“... well this is a rather shameful article - the left really wants to sell this Susan Rice business as an ill begotten, mean spirited attack by old white racist chauvinists on some poor, beleaguered, well intentioned black woman - look at the way Ayotte is marginalized, in the left wing echo chamber, in this article - she's treated like some insignificant stooge trying to crowd the microphone even though she's a highly accomplished woman married to a Lt Col in the Air Force who possibly one day may be the GOP nominee for president - but of course that's the problem, she's a highly accomplished woman, doesn't fit the narrative you're trying to sell - therefore marginalize her as an inconsequential stooge. Like I said, shameful, and shamefully short sighted if you think this is a good road for the country to be going down.

But then that is why this Benghazi story is so important - of course Obama lied about Libya in order to protect the illusions and prop up the bogus 'successes' of his Mideast foreign policy with an election but a few short weeks away - and of course he sent his loyal minion Rice out there to defend the lie and no doubt - this is conjecture on my part - but I'm guesing it’s likely Rice was chosen precisely because she's a black woman and such would come in mighty handy when it came time to hide the lie behind smoke and mirrors - this is all obvious to anyone not addled by ideological dementia - but as bad as all that is the fact remains we've seen it before - presidents have acted in this scurrilous way in the past and they will again in the future, and so that's not what makes this a big story - what makes the story big is the blatantly obvious way the press ignored it in order to get Obama elected and is now trying to get the story cast aside as illegitimate by subtly sending out the message that this is all about racism and chauvinism. I mean, why try and paint what McCain et al are doing as over reach beyond the pale when congressional oversight is fundamental to the way American governance works? Obviously the reason is that if you create the impression amongst the ill informed and ignorant that the opposition of McCain et al is in the extreme then what follows 'naturally' from that is the belief that this opposition must indeed be motivated by male chauvinism and racism. Again, I repeat, this is shameful behavior and shamefully short sighted if you think it a good road for the country to be going down.

Democracy is not about voting per se [the putative Arab Spring has resoundingly proven that point] - it's about the critical spirit, the critical voice that informs the vote - a free press is therefore crucial to the establishing and preservation of a democracy [again, every socialist or autocratic will to power in history has proven this point since the press and media are the first things devoured so as to be artificially reconstituted in order to better serve the tyrant's wishes] - a press and media that have willingly subjugated themselves to a political agenda, willingly made themselves tools of a specific ideology are no longer free - and it follows the democracy they ostensibly serve is no longer safe.

That is why the Benghazi story is so important - Rice isn't the true target here, or at least not the ultimate one - a cancerous corruption eating away at the vital organs of the country's critical faculties is what this is all about...”

So Israel agrees to a truce with Hamas - got to say didn't think that'd happen - although I guess there is a logic to it, Israel has to appear as if it gave peace a chance - and possibly they figured they'd 'won' enough by demonstrating the effectiveness of the Iron Dome missile defence system [there's also an indication that Israeli intelligence thinks there's a chance Morsi's days are numbered and possibly figured a move into Gaza might act as a rhetorical lifeline for him]. Still, don't see anything solid in the agreement that suggests Egypt will commit itself to clamping down on the smuggling of arms into Gaza - so it's very hard to see this truce as something other than a weak illusion that will be short lived. Certainly, the growing sophistication of Hamas' long range missile capabilities is not a threat Israel is going to leave to the Islamists in Egypt to rectify.

So, until the return of hostilities the most interesting thing about all this is how it throws a harsh, unflattering light on the world according to Obama - in other words, what has the delusion of hope and change wrought?

Everything is worse, nothing is better - on the foreign front, in the Mideast Islamists are stronger, America is weaker, Israel more vulnerable, Iran closer to a bomb; Russia is back under Putin's kleptocratic pseudo democracy and still a meddlesome wild card; Europe is in apparent irreversible decline; China steadily encroaches bit by bit on American supremacy, showing absolutely no signs of welcoming political liberalization and slowly but surely moving towards open conflict with its increasingly uncomfortable neighbors. On the domestic front growing divisiveness along cultural, ethnic, racial, economic lines; class warfare alive and well; a brewing antagonism between those who distrust big gov't and those who are increasingly dependent upon it or sympathetically wedded to it for other reasons - and America doubling down on its slide towards the dysfunction, economic stagnation, bankruptcy and the inevitable decay and decline of a European styled social welfarism. Everything's worse, nothing is better.

