Whatever one may think of Stanley Kurtz [and there are some who think him a bit unhinged], he makes a somewhat compelling or at the very least fun to muse upon argument here concerning the true point of the Obama campaign, ie not simply about winning the election, but really about establishing a left wing insurrection carried aloft on the frenzied ignorance or somnolent dependency of a base the demographics of which seem to imply a possibly insurmountable uber liberal ascendancy.

I'm willing to entertain the legitimacy of that thought - and certainly it dovetails with theories I've thrown out there about the true agenda/schemes that might be motivating Obama and his minions and also the threat posed by the blind adoration he seems to inspire or invoke amongst the deluded, the simple minded, the hopelessly naive, the ideologically stupefied, not only when it comes to the blithering idiot wing of the left, the Michael Moored cadres if you will, but also within the ranks of so called enlightened moderates [yes, I'm looking at you David Brooks]. Problem is with these theories of socialist intrigue and revolution is that they run up against America's system of checks and balances which makes such a thing, even if you can pull off, hard to actually make work, as we saw in his first term where the midterms robbed Obama of power and his hyper partisanship made it impossible to get anything done. I suppose he wishes he were governing a true police state, a real Stalinist machine wherein he could just kill or gulag those standing in the way of hope and change - which I say only half in jest because this ends justify the means righteousness is in fact the go to rationalization of all true believers - or as Orwell famously mocked, you gotta break a few eggs.

But where's the omelette, right? This why the corruption of the press is so disturbing and why, even if Romney manages to win despite the debilitating bias of the media, all this talk about that bias from people like me has not been misplaced or over stated - you can not pull off something like this without a compliant media, a media enthralled by the idealist goodies being dangled in front of it - if the press and media have through bias removed themselves from the 'checks and balances' system, then you don't need to produce an omelette - or you can produce whatever crap you want and simply call it an omelette and the press, peaking out from under Dear Leader's robes, will dutifully supply the echo: "yes, that's an omelette - now shut up and eat it".

Now of course media bias is nothing new, and conservative presidents have been elected in spite of it - but what is new is the order of magnitude the 'ideal' made manifest in Obama has driven it to, as if no level of compromise is too much when measured against the dreamed of payoff down the line - nothing has made that more clear than the Benghazi scandal and the MSM's refusal to hold the administration's feet to the fire on it - the press has clearly decided that in order to serve the cause it doesn't matter if Obama is an astoundingly incompetent president, it doesn't matter if he lies - annoying realities like truth and competence must be made subservient to the greater glory.

This why, where six months ago I rated the likelihood of significant violence breaking out should Obama win an undeserved second term at about 20%, I now rate it at about 70% plus, mainly because Romney has now offered up a truly legitimate alternative to moderate and independent voters - if Obama still manages to win when there is a perfectly acceptable alternative sitting out there, a guy whose skills set and resume basically screams out "yeah, given our problems, you probably want me as your president right now" - if Obama, with his awful record and the blight of his negative campaign that hasn't even bothered to offer up anything that resembles a credible second term agenda, still manages to win there's gonna be a great many unhappy people roiling about in the wake of that who will believe, with some and possibly a whole lot of justification, that indeed the country has fallen to a left wing coup made possible by an indentured demographic utterly dependent on the sweet suckle of big government and a no less indentured press and media that view their own corruption as an honor bestowed on them by the cause they serve.

And I bet you, should things turn ugly, that behind closed doors Obama will welcome the violence - because when it comes to servicing the cause, everything gets twisted - if there's violence Obama will just turn it around and say "you see, I'm not the threat to the republic, it's those right wing extremists, it's those evil Teaparty types, it's those racists - rather than the violence being a warning about me, you should see it as a warning as to why you so very much need me". When it comes to serving the desires of false idols and the malignant irrationality of vain delusions, everything gets twisted.

Another debate, another opportunity for me to scorn the abysmal superficiality of modern media by reading reviews of the debate rather than actually watching it - for the debates annoy because the participants realize they must reach an audience and alas the audience to be reached is not capable of rising above the superficial, indeed, given the medium, expects the superficial - and so you get what you get: simplistic messaging. Romney's message was "look how presidential I am" - he succeeded apparently - it's the message undecideds are looking for; Obama's message was a pick up from last debate - ie contempt for the opponent in order to appease the base - I don't see that as helping him much with independents and therefore this amounts to a win for Romney even though polls suggest a tie.

