All roads lead through Cleveland - I agree with this analysis: "The candidate who wins Ohio will place his hand on the bible on Jan. 20."

Consider the source

Today and for the first time, Romney took the lead in the Real Clear Politics electoral map.

He's also in the lead in the RCP general election poll.

Nate Silver of the New York Times says: "Obama's gonna win!"  Math is hard.

Matt Lauer to Paul Ryan: "That's a terrible answer."

This is funny: the "Today" host asked Paul Ryan who would win the Ohio State-Wisconsin football game.  Not wanting to offend either swing state, Ryan punted:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Job #1: get re-elected - Opinion Journal: "A President without a plan - A more spirited Obama, but he still has no agenda for the next four years."

Extra - Similar thoughts from Megan McArdle.

Oh boy - The Frank Luntz focus group of "undecided" voters (from Nevada) is overwhelmingly in favor of Romney after this debate.

Meh - Obama had nowhere to go but up, and he did.  But Romney was pretty aggressive too so who knows:  I don't think this argument will change anything.

What was that? - That speaker just said: "President.....Romney."  You'll have to wait three weeks.

The buck stops there - Commentary: "Hillary apologizes for Benghazi"  "This is nothing short of disastrous for President Obama. After dodging responsibility for the Benghazi attack for over a month, pointing fingers at everything from the State Department to the intelligence community, the White House is outclassed by…Hillary Clinton."

It's the entitlements, stupid - Zero Hedge: "Why a balanced budget is impossible in America."

Forward, comrades!

Nate Silver's ridiculous analysis - After a relentless march in the national polls towards Romney and now a dead heat in the electoral vote count (including counting North Carolina - laughably - as a "toss up"), the NY Times pollster finds that Obama's odds of winning are only 2-1 (66% - 34%).

There's no there there

Over at Ricochet, John Yoo notes that Obama's debate problem isn't a lack of style - it's a lack of substance:

Strip away posture, tone, and facial expressions, and the remarkable feature of Obama’s time on the podium is how little he actually says. Obama brings up no new domestic policies for his second term. He proposes no new legislation, nor will he cut any unnecessary programs. Spending and taxes, it seems, will simply go on forever at their current rates. Somehow the deficit will magically disappear and the economy will fully recover.

Of course the word from the Obama campaign is that their guy is going to be "more aggressive" in the debate tomorrow night but that won't make up for the shadow that is his record.

Two things Obama doesn't want to talk about: the last four years and the next four years

Washington Post editorial: "Show me a policy"

Analysts have wondered at the Obama campaign’s flat-footed response to the candidate’s poor first-debate performance. It’s one thing to have an off night. It’s another to spend the next week whining about your opponent’s “lies” and wallowing in Big Bird trivia. How to explain an impressive political team performing so feebly?
Alas, the answer lies at the heart of President Obama’s reelection bid: the absence of a second-term agenda. Mr. Obama has yet to say how he would solve the immense problems awaiting the next president immediately after election. Until and unless he does, the only rationale he can offer voters is the urgency of stopping the other guys.

So in the next debate it's back to the "kill Romney" strategy. RIP Hope and Change.

Extra - Jennifer Rubin: "Recall that virtually the entire Obama strategy was aimed to discredit and delegitimize Romney as a candidate. The avalanche of negative ads in the summer, however, failed (barely) to do so. With Romney’s extraordinary debate performance, it now becomes nearly impossible to vilify him. Unfortunately for Obama he’s got no Plan B. He never devised an impressive second-term agenda. He has either unpopular (Obamacare) or unhelpful (raise taxes) or small beans (hire 100,000 teachers) proposals. Romney has therefore been able to deploy his “we can’t afford four more years” argument quite effectively."

Big crowds for Romney in Ohio - Columbus Dispatch: "Romney on the rise in Ohio."  "Maybe Vice President Joe Biden stopped the bleeding for the Obama campaign on Thursday, but he did little to stall the momentum Mitt Romney’s building in Ohio."

I was watching MSNBC this morning and they kept flashing "Poll: Obama up +6 in Ohio."  Yeah, that was one outlier poll with a +11 Democrat representation - do they really think Obama's going to surpass his 2008 party I.D. lead in Ohio?  C'mon.

Celebrity-in-chief - Twitchy: "Priorities: President Eye Candy to make sixth 'Daily Show' appearance."

You have to wonder what David Axelrod is thinking.  I'll tell you what I'm thinking: does this guy even want to be President anymore?  I can think of very little upside to another visit to Letterman/"The View"/Stewart - maybe it shores up his youth vote a little?  On the other hand, the potential downside is huge as middle-class voters see another visit to glad-hand and giggle with Stewart as we post yet another trillion-dollar deficit and Libya questions go unanswered.  And all this coming after the "Big Bird" fiasco.

Maybe Obama has already made the decision: "You can't fire me, America - I quit!"

Sacrifices must be made - Breitbart: "White House: Buck stops with Hillary on Libya."

It looks like Bill and Hillary are resolved not to "take one for the team."  Daily Caller: "As Benghazi blame nears Hillary, Clintons grow furious."

Extra - Minuteman: "Hillary's bus has come in" "Will this Obama/Biden message of "We killed Osama but they forgot to remind us about the blowback" really carry them past the election? The buck stops where?"  Elsewhere, always elsewhere.