Not that I of course blame Obama for all this - the ideology he's a manifestation of and extols is certainly responsible for some of it and is definitely from my vantage not suitable at all for the mitigating of these sundry woes or the bettering of our long term prospects - but also of course some of this mess is more or less not amenable to American desires regardless of a president's best guesses - the forces of history do get a say after all - still, the point is the man was swept into power on an ecstatic wave of naive rhetoric that didn't merely suggest electing the charismatic black guy would change everything, it proclaimed such as if it were gospel. He and his maenads most certainly can be rebuked and vilified for the widening gap between the actual and what was ludicrously promised or, to put it more cynically, the lie that was foolishly believed. In fact one could argue it's vitally important for the health of the republic that they be rebuked and vilified for this nonsense - yet, instead, he gets re-elected.

Hard not to see that as symptomatic of a something bad - and what really disturbs is that the American left and its media cohorts, both at home and abroad, still talk and act as if the country has either newly entered a golden age or is on the cusp of one - hell, Krugman, economic guru of the uber left, wrote an article the other day that flattered itself with sweet nothings by suggesting that all that's necessary is that we start taxing the rich at the 91% rate they were ostensibly taxed in the 50s and this golden age would magically grace us like a gift from heaven - this is beyond absurd, beyond delusional - it's madness.

Obama has been surprisingly bullish in his support of Israel's efforts in Gaza over the last week - that may be putting it too strongly but he has certainly seemed less deceptively nuanced in his language [or on the other hand has become so exquisitely nuanced that even an Obama-sceptic like me is missing the truth behind the truth]. Whatever it is, Erdogan, Obama's buddy whom Dear Leader will be meeting with soon, has in opposition to Obama been quite strident in his rhetoric against Israel, going so far as yesterday labeling it a terrorist state.

So how does this play out when they meet? Obama has publicly supported Israel's right to self defense, Erdogan has called them baby killing terrorists - each, aside from whatever actual personal friendship they feel for the other, in more practical terms sees the other as a useful portal for plying a message of toleration [that one may rightly regard as highly disingenuous, at least on Erdogan's part] back and forth between the two cultures.

So again, how does this play out, both behind closed doors and in public when they meet? Does Obama pull a Medvedev, lean over and whisper "I got your back, don't worry"? Judging by his past I'd say yes - I'd certainly be extremely distrustful of what's going on behind closed doors if I were Netanyahu. Will an American reporter pull head from ass long enough to ask Obama at whatever joint news conference they have what he thinks of Erdogan calling Israel a terrorist state? And if Israel has entered Gaza at that point [which I see as likely since the goal here is to significantly degrade Hamas' long range missile capacity and I'm not sure how you do that without going in] how will each manage to back away from their positions? Or does Erdogan even bother to back away - hell, can he back away? Once you've branded a country a terrorist state, I mean, how do you dance around that language?

If one were the cynical type one might almost be inclined to think that, given the way Obama and now the black congressional caucus have turned GOP attacks on Susan Rice's talk show Benghazi duplicity into a white male chauvinist racists attacking poor black woman meme, a cynic might be inlined to think that the reason they put Rice out there in the first place was so when the duplicity started to fall apart they could redirect and manipulate public perceptions by playing the white male chauvinist racists card.

If one were a cynic, of course, you might think that. A hater.

So this is what enlightened liberaldom meant when they proclaimed electing the black guy president would heal America's racial wounds - from now on apparently anytime a white person criticizes a black person no matter how legitimate that criticism may be the hater will be shamed into silence in order to atone for the irremediable sin of being white. No doubt this too what Bill Maher meant when he joked [boasted/exulted] that Obama's re-election marked the beginning of the end of white America.

