I don’t know what bothers me more – that President Obama did so poorly in the debate with Mitt Romney on Wednesday or that I was so unaware of it at the time.  Granted, I was in the rarified environment of a PRIDE PAC viewing, so there was only negative energy flowing in the rightward direction (no Log Cabin-ers in attendance), but I honestly thought the President was doing all right.  

In the days since, I’ve been beaten down by the realities of the evening.  Probably the most damaging thing was that Jon Stewart was able to fill 20 minutes – and I’m sure could have done more – on Mr. Obama’s lapses.  Next worst was how sad the Obama surrogates sounded trying to make excuses for him.  Over and over I heard them say he didn’t want to sound condescending or like an “angry black man.”  (I’m not even going into Al Gore’s theory that Denver’s altitude did Obama in.)

All right, if that was the strategy, I think we can safely say it was a poor one.  More important, I think someone with the President’s political experience and savvy should be able to point out that his opponent has not uttered a single word of truth in 90 minutes without even raising his voice.  He seems to be running from his “You’re likable enough, Hilary” remark from four years ago.  If so, he needs to be reminded that there’s a big difference between being a little condescending to the first woman to make a viable bid for the White House and a pompous, old-school rich guy.  Remember:  no one likes Mitt.  Hilary was popular.

Next time around, I – like most liberals – want to see President Obama in take-no-prisoners mode.  I want to see him rough Romney up.  Even if it means getting none of his points out, I want Obama to call out all of Romney’s lies.  He doesn’t have to be Jon Stewart brutal. (“Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.”)  He can get close, though.  How about, “Mitt, Mitt, Mitt, you know none of that’s true.”  I bet it’d do the trick.

As wrong as I was on Wednesday, I will stand by one of my assessments.  At one point I tweeted out, “Why does Romney look like he’s constipated.”  And he did.  It was a creepy, uncomfortable expression.  Unlike me, though, most of the pundits thought he looked great.  The only one in my camp was James Lipton (host of “Inside the Actors Studio), who said he looked like he was about to fire someone he really liked.

My two hopes for the next round are that Obama brings his A game . . . and that I can tell that he did.

Ooo!  But we have Biden/Ryan before then.  Good or bad, that’s going to be fun.