"Romney Out-Debates Obama

How the GOP candidate schooled the president on science policy."

That's the article from left-wing Slate:

According to Science Debate, both the Obama and Romney campaigns say they are considering participating in a live science forum. In the meantime, these written answers will have to do. If you scroll through them quickly, one thing is immediately apparent: Mitt Romney’s team took this very seriously. His answers are longer, they have subtitles, they have bullet points. It’s not just great presentation: The Romney text is substantive, specific, and detailed. Obama’s answers to some of the same questions are single paragraphs that are vague, repetitive (two in a row start with “Since taking office”), and poorly written.


Question No. 4 is about pandemics: Recent experiments show how avian flu may become transmissible among mammals. In an era of constant and rapid international travel, what steps should the United States take to protect our population from emerging diseases, global pandemics and/or deliberate biological attacks?

This question is an invitation to show strong leadership, expertise, creativity, and a sense of urgency. Obama’s answer starts like this: “We all are aware that the world is becoming smaller every day.”

Romney nailed it. An excerpt of his answer: “To further improve preparedness, we must continue to invest in the best public health monitoring systems that can be built. I will also encourage advancements in research and manufacturing to increase scientific understanding of new pathogens and improve response time when they emerge. The development of new countermeasures, from diagnostics to antibiotics and antivirals to respirators, will help protect human lives in the face of new bugs and superbugs.”

Of course, Slate "dings" Romney for daring to say that the extent and causes of Global Warming are not completely decided.

Because science is one thing, attacking a liberal faith position is quite another thing.