I Like the Rose Garden, The Roses Are the Right Height

Stephen was excited about the presidential debate on Tuesday night. He talked about some of the preparation by Mitt Romney which included bar-stool sitting. He's a Mormon, so he has no experience in sitting on stools.

Everyone seemed to be in agreement with Stephen about how great the debate was. One of the hotly debated topics was Libya and the attack that happened in Libya. Mitt was all prepared to score and Stephen was excited by that prospect.

Mitt Romney: "I think it's interesting the President just said something which which is on the day after the attack he went in the Rose Garden and said this was an act of terror."

Barack Obama: "That's right, sir."

Mitt Romney: "You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror?"

And then, Mitt Romney gave Barack Obama the dreaded googly-eyed stare and a nod of his head down.

Mitt Romney: "It was not a spontaneous demonstration? Is that what you're saying?"

Barack Obama: "Please proceed, Governor."

Mitt Romney: "I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the President 14 days before he called the attack in Benhgazi an act of terror."

Barack Obama: "Get the transcript."

The moderator clarified the whole issue by saying the President did in fact say it was an act of terror on the day after the attacks.

Barack Obama: "Can you say that a little louder, Candy?"

Stephen had a conniption and Mitt Romney had that kind of "deer staring into headlights" look.

Stephen Colbert: "It's supposed to shake things up the other way!" This was not going well for either Stephen or Mitt.

Part of the blame could be the questions. According to Megyn Kelly, the questions were stupid ones about topics we haven't heard before. And there were crazy subjects such as equal pay for women and gun violence. (How do we get more of the first one and less of the second?)

Mitt Romney had a suggestion on how to cut down on gun violence: "But, gosh, to tell our kids that before they have babies they ought to think of getting married to someone. That's a great idea." So, gun violence - solved.

Alpha Dog of the Week. Lately Stephen has been having Alpha Dogs that have been sort of wimpy. Not tonight. Tonight he told us about  Dr. Scott Desjarlais. (It has something to do with hypocrisy.)

There are a lot of reasons why he gets top billing in the dog department. First of all, he says he is pro-life. According to his website, "All life should be cherished and protected. We are pro-life." Secondly, he had an affair with a patient. When she said she was pregnant, Dr. Desjarlais urged her to get an abortion. That's not enough to get Alpha Dog billing, though. Additionally, he made a tape of the conversation with his mistress about an abortion. And he did this because he thought it would  repair his marriage. Stephen tells us that for some reason his wife still divorced him, so ladies, he's available. Technically, he's remarried but that never stopped him before. So, for growling at abortion and then begging for it, Stephen made Dr. Scott Desjarlais the Alpha Dog of the Week.

Stephen's guest last night was a writer, a director, a producer, and a star. It was really one person, not four - Tyler Perry. Stephen mentioned, as he often does, that it's not a contest but he's winning. (I think Stephen is perhaps somewhat competitive, but I'm not going to say that.) They talked about Tyler Perry's new movie, "Alex Cross." Stephen thought it was a comedy, but it appears to be more of a fast-paced action thriller.

Next question asked was if Tyler Perry was a Romney guy. Tyler Perry avoided answering that question, so we will never know who Tyler Perry supports for president. One thing we did learn is that he is ready for the election to be over with. "Let's just vote already!" he told Stephen.

The two men ended the show in prayer with Stephen praying that Alex Cross would be a huge success.

Pregnant Pause

(Stephen is on break this week, so I will fill in with news and commentary that I think is pertinent.)

A pregnant pause is a pause that's maybe a little bit longer than usual, but Herman Cain took it to new levels in his interview at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He paused, a lot, when asked about Libya, specifically whether he agreed with the way that President Barack Obama handled Libya. You can read about it over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and you can even watch the video of the Libya part of the interview about midway down the page. (Note: If you need to take a break while you are watching the approximately 5-minute video, just hit the pause button.)

A few things come to mind. And I will note that lots of other blogs and news outlets have some of the very same concerns so I'm not pretending to be the first person to write about the pause.

First off, Herman Cain doesn't seem to know how to answer the question. He seems to be looking to the heavens for inspiration, in much the same way that a high schooler will look at the ceiling hoping to find answers to the SAT up there. Cain's answer is not really an answer, he is dodging the question. Just imagine a beauty contest contestant taking that long to answer a question about world peace. Or if Mommy asks little Johnny if he took the last cookie out of the cookie jar. "Cookies, ummm, let me think. Now are you asking about ginger cookies and do you mean today? And is it the cookie jar on the table or that old one in the pantry? I need more information before I can give you a yes or no answer to that question, Mommy."

I also suspect that he has no idea of what President Obama has done in the past few years about Libya. That is what made it so hard for him to answer whether he agreed or disagreed about what the president did.

More telling is what Herman Cain has said after the interview about his awkwardness with the question.

"It was a pause!" Cain said in a tone of disbelief. "That's all it was! Good Grief!"

Anyone watching the video, other than Cain's "EBCs" (Early Believers in Cain) knows that it was not a simple pause. A pause is when you're at the counter at McDonalds and the guy behind the counter asks if you want fries with your burger. "Um, okay, yeah. Fries would taste good. I'll take a medium bag of fries."

So, while everyone knows it was much more than a pause, Herman Cain keeps insisting that it was nothing more than a pause.

Now backtrack to the allegations of harassment. If Cain doesn't recognize his befuddlement over the Libya question, how can he understand what harassment is? And when he claims that there was no harassment, that it was nothing but a comparison of how tall someone was in comparison to his wife, well it makes me wonder about that situation also. If he can't come to grips on the whole Libya pause thing, then what can we expect in the future? How will he handle difficult issues and the stress of the job? I like humor as well as the next person, but there should be some serious discussion with well-thought solutions when someone is running for President.

Information May Change Rapidly

I just looked at Wikipedia's entry about Libya. The first thing is a little box that says:

This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

Following the links in that statement, you can get to the 2011 Battle of Tripoli.

School has started for some students at colleges and high schools. For other students, it will be just a few more days or weeks for them to get back to hitting the books. For them, this will most likely be a topic of much discussion. There's bound to be at least one teacher who gives an assignment to compare and contrast the American Revolution to the Battle of Tripoli.

Interesting to ponder that. What role did Paul Revere play? What role did Mark Zuckerberg play?

Breaking News

Khaddafy --- Qadhafi --- Gadhafi -- Whichever way you spell his name, he seems to be on the way out. His location is unknown at this time. His eldest son has been captured as has his brother. State TV had been playing old footage of pro-Khaddafy rallies but switched to a soap opera.

Things are moving quickly. This will be the top story in the morning TV shows and the headlines in most newspapers.

As always, when something like this happens, details may be sketchy, and the story may be updated over and over. There is rejoicing in the streets for now. Hopefully the infrastructure and day to day necessities will be able to be coordinated so that it will be a smooth transition.

I'm watching msnbc now. You can watch what's happening there. Or read about it at Reuters here. President Obama, on vacation (although when is the POTUS ever really on vacation?) is constantly briefed by national security advisers.

History is being made in Libya. Stephen Colbert is on vacation, so we will have to wait for two weeks to hear his view on the events happening there.