Opinion

Wrestling at Hofstra

So sure, President Obama won last night. He had a pulse, he gave Mitt Romney lots of whacks, he had a moment of undeserved high dudgeon on Libya and he coaxed people who had crawled out on the ledge after his awful performance in Denver to come back inside, have a cup of cocoa and dream of a happier Nov. 6.

As the entirety of the psychodrama running up to last night’s debate concerned whether the president had hit the self-destruct button almost on purpose in Denver 10 days ago, the fact that Obama remembered to ask Americans for their vote as he finished at least indicated he actually does want to be president for another four years.

But it may be that the resolution of that particular psychodrama is all Barack Obama gets out of last night’s win.

Mitt Romney was more halting and overprepared last night than he’d been in the first debate, but he did get said everything he needed to say on jobs and the economy and the president’s faulty record.

And while Romney’s confused mishandling of the sole question on the administration’s bizarre conduct after the slaughter in Benghazi almost seemed to turn a certain liability for the president into an asset, that was largely due to a rather shocking intervention from the moderator, Candy Crowley — an intervention that will only serve to keep a painful issue for the president alive and kicking at him.

She flatly told Mitt Romney he was wrong for challenging the president’s contention that he had called Benghazi a terrorist act in his first remarks on the matter. Crowley not only behaved inappropriately by inserting herself, but even more appalling, she was incorrect.

The president’s remarks that next morning specifically referred to the killings as an “attack” twice, as an “act” twice and as a “senseless act of violence” once. This was a clear signal at the time that a deliberate choice had been made not to label it as an act of terrorism.

The speech’s reference to “acts of terror,” by contrast, followed a paragraph about 9/11 and clearly referred back to that.

Crowley herself, in a moment that should live in journalism infamy, conceded later that Romney “was right in the main.” This wretched moment, which will be rightly argued over, ensures the discussion of Obama’s handling of Libya will still remain at the center of the news for the next few days.

And while Obama will never have a better moment on the Benghazi response than that one (unless he October-surprises us), Romney has a week to clean up his attack for the next debate — on foreign policy — and make it stick.

The awkwardness of that moment was mirrored by a dozen awkward moments throughout. Indeed, the proceedings themselves were primarily interesting as a psychodrama.

Obama was so determined to be aggressive, even in the more freewheeling setting of the more casual “town hall” format, that he practically demanded an equal level of aggression from Mitt Romney.

Romney had shown a propensity for near-physical confrontation during the Republican debates, where he actually put his hand on Rick Perry’s jacket — and Perry looked like it was lucky for Romney he didn’t have a machete in his pocket.

The result was that these two men angling for the most important job in the world spent much of the first 45 minutes circling each other and all but growling. I expected Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahon to come out on stage and start calling it like a World Wrestling Federation match.

Those atmospherics swamped the specifics. Even as I write this, an hour after the debate’s conclusion, I’m struggling to remember what they talked about, but I remember the body language and the glaring and the real feeling you got that these two men absolutely detest each other.

So Obama may have bested Romney, but not by much, and nobody really wins a fake wrestling match anyway.