Everyone knows that a debate between presidential candidates is not a disinterested inquiry after truth

Envy and the Undoing of American Mores

by Theodore Dalrymple

One exchange in the second Presidential debate caught my imagination. It was the one in which Mr Romney asked Mr Obama whether he ever thought about his pension, and Mr Obama replied that he did not, but that he was sure that it was smaller than Mr Romney’s.

Of course, Mr Romney’s question was itself an attempt to rebut Mr Obama’s assertion that Mr Romney had invested in companies that had outsourced formerly American jobs to China, with the clear implication that Mr Romney had enriched himself thereby. The point of Mr Romney’s rebuttal was that, almost certainly, and whether he knew it or not, Mr Obama had also invested in companies that outsourced American jobs, ergo, where outsourcing was concerned, they were in the same boat.

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