binders full of women

The phrase "binders full of women" is said to be "going viral" on the Internet.

It was a gently-funny moment in last night's presidential debate when Governor Mitt Romney took a question about work opportunities and pay, for women, and he was telling us how, when he arrived at the Massachusetts statehouse, he perused a list of possibilities for high-level state jobs (or maybe cabinet, I don't know...) and they were all men, and he said, "Why don't we have any women on this list?"  And his people went looking for qualified women, & they compiled lists, and the governor said, by the time they'd done their work, We had -- many women to consider, for those positions -- (warming up to his story) -- we had -- "We had binders full of women!"

I noticed that when he said it, listening --and partially watching-- the proceedings on Internet:  my lips involuntarily formed the words and repeated them..."binders full of women..."  : )

It seemed different, to me, that the president and challenger didn't have podiums to stand behind.  While one talked, the other seemed to be standing, just -- out there by himself, podium-less....
Maybe they had podiums and came out from behind them, to engage at closer range -- I don't know, I was doing stuff while it was on, wasn't "glued" to screen....
...And their dark suits looked the same, to me.

My "take" on this second debate between President Obama and Governor Romney is that it was more energized, vigorous, than the first debate, and that -- the candidates sound amazingly like each other.

They're both in favor of -- er -- women...
and they all wanna save the "middle class" or -- bring it back, or something.
They both favor a "good" economy rather than a poor one.
(It's kind of like the old joke where the one guy tells the other that the minister preached a sermon on sin, and the other guy asks, "For or against?")
Safe to assume both candidates want a Good Economy.

As I listened, I thought,
Romney sounds like Obama -- like yeah, what he said, but me doing the job, instead of him-!
That's always the position the challenger is in, to some extent.
The incumbent has his record (the good parts) to remind us about, but also, anything in the World that's wrong Anywhere, will now be blamed on him by the challenger...!  Lyndon Johnson likened it to being "a jackass in a hailstorm -- all you can do is stand there and take it..."

Some viewers will complain, I think, anytime they think two candidates "sound alike" -- "They both sound alike!  Why should I bother voting?  They're all the same!"  But really, in a civilized society / democracy, the candidates shouldn't be too far apart -- if it was like that, then we'd be like one of those third-world-waking-nightmare-of-a-country where every time there's a change in power, or leadership, it upsets the whole applecart of everything and their whole economy-way-of-life, everything careens wildly in one direction or the other and life becomes untenable.  (That's why they emigrate here!)

The minute the debate was over, voices of television journalists (or tele-prompter-reading anchors, whatever they are) chimed in to tell us what we just heard...one voice said something about how this debate was more energized, or something, than the first one, & then an over-exicted guy jumps in and says, "It was a street fight!"

Honestly, where did these people go to journalism school, the Dominican Republic?

In a mall in the Dominican Republic?

It was nothing like a "street fight," you're engaging in overstatement, exaggeration, and sensationalization, which is the opposite of what your job is -- you're not on the Kardashians or the Real Housewives, quit dramatizing, and report it like a grown-up professional.

Thank you and good-night.
Or, as Edward R. Murrow would say,
"Good night and good luck."

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