Foreign policy and Biden

Jim Lehrer has no regrets

Moderator of the first debate, Jim Lehrer has no regrets about his role last week.  He got Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama talking.  It is humorous that Clint Eastwood got criticized for insinuating that President Obama was an empty chair and Lehrer has gotten equal criticism for letting Mr. Obama prove it.

CBS correspondent:  Obama is lying to America

It appears Obama is lying to America regarding the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  They haven’t gone away.

The foreign policy debate isn’t going to be the cakewalk Obama and the Democrats imagined even a month ago. 

Obama votes present on Foreign Policy

It appears the US rejected taken any action while the Benghazi attack was taking place, the moral equivalent of voting present.  Is anyone surprised?

Romney finds his voice on Foreign Policy

At VMI, Romney found his voice again. "The attack on our consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, was likely the work of forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland on Sept. 11, 2001," Romney said. "This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the administration's attempts to convince us of that for so long."

Romney says it well which is bad news for President Obama.

Biden has some “splanin” to do at the debate

Joe Biden has been a big cheerleader for President Obama praising him for killing bin Laden and saying the Mitt Romney wouldn’t have done the same.  But this is a bit hypocritical since, “One problem with that: Joe Biden opposed the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.”  That’s right, when old Joe tells us that President Obama made a difficult call and Romney wouldn’t have (hypothetical on the Romney part) we do know that the VP wouldn’t have made the same call.

What will Biden do?

Some Democrats may want Biden to come out of the blocks attacking relentlessly Thursday night. The Obama campaign brain trust may feel that their base has been left so shaken by Obama’s performance last week, that it needs to see a Democrat tearing apart his opponent as cruel, heartless, reckless, and so on.

But if Biden’s the designated attack dog of the Obama campaign, he’s also proven, time and again, to be a high-risk one.

Obama draws Tea Party Crowd in San Francisco

And nice article with a lot of pictures on a protest and counter protest at an Obama fund raiser in San Francisco.  Two notables here include the Tea Party chanting “pick up your trash” when the pro-Obama people started to leave and the sign above regarding eye candy.

The New Republic gives the liberal case for reelection

I found the editorial interesting if insipid in its reasoning.  For instance, they go against history and logic in stating the following: 

At times, Barack Obama has failed to appreciate the virulence of the modern Republican Party. He has earnestly entered negotiations with adversaries interested in breaking his presidency, not splitting the difference.

Mr. Obama has never entered negotiations “earnestly.”  He entered as a Chicago style politician whose basic modality was “my way or the highway.”  Evidently the author hasn’t read Bob Woodward’s new book The Path to Power.  And the splitting the difference meme doesn’t work if the other side thinks we are on the wrong road.  “Let’s go another two weeks down this road” doesn’t work to compromise and offer to go one week, if the other side is convinced we are on the wrong road and you’ve already been going down it for the past 4 years.

Pew Poll:  Romney’s amazing turnaround

What a difference a month makes.  Look at the difference among women!

Romney erases Obama’s big lead in Michigan

Obama’s 10 percentage point lead (47%-37%) in a poll conducted last month by EPIC-MRA of Lansing dropped to 3 points (48% to 45%), according to the poll of 600 likely voters conducted by EPIC-MRA of Lansing. The gap between Romney and Obama was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Undecided voters shrank from the September survey’s 16% to just 7%.

The undecided voters went 1 for Obama and 8 for Romney.  Look to this to be a pattern.

The White House thought they had Romney beaten

“Inside the White House, Romney was such an object of ridicule that it was hard to take him seriously, difficult to narrow the mass of contempt into a single, coherent narrative for not electing the presumptive GOP nominee.”

The problem you have is that if you only get information and opinions from inside your echo chamber, you will find that you may be missing

The Left reacts to Romney’s attack on their church

The Catholics may be upset by Obama’s attack on their church, but the left has joined them in their outrage for Romney’s attack on their church.

Romney dared to declare we shouldn't borrow money to subsidize this attitude adjustment operation.

And there the Left's love of the Establishment Clause ended. CPB, PBS and NPR are their church, and their saints are involved, their beads and incense, their vision of the future.

Is calling President Obama lazy racist?

On Chris Matthews' weekend talk show, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell and Time Magazine's Joe Klein teamed up to insulate President Obama from attack, insinuating that questioning the President's intelligence and work ethic in the wake of a lackluster debate performance is racist.

But didn’t someone very close the President already call him lazy?  

Barbara Walters, ABC News: "What's the trait you most deplore in yourself, and the trait you most deplore in others?" 

President Obama: "Laziness."

The Obama Narrative

In the very best postmodern fashion, Obama and his supporters have relied on a narrative about Obama that has been carefully constructed. He’s brilliant, a great writer, a rare thinker, a moderate, a first-class temperament with neatly pressed pants, a uniter, a cool guy who’s unflappable.

The first debate last Wednesday threatened to make that narrative seem absurd. You might say that the narrative got mugged by reality, and an awful lot of people were watching while it happened.

But the next day there was a new narrative in place — or rather, several narratives: Romney cheated, the altitude was too high for Obama, he didn’t have time to practice because he was too busy with weighty matters, Romney lied, and look at those great unemployment numbers!

Those numbers themselves are another narrative, one that no one can quite figure out because there’s a disparity between one part of the stats and other parts. In a very real sense, the numbers don’t seem to add up. But they’re good for the Obama narrative, unless you think too deeply about them.

But one of the points of a narrative is not to think too deeply about it.

Adkins catches a break

It appears there is a scandal in Missouri only this time it doesn’t involve Todd Adkin, but his opponent Senator Claire McCaskill.  The AP is reporting “Businesses affiliated with the husband of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill have received almost $40 million in federal subsidies for low-income housing developments during her first five years in office.” I expect to see the polls close between these two.