Ryan won - here's why

Ask yourself, honest American: which of these two do you want one heartbeat from the Presidency?  Biden was condescending, constantly interrupting, rude, and fact-challenged.  Libya didn't ask for additional security?  That's not what I heard.

Ryan wasn't overly aggressive but he didn't create any gaffes and thus didn't change Romney's momentum.  I thought he was nervous, especially at the start, but measured and (eventually) confident.  Ryan's closing statement was excellent, or at least much better than Folksy Joe.  No KO but Ryan wins the debate on points.

Extra - Ricochet: "Tonight’s debate was again a major plus for the GOP.  Biden was way too hot and irritatingly dismissive of Ryan. He was flat out wrong about the Libya.  He hurt himself and the president.  Ryan's manner was ideal: calm, controlled.  His answers were well informed and well argued.  You believed him... and liked him.  Biden channeled the now defunct Air America, the leftist talk radio that was full of rage, a tone that put them out of business."



Also - CNN poll on the winner: "Ryan 48% - Biden 44%"."  Wolf Blitzer just noted that in CNN's focus group of Virginia voters, Biden had slightly more "negative" moments while Ryan had much more "positive" moments.

Finally - Ann Althouse: "Biden was horribly rude."  I'm watching CNN and they're saying an updated poll says Ryan won 49%-43%.  Also more Americans said they'd be inclined to vote for Romney than Obama....therefore it was a "draw."  Sure.

Syria now? - Lot of foreign policy questions are being debated in a country where foreign policy is like one spot above "American Idol" results in Americans' opinion.

What was that Joe? - Did Biden just say that Libyan diplomats didn't ask for more security?

Doesn't add up - Ricochet: "That September jobs report was weirder than you know."

Update - WashPost: "Drop in openings signals limited U.S. job growth."

Explaining the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics



Step one: brush up on your Schrodinger's Cat.

A big goose egg - Hot Air: "Confirmed: Big Bird ad a flop across the entire political spectrum."  Here's Matt Lauer this morning: "Is that the kind of political ad that a campaign releases when it feels that it has ideas and solutions on its side, or is that the kind of political ad a campaign releases when it simply wants to get attention?"  All this and Four Pinocchios too.

That 3 a.m. call went to voice mail - Reuters: "U.S. officer got no reply to requests for more security in Benghazi."  Drip drip drip.

Tough luck, young adults - CNBC: "Prepping for Obamacare, chain cuts workers' hours."  Dang, we needed those tax revenues to pay down the debt.

Fool's Silver

I tried to warn you, buddy, that you were in danger of beclowning yourself unless you re-calibrated your odds, but would you listen?  Noooooo!  After a week of polls universally trending towards Romney, you've boosted his chances to 25%.  Just wow.

Big Journalism: "NYT's Nate Silver exposed as Obama propagandist."
Twitchy: "Nate Silver's model predicts only 25% chance of Romney victory; Twitter predicts 100% of mockery."

On some level, I understand Silver's predicament: you have a readership that is overwhelmingly in favor of your guy.  So you need to break the news - slowly, delicately, in stages - until reality sinks in.

Headline of the day - Hit & Run: "Obama vows to protect Big Bird, U.S. ambassadors not so much."

I buried poll - Twitchy: "After an unskewed poll shows Romney ahead, liberals suddenly turn into poll skeptics."

"Stop asking for help" - The Right Scoop: "CBS News: Top U.S. security chief in Libya says State Dept. told them to stop asking for more security."

Obama rejects your reality and replaces it with his own straw men

From the Hill: "Obama: Green energy is not a 'socialist plot'"

“On energy, I’m big on oil and gas, and developing clean coal technology, but I also believe that if we’re ever going to have control of our energy future, then we’ve got to invest in solar and wind and biofuels, and that it does make sense for us to double our fuel-efficiency standards on cars,” Obama said, according to a White House transcript.
“And that's not a socialist plot for us to reduce our energy usage,” Obama said to laughter, according to the transcript. “It’s the smart thing to do. It’s right for our national energy. It’s right for our economy. It’s right for the environment. [Romney] disagrees.”
Obama didn't get specific about Romney's alleged disagreement.

No kidding.  Romney never characterized fuel efficiency standards or green energy as a "socialist plot" but since the Obama camp lies so effortlessly about everything else they may as well set up this straw man also.  In fact, it was just the other day that Romney said in a very public forum: "I like green energy" but that his objection is squandering the taxpayers' money into green energy boondoggles that have no viable future.

Obama's little schtick may get a laugh and open Hollywood wallets but it's a dollop of self-satisfying slop that falls into the category of "making stuff up."  I guess when you've got no record to run on, it's time to get "inventive."

What's Spanish for "pandering?" - Ruben Navarrette: "Obama hits a foul by honoring Cesar Chavez."

Joe Biden (aka Neal Kinnock) has a higher I.Q. than you - Red State: "Ryan's impossible debate challenge."

But enough about me, what do you think of me? - Doug Ross: "Forever six: the traits of a narcissist."

Wisconsin is in play, oh yeah

PPP reports that the Badger State is now a virtual tie: O 49% - R 47%

Just a reminder, PPP predicted Governor Scott Walker would win his recall vote by 3% - he won by 7%.

