Review of the Second Presidential Debate Q2, CROSSTALK 2012

And we're back. When we left before, Obama was talking shit about Romney, and Romney was spewing lies. Nothing new. Once again, I'm using the Washington Post transcript of the debate.

CROWLEY: Mr. President, the next question is going to be for you here.

And, Mr. Romney — Governor Romney — there’ll be plenty of chances here to go on, but I want to…

ROMNEY: That — that Detroit — that Detroit answer…

CROWLEY: We have all these folks.

ROMNEY: … that Detroit answer…

CROWLEY: I will let you absolutely…

ROMNEY: … and the rest of the answer, way off the mark.

CROWLEY: OK. Will — will — you certainly will have lots of time here coming up.

Reading this transcript makes it much more hilarious than watching it live. But, here we go. We're getting to the parts where the debate turns into rambling shit, nearly the beginning. Romney wants to answer to Obama's obvious bashing of Romney, and in an attempt to be a strong moderator, Crowley and Romney cut each other off for about ten to fifteen seconds, by my estimation. It was quite the debate strategy Romney went after. MAYBE IF I TALK THE ENTIRE TIME I'LL WIN.

The moderator won this exchange kind of, once Romney realized that he was on national TV trying to strong-arm people around. We then moved on to question number two:

QUESTION: Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating it’s not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department?

I actually like this question. It's an interesting question to ask, and I think on either side you have valid arguments. Let's see how our candidates reacted.

OBAMA: The most important thing we can do is to make sure we control our own energy. So here’s what I’ve done since I’ve been president. We have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years.

Natural gas production is the highest it’s been in decades. We have seen increases in coal production and coal employment.  

Politicians have an uncanny ability of not actually answering questions while talking about related things. Not wanting to be dismissive, Obama immediately redirects the question onto what he thinks is important: FUCK YEAH, FOSSIL FUELS. Because that's exactly what we need Obama. Hydraulic fracturing. So what if it might actually be causing earthquakes. But you know, Obama has to be centrist. He has to appeal to anyone, and everyone, and even their pet dogs.

He goes on to talk about a lot more stuff, even some good stuff like raising fuel efficiency standards.

OBAMA: And all these things have contributed to us lowering our oil imports to the lowest levels in 16 years. Now, I want to build on that. And that means, yes, we still continue to open up new areas for drilling. We continue to make it a priority for us to go after natural gas. We’ve got potentially 600,000 jobs and 100 years worth of energy right beneath our feet with natural gas.

And we can do it in an environmentally sound way. But we’ve also got to continue to figure out how we have efficiency energy, because ultimately that’s how we’re going to reduce demand and that’s what’s going to keep gas prices lower.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha, we can get all of the natural gas out in an environmentally sound way. Right. And then, he manages to sneak in the thing the question was actually about, because even though it isn't the focus, yes, Obama does care about your gas prices and wants them to be lower.

Of course, no response is complete without telling the world HOW TERRIBLE ROMNEY IS since last time some people thought Obama didn't do enough of that.

Now, Governor Romney will say he’s got an all-of-the-above plan, but basically his plan is to let the oil companies write the energy policies. So he’s got the oil and gas part, but he doesn’t have the clean energy part. And if we are only thinking about tomorrow or the next day and not thinking about 10 years from now, we’re not going to control our own economic future. Because China, Germany, they’re making these investments. And I’m not going to cede those jobs of the future to those countries. I expect those new energy sources to be built right here in the United States.

GOSH THAT ROMNEY GUY IS SO HORRIBLE AND CHINA AND OIL AND ECONOMY AND I LOVE AMERICA. Fuck. Seriously, we get it. You have to do everything you can to pretend that you're different than Romney and that he's an evil robot and you're awesome and likeable.

And, then we have Romney's response:

ROMNEY: Well, let’s look at the president’s policies, all right, as opposed to the rhetoric, because we’ve had four years of policies being played out. And the president’s right in terms of the additional oil production, but none of it came on federal land. As a matter of fact, oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production was down 9 percent. Why? Because the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands, and in federal waters.

So where’d the increase come from? Well a lot of it came from the Bakken Range in North Dakota. What was his participation there? The administration brought a criminal action against the people drilling up there for oil, this massive new resource we have. And what was the cost? 20 or 25 birds were killed and brought out a migratory bird act to go after them on a criminal basis.

This is a familiar argument from Romney. He's basically saying that Obama is all talk, and doesn't actually do anything that he says he does. Because when the figures say something nice about Romney or bad about Obama, they're awesome. But when they say something bad about Romney or good about Obama, best be ready for the SIX OTHER STUDIES that Romney has in his back pocket.

