Amid the almost universal acknowledgement that Mitt Romney won the first presidential debate on October 3^rd, liberals have struggled to explain how President Obama seemed unable to defend his policies against Romney’s attacks. In reality, Romney simply provided us with a rare glimpse of what the “president-in-the-bubble” really looks like (Milbank, Washington Post Oct. 7).

While Romney was fully engaged and attentive, the President rarely looked Romney in the eye, preferring instead to stare at his own feet. Obama came across as ignoring Romney and simply rehashing his stock campaign speeches for the benefit of a nation-wide audience.

When the President tried to tout his support for green energy, Romney called him out on his spectacular waste of money on a program with an abysmal success rate, “But don’t forget, you put $90 billion … into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tester and Ener1. I mean, … you don’t just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers…”

After Obama claimed three times that Romney supported a five trillion dollar tax cut, Romney quipped “Look, I’ve got five boys. I’m used to people saying something that’s not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I’ll believe it.”

When Obama tried to portray Romney as Bush 3.0, Romney spelled out why his plan wasn’t just a regurgitation of past policies. Romney stated that accumulating a trillion dollars a year in debt that is then passed on to future generations is simply not moral. Romney went on to say that he would eliminate all programs that didn’t meet this criteria: “I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.” Sadly, Big Bird may not make the cut.

Romney didn’t take the president’s assertions at face value. He challenged him  and exposed an uncertain and flustered Obama to the world.