News & Politics

Emily Lindstrand • October 25, 2012

The line wound around George Mason University’s athletic field, filled with people eager to see President Barack Obama speak. They sat with energy drinks and made trips to the nearby Starbucks as they waited for the Oct. 19 event to start. Many were there as early as 3 a.m., but most agreed that lack of sleep was well worth it in exchange to see the president firsthand.

The wait was certainly worth it for Nicole Berg, a student from Germany at American University for the fall semester, who said, “Especially for an international student, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was either grasp it or never have it again.”

People were able to enter the field at 8:45 a.m. Tickets were available for free online but did not guarantee admission, which was why many arrived early.

The excitement was palpable. Chants of “four more years” could be heard throughout the event. Obama took the stage around noon. It took him little time to increase the already high levels of enthusiasm that were present.

A crowd favorite – and a phrase that has quickly found its way online – was “Romnesia.”

“I mean, [Mitt Romney]’s changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping, we’ve got to name this condition that he’s going through. I think it’s called “Romnesia,’” Obama quipped.

Throughout the morning, volunteers with Obama for America were emphasizing the importance of the days remaining before the election and encouraging people to sign up to participate in neighborhood canvassing or the phone banks.

This event was an important one for Obama, as Virginia is considered a swing state. Fortunately for the president, if those in attendance on Friday are any indication, many are skeptical of Romney and the profound case of “Romnesia” with which Obama has diagnosed him.
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Jeanne Jennings •

Editor’s Note:
We are so thankful to Michael Saylor for sitting down with us last month. We got such a positive response to the first article that we’re back with more insights from Georgetown resident and the Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of MicroStrategy, author of “The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence will Change Everything.”

It was at the beginning of the era of the personal computer, when the world, according to Saylor, “took a hard left.”

“The Latin-Roman alphabet is superior to symbol-based languages, like Japanese and Chinese, for writing software code. Look at a keyboard. How do you create a keyboard for a language like Chinese that has 25,000 characters?”

The PC era gave us Microsoft, Oracle and Intel, then Dell, HP and IBM. When the World Wide Web came about, it was EBay, Amazon, Yahoo! and then Google at the forefront. All American companies, all using English as their primary language, for programming and for business. Today, if you want to become a software programmer, no matter what country you live in, you have to learn English.
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“If you speak English you can purchase everything cheaper. If you sell in English, you will sell everything, your product or service, more expensively…The center of gravity of Western civilization is English.”

Saylor sees other factors, beyond software programming, contributing to America’s Newest Great Age. One of them is the formation of the European Union – hear his take on that.
Another is that the mobile wave provides people around the world, both adults and children, with easy access to American culture and ideals.

“We aren’t just exporting American technology. We’re exporting American technology, American values, American products and services, American currency, the American legal system. It’s all becoming a standard in this creeping way.”

Saylor sees the United States as the biggest beneficiary of the formation of the European Union. Click to hear his take (4 minutes)

“Technology doesn’t work at all; technology fails…until it succeeds.”

Much of Saylor’s perspective on the mobile wave is driven by his studies at MIT. In addition to aeronautical engineering, his coursework covered the impact of science and technological advances on society.
All new technologies begin with an idea. There are often fits and starts at the beginning, while the innovator is working to overcome obstacles so that the idea can become reality.

Click here to listen to Saylor’s Take on Technological Innovations in Aviation (4 minutes)

Saylor gave us a quick lesson in this, illustrating the history of aviation from the Wright Brothers to the space shuttle. It’s a fascinating study (hear it here), one which he sees the software industry mirroring.

Not too long after we put a man on the moon, aviation technology advancement slowed considerably. At the same time, computer and software technologies progressed to the point where the general public could begin to use them. As consumer adoption increased, advances have come rapidly – all the way from the desktop computer in the 1970s to Internet access on your smart phone today in 2012.

