Another presidential debate means the spawning of another Internet meme.
The debates have already given us Big Bird in debate 1, Binders of Women in debate 2 and laughing Joe Biden in the VP debate. It was only to be expected that something said by one of the candidates would cause an instant online sensation, and would be followed by countless witty (and not-so-witty) pictures that would quickly drive into the ground any bit of humor that might have originally been there.
Ladies and gentlemen, the official meme of the third presidential debate is here: Horses and Bayonets.
In the debate, Mitt Romney criticized the shrinking size of the military under the Obama administration. "Our Navy is smaller now than any time since 1917," Romney said. "The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We're now down to 285."
Obama seem unfazed at the governor's remarks. "You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916," he began. "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets -- because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."
To hammer down on his point, Obama concluded, "And so the question is not a game of Battleship where we're counting ships. It's what are our capabilities."
Click through the photo gallery for a small, work-safe compilation of how the interwebs took the statement.