Mitt Romney, on how he would cut the budget and raise taxes on no one while dropping the deficit by $5 trillion dollars during the debate tonight. Hint: Big Bird has to die.

"I will eliminate all programs by this test if they do not pass it. Is the program so critical is it is worth borrowing from China to pay for it? Obamacare is on my list. I use the term with all respect. I will get rid of that. I will stop the subsidy to PBS. I like PBS. I like Big Bird. I cannot keep spending money to borrow from China to pay for it."

I really would have liked a retort here about how Mitt Romney had no problem borrowing from German investors to strip companies of their assets and then send the jobs to China. That would have made me smile a little bit, anyway. But alas, this answer was only beginning and by the time Mitt finished four or so minutes later, Big Bird was already embalmed and in his big bird grave, buried by the sheer number of lies Mitt Romney piled up in a short period of time.

And so went the debate, the one pundits were saying had to be a "game-changer" for Mitt Romney. I see a lot of comments around that suggest it was, at least on first blush. At least it was game-changing in the sense that it might boost Romney's poll numbers, assuming one has no use for the truth, because well, Mitt lied. A lot.

As I watched Romney tonight, I saw the guy who made those completely candid 47 percent remarks. When he called President Obama a liar straight up during the debate, I don't think that played especially well. To be sure, Mitt was well-practiced and ready, but I didn't find him pleasant or especially appealing. I found him to be exactly like that dude talking to billionaires about people being victims and dependent on government before sitting down to the cheesecake dessert with his fellow billionaires.

I thought President Obama could have done better, for sure. He missed some key opportunities to be sharper about Obamacare, but he did do a good job of showing Romney's Medicare lies to be what they are.

In the end, people are going to remember that Mitt's down with killing off Big Bird and PBS so he can do his Mitt magic with numbers that just don't add up, no matter how it's spun.

Jim Lehrer kept saying the point of this debate was to define their differences. Unfortunately, the biggest difference didn't come through: one was telling the truth and one wasn't.

In the end, Big Bird's life still hangs in the balance, and Jim Lehrer should never, ever be allowed to moderate anything even resembling a debate ever again.