You would think that as poorly as President Obama did in his first debate with Mitt Romney last week that his supporters would want to stop talking about the embarrassment. Instead, the very opposite is true. Denizens of the fevered swamps of the online left not only want to talk about it, they also want to embarrass themselves by concocting all sorts of crazy theories about how Romney somehow "cheated" to win.
The Obama campaign is having none of that, however, telling Fox News that it's had absolutely nothing to do with spreading the nonsense idea that Romney had managed to smuggle in a "cheat sheet" into the debate and read answers from it. When asked about whether it was trying to spread the theory, the campaign responded emphatically, "No — We’ve never casted our lot with the tinfoil hat crowd."
Good on the campaign for doing that since the video which supposedly "proves" the alleged cheating actually does nothing of the sort as you can see for yourself. Romney pulls something out of his pocket but it's clearly a folded handkerchief to keep his face free from sweat:
The cheat sheet theory, as noted by the Washington Examiner, has spread far and wide within the left-wing interweb having been repeated by Daily Kos, FireDogLake, Democratic Underground, and even by noted conspiracy theory-lover Andrew Sullivan.
As incredibly stupid as the "cheat sheet theory" is, it is not actually the most nonsensical theory which far left bloggers have conjured up to explain away Romney's success. The crown for that goes to Democratic Underground poster "progressivebydesign" who kicked off a lengthy discussion about how the former Massachusetts governor had actually doped himself up with mind-enhancing drugs.
I wish I were joking but that's actually what they appear to believe. Sadly, no one thought to mention Lance Armstrong. A few excerpts from the DU thread follow:
progressivebydesign: Watched more of the Debate clips last night. Seriously? Romney was high on something.
How could anyone call what he did up there a "win?" He acted as though he was hepped up on speed, he behaved like a 5th grader most of the time. The talking heads can say that he "won" because he talked over the President and the Moderator, but seriously... I don't that there is truly ANY voters would change their vote to him based on that performance. MOst undecideds tend to be Republicans, who know in their heart that the RNC/GOP is putrid, and they usually have voted with them in the past. Very few "undecideds" are liberals that are courting the dark side.
Seriously. There is not one person out there would watched Romney's actions and thought "yes, HE is the guy I want discussing nuclear disarmament" Or "wow, seeing Romney like this gives me way more confidence in him." It's not the things he said (the wall to wall lies,) but his demeanor is DISTURBING. Not one person I saw on FB, etc, that I know, discussed anything about the content (other than his lies) but focused on "he's rude," "he's acting like a crackhead" "what is WRONG with that guy?" And "he's disrespectful" and of course "why is he smiling like that the whole time? he looks demented?"
That debate, while some may have called it for Romney because he steamrolled the President and Moderator, caused Romney WAY more problems as people got to see him up close, and realize that there is something wholly unlikable about him. imho
Blue Meany: I was thinking that maybe he was on cognitive enhancing drugs used for ADD and other conditions that students are using to improve their performance on high stakes exams. He does seem wired a lot of the time.
backscatter712: Having ADHD myself, I take Ritalin. Another common drug is Adderal, which is a cocktail of amphetamine salts.
My personal theory is that Romney just snorted a couple lines of high-quality cocaine just before walking on-stage. I'll have to check still-shots of the debate to see if he has a coke mustache...
Aerows: I can't even do caffeine, due to it hyping me up too much and Mitt Romney looked like he was on high powered stimulants. Hell, Ativan makes me amped up, so I can't touch a sedative, either.
Romney was on something. I'm not sure what it was, but whatever it is it is not Mormon approved.
crazylikafox: that's probably why he brought out the handkerchief ... to catch those cocaine sniffles
begin_within: I got the same impression. Either he had drunk 5 or 6 Red Bulls or else they injected him with methamphetamines. The glassy eyes, the shaking microphone, the bullying, it all seemed like he was on some sort of stimulant. And I think his hyperactivity was what made Obama seem so docile by comparison. If Romney had been normal and acted like a normal adult, then Obama would have seemed his normal self.