Then, Romney proceeds to go scaremongering and encourage all the government takeover conspiracy hacks by showing just how overbearing "the administration" is. I can see them sitting in their rocking chairs, spittoon in lap, gun in hands, thinking "awwww shit Marty, if dat black man's willin to sue Nort Dakotee 'cuz of some got damn birds I darn well know he's comin' for mah gun next."

Yeah, you know it Marty. But, OIL! Oil is God. Oil is all we need. Fuck everyone else who doesn't love oil.

ROMNEY: And if we do that, if we do what I’m planning on doing, which is getting us energy independent, North America energy independence within eight years, you’re going to see manufacturing jobs come back. Because our energy is low cost, that are already beginning to come back because of our abundant energy. I’ll get America and North America energy independent. I’ll do it by more drilling, more permits and licenses.

We’re going to bring that pipeline in from Canada. How in the world the president said no to that pipeline? I will never know.

This is about bringing good jobs back for the middle class of America, and that’s what I’m going to do.

BIG PROMISES. We are going to be energy independent in eight years. That sounds fucking awesome. Let's do that. How do we do that though? I guess we trust in Mitt. AND JERBS. OH MY GOSH JERBS. WE NEED JERBS. Especially manufacturing JERBS. YEAH!!!11!!.

JERBS.

And then we have our wonderful moderator, Candy, trying to actual get them to answer a question.

CROWLEY: Mr. President, let me just see if I can move you to the gist of this question, which is, are we looking at the new normal? I can tell you that tomorrow morning, a lot of people in Hempstead will wake up and fill up and they will find that the price of gas is over $4 a gallon.

Is it within the purview of the government to bring those prices down, or are we looking at the new normal? 

It's awesome that the moderator has to re-ask the question after they have both had a significant amount of time to speak about it. Hoorah for not actually answering anything.

OBAMA: Candy, there’s no doubt that world demand’s gone up, but our production is going up, and we’re using oil more efficiently. And very little of what Governor Romney just said is true.

Look, he manages to keep not answering the question at all. Fucking congrats, Obama. And yes, ROMNEY LIAR, HE SO BAD, HE NO TELL TRUTH NEVERSSSS.

OBAMA: And natural gas isn’t just appearing magically.

Stop the presses. It ISN'T appearing magically. Fuck me sideways.

OBAMA: And when I hear Governor Romney say he’s a big coal guy, I mean, keep in mind, when — Governor, when you were governor of Massachusetts, you stood in front of a coal plant and pointed at it and said, “This plant kills,” and took great pride in shutting it down. And now suddenly you’re a big champion of coal.

So what I’ve tried to do is be consistent. 

Oh look, Romney is a waffler? Yeah, Romney is a waffler. You guys sure do seem to not like each other at all. Which is really strange, because you are both advocating for more coal and more oil and more natural gas and more everything fucking else that is trying to destroy our fucking country. Good work, chaps.

OBAMA: And the proof is our oil imports are down to the lowest levels in 20 years. Oil production is up, natural gas production is up, and, most importantly, we’re also starting to build cars that are more efficient.

And that’s creating jobs. 

JERBS. MOTHERFUCKER, JERBS. JERBS. JERBS. JERBS. JERBS. JERBS. JERBS. JERBS.

And then this happened:

ROMNEY: But that’s not what you’ve done in the last four years. That’s the problem. In the last four years, you cut permits and licenses on federal land and federal waters in half.

OBAMA: Not true, Governor Romney.

ROMNEY: So how much did you cut (inaudible)?

OBAMA: Not true.

ROMNEY: How much did you cut them by, then?

OBAMA: Governor, we have actually produced more oil –

ROMNEY: No, no. How much did you cut licenses and permits on federal land and federal waters?

OBAMA: Governor Romney, here’s what we did. There were a whole bunch of oil companies.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: No, no, I had a question and the question was how much did you cut them by?

OBAMA: You want me to answer a question –

ROMNEY: How much did you cut them by?

OBAMA: I’m happy to answer the question.

ROMNEY: All right. And it is –

So basically, this is the rest of the debate: JERBS, YOU SUCK (OBAMA/ROMNEY), JERBS, JERBS, and interrupt each other talking about jobs to talk about fucking jobs. JOBS. Motherfucker is dead, you think they'd let him rest in peace.

Seriously, the rest of the transcipt becomes even fucking harder to read because they just cut each other off so much the person transcribing has to result to (CROSSTALK) because they can't fucking hear what either person is saying.

That is as apt of a metaphor for this election as will ever exist.

CROSSTALK 2012.