When facing an army of straw men conjured from his head and dressed in menacing attire by his dutiful pamphleteers in the media, Barack Obama is a vision of heroism, wisdom and strength. When facing — alone — a prepared and competent opponent, however, His Fraudulency is revealed as the charlatan that he is.

No one — “literally,” as Joe Biden would say — thought President Obama won Wednesday night’s presidential debate, in which Mitt Romney did to the President what Antonio Banderas did to Catherine Zeta Jones in their stable duel in “The Mask of Zorro”: left his poor opponent bewildered, breathless and fully exposed.

Liberal MSNBC blowhard Chris Matthews railed afterwards, “This was not an MSNBC debate!” Exactly. For once, Obama’s courtiers in the press were not there to protect him. He was left to his own devices, nary a TelePrompter to read from, nor panel of media gatekeepers to grill his opponent while feeding him grapes.

Defenseless, Obama hurled his tepid talking points at Romney. It was to no effect. Romney was prepared; the rhetorical bombs did not explode.

As columnist Thomas Sowell has noted before, Obama’s empty words can sound wonderful to the uninformed, but they do not fare so well when confronted with facts. Wednesday night, Romney effectively confronted Obama with many rhetoric-busting facts, such as: the American middle class has grown poorer under Obama’s governance; Romney’s tax plan is revenue-neutral; Obama’s budget plan spends more than it takes in and thus continues increasing the federal debt and deficit; Obama is a prolific distributor of corporate welfare; Romney has no plans to deregulate Wall Street or throw seniors off of Medicare; Obamacare does not lower health insurance costs; and Obama’s tax hikes on the “rich” would, in fact, hurt small businesses.

Mitt Romney proved two things on Wednesday night. One, Emperor Obama wears no clothes. Two, Mitt Romney is ready to be President of the United States.