Such refined and profound insights cannot possibly lead us astray. You begin to see that the communist mindset, that ethos, is kept alive in the fetid swamps of liberal thinking by using race as the fulcrum - it's no longer the dynamic of oppressive capitalist overlords and division of labor, because when even the most wretched shit head seems to be walking around with an iPhone it's hard to plead that poor oppressed worker angle - no, now it's race, that's the ticket [although having said that Obama did manage to stain Romney with both the evil white guy and evil rich guy taint - so kudos to him I guess - some nice work there Barry]

Yep, no way this can end badly. Everything's good.

It has been a staple of my criticism of Obama for years now that the one thing, possibly the only thing he knows how to do well is get elected, to turn out the vote, to campaign endlessly targeting those vulnerable groups that for various reasons are susceptible to his simplistic message and who will slavishly, almost robotically turn off whatever critical faculties they may possess and dutifully march to the polls to celebrate the honor he confers, the honor of being favored by him. Read this article in the WSJ - this man's presidency is all about getting him elected as if that in and of itself is victory enough, is purpose enough. This goes beyond personality cult fanaticism - this starts to look like a slide towards fascism territory, especially when you consider the press' willing participation in this propagandizing of the political process - and propaganda to sell what? a cogent idea? a coherent agenda? skilled stewardship of the country's resources? No - all to sell a feeling.

[but wait a second - you really think there's no coherent agenda here? Well, from the voters point of view, no, not really, they're just dupes fooled into believing in the cause simply because they're either ignorant, poorly informed, lacking any sense of a 'big picture' or addled by ideological stupefaction - but for the operatives, the minions crawling through the shadows, the seduced acolytes, yes there's no doubt an agenda there - whether it's coherent or not in objective terms is highly debatable - but they no doubt believe they are assiduously working towards a grand liberal something - now, it is indeed an open question as to whether Obama himself is a true believer in the revolution or whether the great cause is just a convenient vehicle for promoting the thing he cares for most, Obama - I don't know the answer to that question, one could probably make convincing arguments either way]

On the other hand, for a much less sanguine take on the election, I kinda like this semi-rant from Victor Hanson. Now, his final paragraph, where he suggests America is doomed or destined, depending on how sombrely one wants to view things, to turn into either California, in which case we are indeed doomed, or Germany - Germany in the sense that a strong work/business ethic will survive despite the worst excesses and delusions of modern liberalism - I can sort of agree with that - and, yes, no doubt liberal elites have convinced themselves of some kind of Germany-like scenario coming true - the problem is it ain't nearly good enough for America to be Germany, not if you want it to keep performing its role as protector of democratic values and the western tradition.

Now, granted, this is indeed what the liberal intellectual elite wants, an emasculated American military - that was the point of Libya, it was the kind of 'war' liberals fantasize about where the American military is reduced to being some hi-tech police force running around 'doing good' from behind - so too Obama's drone wars, same notion - and of course it's all delusional, we see how Libya is turning out, we see how the Mideast is unravelling - there's no substitute for real power, and Obama sitting at his desk checking off names on a drone hit list is not real power, it's delusion - and one hell of a lot of hypocrisy.

So my point is if the choice is between becoming California or Germany I'm just not very confident that they aren't simply different roads to the same end.

Calm, detached, well reasoned advice and analysis from Mr Krauthammer. I agree with pretty much everything in this election post mortem.

But for all the talk of media bias and changing demographics and the low comprehension skills of the average voter - does it in fact all come down to the ground game, most specifically to union grunts knocking on doors and stuffing leaflets in the hapless, befuddled faces of the lost?

“We did deliver those states,” said Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, the federation of labor unions. “Without organized labor, none of those would have been in the president’s column.”

Probably in the end it's all of the above: media bias, the dream of the Obama that the press is loathe to offend, changing demographics that for various reasons - some understandable, some risible - swells the ranks of besotted liberals, a unionized ground game that by its very definition was incestuous and corrupt, a natural disaster that allowed Obama to don the bomber jacket and play the empathetic but still oh so cool president role as if the job was nothing more than a photo spread in GQ - and a fine but less than perfect candidate on the right who just simply lacked the requisite attributes to defeat this maddening leviathan.

