Barack the Mitt-Buster — the Great Debate Trilogy, Episode 3!

We may not admit to liking trilogies   , but we sure eat them up.

There is something about three of something that forms a feeling of completeness. Three sides of a triangle. Three Wise Men. Three Musketeers. The three Matrix films. There were the three original Star Wars films, before the — some of us would say quite unnecessary — prequels. Each of the original three Star Wars movies has its plusses and minuses, though it is hard to beat the moment when Darth Vader revealed to Luke Skywalker, “Luke, I am your father.”

As this third debate began, I wondered if it might just be a replay of the first debate, including less-than-stellar performance by President Obama. Mitt Romney dominated the discussion, interrupting the president and the moderator, Bob Schieffer. At one point, Sehieffer had to instruct Romney to let the president answer the question he’d been asked.

When the president was able to start making complete statements, Romney did a lot of agreeing. He concurred with so many points of Obama’s foreign policy that I thought he might just change his mind about trying to remove Obama from office and just ask for a position in his Cabinet.

I think Romney’s least-presidential moment came when Sehieffer asked the question, “What if what if the prime minister of Israel called you on the phone and said, ‘Our bombers are on the way. We’re going to bomb Iran.’ What do you say?”

Romney dodged the question, “Bob, let’s not go into hypotheticals of that nature. Our relationship with Israel, my relationship with the prime minister of Israel is such that we would not get a call saying our bombers are on the way or their fighters are on the way. This is the kind of thing that would have been discussed and thoroughly evaluated well before that kind of action.”

It was a good question, which could have revealed a lot about Romney’s character. However, all it showed was that Romney overvalues his ability to foresee the future, that he lacks imagination, and he doesn’t have the      courage to try to deal with a situation that many watchers of the Middle-East consider at least somewhat likely to take place. What Romney was, in effect say was, Hey, this could never happen because of my superior leadership skills and my experience in the business world. So, maybe it did give us a window into Romney’s character after all.

Romney tried to criticize Obama for reducing the size of the US navy. “Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now at under 285. … We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That’s unacceptable to me.”

Obama replied, “You mention the Navy, for example, and the fact that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. We have these things called aircraft carriers and planes land on them. We have ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. It’s not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships, it’s ‘What are our priorities?’” Score a major homerun for Obama!

I know there was some criticism on Twitter and elsewhere that “the military still uses bayonets.” Well, of course it does, and I am sure there are still some horses serving the armed forces here and there. Obama could have substituted swords or M-1 rifles for bayonets and the point would have still been well made.

Most debate watchers give the win to Obama, and I say that is a great thing. I know the only thing that really counts is the actual election, but those who count such things tell us that this last debate was viewed by over fifty million people, so I would think these debates do count for something besides their entertainment value.

Entertainment value? Of course. Some moments were better than others. My favorite debate moment was when Romney turned to Obama and said “Barack, I am your father.”