Tom Brokaw: If Romney Performed Like Obama Did Last Night 'It Would Have Been Over'

There has been a lot of harsh criticism for Barack Obama's performance at Wednesday's presidential debate, but maybe the strongest came Thursday from former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw.

Appearing on MSNBC's Daily Rundown, Brokaw said, "I think that this morning we have a kick-start to this presidential campaign. If it had been Romney performing like the president last night, it would have been over" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

TOM BROKAW: I think that this morning we have a kick-start to this presidential campaign. If it had been Romney performing like the president last night, it would have been over.

CHUCK TODD, HOST: You know, it's interesting. What do you make though of this? Is it this issue with a sitting president that’s not used to being challenged? It's been a long time, it’s rust. What do you think it is?

BROKAW: I don't think any of that counts. You know this is the most important debate of the campaign. Everybody’s been saying that….

TODD: So get it together.

BROKAW: …including your advisers. Get it together. You're the President of the United States. You have all these resources that you can draw on. He's been over in Nevada preparing for it. And then he showed up - or didn't show up last night depending on your point of view - and was utterly inadequate. It seemed to me that if he had shown up for a morning briefing at the White House in July of this year on a Thursday, on a routine day, he’d have been more engaged than he was last night.

Yikes!

That should give you an idea of just how poorly the President did.

The only question remaining is how are his fans in the media going to spin this in his favor in the coming days?

Stay tuned.

(HT @AmandaCarpeter)