have been absolutist on that. i heard joe biden say last night, look, we re willing to i heard him say, we re willing to consider these other ideas just like we cut a trillion dollars in spending last year, but it s time to come to the table. when your position is not one more penny. that s a separate issue altogether. we re talking about social security. and we re talking about the fiscal reality of what s going to happen not that many years down the road. so it seems to me the country does deserve an answer on that from both parties, for that matter, about why not, for the next generation, move up the retirement, give them the life expectation now? why is that such a tough question to answer and not have it tied to what you re going to do with the rest of the taxes? oh, because i think even if you look at social security, the romney/ryan position has been that in order to deal with the social security issue, they will only deal with it by cutting benefits. i mean, that s been t
because joe biden did what president obama should have done which was to look into the camera and look at me, i m a democrat. all right? i ve been in the senate for years. we re the democratic party. we believe in medicare. we believe in social insurance. do you trust me or do you trust this 40-something-kid who comes from the world of conservative think tanks scheming to get rid of the program since its beginning and inception? who do you trust? that was just the simple question. he said, look at the reputational capital that has been built up over time in those two parties over what we are going to do. and trust yourself on who is going to vouch save medicare. on the issue of afghanistan, it was clear paul ryan is arguing a position, passionately, that s unpopular. i mean what is the position? there s no well, he got lost in the answers on afghanistan. i don t disagree with that at all. the point is the position the vice president was arguing which is we want to have afgh
for joining us. i will just say it is not a sign of strength for the republican side to come out after the debate and say, listen, the unemployment number is rigged. i realize the republicans have decided that they don t want the unemployment rate to be below 8%, so they re going to say it secretly isn t. that s not a way you telegraph you think you won this debate. i was just going to say in politics there s no bad questions, only bad answers. there you had a clinic on a bunch of bad answers. if you are going to be pro life, a morally serious position, what paul ryan said, an answer to chris question is this. he believes that roe v. wade was wrongly decided. the judges should not have decided that position. that position should rest with the states. that was what paul ryan s position is. if that s going to be the position, which is the pro life
position, then you should proudly articulate that position, not dance around it. right. can i also say, it s fascinating to me how the congresswoman responded to the question of abortion, which is an interaction i ve been having with conservatives a lot. when i bring that up, i get accused of changing the topic, or why are you liberals so obsessed with abortion. it s a strange through the looking glass experience. we ve been fighting the abortion wars in this country going back to the 1970s. the decision to uphold roe is a 5-4 decision. the thing that s missing from the whole discussion is the way republicans have chosen to govern on this. just since 2010, not over our lifetime and this long, lamented decision, since 2010, if you look at the graph of new restrictions on abortion rights in this country, it goes like this. republicans put this on the table at the state level. their champion in the house is guys like trent franks and paul ryan.
he doesn t understand any of it. i find it terrifying. i think that he absolutely blew it in terms of afghanistan. i think even when he said marines in benghazi, when marines are at embassies. and, i mean, he also bent the truth. he s not at the level of liar as romney. he s a fibber. growing to be a liar. romney s an accomplished liar. but i think that clearly mr. biden gave facts. there was nothing they could refute. and i think he was fiery and to the point. i think ryan held his right wing position. he did not do the chameleon thing that romney did. that s true. i think it will hurt him in the end and hurt romney in the end and i think when it came especially to foreign affairs, it s good it was in a college. next time he should bring a notebook when we re going to teach them in class. i thought the place he really did do damage on the domestic policy was medicare. why?