I hate so say "I told you so," but it appears as if Donald Trump is borrowing talking points from Bernie Sanders and the Bernie-or-Bust crowd. The presidential debate schedule has been publicly known since last September, and yet Trump is just now realizing that two of the three ...read more

By Bob Cesca: Anyone who believed Mitt Romney's shape-shifting performance as "Peacenik Mitt" on Monday night is an amnesic, naive doofus. As we all know by now, Romney will do and say whatever is necessary to make it through the day. This is his strategy. By now, the ...read more

By Bob Cesca: Where do I begin? President Obama won his second debate in a row, and this one in particular was a commanding victory in which his opponent, Mitt Romney, was reduced to a sweaty -- Nixon sweaty -- incoherent mess. Last night, the president literally stared down ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Huff Post: BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Rahm Emanuel has often told the story, when early in his days as White House chief of staff, he mused aloud to President Barack Obama about the tough hand they'd been dealt. "Sir, this would be a lot easier if ...read more

By Robert Parry: It was to be Mitt Romney’s “Perry Mason” moment, pouncing on President Barack Obama’s insistence that he had denounced the attack on the Benghazi consulate as a “terrorist” attack on the day after the lethal assault. Romney told the audience to take note of ...read more

By Bob Cesca: For the last two weeks, the Obama campaign and, worse, the entire modern liberal movement were both in danger of coming to an abrupt and jarring end, mainly due to 90 minutes in Denver when superficiality and lies delivered with stunning efficacy rocketed Mitt ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Ben Cohen's Live Blog: Overall, this was an extremely effective performance from Obama. He took it to Romney all night, both aggressively and accurately leaving the Governor looking bewildered on several occasions an unable to mount any ...read more

By Bob Cesca: With the exception of a peculiar USA Today/Gallup poll, and as I've been predicting for the last week, the Romney bounce from the first debate has ended and is currently retreating (see Nate Silver's current forecast charts). Historical precedent has illustrated ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Reuters: WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama retained a slim lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll on Monday, as he appeared to have stemmed the bleeding from his poor first debate. ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From The AP: DANVILLE, Ky. (AP) — At odds early and often, Joe Biden and Republican Paul Ryan squabbled over the economy, taxes, Medicare and more Thursday night in a contentious, interruption-filled debate. "That is a bunch of malarkey," the ...read more

In case you missed it here's what we covered at The Daily Banter this week. The big story was obviously the first presidential debate. Ben Cohen live-blogged the event and followed with this analysis of Romney's "biggest lie." I covered Romney's used car salesman mendacity, ...read more

By Robert Parry: In the presidential debate that I watched on Wednesday night, Republican challenger Mitt Romney was shiftier than Dick Nixon in 1960 and less coherent than George W. Bush in 2000, but the TV pundits, including on MSNBC, overwhelmingly declared him the winner. ...read more

Welcome to this week's edition of The Daily Banter Mailbag! Today, Bob, Ben and Chez discuss the first presidential debate, the most feared aspects of a Romney presidency and the Fox News Suicide Channel. The questions: 1) I think we're all agreed on the left that Obama had a ...read more

By Chez Pazienza: We may as well just go ahead and get this out of the way right off the bat: Make all the excuses you want, Barack Obama got beat pretty handily last night. I'm not talking in terms of actual content, given that Romney took the somewhat predictable tack of ...read more

By Bob Cesca: Mitt Romney won the debate last night but only if you judge the "winner" of a debate as the most hyperkinetic, oftentimes aggressive and condescending participant who used his rehearsed delivery to spackle over his lies, mistakes, generalities and misleading ...read more

The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From The AP: DENVER (AP) — In a showdown at close quarters, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney sparred aggressively in their first campaign debate Wednesday night over taxes, deficits and strong steps needed to create jobs in a ...read more

By Robert Parry: Mitt Romney’s debate team reportedly has armed the Republican presidential nominee with a list of “zingers” designed to deflate President Barack Obama in Wednesday’s first presidential debate, a tactic employed by other presidential candidates but one that ...read more

By Bob Cesca: I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm thoroughly excited about the first presidential debate tomorrow night. I can sense it coming down Main Street: something harrowing will in fact occur on that stage and given what we know about the candidates and the expectations ...read more