Coming up: a Wisconsin Republican wallops old Joe Biden.  Cheeseheads rejoice.

Cookie Monster will not be deprived of Oreos - Daily Caller: "Big Bird can make it rain on his own."

You saw this coming - Big Government: "Team Obama blames John Kerry for debate loss."

You can ring my bell curve - I checked out Nate Silver's latest analysis on the Presidential race and he's updated his "chance of winning" for Obama to 80% meaning he's still a 4-to-1 favorite over Romney.

I know that Silver is following his model but you'd be hard-pressed to find a bookie to give you those odds even before the debate.  Very small changes in the likelihood of winning certain states (e.g. Ohio) will shift these projections rapidly since we're on the steep side of the electoral vote distribution.  Stay tuned for the big update after the new polls come rolling in.

Compare and contrast - Hot Air: "Pre-election media on jobs reports, then and now" "In 2004, a jobless rate of 5.4% “cast doubt” on the economy, and suddenly 7.8% is a sign of “a steadier recovery.”  In 2012, the NYT never even mentions the need to grow jobs by 150,000 each month to keep up with expansion in the labor force.  Not even once."

When you've lost the New Yorker...

Unintentional hilarity ensues at the New Yorker in "Obama's old friends react to the debate."  (Hat tip: Twitchy).  Essentially, O lost the debate because he's just too wonderful for us mere mortals to fully grasp his wonderfulness.  The comments are a collective eye-roll:

Lawrence Tribe tells us that "...Barack Obama’s instincts and talents have never included going for an opponent’s jugular." False. Obama is perfectly delighted to go for an opponent's jugular - when that opponent is unable to respond. See, e.g., Obama railing about the Citizen's United decision at a State of the Union speech - in a highly sharp & personal manner - secure in the knowledge that the members of the Supreme Court in the audience were unable to respond (and had to endure Senators jumping up around them, cheering like idiots); Obama's demagogic attack on Paul Ryan, during a speech in which Ryan - a guest invited by the White House - sat mute, without the opportunity to respond. So Obama is a very enthusiastic verbal warrior, except when he encounters an actual opponent. Another thing about President Obama: He's not particularly smart. He's ideologically inflexible & intellectually incurious. That's why he lost the debate with Romney so decisively, and that's why David Remnick's feelings are now so hurt, causing him to spin unconvincing rationalizations about what a sensitive guy this Obama chap is.

Yeah, remember Obama's blistering "social Darwinism" speech delivered as Ryan sat a couple feet away?  Obama could have toned down the rhetoric but, you know, the speech was already loaded into the Teleprompter - whadda ya gonna do?

The chair would have been better.

Here come the zingers! - Daily Mail: "Obama finally gets in his witty replies to Romney - 48 hours late."  Yes, amazing what the man can do with a staff of writers and two teleprompters.

Government Motors is alive - TTAC: "General Motors adding shifts at Ontario plants."  USA! USA!

The great warrior of straw men - Daily Caller: "Obama attacks Romney on oil tax break remarks he never made."  Tell us more about Romney's $5 trillion in tax cuts, too.

"Just get in the damn car, Barack"

I was told there would be teleprompters

No contest: Romney won.  You can tell by the reaction over at MSNBC.  Legal Insurrection has a roundup of the best tweets of the night and I liked Andrew Sullivan's: "This is a rolling calamity for Obama."

Extra - More tweets from Hot Air.  Bill Maher: "Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter" and Chris Matthews (as quoted): "What was Romney doing?  He was WINNING!"  Oh my.

More - Charles Krauthammer: "Romney won by two touchdowns."

And more - Maggie's Farm: "Slap down."

Plus - Victor Davis Hanson "A bad night for Obama": "For so long has assumed Barack Obama has assumed that he will not face cross-examination from the media that he simply has little grasp of policy details, and in exasperation seems to look around for the accustomed helpful media crutch. But there is no such subsidy in a one-on-one debate, and only now it becomes clear just how the media the last six years have enfeebled their favorite."

This last point is in line with my prediction after "the private sector is doing fine" that Obama wouldn't have another press conference until after the election and, certainly, the laptop media wouldn't demand one.  Obama's ability to explain and defend his record has atrophied and it showed tonight.

On to stage two - Legal Insurrection: "Scott Brown challenges Elizabeth Warren on lack of Massachusetts law license."  I, for one, welcome a reprieve from the Fauxcohontas commercials playing around the clock here in the Bay State.

Calm before the storm

There's no shortage of advice as to what Romney needs to do in the debate tomorrow night but, as for me, I'd like to hear some variant of the following:

"The President never tires of telling us how hard he's working to create jobs for Americans.  But as unemployment stays firmly above 8%, Mr. Obama hasn't met with his jobs council in almost nine months, during which time he's had ample time to attend over a hundred fundraisers.  What that tells us is that the President cares intensely about exactly one job: his own."

For most Americans, I think this resonates on a more fundamental level than economic policy differences.  Obama seems to have no interest in doing his job - why should he get another chance?

Positively Nixonian - More dirty tricks, via Big Government: "Obama urges companies to break federal law for his re-election."  That's right: back in 1988 Democrats in Congress passed the WARN act to force companies to give notice of pending layoffs.  Now...not so much.

