Hillary admitted to hospital over 'blood clot' issues - do I owe her an apology? Possibly, but I doubt it - my cynicism regarding this administration has risen to such dizzy heights that I take absolutely nothing they say or do at face value. Nothing. It is possible that the concussion story was floated in order to hide some other more worrisome ailment related to 'blood clots' that might pose a threat to her future political aspirations - I'll allow for that possibility - but I still doubt it if only because of the extremely convenient timing - but aside from the timing this blood clot story is just as full of seeming holes as the concussion story - she was diagnosed without having gone to a hospital? Not likely, not at all - a blood clot is only discoverable through tests that need to be administered in a hospital - and then I'm supposed to believe she was diagnosed with a clot two weeks ago and only now is being treated for it? Ah... sorry, not buying it. Suppose this makes me sound like a horribly insensitive person, but, regardless, none of this stuff rings true in any way whatsoever to my ear.

Now, understand, whatever little game Hillary is up to here is certainly a story in and of itself - but it's the corruption it is a manifestation of that is the big story - sure, it'd be nice if she'd testify and maybe the curtain then gets peeled back a bit on the whole Benghazi mess and maybe a lurid light then falls on the awful, misguided jumble of misdirection that is Obama's foreign policy - but real point of all this is that only happens if the press and media report on such in an honest, objective and thoroughly investigative way and they've made it clear that's not gonna happen - which makes that the big story here and, needless to say, a story that will also not be covered for obvious reasons.

As we see with the bogus fiscal cliff negotiations, that charade that has turned into a faux debate on taxing the rich as if taxes on the putative, arbitrarily assigned rich had anything to do with our problems - I believe everything Obama does is predicated on his firm faith that the opinion makers in the country will do what he wants them to do, will more or less fall in line behind the message he wants put out there - sure, there may be some minor push back on the margins of this dynamic - but Obama wanted this debate to be about taxing the rich because as always his main if not sole interest here is a political win driven by ideology and accordingly that's the narrative that gets played - I suppose you can fault republicans for not having a sound strategy in response - but that's why I advised them not to engage in negotiations at all with the man in the first place - if the media is not gonna behave like an objective arbiter of opinion and the result of that is a 'rigged game' that strongly favors the president, it's hard to beat that, not impossible but certainly difficult, and especially difficult if one lacks the attributes required to make the media work for you - and needless to say current GOP congressional leadership lacks those skills.

In short, what we see in the age of Obama, is that media bias has almost entirely hollowed out the whole notion of open and substantive public debate and I have trouble seeing how a democracy survives something like that, or at the very least manages to avoid a serious breakdown at some point because of it. There's a reason the first amendment is about freedom of speech - you don't get a viable democracy without it - and when opinion makers have chosen to chain themselves to a specific ideological agenda regardless of objective, countervailing 'facts', haven't they in a significant sense stepped away from the whole point of free speech?

[but what if my whole fixation on this Hillary story was based on the assumption that there's absolutely no way she'd receive such incompetent medical supervision re how to respond to a possible concussion and yet in fact that is indeed what happened? Well... I guess I'd have to change my storyline... but, no, that just is not possible, no way she suffered a concussion and the orders were not get ye to a hospital for tests - just not possible - and yet news reports are suggesting that is indeed what happened - but I'm sorry, I just can't believe it, there's no way that would happen - no way - I mean a mediocre intern who scraped through medical school knows you suffer a head injury you should probably have tests done to make sure there's no swelling or bleeding in the brain, especially if you're a 65 year old woman who may be the next president of the US - I mean, c'mon - this story is just so, I dunno, odd - although, even if it turns out she really did suffer a concussion it doesn't really change my point here, that being what the hell does the American press think it's doing when it comes to Obama? - I mean, questions should have been asked, obvious questions like, for starters, what's standard medical procedure when an older person suffers a significant head injury - but the questions weren't asked and the only reason for that that I can think of is the press like me thought the timing of the 'illness' looked way too convenient andfelt it incumbent upon them to therefore run cover for Obama, which apparently means running cover for Hillary too - that in no way is a good thing and you're delusional out of your fucking mind crazy if you can't see that]