Two interesting moments though. Romney doesn't go after Obama on Libya. At first glance this seems very odd since Obama is so very vulnerable here - but remember the 'messaging' they're going for - to effectively attack Obama on Libya you have to come right out and say what all objective observers know to be true: Obama's a liar or he's grotesquely incompetent, or possibly lying because he's grotesquely incompetent - the Romney team obviously felt it would look 'unpresidential' to call Obama a liar on national television so they took the high road and left the mudslinging to surrogates. Not sure that's the right play - but I see what they're thinking.

Other interesting moment was Obama rolling out the contemptuous uber-snark in ridiculing Romney's call for a larger navy - Dear Leader treated Romney like an ignorant inferior not worthy of his time - it was a very real moment where the visceral disdain Obama has for Romney and all that he represents showed through in a way that, again, may please the base but will likely not sit well with independents and moderates. And furthermore it was quite revealing in that Obama's highhandedness was that of a person who's convinced he's obviously right and he wasn't obviously right at all - there is in fact a tough debate going on throughout the higher echelons of naval strategic thinking concerning how technology impacts optimal force size [although all tend to agree that more or less the navy needs to be bigger] - there is no obviously right answer here - Romney had a legitimate point, so did Obama [sort of] - but the arrogance with which Obama expressed his opinion is what sticks in ones mind.

So, my review of the reviews of the debate [it's quite revealing the way people with divergent agendas view the same phenomenon as it were not the same at all - parallax? - reading the reviews at times much more instructive than watching the debate itself - certainly less annoying].

Anyway, not much to say really - Obama was more theatrical and abrasive than first debate, not quite Bidenish but 'angry' enough to keep the base somewhat happy one imagines [it certainly has caused Andrew Sullivan to fall back in love with Dear Leader as he has described himself as 'elated' by the performance; it's comforting to know that this disaster of a presidency will not be counted a total loss if those two beautiful souls can manage to reconcile] - don't see the histrionics as helping with independents though - he equivocated on substance and details which of course he had to do since the details are all bad and he has no substance - and thus relative to this 'stylish' gibberish Romney looked like the more knowledgeable guy, the man with the plan as it were. But apparently he made one crucial mistake - when being given an opening on Libya he failed it seems to make the kill shot - possibly because the moderator jumped in the way, as I feared all along would happen [really can't have a viable democracy if the media is compromised in this way]. Still, Obama is so vulnerable on this topic Romney should have been able to hit mark regardless of moderator running interference - I should watch the replay of that moment because I'm feeling Romney should have been able to get around Crowley's bad behavior - apparently his message on Libya was bit unfocused, and that's not good - Obama's really vulnerable here.

Sounds like something of a wash - I'm guessing polls overall will suggest a small Obama win, but among independents probably a slight advantage to Romney - and so essentially a win for Romney since the undecided vote is the one that matters. Of course most popular trending story on Washington Post website is titled 'Clear Victory for Obama' - oh my - like I said, without a free press [and the press isn't 'free' if it has chained itself to a political agenda] there can be no viable democracy - the critical spirit is vital to the defense of freedom - without a critical spirit that is willing to challenge orthodoxy, the status quo and the tyranny of a narrowly focused, agenda driven subjectivity, you do not get Socrates and Aristotle, you do not get Copernicus, you do not get Galileo, you do not get Locke, Hume, Adams and Jefferson - you do not get democracy because in closed societies, which America is slowly becoming [a socialist bureaucracy, propped up by a captured press and enabled by a compliant electorate dependent upon it, equals 'closed'] freedom is seen as a threat, not a right. In essence democracy is merely the expression of a freedom born of criticism - the ability to debate an issue openly, reach a consensus, allow opinions in opposition to that consensus to exist without fear, and then freely change your mind later when and if the consensus proves itself flawed. Closed societies do not like change, therefore they cannot abide objective criticism nor tolerate open debate - they have sustaining narratives that need to be protected from annoying impertinences like honest criticism and truth - Obama has a sustaining narrative that needs protecting so as its inherent flaws, faulty reasoning, delusional assumptions do not undermine the putative overall goodness of it - the press is lending a helping hand - this is not a good thing, this is a very bad thing - in fact so bad that I would say that of all the reasons Obama does not deserve re-election and should most verily not be re-elected at the top of the list may be that a wholly undeserved re-election made possible by a sympathetic left wing press could completely undo the fourth estate in America and send the country down a road that I'm not sure there's any coming back from.