Regarding Privacy Concerns: “At the end of the day I’m not concerned about the plight of consumer; the consumer is the big beneficiary of the mobile wave.”

Click here to get Saylor’s insight into consumer privacy concerns and how they will be resolved (3 minutes)

If you’ve ever used Google maps on your smart phone, you were probably happy that it knew your current location and could use it as a starting point to give you directions to your destination. There’s a good chance that targeted content or advertising, based on what Facebook or other entities know about your online habits, has led you to products, services or information that you enjoyed.
But there are two sides to this technology. While it can be comforting to track the websites your teenager is visiting and his or her location throughout the course of a Friday night, would you be comfortable with your employer, marketers, the government or other entities knowing what you’re doing online and where you are at each moment of the day?

Many are concerned about the erosion of civil liberties. Some people readily admit that they find this aspect of the mobile wave “scary.”

Saylor acknowledges the concerns, but he sees the benefits of the mobile wave outweighing the potential downsides. He’s a big advocate of transparency, meaning that consumers are told upfront what information is being collected on them and how it will be used. He sees current privacy laws evolving to keep up with the new challenges brought by the mobile wave.

The sub-title of Saylor’s book is “How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything.” So, will it? It’s an engaging read. [We encourage you to pick it up (or download “The Mobile Wave”) and decide for yourself](http://www.microstrategy.com/the-mobile-wave/).

Emily Lindstrand • October 24, 2012

Vice presidential candidates — Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) debated for a lively 90 minutes last night. The exchange was moderated by Martha Raddatz of ABC News and focused on both domestic and foreign policy issues. Described by the New York Times as an aggressive quarrel, neither candidate hesitated to harshly criticize or scoff at the other.

Ryan and Biden’s clash of philosophies centered around multiple topics, including healthcare, Libya, tax cuts, the Middle East, defense cuts and Social Security. Throughout the night, there was little that the candidates agreed upon – Ryan made a strong case for conservative policies, whereas Biden sharply criticized Ryan’s proposals and advocated a liberal Democratic agenda.

Medicare in particular was a fiercely debated topic. Biden argued, “Their [Republican] ideas are old and their ideas are bad, and they eliminate the guarantee of Medicare.” Ryan countered that Democrats “got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, turning Medicare into a piggybank for Obamacare.”

The candidates also contrasted sharply when Raddatz asked what role their Catholic faith had played in shaping their views on abortion. Ryan, who identifies as pro-life, made it clear that his faith and politics are intertwined, saying that he was not able to see how persons could separate their public life from their faith. Biden stated that although he has considered himself a practicing Catholic for his entire life and accepts the Catholic Church’s position that life begins at conception, he refuses “to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews. . . [He does not] believe that we have a right to tell other people that – women they can’t control their body.”

Foreign policy further emphasized the divide between the candidates. Ryan was critical of the way the Obama administration handed the terrorist strike in Libya, saying he was unsatisfied that “It took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack.” He questioned why the United States lacked protection for the diplomatic compound. When Ryan went on to further criticize the Obama administration’s response to the Middle East, Biden retorted that his criticisms were “a bunch of malarkey,” causing the phrase to significantly trend online.

Throughout the debate, Biden had no shortage of quips for his opponent, and his smirk at Ryan was a constant presence. As the New York Times wrote, “Mr. Biden showed no hesitation in hectoring, heckling and interrupting his challenger.” Biden’s sharp responses included “These guys bet against America all the time” and “But I always say what I mean. And so does Romney.”

Biden’s demeanor was a popular topic on social media. “Malarkey” was trending on Twitter, and images of the smirks he gave Ryan were prominent on Tumblr. Sam Youngman, a campaign correspondent for Thomson Reuters, tweeted, “People who like Biden will think this is the greatest debate ever. Folks who don’t will find him at his most obnoxious.”