People told me if I voted for McCain, we'd have a dimwit gaffe machine for a VP - And they were right!

Can we please stop paying attention to Drudge - And start paying attention to this?  Zero Hedge: "US Debt Soars To $16,159,487,013,300.35, +$93 Billion; Or How To Kick Off Fiscal 2013 With A Bang."  Well on our way to $17 trillion - pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Doesn't play well with others - Greg Mankiw "The price of fiscal uncertainty": "If Baker et al. are right that [policy] uncertainty depresses the economy, and if Woodward is right that the uncertainty we now face with the upcoming "fiscal cliff" is attributable mostly to the inability of Barack Obama to work with Congress, then the implication is clear: The meagerness of this recovery is not simply a hangover from a financial crisis, but rather a reflection of a fundamental political failure."

Making stuff up, a continuing series

Palm Beach Post: "Biden OK with Democrats" (snip) lying:

Not long after Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told seniors at Century Village of Boca Raton they could be socked with $6,300 a year in higher Medicare costs under Mitt Romney, Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged the figure is based on an analysis of an outdated plan.
But Biden argued it’s fair for Democrats to keep using the number, anyway.

Ends, means, justified.

Phantom cuts over a decade that lasts 12 years

Hit and Run looks at Obama's plan to cut the debt by $4 trillion and finds it's all smoke, mirrors, and taxes:

That $4 trillion in deficit reduction takes credit for nearly a trillion dollars in pared back war spending that is already scheduled to happen. The Medicare cuts called for by the plan are of the dubious slashing-provider-reimbursement variety that Congress has had serious trouble maintaining before and that the administration has already put the brakes on in one instance. The plan plays games with the budget baseline, counts $800 billion in debt payments as a "spending cut," and cleverly spreads is deficit reduction out over 12 years rather than the industry-standard 10 year window in order to meet the $4 trillion threshhold but make the early cuts — the ones he'd actually have to oversee as president — quite a bit smaller.
As The Washington Post's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler wrote earlier this month, "virtually no serious budget analyst" buys the president's $4 trillion deficit reduction figure, and "most of Obama’s claimed deficit reduction comes from his proposed tax increases."
Budget gimmicks and tax hikes: That's Obama's version of a balanced plan.

In other words, it's just more "making stuff up" and hoping nobody will notice.

Sea of debt - Zero Hedge: "The next subprime crisis is here: over $120 billion in federal student loans in default."

The Benghazi coverup - The Minuteman takes note that the NY Times waited until their least-read edition of the week to muse on the attack in Libya: "Hard to imagine - the Administration failed to anticipate terrorist attacks on the anniversary of 9/11,then misled the public about their failure, and this is news?"

The Administration, of course, is doing everything it can to get answers on this tragic incident - everything except getting the FBI team into Benghazi.  Like everything else, it can wait until after the election.

Important stuff

Weekly Standard: "Obama administration's Libya spin unravels."

Zero Hedge: "Final Q2 GDP disaster: 1.25% growth comes below lowest estimate."

James Pethokoukis: "2012 may be the worst non-recession, non-depression year in the history of the U.S."

Top story on CNN.com tonight: NFL referees are back.

This Obama fellow sure likes to cast blame and avoid responsibility

Hot Air: "Obama claim that Bush is 90% responsible for current deficit gets 100% of Pinocchios at WaPo."  Here's the conclusion from Kessler's analysis:

We are not trying to make excuses for the fiscal excesses of the Bush administration — and Congress — in the last decade. But at some point, a president has to take ownership of his own actions.
Obama certainly inherited an economic mess, and that accounts for a large part of the deficit. But Obama pushed for spending increases and tax cuts that also have contributed in important ways to the nation’s fiscal deterioration. He certainly could argue that these were necessary and important steps to take, but he can’t blithely suggest that 90 percent of the current deficit “is as a consequence” of his predecessor’s policies — and not his own.
As for the citing of the discredited MarketWatch column, we have repeatedly urged the administration to rely on estimates from official government agencies, such as the White House budget office. It is astonishing to see the president repeat this faulty claim once again, as if it were an established fact.

"Take ownership"?  Oh that's rich.  Anyway, after - what - three years of different variations of this theme, it's sure nice that somebody in the media notice that Obama lies about the deficit.  And only six weeks from the election.

Extra - Emily Miller: "The pass-the-buck president."

Kidz got mad reading skillz - Zero Hedge: "Confirming U.S. dumbification, verbal SAT scores just hit record low."  "All we can say is that the need for the Derek Zoolander Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too has never been greater."

Best to take things in stride - Hit and Run: "Social Security's a wreck! But let's not rush to fix it or anything."

Preventing the "heckler's veto"

Here's Victor Davis Hanson: "Please, no more apologies for free speech"

Apparently leaders of the Islamic world present a non-negotiable demand to the West that they be given a blank check for their governments to defame Jews, Christians, and Americans, but the United States must condemn any private individual who, quite apart from the knowledge of the U.S. government, does the same to Muslims. That is the issue, and anything less than an unapologetic defense of free speech is not only a betrayal of our Constitution, but a very dangerous concession that will only incite more violence in the near future.

