The general pundit consensus was that Mitt Romney won the first debate. That was the consensus. Mitt Romney won the first debate.
However, ThinkProgress found that during the debate, Mitt Romney lied 27 times. Twenty-seven times!
The debate was only 90 minutes long. That is nearly one lie every three minutes!
That is some serious lying. That is some marathon lying. Mitt ran the lying gauntlet. It takes hard work and dedication to fabrication to lie as much as Mitt did.
But despite all the lies, the pundits still say Mitt Romney won the debate.
I mean sure, he was constantly lying, but, man, what energy!
Watching the debate I actually came up with a radical idea on how to make political debates better.
Don't worry. It's not that we allow third-party candidates into the debates. I'm not that radical. No, no, don't worry. The duopoly is safe.
No, my radical idea revolves around the fact, that we live in an era where there is this new invention that is called the internet. Perhaps you've heard of it?
My radical idea is... why don't we have fact-checkers at the debates themselves?
And if a politician is caught in an obvious lie... that politician is not allowed to speak for 10 minutes. Your mic is cut off. In fact, not only is your mic cut off, that politician should be shamefully escorted to a liar's penalty box. Like in hockey.
And the penalty box can be sponsored by Bank of America or Goldman Sachs. And the candidate has to sit in the Bank of America liar's penalty box in total silence and watch as a clock ticks down from ten minutes to zero... and when the penalty is done, the door to the box opens and the politician has to sprint back up to the podium and start debating again.
Or if you want to make it something that kids can enjoy: Instead of a penalty box, when a candidate lies you can have the cartoon Whammy pop out of the podium. And if a candidate gets four Whammy's, a trapdoor opens underneath them and they plummet into a vat of... something.
I know. Radical, right? I mean, constantly lying politicians have gotten us this far. Why change that now?