Eager to hear her post-debate analysis, Glenn was looking forward to speaking bestselling author Ann Coulter more than usual this morning.
"I wish I could watch the debate with you. It has to be fun," he told her this morning.
Ann, who after Obama's miserable attempt at the last debate, predicted the media would be declared the "winner" by the media as long as he showed up looking alert, had this to say about last night's townhall debate:
"I don't think this is going to help Obama at all. I knew the media would say he had won no matter what happened. He could have come out and his head could have rolled like Linda Blair's in the Exorcist, which it almost did. I just don't think Obama does nasty very well. He seemed testy and sour the whole night, and I mean Candy Crowley — the most rememberable thing — her jumping in the Libya thing as the moderator, and the declaring a winner, when "oops, the umpire made a bad call" was outrageous."
Coulter admitted, Romney should have been more careful with his words when he called out the president for not calling Benghazi an act of terror until weeks after the fact, but he was accurate in his claim.
Glenn followed on that with the WhiteHouse.gov transcript, which provides the president's statement:
The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. We're working with the government of Libya to secure our diplomats. I've also directed my administration to increase our security at diplomatic posts around the world. And make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people.
Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.
"Yes, it's only at the end of the speech," Ann added. "And if he's going to describe everything he talked about falsely, as referring to Benghazi, then he's delusional and needs to be in a nut farm, because he was also talking about the 9/11 attack [the original]. Does he think that happened a month ago?"
"What do you think is the biggest takeaway from this last night?" Glenn asked.
"That Obama can't run on his record," Ann responded.
For example, Obama continued to claim that he was all for drilling and pipelines last night, and Mitt could respond with, 'but you didn't do anything to encourage pipelines or drill within the country.'
Ann also mentioned the African-American who told the president he had enthusiastically voted for him in 2008, but he's noticing that everything he needs is costing him most.
" I don't think Obama can get away from that," Ann said. "It doesn't matter how much the alleged media umpires are playing on the team for Obama. It doesn't matter that the pressroom cheered when Obama took his cheap shot at Romney for being wealthy. People know they're out of work. They know everything the own, their assets, are worth less, and everything they need to buy costs more. And Romney said over and over again, the people don't believe that."
Glenn agreed and added, "I think that the American people know something is wrong. They know these policies haven't worked. I mean President Obama kept saying, "he's only got one point plan." Well, no, Mr. President yours is when it comes to taxes yours is one point. Tax the rich, and the rest of your plan sounds like the stimulus package: infrastructure and green jobs."
Throughout the night, the president had to imitate the "rhetoric" that he blasts all of the time. He praised free-enterprise and claimed to support "risk-takers" saying that they needed to be rewarded. But his record points to statements of 'successful businessmen aren't that smart and "you didn't build that, somebody else did."
Glenn thought one of the most critical points in the debate occurred under the topic of energy.
"The president said, in so many words, 'you will never see a $1.85 gasoline if the country does well," Glenn said.
The president made this claim last night with the qualifier that the only reason gas was cheap was because the economy was about to crash. Which basically claims that the reason that gas is so expensive now is because the economy is doing so well. Unfortunately for the president, it's pretty well documented that unemployment is at 7.8%, 47 million people are on food stamps, and our debt is out of control.
"It's really a strange double whammy," Coulter pointed out. "Because generally that is true, that when the economy goes down the gas prices go down. Obama has managed to create a situation where there are 23 million people out of work, 50% of college graduates can't get a job, people are suffering, their houses are worth nothing, and yet, gas prices have more than doubled."
Glenn believes these debate have been great for Romney.
"They [Americans] didn't know Romney. They heard all kinds of horrible stories: he's a monster, He hates your children. He wants to go in and tie every woman's fallopian tube. He's a religious crazy, and 1,800 hundreds pioneer gash gauche, and he's practically Chinese, and they've heard these horror stories from the President," Glenn pointed out. "I don't think anyone will vocalize this, but because they generally trust the president — because he's gotten away with saying these things when they weren't true — but when they watch him [Romney], he looks like the President of the United States. Romney takes the President of the United States and makes him look, honestly, like an 18-year-old boy next to him."
They see this, and it's registering that the description of Mitt Romney they've been given isn't what they are seeing during these debates. It's causing them not to trust the president.
"I could not agree more," Ann responded, who added that it was also adding to the distrust in the media.
Glenn noted that the media is already down to 8% among the American people. So after these debates, when the American people are seeing Mitt Romney lay out his plan in an honest, calm, reasonable fashion, the media coming and claiming a 'Barack Obama victory' is discrediting them even more.
"It only sends a signal to those who don't trust the media, on both sides, that there's something wrong here."