dug the hole he was in deeper.Crowley tossed him a life raft.

The President got her to repeat the factcheck louder, thereby drawing the spotlight on Romney's huge screw up and subsequent humiliation. How would Romney have dug the hole deeper? Please explain because without Crowley's factcheck Romney would have talked more and accused Susan Rice of trying to blame the anti-muslim video and the protest demonstration-turned-violent as the flash point for the attack on the consulate. IMO that would have left his "act of terror" lie out there with some believing it and others not until the President got a chance to try to refute it after Romney got through lyin . . . er, ah . . . speaking. I don't see how the "act of terror" lie could have been more highlighted and revealed in a more dramatic way than that. But please, give us your thoughts.

When Crowley came in with her response, it served to validate what Obama had been saying, the applause at that point made Romney realized that he'd just made a fool of himself before millions of people, and it rattled him immensely. I think he was so caught up in his attack that it didn't even sink in (and took a few minutes even afterwards, since he tried to jump right back into the argument again. So, no, it rattled him immensely and through him completely off his game.

anything Obama could have done, even if Romney had had time to dig the hole deeper?
This may well be true, just wondering what you all think...

So much for cool, calm, thinking on your feet, presidential material.

"Yes I did," or "Check the transcript," so it would have become a pissing contest. Neutral fact checker helped POTUS (and all of us.)

right. The current time fact check helped.

Fox taught them today to hate Crowley. I wonder if they'll be fooled again if I tell them the conservative leaning moderator was attempting to stave an even worse Robme train wreck.

I'm going to have so much fun phucking with their little minds.

management as the debate moderator. She would have been thinking to prevent a situation such as that which occurred with Lehrer, in which not very many of the questions got into the discussion. She wanted more of the "town's people", since it was a "town hall" debate, to get their opportunity to ask their questions. Not good to let these two guys scrap to no real point of resolution, eat up time, when she could end the dispute at that point with one piece of concrete fact.

Basically, Rmoney got confronted on his lie, and no one had to wait for the media to show up the next day and report it.

And a lot of people would have gone away assuming Romney told the truth, because very few people bother to check the facts in these things.

Real time fact checking showed Romney to be absolutely wrong in real time for everyone to see. It cast everything else he said in the debate under a shadow of doubt.

rather than moving on .

by shedding light on the truth, or throwing Romney a life raft, as a poster above put it?

it contradicted him with FACTS?

move the discussion to the next issue, as was her job.

If Crowley doesn't say anything, it just disappears into the forest of all of Romney's other lies. It isn't like this is the only thing Romney has gotten wrong, or lied about. How many of those things are being discussed?

and it's done and this conversation is pointless.

Since clearly what transpired was such a let down for us.

I was overjoyed to read all the threads here about the MAJOR ass-kicking, and stayed up late to savor them.
So you can fucking stop calling me a concern troll.

Just putting out there the thoughts of someone who had a different take on this one particular moment in the "debate"... Especially since Crowley is virtually NEVER on our side.

have been difficult for the audience AND would have eaten up valuable time, time needed for QUESTIONERS to get their chance, by offering a concrete factual piece of information that resolved what could have become a stressful situation with the candidates talking over each other vying for time and not actually achieving resolution of the issue at question right then.

She did good and didn't discredit herself as well.
You can tell because all the righties are mad as hornets and trying to spin it any way they can.

walked right off the cliff. I don't know how he could have done any worse!

Mitt was challenging Obama's Rose garden statement.