[addendum: to put this annoying thing to bed, it does indeed appear that H has a blood clot or something along those lines; it is not at all clear that she ever had a concussion or if the clot may be sourced to such a trauma; the blood clot was discovered during a checkup related to assumed concussion, which would have to happen in hospital, which no one heard about, which means she indeed could have had a secret visit to the hospital in the first place, which means the whole reason I thought the story an obvious lie may have been completely off base - but who knows since other than the blood clot the whole episode is shrouded in shadows - it's not impossible that there was no fall, no concussion, and the blood clot was a pre-existing condition that by mere coincidence became symptomatic right now - or it could be they are related, there was a fall, a concussion, there were hospital visits that were kept secret - whatever, I'm moving on since my whole point all along was simply that a VIP suffering a head trauma would almost certainly have to be hospitalized for testing purposes - that didn't seem to happen - which made the 'illness' look highly suspicious given she was supposed to testify on Benghazi and now will never testify on Benghazi - the press was not asking the obvious questions about hospitalization because they thought the illness was bogus too - that was my whole point, and it's still a valid point - that I may have calumniated H unfairly is unfortunate - but I made it clear all along that my main focus here was the behavior of the press - certainly if Condi Rice had 'taken ill' under similar circumstances there would have been no end to speculation on what was really going on in the pages of the Times et al]

Well, this is welcome news - or more accurately the study on the pestilential effects of the Community Reinvestment Act it refers to is welcome news if one has the technical chops to read that - whatever, the gist of the gist here is all the average person needs to know and it'd sure be nice if each was made aware of it somehow - which of course will never happen cause the media will continue to act as if the financial crisis was all the fault of greedy Wall Street types and the evil republicans who serve their greedy little interests - and since the socialist was re-elected by tying evil white rich guy Romney to the evil white rich guys of Wall Street we certainly can't have any inconvenient counter-narrative truths being spoken, no. Stop ruining the story by insisting on being right you awful most horrible haters, you anti hope and changers, you racists!

Stupid left wing thinking that led to ruinously misguided government policies caused the financial crisis - well, that mess was the ugly child of many parents not least seminal of which was prodigiously improvident business people of course - I'm not in denial concerning the culpability of Wall Street etc etc - but business interests did what they always do, take risks, sometimes foolish risks, sometimes extremely foolish risks to maximize profits, that's why the market goes up and the market goes down - the real root of the problem in this instance, the difference maker, the true seed of rottenness was idiotic left wing thinking being unleashed into that combustible marketplace through wretchedly ill advised government policy anxious to impose an illusory egalitarianism - it was the distortions created by this government activism that pushed the system towards the maelstrom over which we currently dangle - and now we have four more years of a president who could be a poster child for this kind of misbegotten shite.

Very hard these days to find something one can honestly feel good about. There was that YouTube video of the toddler gleefully jumping in a puddle while his dog loyally loitered by his side. That was nice. Doesn't quite make up for the ruination of the American empire - but nice all the same.

I have no choice but to reiterate: if the media, if the press has been corrupted, has chosen a side in a democracy then that democracy is as a consequence perforce under threat - eventually a significant proportion of the electorate will come to not simply lose faith in the government that the media has anointed [we're already there basically] but more importantly will stop viewing the government as legitimate - and then you're in trouble - then you've put in motion a dangerous dynamic where the refusal of the press to act as an objective critical voice and hold the government's feet to the fire will lead to mistakes, will encourage bad behavior and eventually drive the embittered 'losers' not favored by the press to act out in ways that are not predictable - as I've said before the likelihood rises that the 'losers' will increasingly accept as true the sense that the country has fallen to a left wing coup enabled by a corrupt media - again it's about legitimacy - a democracy cannot survive if the losing side has decided the process is no longer legitimate - if you think about it, a democracy is defined in a sense more by the losers than by the winners since the system cannot work unless the losers accept the results as reflecting a legitimate process.

Anyway, anyway - it's this Hillary nonsense that drives me again into Cassandra's arms - she's obviously lying - the story they've put out is that she was ill, became extremely dehydrated and fainted, suffering a concussion - this is quite obviously bull shit - the highly paid, highly skilled doctors who treat and look after our royal court would never allow such a prized member of that court to become severely dehydrated - a physical state that can be quite dangerous, even lethal - but even if somehow such a malpractice did indeed happen there is absolutely no way that this miscarriage would then be made infinitely worse by not taking the concussed person to a hospital for a full array of tests to make sure there was no bleeding or swelling in that valuable brain since such things are often initially symptomless and if left untreated very definitely can lead to all kinds of bad stuff not the least of which is death.

