Obama's Victory

President Obama won the final debate hands down last night, while international man of shambling Willard "Horses and Bayonets" Romney floundered and embraced many of President Obama's positions for the first time. Willard seemed lost and flustered for much of the evening, as he debated the President on the President's strongest turf. Here are a couple of memorable jabs that the President threw at Willard:

“Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s.”

"You mention the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. We have these things called aircraft carriers and planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."

The post debate polls and commentary clearly gave the President the win. The neocons that support Horses and Bayonets must be wetting their Underoos today, with their candidate trying to be the "peace" candidate, avoiding all of the bellicose rhetoric that he's engaged in for 18 months. We've rarely seen such a cynical, phony re-make of a political candidate at the last minute as with Willard. If anyone needed proof that he lacks a core and will say anything to "close the deal," last night should have provided it in spades. It's come down to character, and Willard can't fake it anymore that he doesn't have any.

The Final Presidential Debate

Most voters are not focused on foreign policy issues, unless one candidate or another is a flaming bomb-thrower who can't be trusted with the nuclear football. So, tonight's final Presidential debate should be "advantage Obama" given some demonstrable successes, which he'll hopefully have the good sense to highlight.

For his slippery opponent, pathological liar Willard "I'll Say Anything" Romney, the job becomes one of repeating "apology," "appeasement," and "China" over and over again. Here's Ed Kilgore's take on the match up:

"Perhaps the strategic calculation of the Romney campaign is that having drawn even with Obama via mendacious positioning on domestic issues, his job tonight is to look 'responsible' and reduce the impression that he’s going to bring the exact same crowd that gave us the Iraq disaster back into power, just as determined to launch a war with Iran right now as they were to launch a war with Iraq when they gained power in 2001. But in a campaign where foreign policy has simply offered Romney martial background music for his main pitch, focusing on it for 90 minutes without visibly frothing for war or looking like a stooge for defense contractors or his friend Bibi won’t be easy. My guess is that he’ll spend much of the debate trying to change the subject back to the economy under the tired but ever-ready argument that America is getting sand kicked in its face on the international beach because of its economic puniness. So we need a good strong domestic austerity plan to buff ourselves up. It makes no real sense at all, but the good thing about Mitt Romney as a candidate is that he can say the most astounding things with a straight face."

Obama might want to ask Willard who is advising him on foreign and national security policy, and see if the names John "The 'Stache" Bolton and Dan "Bibi's Bud" Senor come up.