Mitt Romney showed a lot about himself in last night’s debate.  He’s not used to being challenged, and he doesn’t deal well when he’s proven wrong.  Plus, he lies. A lot.  We already knew that, but this time, POTUS called him out on it. A lot.

It was just what we needed.

On Libya, Mittens thought he had President Obama in a gotcha moment, but it was Mitt who was gotten.  President Obama was strong and presidential while lambasting Romney for politicizing the death of four Americans in Benghazi Libya.  Mitt Romney accused the president of lying about stating it was a terror attack the following day in the Rose Garden.  President Obama simply said  “please proceed” as Mitt continued digging a hole deep enough to drown in.  Mitt smirked as he said, “I want to make sure we get that on the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack on Benghazi an act of terror.”

A very confident President Obama, very coolly, said, “Get the transcript.”  And then the kicker from the moderator-cum-real-time-fact-checker Candy Crowley who added, “He did, in fact, sir, call it an act of terror.”  And then, as if to add fuel to Romney’s implosion, President Obama added, “Please say that a little louder Candy!”

And suddenly, the smirk disappeared from Mitt’s face.

But not before he insulted me.  I am a single mom.  But Mitt Romney alleged that the key to stopping violent gun crimes would be in me being married.

“How are we going to

[change the culture of violence]? there are a number of things. he mentioned good schools and I totally agree. I believe if we do a good job in education and give people hope that they deserve. And perhaps less violence from that.

Let me mention another thing – parents. We need moms and dads to raise kids. Wherever possible, the benefit of having two parents in the home. That’s not always possible. Lot of great single moms and single dads. But gosh, to tell our kids, before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone. That’s a great idea. Because if there’s a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity and bring them into the American system.”

I also work my ass off, and live with my fiance (whom I may or may not ever marry.)  But he doesn’t expect me home at 5pm to cook dinner.  If I’m not here because I’m working, he’ll get dinner ready, pick up my kid from school, or do whatever it takes to help me.  Get it Mitt?  I thought not.

“I recognize that if you’re going to have women in the workforce that sometimes they need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school. She said, I can’t be here until 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. at night; I need to be able to get home at 5:00 p.m. so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said, fine, let’s have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you.”

As for that Binder Full of Women, I’ll say it in plainer English than President Obama did when calling you out on your multitude of lies: BULLSHIT!

Mitt never asked for the names of women who’d be qualified to be in his cabinet, as he lied in that clip!   As David S. Bernstein explained at the Boston alternative weekly, The Phoenix:

Hey, I know about that binder! And guess what — Mitt Romney was lying about it.

What actually happened was that in 2002 — prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration — a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I’ve checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I’ve just presented it is correct — and that Romney’s claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.

Oh, snap.  And just for added shits and giggles, the Binders Full of Women now has its own exploding tumblr…

Like that…

Oh, I could go on.. but I did in today’s show.  I also talked about the debate with some callers, Will Bunch (Attytood blog), Amy Simon (She’s History) and John Amato (Crooks & Liars), so please click on the player above and have a listen…  We have 20 days till election day…

Talk to you tomorrow. Radio or Not!