So this story is obviously a lie - of course pretty hard to prove it a lie, but only a naive fool or a partisan hack would think otherwise. Now, don't get me wrong here, that the Obama administration would engage in such dishonest behavior does not surprise me at all - in fact it's what I expect from them - and, let's face it, like or not this is what politicians do - sure, it's a bit more galling coming from the Obama since this unseemly reality is at large so thoroughly ignored and thus it grates harshly against the grotesque hyperbole of the man's public persona - but, whatever, being shameless liars hardly makes he and his court unique.

What's disturbing here is that they're lying without repercussions, and apparently without any fear of there being repercussions - in other words such an obvious lie being ignored seems to strongly suggest that Obama et al are right to not bother themselves with a fear that the press is going to hold them accountable for their words or actions in any substantial way whatsoever - the press ignored Benghazi in order to get Obama elected, and now they're ignoring it in order to protect the credibility of the likely 2016 democratic nominee. This is corruption of the fourth estate, pure and simple - and hell, it's not like they can claim a plausible deniability here - the Obama clan wants Benghazi buried and the media is going, sure, why not. This is the kind of hand puppetry Mursi expects from the Egyptian press and Erdogan from the Turkish press and the the Magi of the Middle Kingdom from the Peoples Daily - this is not what we Westerners expect from a real democracy.

[and although I do not want to get into the sad story of Newtown, we can see the same pathology playing out there as well - liberal elites and their media cohorts want to implant in the gullible minds of the public the idea, the sense that those kids are dead because conservatives like guns - especially 'machine guns' - how else do you explain the deliberate attempt by liberal talking heads to confuse the difference between an automatic and semi-automatic rifle? I doubt very much it's because they're so stupid they don't understand the difference themselves - it's obviously a deliberate ploy and it amounts to propaganda in service of a specific political agenda - gun control is like ideological catnip for these people - nothing confirms more clearly for them their assumed superiority over conservatives than their contempt for guns - well, unless the gun is being waved about in a Scorcese film or being carried by some amped up Kansas farm boy in Seal Team 6 who probably grew up with guns and has just wasted Osama with one - that they manage somehow to celebrate without troubling their pretty little vacant heads over the hypocrisy of it all]

"... in a democracy the reasonable are constantly under threat from the caprices of the foolish and increasingly each election feels like a roll of the dice where you're just praying the right numbers come up... the West is in the midst of an economic correction and it's painful and worrisome and no one really knows how it's gonna end... but it's the political correction still to come that possibly worries me even more since I'm thinking it's like to leave us longing for these difficult days as if they were nothing but sunshine and good cheer..."

Secretary of State's dog eats her homework - Hillary can't testify on Benghazi because she fell and suffered a concussion? Seriously? As I've said many times, these people are utterly shameless - there's absolutely no line of bullshit they will not cross - and now that Obama has shed tears on TV over the horrible murders in Connecticut, let's face it, he's untouchable, wouldn't be shocked to see his job approval numbers jump by 10, 15 points - might as well just give him more or less what he wants, let the next four years happen and if we somehow manage to survive [I'm not in love with our odds] just try and pick up the pieces then and attempt a moving on.

She can't testify because of a concussion - my god, that's too ridiculous to even laugh at, a simple guffaw indicating contempt and scorn is beyond me here - it's just sad, pathetic.

This reminds one of the de Tocqueville musing that suggested the American democratic experiment would be undone when elected representatives figured out they could use the public's money to buy the public's favor.

I dunno - am I crazy to believe that we should have shot down the North Korean missile? How else do we stop them from perfecting this technology? Shouldn't that be our goal? Cause this tech is just gonna end up in Iran - hell, they no doubt funded this thing - so we just allowed Iran to add another component to its emerging nuclear threat. And China's motives here are murky to say the least - they say they oppose the launch, but then they do nothing when N Korea ignores them - sounds to me like they're ok with it for reasons which are not entirely clear, although one assumes they see the implied threat as being useful to them - whatever, I gotta think China is encouraging it, either directly or through acts of omission, because I have a hard time believing they'd be tolerating this slight otherwise.