I suppose if one is a worried conservative looking for a bright side, the fact that given all these advantages Obama still did not win by much would be it. Cold comfort.

Well, maybe I've got this all wrong, or somewhat wrong, or not quite accurately nuanced. Two interesting numbers come out: white voter turnout was way down; astoundingly, nearly 41% of people say Obama's response to hurricane Sandy influenced their vote.

The suppression of white voter turnout is testament to the wisdom of Obama's entirely cynical strategy to run, not on his record, not on any inspiring or even just simply inspired future agenda, but rather run on the manufactured narrative of Romney not being a very 'nice' person. The 41% of people saying that Sandy influenced their vote is testament to the dispiritingly bitter reality of democracy: the average voter is a fucking moron.

But these two data points don't really disprove what I'm saying - in fact they by and large support it - yes, although changing demographics may not be the GOP killing blob that one may be tempted to think it this evolving new dynamic does make the game harder, the hill to climb steeper - blacks, Hispanics and Asians make up some 30% of the electorate and they all went in overwhelming numbers to Obama. The black vote I think if you're a conservative you can just write off, in no foreseeable future will blacks in any large numbers be voting republican. Hispanics and Asians are much more fertile ground for the right [although one suspects strident views in the base on immigration will remain a significant problem here] - especially Asians who, given their strong family values and financial success, should be natural right wing voters - and yet they scorned Romney.

They scorned Romney because voters are simplistic in their thinking and the cynically simplistic narrative Obama was plying got through - it's all about media bias - you cannot get away with what Obama just got away with unless you know the media is going to carry your water for you - you don't get away with the 'republican war on women' meme unless you know the media is gonna help you sell it - you don't get away with telling scurrilous lies about your opponent unless you know the media isn't going to challenge you on it - you don't get away with a severe foreign policy breakdown just two months before the election and suffer apparently few repercussions for this at the polls unless you have the media in your pocket and running cover for you - you don't convince white voters who don't like Obama to simply stay home rather than voting for the other guy unless the media has taken your message to them that there's just something wrong about that other guy. The take away for conservatives is obvious: candidates must have the attributes required to defeat the deficit of a left biased media. This has probably always been true - Reagan didn't simply win because demographics back then were more favorable - it was also because he was a very charming, affable guy - but make no mistake, the changing demographics are creating challenges that make the media deficit increasingly problematic and the GOP must come up with solutions - cause the way it stands now, with the media running mail for them all democrats have to do is find an Hispanic version of Obama and 2016 is theirs too - although on the plus side, the Hispanic version of Obama may in fact be a republican - Rubio.

The question always was were polls accurate in telling us that the leftward move in the demographics of the electorate was real, that Obama had firmly in hand the "47%" who were gonna vote for him no matter what simply because he was liberal and black meaning that all he had to do was pry off a few undecideds in the middle, turn out his base and he'd have all he needed to win a narrow victory. We got our answer - we weren't gonna get a repeat of 1980 because demographics have changed. The frightening thing about this is that it's as if it didn't even matter at all how good a president Obama was [awful] or might be in the future [still awful one expects].

As depressing as all that is to contemplate the key thing to remember here is that Reagan could do what he did in 1980 because the demographics allowed him to overcome media bias - it's all about media bias as far as I'm concerned - the shift in demographics has so evenly split the electorate that republicans have lost a lifeline in the battle against a left wing media and the culpability of an indentured press. Going forward conservatives are gonna have to forge a strategy and the appropriate tactics for overcoming this liability, this threat. If you can't win without getting those soft votes in the middle and those votes are extremely vulnerable to being mislead or beguiled by media bias... well, what needs to be done should be obvious.