While Biden definitely made a strong impression, polls were divided as to who won the debate. A survey by CNN declared Ryan the winner; another survey by CBS News called it a clear victory for Biden. The CNN survey stated that 48 considered Ryan the winner of the debate, while 44 percent said that Biden was the winner. CBS News found that 50 percent thought the night was a win for Biden.

Gary Tischler •

Before RGIII blots out the sports sun in Washington and maybe the world, let’s remember when baseball revealed itself to us, kissed us smack on the lips, and then like a feckless bride-to-be, left us standing at the altar, jilted for this time, the words “I do” already forming on our mouths, then stunned into silence.

Let us — before we succumb to our sporting lot in life, the yearly bout of Redskin mania, win-or-lose, and the startling charms of an astonishing rookie — one last time celebrate the coming of Natitude and appreciate the joys and sorrows of young Werth and the rest of the Nationals and the sunshine and sadness saga of the last five games of the astonishing 2012 season of baseball of the Washington Nationals.

The whole season exceeded all expectations by fans and the Nationals themselves, including the team’s first appearance in the post-season of any sort since the 1930s. The five-game series with the seasoned defending world champions St. Louis Cardinals further showed the dramatic rollercoaster ride baseball can provide for fans and players alike. As one baseball sage, oft-quoted, said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” He failed to mention that when it is over—perhaps when the fat lady sings on some other stage—the effect is stunning, like an unforgiving punch in the mouth from someone you love.

The billions and billions of dollars and high television ratings that professional football generates does not negate the fact that it is NOT America’s game, but it has successfully marketed itself as such. Sure, we all remember where we were and what we were doing when the Redskins won their first Super Bowl—drunk and disorderly outside of Nathan’s at Wisconsin and M, watching people spinning from lamp posts, jumping up and down the roofs of parked cars.

Except for Bertram Abramson and perhaps two or three more, none of us remember when the Washington Senators won the World Series in 1924, because most who saw it are–to put it impolitely–dead. But we do and can go to the records of the day, the Baseball Encyclopedias, the stories by the much beloved Shirley Povich. Baseball has its own literature—part poetry, part hard numbers—that are unmatched by any sport, except perhaps some still missing epic fragment describing the events of an Olympiad in ancient Greece. Baseball brings out the romantic in us, as well as the statistician and mathematician. We’re forever writing fall classic poetry and figuring out new combinations of numbers that will tell us with runners on third and first has started the most double plays by a short stop, or who has dropped the most throws to first base in the second inning of any game.

I think that both tendencies point to what we really think of baseball, that among all team sports, it can contain the closest thing to mystery—even now with staggering player salaries which tend to remove them further from us, and the steroid scandals, which make hash of the very numbers we find mystifying. Baseball is about winning and losing, to be sure, like any team sport, but it’s also about how we live life, daily breathing, rising and sleeping interrupted by spurts of drama.

Here is the essential differences between watching the Nationals and watching the Redskins. The action in a football game are a series of miniature explosions in which 22 men on the field, disguised in warrior-like outfits of helmets, bulky pads, gloves, shoes, sometimes painted against the sun, sometimes bristling with tattoos, rise up in unison, rush at each other with unnatural speed and power. The quarterback yells, the defenders yell at each other, the linemen take the stance, the gibberish of the count is hollered out, the ball is snapped, runners move or not, receivers run down the field, and defenders run after them, the linemen collide and a play unfolds—run up the middle, pitch to the outside, throw down the field, screen pass, or, as happened Sunday, the quarterback runs 76 yard down field in a matter of seconds and wins the game.

Baseball is a game of silence and stillness at its core. Each half inning begins the same way—players trot out to the field, the pitcher takes the mound, the catcher—the only one with major protective gear—squats. The outfielders and infielders wait, while the pitcher decides how to throw to the batter. Essentially, nobody is doing anything until the pitch. What ensues is a kind of dance in which most of the dancers don’t dance but react.

