The debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on October 3rd revealed the pathetic “abilities” of our prospective presidents. It was like a pair of underachieving 5 th graders told to write a debate within 20 minutes in class who later learn that their two sentence speech was supposed to be three paragraphs.
This debate, like that situation, was awkward, repetitive, and boring as the candidates scrambled to make their point when the other said an unexpected zinger. There was even a Big Bird reference, as if that doesn’t prove how desperate Romney is for attention.
Over and over and over, Obama accused Romney of something. Romney told him it was not true, over and over and over. Obama, unsure how to respond intelligently to being caught, accused him of the same thing again to which Romney once again denied. This went on for like fifteen minutes as if they had only two ideas about government.
As I watched them each wait for the other to quit babbling, I couldn’t help but notice their vacant overly polite smiles that appeared robotic and bored as they scrambled in their minds for a rebuttal, lips tight, and eyes bulging out. It reminded me of my experiences in acting, when the really bad actors come onstage, say their lines and then lose all emotion and get completely out of character as they examine their nails and try to remember their next lines. It was childish, pathetic, and super creepy.
The debate seemed very shallow and you didn’t see them trying very hard, especially Obama, who seemed to me to believe he’s got the election in the bag after Romney’s comment about not caring about that 47%. It appeared scripted, and Romney was even seen pulling what appeared to be note cards* out of his pocket at eight seconds in. Ouch!
When forced to write down quotes about a topic for journalism, it took me over an hour to find two quotes from each about my topic, education, because all they did was repeat the same ideas and barely scraped on the subject, basically just saying it was important to be an educated nation and rephrasing it without explanations that lasted more than two sentences.
One of my quotes ended up having to be “I think we’ve got to invest in education and training,” said by President Obama in the opening. It was a bland, colorless, and not altogether informative sentence that could easily have been cut. In fact, I think about 7/8 of the debate was so useless and repetitive that they could have cut it, and then I wouldn’t have had to fall asleep watching it at 11:30 pm after my tiring play performance. The other 1/8 consisted of their numerous lies and distoritions.
What does this say about the future of America? President-wise, I’d say that we’re doomed, with candidates who can’t even give a debate worthy of 10-year-olds. Our candidates are both pretty inadequate choices, in my opinion, with Romney spouting out facts that make voters hate him and Obama playing a broken record for an hour in the debate while making no real point. If I was eighteen, even though I’d be eager to exercise my new voting power, I would not vote at all because both choices are unfit to be in the White House.
Let’s give a hand to the prospective future leaders of America, everybody, who failed to impress a politically inactive 14-year-old. Nice job, guys!
I certainly won’t be tuning in to future speeches (unless they’re mandatory, which tends to
frequently be the case in high school) because that was just depressing. If you are wondering whether to watch the debate, don’t waste your time. You didn’t miss anything. There goes an hour that this sleep-deprived teenager will never get back and one that, if you’re smart, you’ll save yourself. Go listen to the fifth graders instead, because at least one of them may have something intelligent to say.
*The alleged note cards were later revealed to be a handkerchief.