The other day on NPR, professor Noah Feldman explained that freedom of speech is really unique here in the U.S.A.  Here's one excerpt from "Held dear in U.S., free speech is perplexing abroad"

"In the U.S., we value the liberty of the speaker much more highly than either the dignity of the person who feels insulted or the state's interest in trying to avoid violent protest. ...
"What's most distinctive from our perspective is that we think that if your feelings are hurt, then that's your problem. We don't believe that you ought to be protected from the hurly-burly of political insult. And that's a very deeply ingrained American notion. ...
"And because we're concerned not to allow what's called the heckler's veto, where the fact that one particular group or person will make a fuss, means that we will prohibit the speech, we've tended to be extremely permissive, and that does make us very different from other countries."

One thing I took away from this interview is that every time the United States rolls out a new apology, the response from the Islamic world is bewilderment and more anger.  The apology itself feeds into the mistaken belief that the American government can curtail speech if it really wanted to.

It's really loud with the Shop-Vac on

I lifted this video from Mental Floss because 1.) it's a catchy song and 2.) the video uses "kinematic typography" where the words are shaped and animated to match their definitions.  It's fun!

It's a rhetorical question - Weekly Standard: "Did Obama mislead on Social Security cuts?"

What media bias? - The Onion: "Media having trouble finding right angle on Obama's double-homocide".  Heh.

Extra - Free Beacon: "Obama's Army."

We're the PIIGs in America

Zero Hedge: "PIIGs in America: Is Illinois preparing to request a federal bailout?"

Imagine that

Gallup: "U.S. distrust in media hits new high"

Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.

Funny thing: although we all know the media is totally fair and objective, Republicans and independents don't see it that way.  Democrats, on the other hand, think they're doing a great job.

I'm more convinced than ever that the media's intention to protect Obama at all costs is leading to a Presidential cocooning that will explode during the debates.  He hasn't had a press conference since March, he's been meeting with hard-hitting magazines like Entertainment Weekly, making appearances on "The View" and Letterman, and avoiding the White House press corps like the plague.  For the first time in a long while, Obama faced an interviewer at Univision (of all outlets) who wouldn't accept Obama's pre-programmed straw-man responses.

We see what happens when Obama's asked some difficult questions: He screws up. The reason we don't see this often is not that he is a cognitive high evolutionary; it's because he's never asked difficult questions. Questions about wedge issues. With follow-ups. With contradictions.

Obama has been either lying or vague on the campaign trail with nobody to press the issue.  Today he told the AARP that he'll protect Medicare by "keeping costs down" but there were no details and nary a journalist in sight will note that the only remedy he's ever proposed to meet this goal is an unelected board whose only power is to cut reimbursement rates to medical providers.  Both Obama (and Bill Clinton) keep insisting that $716 billion in Medicare cuts won't affect benefits but good luck finding a doctor who will accept Medicare reimbursement rates reduced to the same level as Medicaid.  Plus, there's the magic accounting of money taken from Medicare will both extend the program and pay for Obamacare.

When has Obama been confronted to explain these issues in detail by the mainstream media?  Oh, I know, he's asked about them and then he starts his five-minute filibuster and nobody dares to interrupt the President.  But on that debate stage there's going to be a flashing light and somebody (one can hope) that will challenge Obama to defend his record with non-lies.

Eric Holder will be playing the role of Sergeant Schultz - He knows nothing about Fast and Furious.  Hit and Run: "Fast and Furious report exonerates Holder; rogue agents done the deed.  Right."  "An either-or choice between deceitful bastard and incompetent figurehead should not be read as an exoneration."

Warren-Brown debate - It's rare that we have a close race here in the People's Republic but the first debate for the Massachusetts Senate between Scott Brown and Liz Warren was tonight.  As it happens, I had to pick up my kids so I missed the whole thing but Prof. Jacobson has a post-debate analysis.  It sounds like the Cherokee question didn't have to wait very long.

Al Qaeda? Oh heavens no - Treacher: "Let the record of the Benghazi attack show...whatever Obama needs it to show."

It was that darn You Tube guy.  Washington Examiner: "Al Qaeda is alive and GM is half-dead."

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Obama took some time out of his busy day partying with Beyonce and Jay-Z to appear on Letterman to feign ignorance about the size of the national debt:

Then Letterman went back to the tally: “Now, do you remember what that number was? Was it $10 trillion?”
Then came the payoff, as the president made clear that he really didn’t want to utter the word “16”: “I don’t remember what the number was precisely.”

He don't know nothin' about no debt.  This one:

Who's going to pay for this?  Sure, "the rich."

Extra - Powerline: "Obama's answer was a masterpiece of prevarication."

More - From Twitchy.

Even Pennsylvania? - Daily Caller: "University of Colorado model prediction model points to big Romney win": "A presidential election prediction model developed by two University of Colorado professors points to a big win for GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney in November.  The model, the only of its kind to use more than one state-level economic indicator, has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1980."  The fundamentals of this election still matter.

A low-quality product doesn't sell

Opinion Journal: "The Fourth Estate, still thrilling to the spirit of '08."

Big Journalism: "Newspaper ad revenues collapse to 1950 levels."

Gallup: Only 26% of Americans think journalists have high ethical standards.

