Obama has a record and stated policies that can be attacked. Romney has done his best to avoid saying anything specific about intended policies, which leaves almost nothing for Obama to attack. That enables Romney to be the aggressor and limits Obama to playing a defensive game, not the best position to take in a debate.

What Obama needed to do, and what may have been the intention was to turn the attacks from Romney into opportunities to reinforce in the minds of the viewers the benefits of Obama’s policies. His presentation just didn’t pull it off. I suspect Romney’s lies were pissing Obama off and he was trying to control his responses through that frustration.