«

»

Twitter titters over #horsesandbayonets


Oct 23, 2012 by

At the third presidential debate, Mitt Romney recycled an argument he made back in January when justifying his proposal to increase the defense budget:

“Our Navy is smaller than it’s been since 1917.”

In rebuttal, Barack Obama retorted:

I think Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. You — you mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets — (laughter) — because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

And the Twitterverse went wild.

I asked:

Despite evidence to the contrary, I don’t think #horsesandbayonets has legs.

One: it’s foreign policy, which is almost always on the back burner as far as issues-important-to-voters. I think #horsesandbayonets is a flash in the pan, except for its natural peanut-butter-and-jelly relationship with #bindersfullofwomen.

Two: the quips notwithstanding, on foreign policy the difference between the two candidates is as insignificant as that between Coke and Pepsi.

Three: we don’t know very much about foreign policy. It’s not entirely our fault. When I was a senior at the University of Georgia, post-Vietnam, I wrote a paper analyzing front-page news coverage of foreign affairs. I had spent the prior summer in Norway and northern Europe and was distressed at the minimal coverage.

And that hasn’t changed for the better, but for the worse:

In 1985, 9 percent of foreign stories appeared on page 1, compared with only 6 percent in 2010.

See the complete analysis — with many more tweets and pictures — on Storify.


Donate to The Moderate Voice

Share This

Related Posts

Sponsors

468 ad

7 Comments

  1. ShannonLeee
    October 23, 2012 | 4:03 am

    What people will not be taking from this comment is the formation of that planned statement by Romney.

    It is a very dumbed-down statement meant for idiots that don’t think past their first impression. Less ships = weaker military, that is how the not so bright think. With that statement, Romney is going after the idiot undecided voters. He knows his target audience and is trying to change their mind. It says a lot about how he (imho rightfully) views the American voter and how to best tug on their gut strings.

    as for Obama’s response… also well done. Basically calling out the comment for what it was and explaining that things are a little more complex in the real world…and he did it while getting laughs.

    A good counter attack… makes me wonder if the Obama camp was planning on that remark from Romney.

  2. marc_yan
    October 23, 2012 | 5:55 am

    And now the game : http://www.horsesandbayonetsgame.com !

  3. KATHY GILL, Technology Policy Analyst
    October 23, 2012 | 6:53 am

    Hi, Shannon Lee -> but he’s been saying it since January — and it’s debunked by the debunkers. ARGHH.

    OTOH, you know that the Obama team KNEW he would use it tonight — horses and bayonets had to be planned. Just like reliving the 80s.

  4. KATHY GILL, Technology Policy Analyst
    October 23, 2012 | 6:53 am

    marc- thx!

  5. zephyr
    October 23, 2012 | 8:59 am

    Oh I think it has legs allright – at least up until election day, after which the hope and change will be Romney doing a disappearing act.

  6. Jim Satterfield
    October 23, 2012 | 11:07 am

    I’ve often thought that change is anathema to the “modern” GOP unless the point of the change was to attempt to roll back time.

  7. KATHY GILL, Technology Policy Analyst
    October 23, 2012 | 1:25 pm

    Hi, Zephyr – we’ll see! Like I said, if this could stimulate actual discussion about foreign policy …

    And Jim, that is the essence of “conserving”.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. There are just so many reasons to read this post #horsesandbayonets « Well, This Is What I Think - [...] Twitter titters over #horsesandbayonets (themoderatevoice.com) [...]