Conservatives wasted no time blaming Candy Crowley for interfering with the debate by correctly asserting that Obama had referred to the Benghazi attack as an "act of terror".
But, as Jonathan Bernstein at WaPo writes, they can't blame Crowley or Obama for their own alternative-universe delusions.
More below the squiggly.
In his excellent post-debate opinion piece, Bernstein notes:
This was the night in which the conservative closed information feedback loop and its close cousin, lazy mendacity, caught up with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney — in a big way.
In other words, conservatives had themselves so convinced that Obama had never called the attacks "terrorism" or an "act of terror" that they actually believed it! They believed it so firmly, that Romney was sure of his challenge to Obama during the debate and looked like an idiot when Crowley corrected him.
It showed, once again, why Romney is not ready to be President. He didn't know a fact that the moderator knew -- that Obama had indeed uttered the words "act of terror" in the Rose Garden. On foreign policy, he really is clueless and totally reliant on his advisers, who say what he and they want to hear:
The closed information loop leaves conservatives vulnerable, and it makes it very difficult for them to govern effectively when they are in office. I think anyone watching tonight saw why.
That's why Romney's foreign policy attack turned out to be his own foil -- conservatives are so desperate to undermine Obama's strength on foreign policy, they are fumbling, big time.