softer approach, not to challenge the president, not to be overly aggressive. was that the smart way to handle it? it was frustrating for me as it was for you. i sat there watching the tv and with my body language i wanted him to throw more punches. but i think the key thing was romney did not want to make news in this debate. he did not want to change the subject the last two weeks of the election. he has got the election now squarely focused on the economy. all the polls so show that by to to one he is more trusted on the economy. and, therefore, the news he wanted to make, the sparks he wanted to fly were about the economy. not about foreign policy. but he what would have been the deficit to make some news about libya the in sense that you confront the president who is obviously screwed this up oomg you make a competency issue. the reason romney is ahead on
last week he should have hit obama on the libya and hit him all the way to chicago. i think that was curve ball. he decided for his own strategic reasons that all he had to do after he won the first debated, which i will remind you had a moderator who was only a cease-fire after the first sipher. presidential candidate plausiblably met the threshold to be president. once he did that, he had achieved the most important objective of all the debates. why shouldn t he? he is trying to win not trying to score points. okay. so i understand that tactic, and i said that in the talking points memo. it it might be the correct tactic. i feel that the measure public deserves more. they want a true leader. we need a true leader. we want to see people who basically want to right wrongs. the libya thing is wrong. it s wrong i just didn t see.
obnoxious. we also want them to show strength. there is a way to do that just have three or four questions. boom, boom, boom. sit back. bill: could have softly asked those questions. the only thing that i would have liked to have seen is a little bit more. show more red meat about libya. i would have liked to have seen him. bill: but that s confrontational, gizelle. that guilfoyle. bill: i don t know where the line is so we had governor romney also pulling it back big time last night. all right? and he did it, i m almost now entirely convinced to go for the single women who he is running behind on and he needs to win. he is closing the gap. because you think how president obama was at the first debate. did he accomplish that last night. i don t think so. yes. i don t think he moved the bar at all because he didn t. bill: his softer approach to you didn t work? i liked the softer approach but you can ask them questions
able to tell the american people that barack obama has screwed it up. now what you are doing and not only has he screwed up the economy, excuse me, he screwed this up. so it s a competency issue. what would have been wrong with that? because, you never know how it s going to play out. you never know how it s going to work. you never know what the ricochet is going to be. overwhelming facts on your side. so what he had facts on his side in the second debate and it didn t work out on libya. i think that he was very right for making this focus on the economy. but the broader picture, bill, what he did in this debate was he he made sure that women did not think he was a warmonger. bill: now you are agreeing with me. the worry is that he was bush 43, that he was a cowboy. he proved to them he wasn t. that s one. number two, he led obama be an obnoxious as he was going to be. right now his favorability is higher than obamas and it just got much higher. swas a very skillful debate on
caution, you where to enter the no spin zone, the factor begins right now. hi i m bill o reilly, thanks for watching us tonight. who won the final debate? that is the subject of this evening s talking points memo. nobody won but we the american people lost that s because the debate was boring. same old stuff over and over. and where were the pointed questions by moderator bob schieffer? i mean, where was the libya stuff? the pakistan stuff? all the questions were general. which allowed both candidates to recite their talking points. this morning on cbs, i laid out why the debates are not serving the public as well as they should be. all three of the debate moderators will not press the issue like you do on 60 minutes. you want to see a more