The first debate is over, and Mitt Romney scored a knockout over a befuddled and listless Obama. Tonight the magician in the White House pulled a dead rabbit out of his hat. The curtain has been lifted, and the country has beheld a shriveled simulacrum, lost without his teleprompter, unable to speak coherently beyond the memorized sound bites.

 

The curtain, ruffled by the breeze

Reveals the naked form for all to see

The limpid smile once thought to please

Now only shows a living parody

We watched with awe the curtain rend

Mitt Romney tore the damn thing clean in half

The sleight of hand is at an end

Obama led off crying by his staff

It isn’t over, just round one

The unions, fraud and Acorn will be heard

But as at Austerlitz the sun

Shines brighter as the world now hears the word

That Romney will restore the sense

Of freedom and democracy that would

Have been referred to in past tense

And Barack shred the country if he could

The curtain’s down, illusions gone

The implements of magic now revealed

The lady never had been sawn

As light shines on the flummery concealed