On today’s Washington Watch, the host Roland Martin said that President Obama (Was Obama Scared of Romney) needed a “hype man” like Bundini Brown to walk him into the next debate. After the show, I switched to ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown and caught a feature on Ray Lewis, who gives motivational speeches on his off-days.
Lewis was shown giving pep talks to a high school football squad during a tornado (Oh yeah, RL is a bad man!), Loyola University players prior to their NCAA lacrosse championship game and to Stanford University men’s basketball prior to the NIT championship. Both Loyola and Stanford won their championship games.
Ray Lewis motivates! “I’m pissed off for greatness!”
I’m pissed off for greatness. Because [if] you ain’t pissed off for greatness, that mean you OK with being mediocre. Ain’t no man in here OK with being just space. So let’s do what we do. Tonight, we ain’t gotta worry about taking no breaks.
One Loyola player said that Ray Lewis scared him because he looks like “he’s staring into your soul.”
Just what Obama needs for his rematch with Romney.
With Ray Lewis in his head, President Obama should be able to demolish Mitt Romney despite the town hall format of the next debate. We know that President Obama is not OK with mediocre.
Sting young man, sting.
Muhammad Ali & Bundini Brown
Yes, or perhaps we are back to your Rope-A-Dope idea especially in how Romney looked silly championing the middle class (your next blog). I say:
FIXATED ON THE TIES
Dale Benjamin Drakeford
10-16-12
The ancestral history of the candidates make for good reading. In the president’s case there is nothing to indicate that he would ever be running for chief executive, let alone seeking a second term. In the challenger’s case, it was pretty much the only thing left for an ambitious family always seeking a promotion. Interesting contrast or not, it is obviously not the tie that binds. The tie that binds, in this context, is the one that connects the Adam’s Apple to the nation’s navel. As the first debate between Obama and Romney drifted into noise of no particular value, my minded drifted on the ties of red (Romney) and blue (Obama). I came to see the ties as subliminal message that nothing new is expected in voter national patterns of four years ago. The ties that bind are the independent thinkers that at the end, will choose the same as before—the next president of the United States of America. The tie that binds is stronger than any presence, style, performance or substance any debate may resolve. That the map is drawn and all that remains is the footwork to get to the booth and the hand work to manipulate the technology and log the facts of your unchanged position. I fought the feeling, but the psychological pull on the political psyche was strong.
I was not the only one fixated on the psychological possibilities to explain what we witnessed. My favorite talking head liberal Bill Maher had innuendo that Obama had misplaced his teleprompter (knowing that Obama’s big psychological advantage has always been no need for one). My least favorite talking head conservative Rush Limbaugh (did I spell that right?—I hope not) saw the Romney unexpected aggression as revealing of Obama’s concealed weakness. He thought the president could not adjust to the unexpected and thought democrats should be on “suicide watch,” with the new poll projections that have the combatants in a dead heat. My favorite conservative talking head (William F. Buckley) could not be channeled for his response, but if I could have pulled off that feat I suspect he would have lots to say about Obama’s “Ahs” and other nonsense speech pauses that might suggest he had amnesia of lessons learned in Public Speaking 101 (which was not on my radar at St. Johns University but was constantly on the tongues of my professors as they reminded me with graphic examples of why I must never do that). In unofficial Debate 101, the silent pause with a knowing look was the rule of thumb all students were expected to demonstrate. With Buckley not replying to my amateur séance, I settled on my favorite living conservative and George Will delivered an uncharacteristic “listless” performance evaluation. It was a short criticism, but brilliantly accurate. I was surprised that Will never said what I was thinking, that maybe the president was not feeling well or suffering the after-effects of too many late nights with celebrity types.
