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.

Obama, America and the Arab Spring

Cairo statement disavowed after 16 Hours

Here’s the timeline of what happened

Was the Cairo and Libya violence totally unexpected?

It doesn’t matter.  President Obama has bigger fish to fry: he’s running for reelection.

The attack on the U.S. consulate was the second this year. In June, suspected Islamic militants detonated an improvised explosive device at the same compound.  It is no wonder why the MSM doesn’t want to talk about what actually happened.  It looks like the Commander-in-chief was asleep at the wheel.

What’s wrong with the Cairo Embassy’s statement?

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz), the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, said Wednesday that a U.S. embassy statement criticizing an anti-Islam film trailer for fostering violence was akin to blaming a woman for her rape.

Obama agrees with Romney on the Cairo Statement

Of course you won’t hear it in those words, but here is what is now being said by the Administration.

“The statement was not cleared with anyone in Washington. It was sent as ‘This is what we are putting out,’” the official said. “We replied and said this was not a good statement and that it needed major revisions. The next email we received from Embassy Cairo was ‘We just put this out.’”…

It appears the MSM wants to talk about process rather than substance because on substance there is no disagreement and it is very bad for the Obama Administration.  On process the left can say that Romney should have waited before issuing his statement.  Which are you hearing more about? 

MSM looks at Romney’s statement

The old complaint about Romney was that he didn’t talk about foreign policy. The newly minted complaint about Romney was that he did talk about foreign policy. He gets it coming and going, and everywhere in between.

This certainly will make the debate of foreign policy much more entertaining. 

Libya aftermath:  Obama delays schedule by 45 minutes

And this was his campaign schedule.  We can see he was really concerned about this. 

Secretary Clinton:  How could this have happened?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked: “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?”

That single line is the most damning indictment of Hillary Clinton’s State Department that could ever be penned. It demonstrates her complete lack of knowledge about the region, her failure to anticipate security threats, and worst of all, her willful ignorance about the Islamists that she and President Obama trusted to take over Libya and Egypt.

“How could this happen?”

Here’s how it could have happened.  In 2008, the American people elected a complete amateur to be President of the United States.  The rest is history.

Rasmussen:  Romney back in the lead

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 47% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns 46% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Romney is now supported by 18% of white Democrats. 

Romney has solidified the GOP vote and holds a 77-point lead among Republicans. That’s slightly larger than Obama’s 72-point advantage among Democrats. 

When “leaners” are included, it’s Romney 49% and Obama 47%. Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either candidate but express a preference for one of them in a follow-up question. 

Sebelius found guilty of violating the Hatch Act

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act in February when she called for re-electing President Obama during an official department appearance, the Office of Special Counsel said Wednesday.

The finding could possibly cost Sebelius her job. 

But she claims now that any infraction was minor and a mistake.  Obama can also declare no punishment for her violation.  Any bets on what will happen to her? 

The most transparent administration in history has another refusal to testify

Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon regarding the testimony of Morgan Wright. Wright is the Obama administration’s Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Department of Energy. According to Issa’s statement, Wright has refused to appear for a subpoena in the investigation into Solyndra, the failed “green” tech company that lost more than half a billion taxpayer dollars in the form of a government-backed loan approved by the Obama administration.

Hey no biggie, it was only $500 million that the taxpayers are out.  In the era of trillion dollar deficits, this is chump change.

US median income lowest since 1995

Now what was Obama’s plan to remedy this?

Poverty in America

Some 80 percent of poor adults and 96 percent of poor children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and is well above recommended norms in most cases. Some 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning; nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV; half have a personal computer; 43 percent have Internet access; and one-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV. 

Whatever happened to Occupy WallStreet?

Just thought I would ask about it?  Do you think Elizabeth Warren is happy or sad that it has disappeared?

Pro-Gay Marriage Democratic Candidates in Rhode Island Lose

Tonight’s Democratic primaries were not kind to gay marriage supporters, who claimed just one of six key state senate races. Pro-same sex nuptials candidate Adam Satchell scored a decisive victory over Senator Michael Pinga. But five other gay marriage backers – David Gorman, Gene Dyszlewski, Laura Pisaturo, Lewis Pryeor, and Robert DaSilva — lost. . . .

This despite Colorado’s Tim Gill heavy donations for the losers.  Pro-traditional marriage solons control the RI’s State Senate.