Oh, Me of Little Faith

Barack Obama has a chance to redeem himself in tomorrow night's town-hall debate with Mitt Romney.  The President has an opportunity to answer his opponent's charges of lack of leadership on the economy and in the world, he can defend his record forcefully as Joe Biden did last week (Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive!), and he also has the chance to explain what a second Obama term would be like.

So why do I think Barry's gonna blow it?

Gee, I don't know.  Maybe it's because the format is different this time, and he can't answer Mitt directly; he has to respond to the undecided voters who ask the questions.  Maybe it's because moderator Candy Crowley is in a different position than Jim Lehrer or Martha Raddatz in this format.  Maybe it's because Obama has shown discomfort with voters who express their disappointment with him, as he did in that town hall event aired on CNBC when a woman asked how she could justify continued support for him.  Maybe it's because he cannot and will not stop talking like the professor he is.

But then, if Obama is toast after tomorrow night, maybe it won't be because of anything he does or doesn't do.  Maybe, in a country where people prefer lies to the truth, it will be because Romney will keep lying and people will keep believing him no matter how many times Obama tries to call him on his statements.  Maybe, just maybe, enough people in this generally stupid country will be taken in by Romney and hand him the keys to the kingdom and make him the 45th - and first Mormon - U.S. President.

Which reminds me, as always, of a quote from the late Paul Fussell.  "When did the dumbing of America begin?" Fussell wrote in 1991.  "Some rude skeptics and vulgar wits, to whom nothing is scared, might want to locate the origins of 'creeping nincompoopism' . . . in the 1830s, when Joseph Smith took from dictation a number of miserably written narratives and injunctions conveyed to him by the angel Moroni and then persuaded a number of hicks to begin a new religion." 

I think we're about to fulfill our destiny, folks.

I won't be able to watch the debate live tomorrow owing to a previous engagement, but I plan to watch it on tape (yes, I still have a VCR) the following morning.  I'll cross my fingers.  But I'm not very confident. :-(