Then there was the opposite of brilliant from John Sununu (Romney’s co-chair who as an ex-Bush secretary is probably behind the subliminal demoting of the president with the constant referencing of his secretaries as the brains behind any success) who offered the equivalent of Obama as “lazy…stupid.” Then there is that little horror shop in NJ where the president is a paper cut-out witch doctor with a bone through his nose. The shop owner insists he is not racist just an unsatisfied member of our society expressing his First Amendment right to express his dissatisfaction (in this case with the national health care program). Liberals need to step back and be less sensitive. So what if the caption reads, “I told you I was sick.” The psychological subliminal message is not necessarily racist. Anyone can be sick. We can be sick of First Amendment activists with double edge messaging (but wait—that would require me to be sick of myself). The liberals saw all of this as “hidden message racism,” and it is always amusing to see liberals go crazy with such outbursts. I see nothing hidden about it, but more important the liberals must learn to see a clear First Amendment right to assess a public figure. The Post conservative writer (granted that sounds repetitious) Noah Goldberg not only thought Obama was lazy and stupid on the debate, but always had these characteristics. Goldberg claims that Obama’s only weapon is his “Puss n’ Boots eyes,” that can psychologically mesmerize his audience. Goldberg said the trance has worn off. My favorite Post writer is Michael Benjamin (the former New York City Assemblyperson). He had a more creative tilt. Writes Benjamin as an inquisitor to a thinking (rather than feeling) readership, “Did Obama pull a rope-a-dope?” Such a brilliant thought and fascinating question deserves our attention since Romney was clearly the aggressor. The rope-a-dope that I witness had Romney talking himself into a substance lacking corner and occasionally into the center ring where his lack of details on his abstract ideas scored a TKO to his absent “on-line” budget. Obama took the blows and dropped a few lines as if to subliminal score jabs that will impact later in the bout. I think the answer to Benjamin’s question is Yes! For example, the more Romney talked the more he advertised Obama’s programs. The listener constantly heard of what Obama has done, but the Romney record was MIA. Obama responded with the affirmative, “I like that term, Obamacare.” Later Romney hopped on “billions” for environmental research and experiments, and I kept thinking I like that more than the billions we spend on war. The hot wind of Romney will not power anything of value on planet earth, but maybe one of those grants will discover something that will one day. Then Romney talked himself into Big Bird and the friendly worm eater chewed him up better than any line from Obama (although “Flip Flop makeover” was good). The fact that the very next day Obama was back to the powerful energy we know talking about empowering “Sesame Street not Wall Street,” we can conclude that the “flip flop makeover” did not beat Benjamin’s rope-a-dope.
Even after the president name-dropped “the toupee” that I dropped in my last essay (making my ego swell with foresight) I could not let go of the accessory. Even after the challenger fired Big Bird, ruffled my comfort zone and plucked my emotional feathers, I could not fly away from the thin clothing at the center of their persons. Writing on the eve of the VP debate I knew it would be the ties that demanded my attention first. The reason is not psychological. Since the last three national elections, much has been made of “red states versus blue states.” Obama took a small bite out of the theory of unwavering loyalties in the last election, introducing a decisive victory to be found in the gray (undecided voters that rule in every state) and I suspect his bite will be even bigger in 2012 (even as my political kin wait silent—unlike me—for the black and white facts to shake clear of all the colorful impotent commentary). Even knowing that the ties themselves, symbolic of the divide and high stakes, are hard to dismiss, we are tied to the notion that this nation is still evolving into greatness.
Granted Mr. Jim Lehrer (the moderator and old school newsperson) was off his great game, but it was likely because he was struck by how well Mr. Romney played his new one. He was probably struck at how Obama was off his (or perhaps just candid about his new strategy). If it wasn’t rope-a-dope, it was “Dye-the-tie-the-map-we-vie.” In the end, the angry red lie will bleed true to the courage of executive blue. Either way, we were there to watch Romney not only fire real people but also symbolically liquidate Kermit and hardworking Miss Piggy too.
My psychological trip did have a few excursions. The first was for Drake’s Cakes as Romney scored a Foreman head rocker channeling the tone, tempo, timing and mannerism of Ronald Reagan to protest Obama’s criticism of his lack of budget numbers. Then there was the excursion to daydreams as Romney scored a Frazier left hook taking up the cause of the “47%” that he had previously disowned, but now suddenly pro social security and “entitlements” that they worked for. In this daydreamer case Romney became a flipping and flopping Gabby Douglas in new media inspired extensions flapping across the Americas with sensational turns and twists, but no longer pure in character. Finally there was the Larry Holmes combination in warmed-over Ali stinging like a bee, but multiplying like a donkey’s kick when Romney (who was supposed to present like listless Mike Dukakis instead) sounded like assertive Lloyd Benson shooting down VP Dan Quayle in 1988.
The polls showed Romney pulling even with Obama after the first debate, but Romney’s gymnastics, sucker punches, “makeovers” and extensions of the lie will not untie the subliminal discomfort of those to cast the deciding die on November 6th. Remember you heard the prediction here first.
Just as the tie fixation was wearing thin, the VP debate offered Biden in blue and Ryan in red. It was a superior debate with a better moderator performance. Biden wins with quick jabs consistently beating Ryan’s left swing untrustworthiness with the truth. Ryan only once used his right when forced by the moderator to personalize his religious influence (a demand I thought was out of line—not to mention contrary to separation of church and state, but hey, that’s just me). Biden had his equal time on this subject, but quickly jumped back to hampering his “friend” to where friends love enemies more. “Use your commonsense,” Biden said into the camera taking Ryan’s favorite tactic, “who do you trust?” It was a direct hit with the less than subliminal message that you cannot trust a documented right-winger who suddenly swings left. Bottom line goes to Biden because he put the middle class squarely at the center of the discussion ring and convincingly said, “I mean what I say’ (with the not so subliminal message: Romney and Ryan do not!).
So as we come to the last two debates, we must demand something more than dress code statements or the ability to step over a moderator. Will Romney finally give us that allusive budget that has been left out of being right on? That would be substantial and answer a lot of questions even for those of us already tied up. Most important, the ties that bind a great nation to great debate will unfold. You heard it here first. It is knock-out time.