Yeah, this would have been better - And it provides a template on how to frame the debate going forward.  Opinion Journal: "What Romney might have said."

Romney does himself no favors

How can a guy who has been running for President for a decade open himself up for another line of attack that he's elitist and out-of-touch?  I'd like to think Allahpundit has it right here:

This was recorded awhile back at a fundraiser, just like Obama’s infamous “bitter/clinger” comments in 2008. Remember how big that blew up? That’s how we ended up with President McCain.

And everybody was suitably shocked when then-candidate likened his low bowling score to the Special Olympics.  But Romney doesn't have the advantage of a press that's, um, objective and non-partisan.  MSNBC will be running stories around the clock about how deeply Obama cares about all those people he put into poverty.  Meanwhile, Romney tithes to his church?  Tax dodger!

Extra - From Patterico and Doug Ross.

Government Motors update - The Truth About Cars: "GM execs want their jets back, want taxpayers to take a bath."  Nothing doing, GM...the Feds are going to hold tight to that stock like a Facebook founder.  It's gotta go up sometime, right?

Free speech 2012

Because it's absolutely normal for five deputies to arrest a man in the middle of the night on a probation violation.  Glenn Reynolds: "Why Barack Obama should resign."

Or as somebody on the Internet noted: "Death to the filmmaker!"  White House: "Hold on, we'll get him for you."

The "Defend the Constitution" memes are coming up.  Here's my contribution:

Extra - From Hit and Run: "Filmmaker Nakoula voluntarily accepts ride from police."

More - Powerline: "In order to spare themselves the sort of critical scrutiny to which they are unaccustomed, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have fallen in with the absurd claim that violence has broken out in eleven Muslim countries, and terrorists armed with RPGs and (reportedly) mortars carried out a military operation to assassinate a U.S. ambassador, as a result of a 14-minute YouTube video. As always, Obama’s first priority is to point the finger of responsibility elsewhere."

I'm sure the media will be reporting this any day now - Zero Hedge: "On this week in history, gas prices have never been higher"  "For those that do eat or use vehicles; for the first time in history, national average gas prices for the 2nd week of September were over $4.00."

Waivers update - Mickey Kaus: "Welfare fight, round four."

Answering that 3 a.m. call

It looks like Hillary Clinton's famous ad about Obama's readiness has come to this: he's ready to answer that 3 a.m. call as long as Beyonce and Jay-Z are at his side.  Now who wants some sweatshirts?  Whoot!

Old and busted: "Yes we can!"
New and busted: "Nobody could have fixed this."

Here are some headlines from the past couple days:

Zero Hedge: "Jobless claims spike is fourth largest in 2012 as producer prices surge by most since June 2009."
Hot Air: "Great news: Middle class sinks to all-time low in 2011."
CBS News: "Survey: One-third of Americans in 'lower classes' since Obama took office."
NPR: "Gas sends wholesale prices up the most in 3 years."
and finally: "Does this look like an economy that's moving forward?"

And yet two years ago, when it looked like the economy was on the mend, the Obama administration was hanging the "Mission Accomplished!" banners:

We're asked to believe that the Obama administration knew all along that things would take longer than four years to improve. "I never said this journey would be easy," the president claimed in Charlotte. On the contrary, the president stated explicitly on Feb. 1, 2009, that if he failed to get the economy turned around in three years, he would be looking at a "one-term proposition."
If the Obama administration knew from the start that the so-called "hole" left by the previous administration was too deep to climb out of in one term, why did they repeatedly claim that the recovery was at hand? "Recovery Summer," the White House website promised, would begin in June 2010.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner authored a New York Times op-ed in August 2010 proclaiming "Welcome to the Recovery." Geithner wrote, "(A) review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth." Though acknowledging continuing challenges, Geithner assured readers that "the actions we took ... to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery."

It's pretty clear that Obama never thought his policies would lead to such a weak recovery and had no Plan B.  Should have told better stories.

Eleven after 9/11

CNN: "Unity marks solemn, familiar ceremonies on 9/11 anniversary."

GM's Bizarro business model

From The Truth About Cars: "Your tax dollars at work: GM loses its shirts on every Volt"

GM loses around $49,000 on each Volt it builds says Reuters. GM sold a record 2,831 Volts in August, but that may “have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce,” says Reuters after a deep data dive into the elusive profitability of GM’s green halo car.

With tax credits, the Chevy Volt costs around $32K and GM loses $49K.  Remember when the White House was criticizing Romney's time with Bain by saying government is not about making a profit?  They weren't kidding.

Extra - The Corner: "The Democrats' GM fiction."

More - Gateway Pundit: "Obama makes lying about Ohio auto jobs a campaign staple."

Can you tell me where I can buy this $3.50 gas you speak of?

Greatest invention ever (crosswalk technology subcategory) - Via Chive, here's a video of a crosswalk console in Germany.  When you're allowed to cross the street, the screen will show a green bar that indicates how much time is remaining.  But when you're waiting, the console will allow you to play a game of Pong with the person across the street.  Technology is fun.

You, yes you, are going to pay for all this stuff - Opinion Journal: "Desperately seeking middle-class taxes."

