that has been all over the map,” to near the end, when he said, “Governor Romney, you keep trying to airbrush history,” he was the more aggressive debater, the more polished, the more persuasive, and the more punitive. Before the first debate, his aides proclaimed him above the use of “zingers.” On this occasion, he came with his pockets bulging with them, none more zingy than his crack about the military having fewer bayonets and horses than it did in 1916—a riposte that clearly had been prepared for use if Romney repeated his line about the U.S. Navy having fewer warships now than it had almost a hundred years ago, which indeed he did. Not content with mocking his opponent once, Obama proceeded to do it twice more: “We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them,” he said. “We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”

If that was the sound bite of the evening, there were lots more high moments for the President, some of them supplied, mystifyingly enough, by his opponent, who was engaged in what amounted to a shape-shifting exercise too far. Having observed how well his “Mitt the Moderate” act went down Denver, the G.O.P. candidate had evidently decided to reprise it in the arena of foreign policy. On issue after issue—Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, the pursuit of Al Quada—he aligned himself with the Administration’s policies, backing away from his previous criticisms, and from any suggestion that he might govern as a bellicose warmonger.


Asked about the United States’ role in the world, he said: “Our purpose is to make sure the world is more—is peaceful. We want a peaceful planet. We want people to be able to enjoy their lives and know they’re going to have a bright and prosperous future, not be at war.” In response to a question about how he would go beyond the Administration’s efforts to topple the Assad regime, he said: “I don’t want to have our military involved in Syria.” Nor in Afghanistan. Where previously he had questioned Obama’s commitment to bring all the troops home by 2014, he now declared: “We’re going to be finished by 2014, and when I’m President, we’ll make sure we bring our troops out by the end of 2014.” Around the country, conservatives were watching with increasing alarm. “How many times has Romney said the president is right tonight,” Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review, tweeted about fifteen minutes before the end. “i thought he shld try to be a little above the fray, but this is a bit much.” Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, agreed, tweeting: “Romney’s closing statement better save this performance, or he’s a big loser tonight.”

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