Baseball is the opposite of football—not in its lack of violence—but in its definition of teamwork and what a team is. On the field, every individual is naked in spite of their uniforms, every act of symmetry, speed, throwing, hitting and throwing and pitching is glaringly scrutinized, especially in the time of the jumbo tron, the big screen, not just on the field but on television. That’s why it all becomes at some point theater, drama and resolution, both modest and sudden.

The Nationals won two games in the series: one when a rookie managed a two-run single after all the star bats had gone silent; the other when the $100-million plus star Jayson Werth worked St. Louis pitcher Lance Lynn for 12 pitches—seven of them foul balls that were all potential outs—and hit a 96-miles-per-hour fast ball perfectly on the last pitch, winning the game, tying the series, saving the day. “Walk off, play on,” read the Washington Post headline. Jubilation, unreasonable but worthy, ensued, accompanied by its unnatural outcome, hope unquestioned.

The day for which the game was saved came the next day, and it illustrates an entirely different aspect of baseball. It will break your heart, make you breathless and sadden and sour your days and nights for a year. If Jayson Werth felt the joys of victory, Drew Storen, one of the Nationals’ most effective relief pitchers, felt the uncommon, crushing, tantalizing despair of defeat, along with thousands of Nats fans. He was, to put in terms of how it was described, a strike away from victory, from the last out, from moving on to the National League championship series.

“Closed for the season,” cried the headline. Storen had given up four runs, three hits, allowing the Cardinals to come back from what was once a 6-0 deficit to a 9-7 victory. There is no explaining such a thing. It’s like coming home from a wedding to find your house has burned down. Only minutes before all this happened, one local broadcaster had eagerly and confidently said “and when we win tonight.” Baseball invites things like that and never lets you forget them.

These things do pass: we in Washington have found a baseball team to cheer for not because we must but because they’re good, better than good. The loss doesn’t mean they’re suddenly a mediocre team, but a heartbroken team which failed at a critical moment, an inch ago, days before in the series. It will still be the same team next year, and so, we follow the most enduring cry of baseball: “Wait ‘Til Next Year.”

That’s part of baseball, too. It hinges equally on the most amount of success and the least amount of failure, because a .333 batting average is a success, which means you succeed in only a third of your at bats. It also matters when you succeed. The Nationals’ last game was a matter of when. Brutally, it wasn’t then.
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Gary Tischler •

That Woody Guthrie, he’s some big-time feller, even at a hundred.

Women loved him, and he stood up and spoke up and rambled across the country in the Dust Bowl and Depression days. He had the love of friends, whole generations of musicians, the good folks of this country, which has never abated, even though he passed away in 1967 at the age of 55 of Parkinson’s disease.

He sang about vigilantes and deportees, and people who got hit over the heads by riot police and scabs, and he sang the most innocent, playful songs written for his kids, and he rode the rails where the sun hit him all the time, and he sang about unions and he railed against fascists, homegrown or monstered overseas. He wrote the songs, and they spread into other hands and singers and musicians. This year, just about everybody who ever heard of him sang his songs, in his homegrown Oklahoma, in a place called Skid Row in Los Angeles, in New York and small towns, celebrating this year which was his 100th year, had he lived that long.

He’s alive as you or I. I can vouch for that because that was a mighty lively little hootenanny they threw Oct. 14 at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall called “This Land Is Your Land—The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration” for which a couple of thousand people showed up and in the end wound up jumping up and down on demand and singing their feelings. They looked pretty much like each other. I suppose you could call them baby boomers for want of a better cliché. They dressed down, lots of blue jeans, lots of less—less hair, less glitter, less polish, less ties, less tony jewelry, less socks, but lots of memories, it seemed.

There was lots of music and musicians—and most of them were of a certain age, too, and some of them had heard Woody sing, or collected his songs. One had lived with him for a time, and another was his daughter. (His son Arlo Guthrie did not attend because that morning his wife Jackie died of cancer.)

