Two Things

So I am sitting here watching the presidential candidates at the Al Smith dinner on MSNBC. As a side note, I only really know about the Al Smith dinner because of a West Wing episode. It really is interesting the things you can learn watching TV.

I have taken to watching more MSNBC. I watched the second debate on MSNBC the other night. I thought the President did pretty well, maybe not as well as the anchors thought. More than that, I think the anchors on the left have been giving a little too much credit or piling on a little heavy.

Romney really took a hit for his response to the pay equity question. That was the unfortunate "binders full of women" moment. He did wind up meandering and didn't so much answer the question, but if you listen to the response that isn't really where he started. He started talking about his chief of staff and the length of her work day. I think he was heading for what is a typical response on pay equity, that women make less because they need typically need more flexibility, that they want more time off and so if you are paying someone a salary it is reasonable to pay them less because overall they will work less time.

I kind of wish he had managed to get that point out of his mouth instead of talking about hiring women in general. It would be interesting to see the public discourse over that standard response - to say nothing of President Obama's response during the debate.

The other thing. But for word smithing I think it is possible that Mitt was right about the Libya thing. THe point he was trying to make was that in the near time frame the story from the administration was that the embassy attack was tied to the "Innocence of the Muslims" video as opposed to a choreographed attack on the anniversary of 9/11. That is my recollection from watching the news too, that it took a couple of days until the story changed from spontaneous reactionary riot to organized terrorist plot.

That in the speech the President referred to the attack as an act of terror is immaterial because that isn't the heart of the charge. Romney's point was that the administration had failed to recognize an organized terrorist attack for what it was, not that the President hadn't called it terrorism. It is interesting that Romney couldn't hold himself together enough to recognize what was happening and wound up looking foolish arguing over the exact words.

But if you lean left you should maybe know that although he whiffed it on TV, Mitt and his people have better answers to those issues and we can't count on him to stumble again.