Thanks to the very unassuming moderation of Mr. Schieffer,  the Monday presidential debate was civilized and pleasant. How boring. Who won? Let’s look in the catacombs of C.G. Jung’s collective unconscious.

As debates has become more ritualized over the decades, journalists (particular from CNN) have begun to sound like art or sport critics. Contests are analyzed on aesthetic or numerical grounds almost as though they are movies or football games.

Third presidential’s debate split/smoke screen – The Romney/Obama Siamese twin show

A consensus emerged among the critics about Mondays debate: The foreign policy debate is a flop: Romney/Obama Siamese twins.The problem with treating politics as stagecraft, particularly this election, is that it mistakes the policies for the play and confuses theater with politics. Maybe not. Theater should provide entertainment, politicians should provide leadership. And it’s at this psychological level that this campaign is singularly confusing. Down in the catacombs of C.G. Jung’s collective unconscious where elections really occur, where the commenters don’t reach, and where the polls can barely penetrate, a mythological struggle is unfolding between two profoundly different archetypal figures: a lost boy who grew up with questions of identity, and a favorite son. Barack Obama, a lonely meritocratic smooth talker and Mitt Romney, from a family of pioneers. They’re even further divided by what they have in common. Both are outsiders, one because of the color of his skin, one because of the nature of his Mormon faith. One is caught in a politically (correct) suitable social worker language, the other in a CEO lingo.

Mirror worlds

Both candidates are campaigning in mirror worlds. Obama’s followers (also in Europe) have euphoric tendencies and a proven tolerance for paradox. The idea of “soft power” (killing by drones) makes sense to them, as does the notion that going into debt helps lift a sinking economy. Romney’s vision is a binder of women and balanced checking account, strictly suppressing his faith or any transcendent thought. In C.G. Jung’s Four Functions of Personality Obama is intuitive thinking and extrovert, Romney extrovert and sensing, and their contest strikes us as garbled and annoying because they create dissonances of a Mars and Venus sort of thing.

Not since John F. Kennedy faced Richard Nixon, a good-looking man against a five o’clock shadow, has U.S. presidential politics united such constitutionally different beings. One man clings to words, the other to numbers. One educated himself by reading books, the other by scrutinizing balance sheets. On the screen, both personas and images (in the narrow meaning) seem almost identical fakes, like Siamese twins.

I liked Mr. Schieffer’s Obama Bin Laden slip. It was not his fault, however, that it turned into an uninformative and rather anti-intellectual foreign debate. In this state of the race it was predictable that the candiates relied on rhetorics,  repeated soundbites and strayed to domestic economics.

If you stop drinking the Whine of Change and smoking Hopium

As usual Obama played ‘commander-in-chief’ card  – his most memorable (and correct) statement was: here’s one thing I’ve learned as commander in chief.. You’ve got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you stand and what you mean. Was he the last 4 years?  To his enemies maybe – with the drone policy. To Europe, certainly not. In any case one should stop congratulating Obama for killing Bin Laden. The Navy Seals killed Bin Laden.

Romney hit more content focused:  attacking me is not an agenda. Attacking me is not talking about how we’re going to deal with the challenges … we can’t kill our way out of this mess…

Romney came across at least as informed and quick study and held his ground. Romney stated that the weak economy and apologetic policies are national security issue that has weakened America’s standing in the world.

Hedge Funds Hot for Ailing Greece’s Debt again. Papanicolaou and his predecessor, Christoforos Sardelis, revealed a contract that helped Greece mask its growing sovereign debt to meet European Union requirements.“In secret deals, intermediaries have the upper hand and use it to squeeze taxpayers,” “The bargaining power is in investment banks’ hands.”

Problem with Obama is, if you stop drinking the Whine of Change and smoking Hopium he has little to show of his first four years than headaches. In foreign policy – especially in the Middle East – he mostly reacted. During the banking crisis November 2008 actually Obama  proped up a financial system that was essentially a dead man walking. Some portrayed his top officials as, in effect, tools of Wall Street . These men and women have “no venality,” Krugman (NYT) hastened to say March 2009 in an interview with NEWSWEEK. But they are suffering from “osmosis,” from simply spending too much time around investment bankers and the like. Details of the administration’s bank-rescue plan  i.e. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing. It’s as if the president were determined to confirm the growing perception that he and his economic team are out of touch, that their economic vision is clouded by excessively close ties to Wall Street.” When he had his chance to go after the big banks  March 2009 he didn’t touch them, sacrificing Europe (and the US citizens) to the big money complex. Resolving a systemic financial crisis ever since means now recapitalising weak financial institutions and moving their bad loans from the private to the public sector (vulgo taxpayer). The bail out money is borrowed by private banks increasing the deficit that gives him today the only good grade – from the financal system.  One wonders why.

The election has a serious “B” word hang-up. Barack, Binders, bayonets, Big Bird, Benghazi, Bush, and recently bullshitter:

The attack in Benghazi was by a spontaneous mob in response to some obscure YouTube video.” #Bullshitter

You know who’s a #bullshitter? The guy who repackages his failed first term agenda and promises, no really, I’ll get it done this time.

Not convinced of both.

If you are satisfied with the next 4 years repeating the previous 4 years, then Obama is your man, if you are serious about something (unknown) not too different choose Romney. Both are in the pockets of Wall Street. The speculative money complex  has a binder full of European and American politicians.