The point is, by not shooting it down we're enabling a lot of disturbing dynamics to percolate and god knows what's gonna come of that. Now I'm sure some game theory tree can explain why my contention is not 'optimal' - but I can't play game theory - I know the consequences of shooting it down could prove quite bad but that doesn't then imply that the consequences of not shooting it down will perforce be better.

I mean, what if the 'caution' exhibited here is perceived as weakness, a reluctance to engage, a signal of an American retreat, relatively speaking, from the region at some not too distant date - what does that lead to? How do the intentions, motivations, perceptions of the various players change under the influence of such? China just buzzed Japanese airspace the other day over the disputed island chain with a 'government' [not military] plane and Japan in response scrambled eight, eight F-15s - how long before the PLA ups the ante by using a military plane to push the envelope? Japan shoots down a Chinese plane and all hell will break loose. If Japan perceives America as no longer being a reliable partner in the region, don't they change their whole military posture which right now is constitutionally quite restricted?

Now of course I'm not saying you can draw a straight line from a failure to bring down N Korea's missile to an outbreak of hostilities between Japan and China - never mind what it portends viz Iran - what I am saying is that it seems absolutely foolish to act as if a line of some sort, possibly quite convoluted, can't exist simply because we might prefer to believe in the primacy of more amenable scenarios that only in a putative or highly conditional sense seem more reasonable.

"... simplistic posturing and pontification upon race and racism by left wing elites has become the new opiate of that elite and their indentured masses under the ironically post racial rule of Mr Obama... it's a little like victim porn for the dimly enlightened who long for the sentimental proxy of a shared but safe pain... tease some cliched narrative, express a bit of shallow outrage, then everybody goes to sleep... ah, populism, cheap date of the delusional and simple minded..."

Yes, this is very good. It has always struck me as confounding, galling even, that Obama is referred to as a 'realist' when it comes to foreign policy, a pragmatist - and especially galling when his foreign policy successes are characterized accordingly. Jesus, what successes? None that I can see. As referenced article points out, it's all incoherent chaos that sycophantic confederates choose to spin as realism as a means of either continuing to prop up Obama by forever pushing down on Bush - or simply as a ruse to avoid the loathed 'idealist' label - but to me that's exactly what Obama is, a confused, incoherent idealist. His whole approach to Israel succinctly makes the case - it was/is pure idealist fantasy, right out of the uber liberal play book on how to 'fix' the Mideast.

Think about it - the media [and the president for that matter, which may be a redundancy] presents it as an equivalency, republicans give on taxing the rich [very broadly defined so as to include those who really aren't rich at all] and democrats give on modest [no doubt very modest] entitlement cuts - but there's no legitimate economist or budget savant out there who thinks the rich paying more in taxes comes anywhere even remotely close to dealing with our prodigious problems compared to significant curbs on spending - in other words, as opposed to serious spending cuts, punitive taxes on the rich are constructive only from the view point of ideological pandering - as a practical matter viz benefitting economic performance and addressing fiscal realities they're virtually useless and indeed almost certainly counterproductive - and yet the media treats a possible 'compromise' of this sort as a fair trade. And apparently a majority of the the electorate is either dumb enough or lost enough in a socialist fog to think that makes sense.

And I'm supposed to sit here and pretend we aren't utterly fucked? Can't see it.

I too agree with this sentiment - in many ways when you look at the modern West this is the decay one sees - the productive dynamic of sacrifice for a future good is gone - everything's about the degenerative now - we're all sad charlatans sitting about dining on our tails, convincing ourselves of how wonderfully enjoyable and oh so special it all is and then drunkenly posting a picture of the self immolation on Facebook as if that amounted to a meaningful affirmation of something worth a damn.

Should the GOP walk away from ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations - more and more seem to be considering this seemingly crazy notion.