They all had something in common: they played his music, it seems, a ton of times during their time of singing others’ songs; his songs were the first music some of them heard or, in John Mellencamp’s case, the first two songs he played on a guitar.

So, they all came together, marched on stage between tunings. They sang their songs and sang his words. They were as different as they could be, but they shared some things: banjos, guitars, drums, ukuleles, strings and fiddles along with a dusty glamor. They marched on by and by, singing and strumming, fiddling and whistling, and picking and wailing and clapping and tapping their cowboy boots, and often, fiddling around as in “less guitar, less vocals,” or the other way around for the techies backstage, who would come out like ninjas between musicians.

And it was grand. At turns, the proceedings resembled a tent meeting, an oft-described hootenanny, those folky get-togethers of the 1950s and 1960s and big-time concerts led by the likes of Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, but those two weren’t here. Sometimes, it sounded like a union rally, which must have seemed heartening for the much beleaguered laborites of these times, the working stiffs, government and private. Every time “unions” were referenced in a Woody song, and that happened often, there were cheers from the audience, because unions rattled in Woody’s songs as much as ramblers and gamblers and trains and fascists and migrants and laborers. Politics, those of the Dust Bowl and Depression, the war(s) and big government and big business and such, simmered in the songs like hot pepper and a bitter taste, like the melancholy that made the love songs delirious.

Out they came, and there was the Old Crow Medicine Show, singing Woody’s greeting song “How Do You Do,” inviting, pickled with banjo and accordions and it went from there. Actor Jeff Daniels popped out periodically to read from Guthrie’s writings, songs and letters.

Folks like Jimmy LaVave and Joel Rafel, both acknowledged Guthrie experts and followers and singers, sang things like “Reckless Hobo” and “Hard Traveling,” the music of the folks Guthrie had eulogized, celebrated and bled for, being one of them to his holy shoes full of holes. More and more instruments came, the guys with the harmonica hooked to the guitar, the accordions and their endless rolling sounds and the wonder of the c-note, the ukulele.

D.C.’s Sweet Honey in the Rock appeared in Dashiki chic, singing “I’ve Got to Know,” and Donovan, the sunshine-through-my-window man, rock star, poet and artist by way of Scotland in the 1960s sang a children’s song that Guthrie had written and said that Ramblin’ Jack Elliott had introduced him to Guthrie’s music. People just sort of admired the hell out of each other, outdoing their love for Woody by way of music.

Judy Collins, one of the folk queens of the 1960s along with Baez and Joni Mitchell, came out like a startling, still beautiful witchy woman, dressed in shiny black jacket, black boots and slacks and hair as white as a page of paper, but wilder. Yet other sang Woody’s ode to Pretty Boy Floyd, where he was a kind of Robin Hood, and the main crooks were the bankers, as in “some people rob you with a gun, some people rob you with a fountain pen.” Ani DeFranco, folkie supreme, sang “Deportee,” which sounds as modern as gunfire on the Arizona border, saying, “This here is a shoutout to Mitt. This song’s for you, Mitt.”

Out came Coot Ryder, who long ago provided the evocative banjo-guitar ripping and running soundtrack to “The Long Riders,” the best of all Jesse James movies, and he sang the powerful “Vigilante” and played powerfully, too. There was the remarkable Lucinda Williams, one of the most wayward, in-your-honest-face female singers today. She sang an uncompleted song about “a woman who folks here at the Kennedy Center might not want to hear about a prostitute who wants to teach a man some things his wife never done,” and she sang it with verve and in a style and eye-and-ear popping fashion all hers.

John Mellencamp—our modern troubadour of the men who work in mills and farms and such—sang, and so did Jackson Browne, who sang for about 15 minutes or so with back ups a delirious love songs that came out of a letter Woody had written to his first wife, about falling in love and first meetings and impressions. It went on and on like the kind of dance you never want to finish.