Which is why several months ago I mused that possibly only Christie had a chance of beating Obama - and that's not to fault Romney at all because I thought he was a good but not great candidate who ran a flawed but certainly good enough campaign - rather my point was that only Christie had the skill set, the personality to defeat media bias. Take Benghazi for example: the press abdicated its responsibility there because, one must assume, they knew if they pushed it the way they would have pushed it if Bush had been president, it would probably cost Obama the election; Romney had serval opportunities to take up the attack in lieu of the press failing to do its job but he declined - did he decline because he knew Obama would play the offended innocent, the press would play along for him [see Candy Crowley] and in the end Romney thought he couldn't therefore win that fight? Would Christie have felt compelled to make the same concession? I doubt it - not that that would have necessarily changed the outcome - the point is that given changing demographics conservatives will be increasingly vulnerable to the negative effects of media bias if they fail to adopt coherent strategies to defeat it and fail to nominate candidates with the personal skills, the broad appeal to overcome it.

"... only the blind and the witless cheer the coming of night as if it were the coming of day..."

Oh well. At least I predicted it.

A president has now been re-elected by having a horrible record behind him and no workable agenda in front - no way that can be good. He can thank a press and media that are either corrupt or just too far left in their sympathies to notice the difference between objectivity and propaganda - that's really not good. And he can thank a left wing electoral base - a base in love with big gov't, big dept, friendly to a naive and ruinous foreign policy, apparently entirely ignorant of business matters and it would appear still so limited in perspective and understanding as to think it sensible to vote for a black man simply because he's a black man - a base it would seem that is now just barely large enough to get a guy re-elected who had absolutely no right being re-elected.

This is all bad. Some will try and blame Romney, but I don't see that. A candidate better equipped to deal with media bias might have had a better chance, but that's not clear. The country is split right down the middle with one side having a very different set of priorities and view of the way forward than the other.

I just don't see how this doesn't get ugly - maybe not next week or next month, but six months from now, a year - for it not to get ugly Obama would have to make a sincere move to the center and I see absolutely no chance of that happening - he'll make some phony gestures of course to beguile an ignorant public, but nothing sincere. [and even if he shocks me and does move to a reasonable center, the Benghazi scandal could blow all that out of the water and cut this second term off at the knees - although, if I was to play optimist here, Benghazi may be such a dangerous threat to Obama that he feels he has no choice but to play ball with the GOP house in order to try and control it - that's my best shot at optimism - well, there is another alternative here: the house GOP backs down - since Ryan will be the voice and face of this house opposition I see this option as unlikely - but the one thing Obama is good at is dirty politics - like I said he'll roll some phony gestures of moderation out there and he'll have the press on his side to sell it all as real - it can be tough to beat a rigged game like that]

One thing for sure, republicans better figure out by 2014 how to put forward senate candidates who can win [Brown gets a pass here - he was a good candidate and lost because the far left is just as idiotic as the far right - Warren was an atrociously bad candidate who was caught in an egregious lie and still won because of course she's one of them] - putting up these ultra right wing wackos that keep costing them senate seats is a real big hole in their game - republicans would control both houses of congress by now if it wasn't this string of awful senate candidates. Akin would be the poster child for this problem - it's one thing to make a grossly ignorant statement, it's another thing altogether to not have the wherewithal to comprehend how ignorant it is and know that you have no choice now but to drop out of the race - that was truly astounding and I said at the time possibly bad enough to lose Romney the election by costing him a vital 2-3% of the female vote.

The mantle of responsibility to carry the battle forward now falls to Ryan and Rubio - they're gonna have to be very good otherwise I don't see how the country avoids over the next four years falling deeper into a hole there may be no getting out of.

Election day - any thoughts? Not really. He feels for the Hamlet he knew, moving his mocking form through the shadows to an acquiescent despond, pausing to wonder at the special providence of dying sparrows.

In many ways the most interesting thing will be what happens after what happens - whoever wins, in the days and weeks that ensue I'm expecting bad things, possibly very bad things - hopefully I'll be disappointed in that but I doubt it. If Obama wins, we'll look to see if the media repents, takes a step back to reflect on its dishonorable conduct, or whether it doubles down on its shame; and then we'll look to see if middle America grudgingly accepts the bitterness of defeat or stirs in opposition to what it will inevitably come to think of as a left wing coup. If it's Romney we'll look to see if the inner cities burn and how far the left is willing to go in pushing the country towards social upheaval by blaming race for the loss instead of gross incompetence and ideological stupefaction.

Like I said, should be interesting.

