A tie, sports fans say, is like kissing your sister. Playing not to lose in the final debate, Mitt Romney ended up smooching a maiden aunt.

So much for deep analysis but, with two weeks to go, will Barack Obama’s clear victory on foreign affairs make the difference in a close election?

To avoid gaffes, Romney resorted to head-nodding as a strategy and was rewarded with Presidential lectures tinged with sarcasm.

“Every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong,” Obama told him. “Not only were you wrong, but you were confusing in sending mixed messages to our troops and to our allies.”

“Attacking me is not an agenda,” Romney replied, hunkering down.

When the GOP candidate dared point out the size of the U.S. Navy “is smaller now than any time since 1917,” the Commander-in-Chief brought his rhetorical big guns:

“Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. 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 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.”

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