Finally, Ramblin’ Jack himself came out—thin, all of 81, with a voice as wrenching as ever, cowboy hat, boots, bandana and red shirt. He sat down and said, “I heard of this guy named Ramblin’ Jack, and I think he died.” Not yet: Elliott sang a powerful rendition of “1913 Massacre,” marking him as the grand old man of musical story-telling.

We and they, all together—you could have too—sang together “Bound for Glory” and, of course, “This Land Is Your Land,” led by the powerful-voiced Bob Morello of Rage Against the Machine. He got people to jump up and down like kids who cared about it all.

Later in the dark of the night, you dreamed you heard the sound of a train whistle, the wheels chugging like a woman beating sheets on a wash line.

Amos Gelb •

The noise has been deafening. The sport of the post presidential and vice-presidential debate punditry has grown from a torrent to a deluge, moving from on-air to online and virtually everywhere else. After the now-famed Romney Resurrection,
Saturday Night Live dared to hilariously get inside the heads of the candidates. Obama, it posited, was distracted thinking about how he had forgotten to buy the first lady an anniversary present. It would have been even funnier had it not been what we in the media all seem to have been trying to do since Obama-Romney I got us all nattering.

The coverage seems to be only reinforcing this weird epoch of journalism today which wobbles between punditry and a “just the facts” dirge.

Even as journalists work harder than ever, nobody seems very happy. Especially not the audience if a Gallup poll – brought to our attention, of course, on Facebook – is to be believed. It says an all-time high, 60 percent of us, now “have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.” Perhaps worse than that, in recent conversations with graduate and undergraduate journalism students, even these driven youth who represent the future of this industry feel that, at best, today’s media is so-so. These are people want to do this for a living. One more tasty treat of negativity – the University of Colorado closed its famed journalism school last year partly citing loss of relevance and recently Emory University in Atlanta announced a similar move with its growing journalism department. Others are sure to follow.

ATM comes not to bury Caesar, but to give a call to action to save him.

With the permission of our valiant publisher, I am taking a column away from observing or commenting or critiquing to urge. To misquote a frequent television ad, “It’s my journalism, and I want it now!”

I urge anybody interested in being a part of creating that future of journalism to support the Kickstarter campaign for DecodeDC – the new podcast devoted to reporting on Congress in a way nobody else is.

Yes, we have venerable publications like the Hill, Roll Call, the entire Congressional
Quarterly family, and even the future-is-now Politico devoted to the daily throes of our legislative and executive bodies – but few have proven able to cover Congress like former NPR Congressional correspondent Andrea Seabrook. For anybody wondering why her voice has disappeared from NPR airwaves, Seabrook decided this summer that she couldn’t continue to cover Congress as a daily mud fight any longer. “It just didn’t seem to be doing anybody any good any more. What was the point? I was becoming as much part of the problem.” So instead Seabrook decided she, and we, deserved something different.

Seabrook left to start an independent podcast called DecodeDC at DecodeDC.com. In her first two episodes, she truly humanizes Congress and simultaneously eviscerates all that should be eviscerated. They are worth listening to. They are good. Very good.

And worth supporting.

Seabrook is turning to people who want great journalism to support her and provide the seed money needed to fully fund a year of DecodeDC, and she has turned to the online money-raiser – Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a wonderful way for ordinary people can play venture capitalist, venturing to put their money where their mouths are. If you are one of those who loves, is interested in learning something more than the latest mud slinging, and wishes journalism reached for something better than it seems so often to be today, take a listen and then support. Seabrook has until 6 p.m. Oct. 19 to raise the money to fund 28 more episodes.

Gary Tischler • October 22, 2012

In the days after Mitt Romney ran over a seemingly passive, even docile President Barack Obama in the first debate between the two candidates not to mention moderator Jim Lehrer the GOP candidate seemed to bask in the after-glow and poll gains of his victory. Publicly, on the stump, and in his ads, he allowed that he enjoyed himself in the first debate.

