The first presidential debate of 2012 is now behind us.<\/p>\n
And Republican challenger Mitt Romney won it handily.\u00a0<\/p>\n
No one challenges this verdict.\u00a0 Even President Obama\u2019s most ardent supporters concede it by way of the truly laughable excuses to which they\u2019ve resorted in accounting for the decisive drubbing that their candidate received.<\/p>\n
But while the conventional wisdom concerning the victor is sound enough, the conventional wisdom concerning the debate\u2019s loser is not so much.<\/p>\n
Obama, we are told, was \u201coff his game.\u201d\u00a0 From Denver\u2019s altitude to personal family issues, every conceivable rationale has been offered by the President\u2019s admirers to explain how or why he was \u201coff his game.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
No explanation is necessary, however, because there is nothing to explain: Obama was not <\/em>off his game.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Obama who arrived for his showdown with Romney is the same Obama that we have been seeing for the last four to five years, the Obama who clashed with and defeated John McCain in 2008.\u00a0 He was cool and collected.\u00a0 He spoke reasonably well.\u00a0 He smirked and didn\u2019t spare the occasion to look down his nose at his rival a time or two.\u00a0 He threw out the same sound bites to which the country has had the great misfortune of being subjected for what now seems like an eternity.<\/p>\n Things like the widely accepted notion that Obama\u2019s heart didn\u2019t join the rest of his body in Denver are what happen when illusion and reality clash.<\/p>\n The illusion is what we may call \u201cthe Messianic syndrome\u201d (TMS).\u00a0 Obama suffers from TMS, it is true, but so do his supporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 closest disciples came to recognize Him as the Messiah before He was arrested, tried, and crucified.\u00a0 Yet upon witnessing His Passion, they lost faith.\u00a0 From the debris of their shattered messianic expectations doubt and even despair took flight.\u00a0 It took the Resurrection to resurrect their belief in Jesus\u2019 true identity.<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s disciples have also had messianic expectations for their leader to fulfill.\u00a0 In part this is because Obama himself has done everything to give rise to those expectations. Yet it is also partially owing to the fact that his followers\u2014particularly his followers in the media\u2014have been just as diligent in creating those expectations as has Obama himself.<\/p>\n The problem, though, is that Obama and his accomplices in the media have been laboring away at this enterprise for so long that they have actually come to believe their own hype.\u00a0 Obama, they are convinced, truly is <\/em>the Messiah.\u00a0 Because of this, he deserves to be recognized as such by everyone\u2014including his opponents.<\/p>\n Messiahs are supposed to be bottomless fonts of wisdom and virtue.\u00a0 Messiahs are supposed to be more intelligent than everyone and anyone else.\u00a0 Messiahs are expected to prevail over all countervailing forces.<\/p>\n And this is all because Messiahs are expected to redeem <\/em>those to whom they have been sent.<\/p>\n Just as Jesus\u2019 disciples were paralyzed with shock when they saw their Messiah crucified, so too are Obama\u2019s followers still reeling in shock from the sight of the verbal crucifixion that their messiah suffered courtesy of Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n Of course, because Jesus really was the Messiah, His glorious Resurrection was more than enough to vindicate the faith that His disciples had placed in Him.\u00a0 The reality, as opposed to the illusion, is that Obama, on the other hand, is no kind of messiah at all.\u00a0 Thus, rather than accept this, he and his followers have no option but to avail themselves of any and every means\u2014however preposterous\u2014that enables them to evade reality.<\/p>\n And the cold, merciless reality is that their candidate lost, and lost resoundingly, not because he was unprepared or disengaged.\u00a0 He lost because, for at least the first time since he has been in the national limelight, Obama had to square off with a man who is in every respect his superior.<\/p>\n Whether measured in terms of intelligence, worldliness, articulation, or even physical appearance, Romney outshines Obama by miles.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is the ugly reality that Obama and his disciples can\u2019t acknowledge.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, reality is persistent.\u00a0 It has a way of creeping into the consciousness.\u00a0 Things are only going to get worse for the One and his followers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Obama will be more fired up during the next debate, for certain.\u00a0 But it will be to no avail.\u00a0 Romney can no more desist in overshadowing Obama than the Sistine Chapel can desist in eclipsing \u201cpiss Christ\u201d as an artwork.<\/p>\n Illusions are beginning to give way to reality.<\/p>\n originally published at Townhall.com\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first presidential debate of 2012 is now behind us. And Republican challenger Mitt Romney won it handily.\u00a0 No one challenges this verdict.\u00a0 Even President Obama\u2019s most ardent supporters concede it by way of the truly laughable excuses to which they\u2019ve resorted in accounting for the decisive drubbing that their candidate received. But while the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n