[so, have viewed Crowley incident - another bad moment for the American fourth estate - she was definitely out of line, not to mention quite wrong, and effectively killed Libya question to the benefit of Obama - that being said, Romney should have done better, should have been able move past Crowley's bullshit - there was a big opportunity there to kill two birds with one stone - Obama's withering foreign policy credentials and liberal media bias - and Romney couldn't bring the hurt - has a foreign policy debate to come so he has a chance to correct this blown opportunity - still, it definitely was a miss on his part - Crowley certainly deserves blame and probably owes the Romney campaign an apology - but regardless it's still up to Romney to compensate and refocus the attack - gotta believe he didn't because they haven't quite polished their Libya argument yet and I have trouble understanding why that would be]

Will I be watching the debate tonight? No - the 'debates', since they're such in name only, are too frustrating to watch - I want real arguments, real exploration of details, real analysis, I want the aggression of raw intellects banging up against each other in a fight to the death - I want something worthy of the significance of the event for christ sake.

I already know what I need to know, and I know what I want to see happen - if it does happen I'm fine learning about it tomorrow - if it doesn't happen, I don't wanna be a helpless, hapless part of it - because, let's face it, we all know the press, the media are primed to break out the 'Obama reborn... magic recaptured' crap and they're gonna jump on the slightest pretext, the flimsiest of justifications to get them there - and I have no desire to participate in such nonsense. I've just downloaded 'Call of Duty: Black Ops". I'm gonna go all Mark Corrigan and spend the night playing a game. Welcome to the end of the world.

Good essay on Obama and the military - important points made - Romney/Ryan should be attacking here or at least inferring, intimating, pointing out to people that they need to take a deeper look at this stuff - Libya has opened up Obama's vulnerability on foreign policy issues and military matters in general, a vulnerability that was always there but hard to get at because of Osama demagoguery, and Romney should be pressing the matter. Foreign policy debate is coming up - Romney makes the case that is there to be made and consequently exposes Obama as the fraud/liar he is, could end this thing there and then.

The key is, even though the public may not be interested in foreign policy and military affairs per se and is probably disengaged and weary of war, if Romney is clever he can use these issues as a fulcrum to lift into view some Obama traits that the electorate will find interesting: namely, from my vantage point, that he does not promote or possibly even believe in notions of American strength and power that are default positions for most Americans - and he gets away with this because he's a damn good [or at least brazen] liar being enabled by a corrupted press that apparently shares his views. Now, you just can't come out and call the man a dissembling fraud who, for example, used a phoney surge in Afghanistan as a prop in a calculation whose only point was to serve his political interests - but, if you're clever, you can play on the facts and leave people with that impression. And then you tie it into Libya - there is a rather disquieting pattern here that, assuming the moderator doesn't jump in the way, can be made apparent with a few apt brush strokes from Romney.

"... a politician is never more fully engaged nor more stubbornly committed to his craft than when he's rallying to the defense of a lie that under the purer lights of day would appear to be utterly indefensible... and thus it is that Obama and his motley, ever so merry crew engage with wild rut the slattern Benghazi as if the mere passion of their ardour were enough to miracle the poor whore back into a state of virginity..."

Having seen a bit more of the debate now I have to say the Biden performance was disturbing, at times even... what, offensive, repulsive, farcically theatrical? - and deepening the disturbance is how many on the left actually seem to think the night represented a great victory for them - it's not just rhetoric to say that the uber left's visceral hatred of conservative thought is so consuming in its rage that they truly have conflated disdainful contempt and an affected enlightenment into a single governing ethos - so convinced are they of their own righteous beauty when measured against the grotesque deformities of conservatism that for them the mere expression of outrage or scorn or sarcastic ridicule is argument enough, is self evidently good regardless of proof or explanation or substance. This is political fanaticism, pure and simple - hell, I may even be tempted to reach for the other 'f' word - fascism - it's a bit extreme but I don't think wholly ludicrous to suggest that at times things do seem to be kind of straying in that direction - certainly there's something a little fascistic about the way the press has allowed itself to become the suppliant tool of a political agenda.

