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You really don't understand.  My wife loves to cook because she knows an animal had to die in the process. In that environment I had to develop some survival skills.  I noticed Mrs Cuddly is always cheery with company, but when the last guest leaves I find out just what sort of a-hole my mother raised.  So I adapted.  I make sure I sneak out of my own house before the last guest leaves.  Oh, and lemme ask for a beer.  I'll damn sure get it, bottle and all aimed at my head.

Anyway, I'd tell Wolf that I want truth in advertising.  We can start with renaming the BATFE to the 'Redneck Control Bureau'.  Let's see, Alcohol, check, Tobacco, check, Firearms, check, Fireworks, check.  All they really need to do is carve off a piece of DOT to regulate truck nuts and lift kits to completely close the loop.  Crap, not just truth in advertising but efficiency too.

Someone will let you know when it's safe.

and just arm Romney's family.

where I turned to watch the Giants.

President Obama is - has al night -Come across straightforward and direct (even if all too much of his address has consisted of campaign boilerplate. MittRomney has been the one looking awkward and uncMfortable. Oh, and no less prone to babbling cliches, either.

Obviously YOur Mileage Varies

but I don't think it will make much difference in the grand scheme of things.

I thought they were equally bland and had comparable looks.

the speakers need to be turned off.  That music's awful.

He doesn't have very good debateside manner, and I don't think this will help his numbers. The people who say it's all ground game from here on out are basically right. I think we know the evangelicals, Newt fans, and other conservative hardliners are going to turn out for Romney...the question is how many. Republicans are also doing their darnedest, spending millions in a dozen states to make sure as few Democratic voters find their way to the polls or, once there, actually have their votes recorded. Despicable, evil, antidemocratic, freedom my ass, but that's Republicans for you. 

Don't vote stupid, vote, stupid!

Sound definitive while leaving wiggle room.  It's the same approach used by every politician ever.

The Oil Producers in the ME will tolerate an awful lot of US support for Israel. An Israel capable of defending itself, especially against the Palestinians so that that wound might continue to fester, but not strong enough to topple its neighbors is acceptable, even in their interests as an anger and frustration sponge for domestic audiences.

Elevating Israel to the status of even Japan or the ROK makes Israel too strong, and removes the veneer of distance that allows the Oil Producers to continue to do business the USA. And elevating Israel to the status of the UK ... a NATO ally? Intolerable.

The UK is in NATO, so it makes sense that we would defend them if that's what it came to.  Israel is not, and there isn't much reason that I can see to defend them.  The only reason I can see is that they are a democratic republic.  If that's the standard, then we've got a lot of countries to help defend.

Now if Israel wants to join NATO or perhaps come to some sort of arrangement where we would officially help defend them (moreso than we already do) for some amount of money, good for them.  I don't buy the "they're a democracy in the Middle East and plus the Holocaust, you heartless person of questionable lineage" theory of why we ought to defend Israel.

Trav and nyoos are getting at the reasons why we stop short of joining a NATO-style mutual defense pact with Israel. Here are some other reasons, though I'm hoping somebody with a much better grasp of this stuff will cover the issue in the next few days:

• NATO is a mutual defense pact. Schieffer's annoying question would commit the US to a unilateral defense pact, with no obligation on Israel to reciprocate with aid to us. Can anyone see why a President (or Presidential candidate) might not want to saddle the US with such a burden on national TV, without negotiating with our ally and without Constitutionally-required Senate review? No candidate for office is going to make damn fool treaty commitments on national television.
• Israel currently has the status of a Major Non-Nato Ally (MNNA), and adding a Japan-style unilateral defense pact to that treaty obligation would be a serious upgrade in US commitments...in exchange for nothing.
• A unilateral defense pact could put the US at war with Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon or Syria at a moment's notice. I believe we can all see the dangers in such an approach...intervention in Syria or Lebanon is one thing, war with Egypt (triggered by some border skirmish) would be disastrous, and declaring war on Palestine would detonate the Middle East.
• Offering a unilateral defense pact with Israel, but not Palestine, would bar the US from acting as a broker in the Mideast peace process. It would be rightly seen as a threat to Palestine.
• In general, entering a binding military pact with a country in one of the most violent & unstable parts of the world is more or less a guarantee of war within a few years. 
• Israel is both unwilling and unable to offer the US mutual aid, for a variety of reasons. Their capability is limited, the presence of Israeli troops in many parts of the world would cause a furor, and Israel doesn't seem willing to lend that type of aid in the first place. Israel is one of the few member nations that doesn't, as far as I know, contribute to UN peacekeeping duties. Not, apparently, for lack of asking.
• And of course no President or Presidential candidate can say any of these things on TV...diplomacy requires finesse, people.

All of which is to say that Schieffer's question was as thick-headed as it was annoying. I was shaking my head at this and a few of the other questions. Presidents can't and shouldn't create new treaty obligations during televised debates. Obama's answer was smart; he gave his personal guarantee of Israel's security, but stopped short of a full-blown renegotiation of US commitments. I don't recall Romney's answer to the question, but I imagine it was the same as Obama's only with a great deal more chest beating, which counts as foreign policy brilliance in today's Republican circles.

time filling binders full of hypothesis of how to build warp holes for ships that are as imposing as the CSS Virginia that helped the US win the First Sino-Japanese War, a war that literally didn't start until Old Glory was sailing into battle according to his running mate.

"Any war that the US participated in, that war didn't start until the US got involved,  WWII started in late 1941,  WWI in 1917, the Napoleonic Wars weren't even wars, the whole thing is just the War of 1812."  Paul Ryan.

"To compare modern American battleships and Navy with bayonets, I just don't understand that comparison. Look, we have to have a strong Navy to keep peace and prosperity and sea lanes open.... If all these defense cuts go through, our Navy will be smaller than it was before World War I. That's not acceptable. And, yes, the ocean hasn't shrunk."

Battleships? we don't have battleships anymore. Are Romney/Ryan proposing to commission some?

Clueless, Romney/Ryan have no understanding of the needs of a 21st century navy and lack any seriousness when it comes to debating the realities of how we meet our defense requirements. Leadership fail.

Also, WWI started in 1914, not 1917.

Also 2, the sequestration cuts he's referring to are the ones he voted for as part of last years budget deal. I guess he was for them before he was against them. Or perhaps they always counted on demagoguing the issue when it came time to pay the piper, a la sunsetting the Bush giveaways to the richy richies.