War is the Health of Debate: Reason’s Final 2012 Presidential Debate Drinking Game

Newsflash! There are other countries in the world
besides America. And tonight  President Barack Obama and GOP
nominee Mitt Romney will debate just what we should do about them.
Bomb them? Attack them with drones? Erect trade barriers and brand
them cheaters? Or perhaps just project our values, PowerPoint
style. Bullets, bullet points, can anyone really tell the
difference?

Apparently there aren’t that many countries, however,
or at least not so many that matter. A leaked topic list indicates
that the debate will
focus almost entirely on the Middle East and terrorism, with
perhaps a brief pause for Romney to brand China a cheater and Obama
to say the word “outcompete.” What about Africa, Latin America,
Russia, and the European Union? Well, what about them?

We’ll have to wait a few more hours to find out what the
candidates actually say, but here’s a rough guess: Mitt Romney, who
has toured other countries and embarrassed himself in the process,
will accuse President Barack Obama of being an embarrassment as a
national leader—someone
who has “diminished American influence abroad” and
“compromised” American values.

Obama, who came into office with little direct background in
foreign policy and who has since ordered bombings and drone strikes
that have killed hundreds, including at least 176 children, will imply that
Romney is inexperienced and simplistically, dangerously
hawkish.

Expect both candidates to make implausible promises about the
country’s energy future, and both to seek ways to make themselves
look tough on China, the country from which the U.S.
imports more goods than any other.
One candidate will be “wary” about the Middle East. The other will
be “cautious.”

In other words, expect a lot of kinetic rhetorical action, but
not much actual debate.

So you may as well find a fancy foreign brew and drink your way
through it all.

Start with a robust pregame chug for all the foreign policy
issues that won’t be discussed: Democracy and development
in Africa, the future of Russia, the Eurozone crisis, Greece and
austerity budgets, debt and monetary policy in Japan.

And then take a drink if:

• Obama claims he ended the war in Iraq.
• Romney fails to note that
  he didn’t.
• Obama mumbles something vaguely incoherent about
  Afghanistan.
• Romney mumbles something vaguely incoherent about
  Afghanistan.
• Obama talks up sanctions on Iran.
• Romney says those sanctions are not strong enough, but won’t
  say what action(s) would be.
• Either candidate attempts to provide a detailed
  assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.
• Romney once again
  botches his criticism of the Obama administration’s Benghazi
  blunders.
• Obama
  defends his administration’s days-long insistence that the
  attacks were provoked by a YouTube video critical of Islam.
• Romney promises to
  brand China a currency manipulator.
• Obama declares that America must outcompete
  the rest of the world.
• Romney,
  like just about every presidential candidate for the last few
  decades, pledges to achieve North American energy independence by
  2020, but does not promise to discover unicorns, which is equally
  likely.
• Obama says he wants to end subsidies to big oil without
  mentioning that he wants to plow those subsidies right back into
  dubious green energy projects.
• Romney accuses Obama of having gone on an apology
  tour. 
• Anyone uses the words “mission accomplished.”
• Anyone uses the words  “brought to justice.”
• Anyone mispronounces the name of a foreign country or city.
  Double shot if they pause to slowly correct themselves.
• Anyone, including the moderator, gets mixed up about which war
  he’s talking about.  

Special rules:

• Take one drink the first time President Obama mentions Osama
  bin Laden. Take two drinks the second time. And three drinks the
  third. Keep increasing the number of drinks accordingly each time
  he mentions him. And so on and so forth, so on the sixth time
  President Obama mentions bin Laden, you should take six
  drinks.
• Buy a truck full of tequila, drive straight to Mexico, and open
  a bar under an assumed name if Romney responds to any of Obama’s
  bin Laden mentions by saying “you didn’t build that.” 

And remember to check back at debate time (9 p.m. EST) as
Reason’s editors live tweet the entire event.

2012-10-23 00:40:30

Source: http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/22/war-is-the-health-of-debate-reasons-fina