re: #250 lostlakehiker

Well, to be fair, Romney didn’t complain about Obama cutting the budget for horses and bayonets. Obama, by bringing up horses and bayonets in response to Romney’s point that the Navy was being scaled down to fewer ships, implicitly made the analogy that ships, for the Navy, were the equivalent of horses and bayonets. And he made it in the most insulting way possible: geez, how could you not know that warships are obsolete? Where have you been? Do you even realize that horse cavalry is obsolete?

An attack which cites top-level ship count without asserting a particular need (even of a type, never mind a specific mission) is a fundamentally unserious attack which should be swatted away with the most banal and patronizing counter-point possible. If Romney wanted to assert that we should have more tankers so we didn’t have to refuel destroyers in shitholes like Aden, then that’s an actual worthwhile discussion we can have. But he established the level of discourse on this point, and he can shove it if he doesn’t like the counter.

Of course, the reminder as always is that trying to have these sorts of discussions on the fly in one or two minutes is a recipe for insulting bullshit. Media, you are bad at your job and you should feel bad.