In the second debate Wednesday, Romney was still enjoying himself at the outset brisk walk, big smile, happy to hear from the young man worried about finding a job after college, chatting him up per his plan to look more accessible, down-to-earth and personable.

But here’s a fair bet: I’d bet that Romney won’t be talking about this town-hall format debate moderated by CNN correspondent Candy Crowley in terms of how much he enjoyed it any time between now and the next debate of the century, which comes smartly on Monday. It might be that Romney expected the meek and mild version of Barack Obama to show up again. He didn’t. Obama came ready to spar and fight, a little too much so early on, then later, much more in a more measured, self-assured, but still combative way.

Romney once again tried to ramrod his way into taking up more than his share of time by not answering questions and repeating his oft-told tale of the failures of the Obama presidency and touting his five-point jobs plan. Somehow, that didn’t work so well, as could be seen from his early big, and smug smile, turning into a slight smirk, and then, in the end disappearing altogether, his face becoming tense and drawn. He remained, it should be said, aggressive throughout and challenged the president often, especially on his claims on energy issues.

The difference was that the president was no longer staring at his shoes with every Romney assertion. He fought back from the get-go. This debate while getting into new territory and new issues not covered in the previous two debates was not especially substantive, but was special because it revealed the differences between the two candidates as stark in terms of issues as in temperament and personality.

Obama was no Biden, neither Romney nor Clinton, but he stood strong and made it clear that he was passionately fighting for re-election and that this was a battle between two different philosophies of governance. More than that, in this debate, Obama had size, he had passion and he had the gravitas a president should have.

While his supporters claimed that he looked “presidential,” Romney at times had the face of a bully denied a walk in the park. He sounded and looked tense, frustrated and peevish, going so far as to argue with Crowley at one point. He stopped trying to engage the questioners, an interesting lot of 50 individuals who were supposed to be as yet undecided.

One of them brought up the potentially hazardous for the president issue of what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. Romney blasted Obama for going to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser the day after the killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens. Obama blasted Romney for making critical statements before the facts were known then took umbrage at the idea that his administration had politicized the events. Obama said that he had on the following day called it “an act of terror.” Romney jumped and all but called him a liar, while Obama repeatedly said, “Check the transcript.” Crowley then corrected Romney and said that the president had indeed used the phrase, “an act of terror,” but that the administration had not responded for two weeks in that manner.

The exchanges left Romney frustrated and not a little embarrassed. Because the exchanges on this point were somewhat pivotal, they’re still being argued about in the media and by Romney reps who said Crowley was essentially biased in what she did.

Not so biased were the new forces in the land on the Internet, the Facebook commentators, the twitterers and texters who latched on to such less earthshaking matters as “binders full of women,” a phrase used by Romney to explain how he had tried to make sure there were more women in his cabinet when he was the Governor of Massachusetts. It was while answering a question on equal pay for women in the workforce that Romney brought up his use of flex time to help female workers, a subject he had never broached through the entire campaign.

Romney repeated his five-point plan to create 12 million jobs ad infinitum. Obama shot back with “He doesn’t have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan.” What also seemed obvious was Romney’s charting his way toward the moderate middle as best as he could, saying that he would not cut taxes on the wealthy (although continuing or making permanent the Bush tax cuts would do exactly that) and that he wanted to create a path to citizenship for some of the illegal immigrants, although he could not back out of the haunting phrase “self deportation,” which he tried to paint as something benign and innocuous.

What was apparent was that these two men did not like each other even a little. This debate often resembled a bullfight between two bulls they pointed at each, they argued loudly, they tried to steal time, they got into each other’s space, if not face, stopping only at stomping their feet on the floor. For Romney, the aggressive pushing for time was nothing new. For Obama, it was a turnabout he seemed to come out of a deep coma-like sleep and he came out energized which was exactly what he needed to do. He may have stopped the bleeding in the polls, and he may even have started some on the other side. Conservative pundit Gary Wills called it a strategic win for Obama and declared the debate the best presidential debate ever.