I gotta believe that Biden's performance did not go over at all well with moderates, undecideds and independents - and so if Obama chooses to imitate that performance I'd have to conclude that he truly doesn't want to win. I know that some dispirited uber lefties like Andrew Sullivan [who I'm quite sure is actually, actually in love with the Obama] have raised the idea of Dear Leader not wanting to win - but let's remember that it was I a couple of years ago who first proffered up the wild conjecture that if things weren't going well Obama would quickly lose interest in the job and look for a way to get out while still remaining a hero to the left - and if he mimics Biden's performance then I'd have to conclude that that wild conjecture was dead accurate - either that or they've crunched the numbers and figure the only way they can win is by whipping the base up into a frenzy. How else does one explain Biden's bizarre antics? It had to be calculated, right? It couldn't have just been him being an idiot. Then again, we are talking about Biden, so...

So - the VP debate - didn't see it, have no intention of watching a replay and therefore must rely on what others have to say about it. The gist seems to be: Ryan was good, but not brilliant - I think I was expecting brilliant and so I'm a little disappointed by that - still, since it was his first time on the national stage in that kind of high stakes setting good but not brilliant may actually count as something of a win - or maybe I've misjudged his talents - but I was expecting a decisive win so, yeah, a bit of a disappointment there.

As for Biden, I take it he came across as an arrogant jerk, looking down upon the opposition with bilious and sometimes buffonish contempt. The impression seems to be this replacing of argument with 'attitude' may play well to the uber left base that very much wants to cover its collapsing flank with the shallow defense of confusing disdain for keen insight, but that undecideds and independents are possibly going to be turned off by such a performance [this opinion anecdotally confirmed to me by overhearing a conversation between two people who I would consider unaffiliated moderates wherein Biden's act was described as 'creepy'].

Sounds then like it was a bit of a wash - the media will undoubtedly do its best to spin a Biden victory but the polls may ultimately suggest a slight advantage to Ryan [CNN poll supports that belief - 48% to 44% 'win' for Ryan] - I was hoping for more, but I'll take it. Certainly, this somewhat disappointing result is made entirely tolerable by Romney's drubbing of Obama in preceding debate - and maybe that was part of the thinking here, ie for Ryan to play it a bit safe, to not swing for the fences but rather just try and draw Biden into saying something foolish, which possibly he did as regards the Libya fiasco [and there's an upside here in that Romney now has a pretty good idea of the tone and tack Obama will be adopting or at the very least approximating in their next encounter - although I believe the next debate is a 'town hall' type format, which pretty much kills chances of a real debate happening, which helps Obama - he'll have the big shovel out that night for all the bullshit he'll be throwing around - I'm sure the Times has the 'Dear Leader recaptures the magic' story already written - David Brooks is in pre-quiver mode, hungering for another look at those perfect pants].

[yeah, just saw the quickly released GOP 'Joe Biden is laughing, are you?' ad which I think is all of the debate I need to see - Ryan comes across as good, but not great - Biden not only comes across as creepy, he verges a bit on demented. Jesus - bad stuff - guess it's wrong of me to judge whole debate on a few clips but I gotta believe if the uber left is trying to spin Biden's performance into a 'win' then they truly have detached themselves from anything resembling a coherent reality]

A good news, bad news, the news is irredeemably corrupted by left winged bias news story - the New York Times didn't feel the congressional Libya hearing deserved to be put on the front page even though if a republican president had fucked up as badly as Obama has not only would it have been front page news but the font employed in both boldness and size would have rivaled a headline announcing the end of the world - so essentially the Times has clearly announced to all without the slightest bit of shame that when it comes to getting Dear Leader reelected lies are the equal of truth.