The logic behind it would arise from recognition of a reality about Obama that I think even at this late date some people just can’t seem to fully accept - ie, that he’s a completely viscous player when it comes to his own political fortunes - there’s no lie he won’t tell, no line he won’t cross, no manipulative gesture he won’t essay - and whether that Machiavellian glee is just the expression of a prodigious ego or a prodigous hatred for traditional [don't you dare say white ruling class!] American values - or whether it’s simply him identifying entirely a victory by him personally as equalling in toto a victory for the movement in general doesn’t really matter - fact remains he plays to win at any cost, including romps over fiscal cliffs.

So, given that, the logic here would be that Obama’s only intention viz negotiations is to weaken the GOP so he can wipe them out in 2014 leaving him with two years where he’s free to turn America into whatever socialist abomination the left has in mind - to that end, either get them to capitulate and agree roughly to his desires on revenues and cuts which will split the GOP and cause uproar in Tea Party - or draw them out in bogus talks that in the end will be crafted to make it look like he tried oh so sincerely for an honest deal but alas evil, unreasonable [don’t forget racist] republicans, serving the 1% at the expense of the 99%, refused to play nice - and then off the cliff we go - but remember he’ll have the press more or less on his side, he’ll have the oval office, he can go out and give class warfare speeches across the country etc etc - and so even though the economy will likely tip back into recession with a cliff jump he’ll figure he can blame it all on the GOP and, again, they’ll be toast in 2014. After all, exit polls showed a majority were quite willing to blame Bush rather than Obama for current economic malaise - why on earth would one think he can’t mouth the same incantations over the next two years to conjure forth the same delusional magic?

If you believe the above scenario is true [and I think it probably is] the reason you’d walk away now becomes obvious: any negotiations you engage in are just a trap. Obama has put a ludicrously insufficient, one might say shamelessly disingenuous offer on the table - walking away extracts you from the trap and forces Obama to defend it.

But of course you can’t simply just walk away, refusing to sign anything - Obama probably wins that gambit just as surely as if you’d walked into his trap to begin with. No - acknowledging the lurking danger of the fiscal cliff you’d have to name what exactly you would be willing to sign in order to avoid it even while still refusing to engage in bogus negotiations with the Obama - and to do that you’re gonna have to convincingly explain to the people the rationale behind walking away which will necessarily mean saying some very nasty things about the president’s true intentions - no walk in the park that - which, again, is why you’d have to name exactly what it is you would sign - and there are only two choices here the way I see it: without any negotiations, agree to the offer Obama has put on the table, thereby making the democrats entirely responsible for the economic consequences that follow; or right now agree to sit down and sign the only bipartisan settlement out there and the only truly bipartisan agreement that will probably ever see the light of day given current dynamics - Simpson/Bowles. Now, SB is hardly a 'great deal' if you're a conservative, but then that's the point because probably even more so it's not a great deal if you're Obama but he can't simply dismiss it if the GOP is willing to swallow hard and take it - so that's a win, or at least not a glaring loss.

One can see how this risky move might appeal to disenchanted, cynical types like me who see Obama for the ruthless schemer, shameless political manipulator he is, don't think you can beat him by dancing around the edges [especially with the press running cover for him, which is really the secret behind everything Obama does] and believe that if you’re backed into a corner only a bold and cunning move is gonna save your ass and the only cleverly cunning bold move I can think of is the studied walk away - can't look merely petulant - regardless, I hold out very little hope for the success of such a venture, if only for one simple reason: for the game to work you’d need a very, very compelling spokesperson out front selling the whys and wherefores of it - and who would that be? Ryan? I dunno - possibly - and then the entire house GOP would have to be onboard with it - and so again if one wants to engage in the probable fantasy of this gambit the thing you absolutely without question are gonna need to produce is a smooth talker who can make the sale - cause without that, it's most likely a suicide run.

You’d think with the way things are going in Egypt and with the Arab pseudo spring in general that Israeli scepticism regarding the intentions of Islam viz Israel specifically and the West in general and the realistic capacity for Palestinians and their sclerotic, disingenuous leadership to accept anything even remotely approximating legitimate conditions for a peace agreement, you'd think this sceptical acuity would be given more credit, be treated with a more honest objectivity by progressives, those naive fools who unlike the Israeli realists they scorn got the putative Arab spring entirely wrong.

