Without taking anything away from Mitt Romney fans who think their man cleaned President Obama's clock tonight, it was the President who threw in the towel early on when he signaled that he wasn't going to fight back against the effective punches thrown by Romney. And while political commentators and average viewers alike are shaking their heads in bewilderment after the President's performance trying to understand why he took punch after punch without fighting back, I think I know the reason why: Tucker Carlson
It was Carlson who threw the President off of his stride by releasing a tape yesterday at his website, The Daily Caller, of the President speaking to a group of ministers in angry tones that he has studiously avoided heretofore.
Tonight, the President was debating not the man in front of him, Mitt Romney, but Tucker Carlson, in a determined effort to counter the image of the angry civil rights activist portrayed in the tape. Instead of fighting the battle in front of him, he was fighting yesterday's war-literally-trying to show that he wasn't angry and in the process losing to Romney in what will likely go down as one of the most devastating performances in the history of presidential debates.