So that's pretty depressing - can hear the coffin lid closing on fourth estate integrity in America - but wait - the public editor of the Times has written a very public rebuke of this highly suspicious editorial decision by his superiors - so possibly integrity isn't entirely dead, just have to dig deep into the ranks to find it.

There ya go, some good news, some bad news - still, mostly bad news unfortunately.

I didn't even consider the possibility that the unemployment number was rigged - that just seemed wildly implausible - yes, I do believe and have always held that Obama is entirely capable of such underhanded dishonesty, that's how he built his political career as far as I can tell - but rigging the job numbers just seems too outlandishly corrupt even for him - and then I read this article and suddenly plausibility hovers into view. There could be a trout in that milk.

[on the other hand AEI argues with some cogency that the conspiracy talk is silly - your milk hasn't been tampered with - it is still bad though]

Well, this was all very predictable - I've been warning conservatives to stop focusing so much attention on the unemployment rate number per se and go more big picture because the number will come back to haunt you - and that's exactly what's happened - unemployment rate unexpectedly drops to 7.8 - and now the media has the excuse it needed to turn attention away from Obama's horrible debate performance and probably won't matter one bit if the drop merely represents people falling pell mell from the system and labor participation cratering - the media will now bury Romney's excellent debate performance under reams of 'we've turned the corner' bullshit. This was entirely predictable.

Now some are saying that Romney's debate win marks the beginning of the end of the media's ability to twist the narrative to Obama's advantage, that the debates allow Romney to make an end run round the media's left wing distortion field and speak directly to undecideds and also because an untelepromptered, unfiltered through rose colored glasses Obama is a much more difficult thing to slavishly promote - maybe - but I'll believe it when I see it and I still tend to believe I ain't gonna be seeing it - remember there are two more debates and remember as well that all those complaints from the left about Leher's performance as moderator had less to do with excuse mongering for Obama and much more to do with trying to influence the upcoming moderators - Leher's standing back allowed an actual debate to happen and Obama can't win such a thing because he has nothing of substance to say and little of value to defend - his entire reelection campaign in built on the sands of empty rhetoric, misdirection and outright lies - the left needs the moderators of the debates to keep the tides of reality away from that sand for at least another month - and thus all the complaining about Leher.

The American fourth estate is broken, has devolved to banana republic status - sure, it's been flirting with breakage for a while, but the naive idealist bullshit made manifest in the delusional dreaminess of the Obama has now broken it utterly - the American media has taken up permanent residence in The Emerald City and they have absolutely no intention of pulling back the curtain on their wonderful Wizard.

I could be wrong - some like Mickey Kaus are of the opinion the press is growing increasingly embarrassed by its naked boosterism of Dear Leader and is slowly self-correcting - like I said, I'll believe it when I see it and, but for a few timid steps in the vague direction of a somewhat honest objectivity, I ain't seeing it.

Hmmn... why all the talk in Israel about how the Iran sanctions are starting to bite? Gov't revenues gutted, Iranian currency 'collapsing'... is it possible Obama actually got this one right?

Well, my point all along has been that from Israel's perspective, if you don't trust Obama [and they don't] sanctions are meaningless because they take too long to work and Israel's window of opportunity is short [a short window?] if it's left to act alone. So that dynamic's still in place since even if sanctions are working it's very hard to say when regardless they'll produce the desired results - and then even if the sanctions do produce certain results it's still very hard to say what exactly those results will be - it won't necessarily mean the end of the theocratic regime and the rise of a vague something else we can work with.

But, still, why all the talk about the sanctions supposedly working? If you're Netanyahu and you're still of the opinion that Obama cannot be trusted and there's still a very real possibility that you're going to have to act alone, doesn't it undercut your authority to stoke the idea that the sanctions are indeed working? It seems to me that in order to keep the faith of the population viz the grave risk associated with an attack on Iran that you'd want to play it close to the vest when it came to the sanctions - but they're not. I'm not sure what that means. Maybe a solo attack by Israel never was actually on the table and the tough talk was indeed all bluff. Not sure how to read this one. Can't rule out Obama's gonna shock me here and end up having done something sort of right or at least only half wrong when it comes to foreign policy - still, way too early to say that, lot left to be decided.