Asked as a closer in what way they were misrepresented or misunderstood, Romney brought up the point that he’s been painted as not caring for regular folks, for the common man, the working families. “I care passionately about 100 percent of the American people,” he asserted.

Obama said he was seen as a man who thinks that government can solve all the problems and said the he was not. And then, after Romney’s “100 percent claim,” Obama played the card he’d had all night. He brought the number down to the “47 percent,” which Romney had so easily dismissed in a speech made early in the campaign before a closed-door audience of supporters.

Catch your breath, folks, pollsters and spinners. The third debate comes up Monday, Oct. 22, a debate which many commentators had not considered to be an urgent matter, but has now suddenly became very urgent. It is here we go again the debate that could decide the election. It will concern itself with foreign affairs, which is to say you can expect to hear Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. It will no doubt be great television, and it appears now that this election was really about four debates. All the money spent by both sides on disheartening negative ads, Romney’s primary campaign and the two conventions were essentially meaningless exercises—on the road to four of the highest-rated reality shows ever staged. I guess the first three were the playoffs, and Monday is the Super Bowl. But will the fat lady sing?

Georgetowner •

2nd Annual “Get Hitched in Georgetown” Competition

October 18th, 2012 at 06:00 PM | FREE | Event Website

Georgetown BID is organizing Get Hitched in Georgetown, where on October 18, 75 engaged couples will compete for the ultimate wedding prize package valued at over $10,000…A few highlights include a wedding gown from Hitched, stationery from The Dandelion Patch and Haute Papier, a day at the spa at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown and much more!

Address

Grace Church (lawn); 1041 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Victor Horta and Brussels Exhibit

October 19th, 2012 at 06:30 PM | Free | Tel: 571.312.1237 | Event Website

The SIGAL Gallery will hold a free opening ceremony for their new exhibit The Cradle of Art Nouveau: Victor Horta and Brussels. The exhibit will be staged in French, Dutch, English and German.

Register for the event at aiadc.com.

Address

The SIGAL Gallery at the District Architecture Center; 2012 AIA|DC 421 7th Street NW

Making Strides DC

October 20th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Donations Requested | Event Website

Join the American Cancer Society for the 9th annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer DC 5K walk at 10am Saturday, October 20, starting at the Sylvan Theatre on the National Mall. Since 1993 Strides events nationwide have raised $460 million to fight breast cancer. And the American Cancer Society spends more money on breast cancer research than any other cancer type. Half of American women diagnosed with breast cancer turn to the American Cancer Society for help. Be the change. Make Strides.

Address

15th Street and Independence Avenue SW

Oatlands Participates in the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour

October 20th, 2012 at 10:00 AM | Tel: 703-777-3174 | Event Website

Explore the historic grounds of Oatlands during the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour. Visitors can walk the grounds, visit the historic Carriage House and learn about vintage carriages and farm equipment on display. Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, Va., will also exhibit their heritage breed farm animals under the trees at Oatlands. Additional paid activities, such as tours of the house and garden, are available for guests.

Address

Oatlands Historic House and Gardens, 20850 Oatlands Plantation Ln., Leesburg, VA

Yoga for Homeless

October 20th, 2012 at 01:00 PM | $30 adult (26 and over); $20 youth | Tel: 202.338.8301 | Event Website

in conjunction with Fannie Mae’s Help the Homeless program, Georgetown Ministry Center will host a yogathon to benefit homelessness. Multiple sessions with local instructors will be featured, and yoga mats will be provided.

Address

Grace Church; 1041 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

Where to Start: Site Analysis and Design Thinking for Public Art

October 21st, 2012 at 02:00 PM | Free | info@wpadc.org | Event Website interested in sharpening their skills preparing for public art commissions.

RSVP by Thursday, October 19 to Christopher Cunetto at ccunetto@wpadc.org. Seating is limited.

Address

National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW, Washington, DC 20001