But nope, not gonna happen, as the Palestinian proto state UN vote makes clear - and then when Israel responds to this provocation by announcing the building of a few more condos in Jerusalem the progressives are very quick to label them extreme as if the Palestinian maneuver was entirely reasonable and sincere - Obama, who can’t bring himself to criticise what’s going on in Egypt, has absolutely no problem acting as if once again Israel has subverted a real opening for peace through unreasonable aggression. Obama et al got the Arab Spring wrong, Israel got it right, and yet still liberals in the West act as if Israel is the misguided party here.

You’ve almost got to admire these progressives, the plucky way they blindly carry on as if they know exactly where they’re going when they quite clearly don't have a clue. Well, admiration’s wrong, can’t admire something like this - envy - maybe I envy them, ignorance being bliss and all.

“... 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..."

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.

Given my increasingly jaundiced view of the democratic process as it exists in this age of ubiquitous media feeding the incessant cupidity of the superficial for the fools gold of trite bemusement and instant gratification - given that shouldn't I be a supporter of Obama since his socialist designs are essentially undemocratic and seek to overthrow the American system of 'negative rights' and replace it with the wise counsel of an enlightened aristocracy made viable by the obsequious support of a majority granting underclass that is ever dependent on it?

Well, no. I'm being overtaken by a cancerous cynicism not a consumptive stupidity. Still, does raise an interesting question: what exactly do I believe? How would I defend democracy if I was going to defend it? If I think it's vital, absolutely necessary that Romney, for all his flaws, defeat Obama, can I legitimately do so if I no longer believe or can maintain a serviceable faith in democracy? Or is it I just haven't figured out yet how to defend democracy given all the bad stuff that is happening but still have the sense that those 'negative rights' need to be defended because the alternatives to such are all roads to where Hayek said they went?

I dunno. Think it's the latter.

The 'functional' electorate is divided between partisans of each side who are aware of the issues but whose opinions thereof are vitiated by the taint of bias - these partisans may be paying attention but they view all through distorting glass. There indeed are moderates in each camp of a more reasonable and objective bent who are susceptible to breaking off and adhering to the other if properly motivated, but one suspects that the more ideologically rancorous a campaign becomes the more likely these moderates 'keep the faith' and stay close to home - this no doubt why Obama all along has been running such a negative race based on class warfare rhetoric, character assassination, racist innuendo etc etc. One would hope that moderate democrats would be inclined to shake off their chains and wander given the state of the economy and the sad state of the country in general, but polling suggests these potential 'free elements' can be held in place by blaming Bush - and accordingly Obama's stock response by way of explanation viz current trouble is to blame Bush - witness too Clinton's tour de force of Bush blaming at the convention.

The 'dysfunctional' part of the electorate [these assignations obviously quite relative given that under the cold light of reason the entire electorate is essentially dysfunctional and to a jaundiced cynic like me probably beyond all hope of salvation] belongs to the independents - unlike partisans, these intrepid souls cling to their ignorance of the issues, either because of a native dislike of politics or more likely simply out of laziness or indifference. On the plus side, this lassitude tends to leave them free of ideological prejudices - of course it also leaves them quite vulnerable to simplistic messaging and impulsive rationalizations. The keen insight of this esteemed group decides elections.

Which brings us to the fourth estate and the media in general - if independents decide elections and at the same time are highly vulnerable to easy manipulation - and we add to that the reality that increasingly our perceptions are controlled by simplistic, exploitative media and this media has an undeniable liberal bias and in the case of Obama a bias so visceral that one smells the rank rot of a desperate and utter corruption - well, isn't that a rather toxic and fragile delineation? Are we not straddling the abyss here? Does this election fascinate because the dynamics of it might finally throw into sharp focus just how close we are to a dangerous upheaval or a despairing decline?