I've read a few people musing on a scenario that hadn't occurred to me concerning the dereliction of duty by the press as regards Obama and his led from behind Libya debacle: what happens if Obama wins a narrow victory next week, a victory so narrow that it will be entirely legitimate to credit the press for this great beneficence, and then in a couple of months the truth about Benghazi comes out and it's very, very damaging to Obama, so damaging that he essentially loses the credibility to govern? That sounds like a scenario that is both plausible and extremely troubling.

Right now I'm predicting a narrow win for Obama - the way I see it it's either going to be a comfortable win for Romney or a squeaker for Obama, and I'm assuming the latter if only because I wanna prepare myself for the worst. The press' work when it comes to reporting on and analyzing Libya has been shameful, embarrassing - and I'm not just talking about what happened in Benghazi, I'm talking about the whole Libyan fiasco from start to wherever the hell we are now - a war dreamt up in the delusional uber left minds of Power and Slaughter and some besotted French philosophe - an assine war fought in an assine way - and while I'm at it go ahead and throw in the press' coverage of Obama's entire foreign policy when it comes to his mishandling of Russia, of Iran, of Syria, of the putative Arab Spring, his grotesque mishandling of Israel - and then Libya - and let's not forget the transparent hypocrisy [transparent to me anyway] behind his approach to Afghanistan! [And for the kitchen sink I'll toss in the hypocrisy of the Asia pivot too - you don't get to pivot if you're cutting the military, if you're shrinking the navy - the two things don't go together well at all - the NY TImes may want to run a story about that rather than another accounting of how many horses Ann Romney owns].

So, yeah, the MSM is looking real bad here and if Obama wins a narrow victory - which is going to be a very bad thing in and of itself - and then this Benghazi story balloons into a full blown scandal that indicts both Obama and the press, so that it looks like a corrupted press handed Obama a victory he didn't at all deserve - well then, damn right, you've got the ingredients there for some serious problems.

[but wait: see this for one - possibly the media is starting to figure out just what a dangerous game it is playing - raises question: is media bias a part of a deliberate effort to distort news for Obama's benefit or is the bias simply a result of judgement being impaired by a lack of detachment coming from fact that so many in the media are overly sympathetic to a liberal point of view? Could be a bit of both but I really think it's more the former - to me these people are too smart to not be aware of what's going on - then again I have had plenty of arguments with lefties whom I'd consider pretty bright and it constantly amazes me how resistant they are to the idea that their reasoning may be flawed and their views tainted by perjury - in my experience smart conservatives are much more open to admitting error and I'm guessing that's because, in my opinion anyway, the empirical scepticism you find at the heart of great, seminal thinkers like Locke, Hume and Burke is the chief attribute of true conservatism - liberals are much more defined by idealism - idealists tend towards doctrinaire extremism and extremists don't like admitting they're wrong]

"... it frustrates and annoys because this election shouldn't even be close... to any sane, reasonable, objective, thoughful observer the choice to be made should be obvious, so obvious that for efficiency's sake we should just be able to say ok Mitt, Obama quite obviously sucks at the job, you've got a nice resume, the job's now yours and good luck cause you're gonna need it... I really want it to be that simple because I want what is fundamentally an irrational process to exhibit something that at least intimates rationality... I have trouble feeling comfortable knowing that so much rests on the opinions of people who don't have a clue what the fuck they're talking about... I wouldn't for a moment get on a plane piloted by someone who doesn't know what they're doing and yet this time next week I could be going about my usual business in a country piloted by a man who quite obviously doesn't know what the hell he's doing but has regardless been handed this august responsibility by a bunch of people who are either flat out stupid, have not been paying attention or are so addled by fantasy that they can't seem to grasp that electing as your pilot a guy who doesn't know how to fly tends to be a very bad idea... possibly that's too harsh... I understand and can reluctantly accept that certain segments of the population given the circumstances of their small lives accordingly adopt a rather limited point of view and therefore only a cartoonish character like Obama can comfortably slip into such a narrow focus... I get that... but can it really be that those benighted elements now add up to a governing plurality?... I don't know how to be at peace with something like that... I do know I sure as hell don't want on that plane..."