The college scam - Maggie's Farm: "Everybody should go to college."  There's an old Bloom County cartoon in which somebody is buying an engagement ring and asks: "Who decided that it was a necessity to get a shiny rock before you can get married?" and the jeweler declares "Guilty!"  The colleges have subtly advanced this elitist trope that the only way to get ahead is to go to college.  It is empirically untrue and the idea is filling the coffers of for-profit schools like the University of Phoenix.  As Mike Rowe or John Ratzenberger would advise: learn a trade.

Will the media finally break out of its Obama reverie?

Here's a post from Doug Ross: "Real unemployment is now 11.7%; propaganda gap hits new level."  The jobs report was awful in every way from downward revisions of previous months, a drop in manufacturing jobs, and the lowest participation rate for men since they starting keeping labor statistics.

And yet, the morning of the jobs report, Joe Scarborough was declaring the jobs report "good news" and a "tailwind" for the President.  It fell to Chuck Todd to tell Joe he was an idiot.  But can you blame Joe?  He's just a pixel in the larger MSM brotherhood out to protect their guy.

Remember when gas prices were the top story on the news every night?  Today, not so much.  Newsbusters: "Networks hype gas prices four times more for Bush than Obama."  Nobody talks about Gitmo anymore and there's zero interest in Obama's secret kill list.  But if Paul Ryan says that Obama stole $716 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare (he did) then it's time to deploy the "fact checkers."

At some point, that J-school education has to kick in and they'll remember the class on balance and objectivity.  Until then, brace yourself for some "fresh" reports on Romney's tax returns.

Extra - From Instapundit and Ace.

More - Big Government: "Do your job, mainstream media, people are suffering."

Everybody out of the labor pool

Zero Hedge: "The reason why the unemployment rate dropped: the labor participation rate is at fresh 31-year lows."

At a campaign stop today, Obama laid blame for the anemic job growth.  I'll give you three guesses who he blamed and the first two don't count.

Extra - James Pethokoukis - "The awful, awful August jobs report."

Fire up the teleprompters

Wall Street Journal: "Obama to press plan to revive the economy."  Seems to me that should have been on your "to do" list four years ago, champ.

Extra - Commentary: "Obama's recycled promises."

More - Opinion Journal: "Mr. Obama was elected first and foremost with a mandate to fix the economy. Yet when he found himself by rare confluence of luck with 60 votes in the Senate, he put nurturing a fragile recovery secondary to the pursuit of pent-up liberal social policies."

Snap review - This was Obama's speech from 2008: it was full of "we're gonna do this and that" and "the path forward" and "we should choose this way forward" as if he hasn't been President for four years.  There wasn't a hint of a mea culpa for record debt, unemployment, and food stamps.  Well, that may not be true: I think he said things have been tough so he fell to his knees just like Lincoln.  Because he was a President too and therefore a great man.

And, dear Lord, the pandering.  This election isn't about me...it's about you!  Because you're marvelous.  It's you who are the hope.

Finally, as I predicted, there was nothing on entitlement reform, which will swallow the entire budget in 23 years.  Instead it was snark, small-ball, smarmy smiles and straw men.  I can't imagine independents and undecided voters would buy into this.

And this - Charles Krauthammer just called it the "emptiest major speech" Obama's ever given.  Now Joe Trippi is saying that Joe Biden's speech was better...literally.  Gee, maybe they should have brought Clinton out again.

Finally - I need to go to bed but a lot of the adjectives I'm hearing are "flat" or "resigned" or that Obama seems "weighed down."  And I have to wonder: did Obama see some bad news in tomorrow's job report?  The consensus report is something like +120,000 jobs with the unemployment rate staying at 8.3%.  Hmm.

Woman in RNC ad is a Republican - libs freak out

I have to admit I thought this was a spoof, but apparently it's real.  The Republicans ran a tongue-in-cheek ad of a woman "breaking up" with Obama and the lefties shouted "Aha! she's not a Democrat!"

Jim Treacher: "This might be the dumbest nontroversy you'll see all day"

Seriously. They really do think you’re this stupid. I’m surprised they aren’t pointing out that she’s delivering her lines to a cardboard cutout, not the real Obama, and calling that a “problem.”

I think they're trying a little payback after "Republican women for Obama" were actually Democrats.  For extra fun today, a "former Bain employee" who spoke at the DNC never worked for Bain.  Fake but accurate, I presume.

Yeah, right - Ace of Spades: "Obama will address entitlement reform tonight."

Guess who isn't going to be pushing Grandma over a cliff tonight?  The guy who stole $716 billion from Medicare.

Elizabeth Warren's twaddle - There's a reason why this non-Cherokee is trailing in the polls against Scott Brown here in Massachusetts: everything she says is the most vapid, vaporous, platitude-laden nonsense.  Early in her sappy, silly speech tonight she talked about all the jobless in Massachusetts who are "hammered" by corporations and oil companies and nameless Republicans.  This tragedy occurs in a state led by a Democrat governor, an overwhelmingly-Democrat state legislature, in a country led by a Democrat President.  But darn those "fat cats!"

Dora always asks hard questions

Can YOU spot the unsustainable entitlement?

I think the answer is "red."

