Cynicism, Part III
I was so disgusted by the lying the in first presidential debate this year that I only made it through 5 minutes of it before having to change the channel. For the second debate, I was a bit more prepared, and made it through 10 minutes. I blogged about both of those previously in the entries, Cynicism and Cynicism, Part II. This time, I watched about 10 minutes of the debate before changing the channel to something less frustrating. Just to continue the trend, here are some links to articles fact checking the debate. Like for the first two, neither candidate was completely honest, but one seems especially prone to lying.
- FactCheck.org - False Claims in Final Debate
- PolitiFact.com - Fact-checking the third presidential debate
- Politico - Fact-checking the third presidential debate
- CBS News - Fact-checking the final presidential debate
- NPR - Facts Got Twisted Again In Last Debate
During the few minutes that I did watch the debate, I heard a disheartening discussion. It shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I agree with Obama on many more issues than Romney. There are still several issues where I disagree with Obama, though. One of the biggest, which literally infuriates me, is Obama's use of the double tap drone strike (read a sober account of this on The Guardian, or a more colorful account on Pharyngula). This is practically comic book level villainy - attacking a target, waiting for emergency personnel to show up, and then attacking again. To be honest, if I had any belief that presidents would be held accountable, I'd like to see Obama and Bush both taken to the Hague over their actions in the fight against terrorism.
So when Bob Schieffer asked Romney, "What is your position on the use of drones?", Romney had the opportunity to call out Obama on this horrible practice. Instead, he said this (emphasis mine).
Well, I believe that we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world. And it's widely reported that drones are being used in drone strikes, and I support that entirely and feel the president was right to up the usage of that technology and believe that we should continue to use it to continue to go after the people who represent a threat to this nation and to our friends.
So we have a sitting president committing acts that would have been labeled as terrorism just a few years ago, and his opponent enthusiastically agreeing that the President did the right thing.