dave_w wrote:
Quel wrote:
Okay, I see it.
Sounds like the Libya question from the previous debate. Obama was focusing on what Romney said instead of what the real issue was. Which doesn't help. But maybe Romney should be setting things up better. Looking back on the transcript, he did mention that the Navy needs 313 ships to carry out their CURRENT mission but only has 285. That's a good point. Then he fucked it all up. That got lost because of his 1916 crap.
ding ding! Romney is right on the actual point, Obama thinks he "won", and maybe he did with his base. My take is that it was another snarky moment that cuts into Obama's "likeability" and ultimately, his favorable ratings, and those things matter more with folks in the middle.
You DO realize that the low point of our ship count since the 19th century was in 2007 (278), since then we have added 9 New destroyers and 2 littoral combat ships while decommissioning some old frigates. Our count has risen to 285 since Obama took over and more ships are coming, so even though this argument that Obama is crippling the navy is absolutely absurd, it's also wrong.
My unreliable, liberal source is
http://www.history.navy.mil/...ches/org9-4.htm#2000 When it comes to the bitching about visiting Israel, Reagan never visited Israel as president and GW didn't go until his second term in 2008, Papa Bush never went as president either. Irrelevant? Yes, but don't attack someone for not doing it ENOUGH when your guys never did it.
The real question that wasn't answered last night, or even asked by the moderator was the issue of Europe and the situation in the EU. Our economic growth and stability of worldwide credit markets are more in the hands of the EU right now than our own. Every day there continues to be uncertainty in the EU and contraction in the eurozone it squeezes our recovery further. There was not ONE question about candidates views on the issues of Spain, Greece, or the future of the EU. This was ridiculous. An unstable, contracting EU is the number one worldwide economic issue right now and we will not grow at 3%+ until they get there shit together and we need to help leverage and facilitate this. Instead we were talking about the size of our WW1 fleet as if the lusitania was just sunk by the kaiser, the ocean apparently doesn't touch Iran anymore and Romney talked about Mali as if a dirt poor, landlocked country that is 90% Muslim having an Al-qaeda presence is shocking. Maybe we should attack them since they have a few uranium mines too. I will sign back up for that, i've always wanted to see that camel train carrying the salt into timbuktu. White gold baby!
With the crises in the EU going on and directly effecting the US economy, Mali should never be mentioned more than Greece, Spain or Germany. Absurd.
I did appreciate Romney calling out the Chinese for being counterfeiting, fraudulent thieves. Counterfeiting and intellectual theft by the Chinese is a much, much bigger issue than we give it credit for.