Postscript to the Debate: Odds and Ends

In case any of them is of interest:

• Obama “Uh” Counter

• Matthew Continetti and Jonah Goldberg offer their thoughts on how liberals reacted to Obama’s performance.

• Charles Krauthammer suggests that Romney not only “won big” but did so “in an unusual way”—without any single home-run line on Romney’s part, but also without any particular gaffes or openings on Obama’s part for him to take advantage of.

• Mark Steyn, as usual, is must-read material.  I have been very surprised by how much liberals are trying to make of the mention of Sesame Street—to hear some tell it, that moment should be both political poison to Romney (for threatening to cut a popular, non-threatening program) and considered a moral failing (if we must worry about things like deficits, why bother with small potatoes like PBS subsidies?).  Unfortunately, the two arguments are contradictory.  If Big Bird is the new third rail of American politics, how can we possibly reform the real spending problems, like the entitlement programs?  If it’s political suicide to suggest cutting something peripheral and small like PBS, we may as well all admit that government can never be reduced at all, ever; it can only grow and grow, for ever and ever, world without end, amen.

Related entry: “Romney 1, Obama 0”