Barack Obama's flippant reponse to
Mitt Romney's complaint during their third televised debate (October 22, 2012) that the U.S. Navy had fewer
battleships than at any time since 1917. Obama's remark that the military has fewer "horses and bayonets, too" makes an analogy that measuring battleships (as opposed to
aircraft carriers) is an archaic metric of military power, in much the same way that measuring "horses and bayonets" would no longer indicate an army's might. (NB: Marines are still issued bayonets.)
"The Navy has
fewer battleships than at any time since
1917."
"The military has fewer horses and bayonets, too. We live in a different world."