Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
But in that segment you posted, Romney is not really saying anything either. Saying three talking points without a plan on how he is going to change that other than "this isn't good." is not really a statement. Obama does a really bad job at replying, no doubt. But no one is really bringing up details. Lehrer lets the 122 community banks number slide without any challenge or follow up.
The dodd-frank act is thousands of pages long and the question was a general one about "the level of regulation in the economy". He was asked about principles, the only details were to illustrate. And that's what the debates are for...in fact that's almost the entirety of what we elected someone based on. Because we don't know what's going to happen during the presidency, we don't know what situations are going to come up, we don't know what the legislative debate is going to be like, what will be possible and what won't, we don't even know which party will control the houses. Why do you think a debate is the place for detailed explanatory speeches?

My impression is that the debate was a shocker to a lot of the liberal pundits because they were amazed the president knew better than to use their dumb talking points in place where Romney could reply directly.