Hit and Run: "Medicare is doomed"

When Democrats accuse Republicans of wanting to “end Medicare as we know it,” they are right. But Democrats do too. “Medicare as we know it” is no longer an option.
Leaving aside Medicare’s fatal moral defect—that it’s coercively funded—the program is doomed. It has tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities. It threatens working generations with a crushing tax burden. Because of the relative size of the Baby Boom generation, soon there will be only two workers to pay each retiree’s medical bills. Younger people might have other plans for their money.
So something’s got to give, no matter which party is in power.

The Democrats and their cronies in the AARP are trying to sell Americans on the soothing notion that Medicare is a "sacred promise" but the truth is that the well is running dry:

One of the great ironies of this convention already is that speaker after speaker denounces Republicans for being unable to tell the truth or get their facts straight. Meanwhile, one of the most important truths of modern governance—we are well and truly out of money—sits neglected in the corner. This might be a great way to rally the Democratic base, but it's thin gruel for the majority of Americans who think, correctly, that the nation's finances have spun out of control.

Now let's pass that Buffett rule already.  It will pay for literally hours of government spending.

Message discipline - The Democrats run a video declaring "we all belong" to the government.  The Obama campaign declares: "we don't know nothin' about that."

Let's light this candle!

The DNC starts tonight and it's time to celebrate the good news:

Hot Air: "It's official: We are now $16 trillion in debt"
Zero Hedge: "Manufacturing ISM misses, third month in contraction territory; biggest miss in construction spending in one year."
Business  Insider: "FedEx is one of the world's biggest bellwethers, and it just cut its forecast"
PJ Tatler: "June 2012: Food stamp usage increases three times faster than job creation."

Extra - James Pethokoukis - "U.S. is much worse off than four years ago."

I tell you these are honorable men - Given the stories of the complicated relationship between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and the former's desire for a Hillary presidency, I wonder if Bill might be preparing the Mark Antony speech.  In the "friends, Romans, countrymen" oration from "Julius Caesar," Antony cleverly turns the crowd against Brutus and the assassins all the while insisting they are "wise" and "honorable."

It's interesting - to say the least - that Clinton is not letting anybody see his speech.  By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes...to North Carolina.

Hostile to business - WashPost: "Obama faces mounting questions over 'you didn't build that' remark"

The timeline of this gaffe is telling: for a solid week, the White House issued no kind of clarification - "we meant roads and bridges!" - until the snap poll results rolled in and then the Most Articulate President ever had to cut a quick commercial to explain what he really meant.  Of course, to believe Obama wasn't being derisive of the hard work of small business owners, you merely need to review the rest of the speech.

Oh, sure, roads and bridges.  Gotcha.

Cut and paste

Entitlement nation - Opinion Journal: "American character is at stake" "What is monumentally new about the American state today is the vast empire of entitlement payments that it protects, manages and finances. Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine. As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined."

Fact-checking the fact checkers on welfare reform

Mickey Kaus returns to the work requirement that Obama scrapped: "Credulous fact-checkers fall for 20% scam"

Raise caseloads by 20% and Sebelius’ standard will probably be met. (Maybe raise caseloads 30% just to be sure.) So what looks like a tough get-to-work incentive is actually a paleoliberal “first-get-on-welfare” incentive. But the point of welfare reform isn’t to get more people onto welfare.
It’s understandable that MSM reporters and non-profit checkers–some of whom may have been given only a few hours to get to the bottom of a subject they’ve never written about before–would easily fall for a bit of bureaucratic fakery. Do they have to be so self-righteous about it?

Judging by the MSM's over-reaction to Paul Ryan's speech, it's pretty obvious they're wired into the Obama campaign's Twitter feed and swallows whole the spin.  "False balance" indeed.

Jesse and Creed

The last "Breaking Bad" until 2013 is tonight?  That's quite a long wait.

Predictive model says: Obama's gonna lose

For all you Eeyores out there who think this election is going to be a squeaker: take heart.  Today's Boston Globe has an article (behind pay wall) about the IHS Global Insight model that takes a handful of economic and political factors then calculates the incumbent's percentage of the vote:

The Lexington economic forecasting firm takes two economic indicators plus three political variables, plugs them into a formula, and out pops the percentage of the popular vote the incumbent party is expected to win. The formula has correctly predicted the outcome in 14 of the last 16 presidential elections.

Indeed, most of the model's predictions have been within a percentage point and the worst miss was the 1972 election that underestimated Nixon's re-election share by 4.8%.  And what does the model predict for The One?

The most recent update of the formula, using July economic data, shows President Obama losing decisively, with just over 45 percent of the popular vote.

In other words: landslide territory for Romney.  But if you want to go old-school, there's always the President's approval rating:

A president’s job approval rating is one of the best indicators for assessing his chances of reelection. Typically, the president’s job approval rating on Election Day will be close to the share of the vote he receives. Currently, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance.

That's Rasmussen's poll.  This morning, Gallup posted Obama's approval rating at 43%.

These numbers all predict a loss for Obama and America still has to digest the new benchmark of $16 trillion in debt and an unemployment rate that - at best - will stay at 8.3%.  Have fun at your convention, Dems.

Is today the day? - U.S. debt clock is about to turn over $16 trillion.

Update - Well, it looks like this is the official one and as of Sunday morning it's at $15.996 T.  That means we're almost certainly going to hit the big 1-6 on Labor Day, right before the DNC.