At long last, President Obama has someone else to blame for his miserable job performance besides George W. Bush.  It's John Kerry.  According to Matt Latimer of The Daily Beast:

The president would have been better off having a Magic 8-ball as a debate partner. I mean that only partly in jest. One of the advantages of being someone like Mitt Romney is that he can be anything to anybody on any day. He changes his views with such abandon that nearly every one of his Republican opponents out and out called him a liar. But he got away with it. That's how good he is. John Kerry is a liberal Democrat committed to a certain set of ideas. He doesn't know how to sound like a Tea Partier one day and a gay-rights activist the next. He's the world's worst flip-flopper.

What the president needs as a debate partner is a guy filled with ambition, someone desperate to please, able to recite facts and figures as if they mean something while biting his lip, talking about his "Mama," and trying to sound as "average American" as possible. A guy who has no problem abandoning any position if it helps his chances, and gets away with it by pretending he hasn't changed a thing. Don't know who I mean? Here's a hint: he's on the phone right now in Chappaqua telling anyone who'll listen how much better he (or Hillary) would have done last night. Yes, bring Bill in as debate coach. He might be helpful. But hey, at this point maybe Obama ought to ask for pointers from Vice President Joe Biden. He can't foul things up any worse for the ticket. Right?

The problem with Barack Obama wasn't John Kerry's inability to prepare the president properly for the debate.  It was his lack of ability -- and a teleprompter.  Saying that our president is inept is being too kind: he's a disgrace.  Barack Obama has done more damage to this country in four years than I would have dreamed possible four short years ago, and my expectations of him were very low even then.

From Europe to Russia to China to the Middle East, he has made America look weak economically, politically, and militarily.  Domestically, he has done his utmost to turn the U.S. into a welfare haven on borrowed money.  If we had elected him to dismantle the American dream, he could not have done a better job.  And now he wants four more years to finish the job that he started.  My fear, and I mean that literally, is that if Obama is re-elected he will finish the job and all of us will suffer the consequences.  After Wednesday night's debate, it seems as though only Obama Zombies don't get it.  Problem is they will never get it.

Mitt Romney may not be the perfect candidate, but he is light years ahead of the incumbent.  Thankfully, Obama's debate performance proved that to thinking people, and I don't include Obama Zombies in that group.

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.  His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.