[this why I tended to believe that should Obama end up winning when by all rights he should be toast, in the final analysis probably the only person who had a chance to beat him was Christie - the big guy couldn't have reversed media bias of course, but given how appealing a character he is and how that would have made it hard for the media to contain him or falsely pin him to a narrative, these qualities would have stood him in good stead and well positioned to effectively counter-act Obama worship, to level the playing field as it were. Ryan helps Romney in this regard, and should he convincingly destroy Biden in the debate that will help a great deal - but only if Romney also does well in the debates. With the help of media bias painting Reagan as a dangerous, dimwitted right wing extremist, the wholly undeserving Carter was leading well into October of 1980 - but then the debates revealed a Reagan at odds with the media portrait of him and the rest is history. Romney will likely have to pull off the same kind of reveal - unfortunately, Romney is no Reagan - on the bright side, 'undecideds' tend to break against an incumbent, and if one believes recent analysis that suggests the polls are not capturing the true disposition of things, ie Romney is actually ahead, then carrying the bulk of the undecideds should be enough to show Obama the door regardless of the media's fervent desire to not let their cherished liberal dreaminess crash and burn]

[cause when you think about it the uber left and their media cohorts absolutely need Obama to win in order to save themselves, to preserve that dreamy prism through which they view the world and their place in it - Obama's a manifestation of every naively idealistic bit of nonsense they believe in, without a second term in which to rewrite the history which at this point will label him a Carter-like disaster of a president, what becomes of them? Even they may not be able to summon up the vast amount of denial and dissembling that will be required to drown out this reality - although, if anyone can do it it's these people]

[fair to say though that likewise I need him to lose in order to preserve my narrative - right now everything has played out the way I predicted in 2006 viz Dear Leader, so given that odds may incline one to think that a second term couldn't possibly be as bad as the first, there's a risk there to me - still, I'm pretty confident in my judgement that Dear Leader is an absolutely awful fit for CEO of America - he should be out giving pretty speeches to the hopelessly deluded, that's what he's good at, that's where he belongs]

Oh, dear... the world is spinning out of control... and the editorial board of the New York Times assured me that electing the black guy who gave pretty speeches would fix all this... can't even trust the givers of light anymore... all is darkness.

Well. I remember that sycophantic, whinging uber liberal EJ Dionne announcing - no, proclaiming with enthused pride the day after Gaddafi was dispatched that Dear Leader had just won through the economical brilliance of leading from behind a far greater victory than Bush ever did or could with his marauding, imperialist armies.

And how people like me laughed with such sad bitterness at the astounding naivety of such sentiments. Yet still the fools preen and laud their grand illusion. I click on Politico's website this morning and what's their headline? The GOP's foreign policy muddle. These people are redefining what it means to be a pathetic toady on a daily basis.

And now Obama has asked Google to pull the offending video? Really? That's what it's come to? The Chief Executive of The United States of America blowing the first amendment out of the water in order to censor some amateurish piece of shit video on YouTube in a vain attempt to placate the ever unplacatable fucking Muslims? Wow. Worst-President-Ever.

"But what’s strange is that so many people don’t find it strange at all — that at a critical moment in the affairs of the republic the ruling party should assemble to listen to a complacent 31-year-old child of privilege peddling the lazy cobwebbed assumptions of myopic narcissism."

This from Mark Steyn's latest on Sandra Fluke - not necessarily one of his best pieces but makes a good point about something that bugs me constantly - the myopic nature of so much that passes for political debate in this country - the way that so much of the discussion seems rooted in the vague neediness of some personal, emotionally contextualized response to issues rather than the dictates of logic and reasonable, coherent, objective insight. Listen to Obama's supporters - it's as if they've completely detached themselves from reality, as if they inhabit a dreamland where they're sustained on a steady diet of shallow cliches, empty rhetoric and airy hypotheticals. A world full of Flukes - held aloft on the flatulent reek of a vain and vapid idealism.

This myopia is on full display with liberal advocacy of gay marriage - we're talking about an issue that at most probably impacts about two percent of the population, and that may be wildly over stating it - and yet liberals go on about it as if no greater crisis threatened the country - and of course that's because this advocacy for them is like wearing a big, bright badge of honor that announces to all and sundry "look at what a wonderful and enlightened person I am - I support gay marriage! Yea for me!". It's pathetic. Now, I oppose gay marriage, mainly because I consider it an affront to common sense and logic to pretend there's not a wide existential gap separating the categorical imperatives of fecundity underlying all heterosexual love from the generative 'neutrality' of the rut that dare not speak its name - but the more practical side of me is inclined to say "sure, go ahead - why on earth a gay person would want to get married is beyond me - but whatever, let's just get it over with cause the country has bigger problems than the love interests of a handful of gays and we should really be TALKING ABOUT STUFF THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS!".