It’s Tuesday, October 16th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, in the “We Told You So” segment, this headline from FOX News we predicted some time back:

October Surprise: White House reportedly preps strike team to take out terrorists tied to Libya attack

 

Yeah….just in time for the foreign policy debate; after all, who in the MSM other than FOX will question the Administration’s version of the event?  What can be said of an Administration whose only foreign policy achievements come not through the efforts of the State Department, but courtesy of….

….America’s Armed Forces?!?  No need asking how we’ll know they killed the right guys; with the The Dear Misleader’s plummeting poll numbers, any dead Arabs will do.

In a related item, despite the Middle East being a powder keg liable to explode at any time, the WSJ reports why America’s chief diplomat is in Peru….attending an international conference on women’s empowerment:

Hillary’s ‘Responsibility’

As the White House blames State for Libya, the Secretary says little.

 

Tell me again how you spell “resignation”?

Hillary Clinton ducked questions Friday about what and when she knew about the nature of the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, and then she got the heck out of D.C. The Secretary of State, who flew to Peru Monday for a conference on women’s empowerment, is savvy enough to smell political trouble.

Throughout the fallout from Libya, she has taken a low profile. But this position is becoming increasingly untenable. The focus of Congressional attention and debate has shifted to her shop. Even as they defer to an internal investigation—whose conclusions won’t be out before Election Day—Joe Biden and the White House last week dumped responsibility for the security and intelligence failure that led to the assault on the Benghazi mission on the State Department and CIA. Does the Secretary care to comment?

On the day after the September 11 attacks, Mrs. Clinton stood alongside President Obama at the White House without speaking. When the Administration needed someone to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows the next weekend to discuss Libya, Mrs. Clinton was the natural choice. Yet she made no appearance and was replaced by U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice.

An early Obama supporter and candidate to replace Mrs. Clinton in a second term, Ms. Rice offered the now infamous view that the attacks were a “spontaneous reaction” to an anti-Islam YouTube video. For eight days after the assault, the Administration stuck to that story.

Two weeks after Benghazi, appearing before the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama devoted 12 paragraphs to the “Innocence of Muslims” film clip. He didn’t use the word terrorism and mentioned al Qaeda—per his standard stump speech—only to say it “has been weakened, and Osama bin Laden is no more.” (Along with “you’re a racist”, the standard Team Tick-Tock response to any criticism.)

The next day, on September 26, Mrs. Clinton took part in a special U.N. session on Africa and told a different story from the President. She blamed Benghazi on “violent extremists” possibly linked to an al Qaeda offshoot in northern Africa. Other Administration officials, though not the President, had by then begun to speak about a terrorist link.

These changing story lines prompted Congress to call hearings last week, but Mrs. Clinton didn’t appear. Three career State officials and a Utah National Guardsman testified instead. They said additional security had been requested but denied, and that the ability of Libyan forces to protect the Benghazi mission, which was kept open despite worsening security in the city, had been overestimated. The underlings took the heat.

In Thursday’s Vice Presidential debate, Mr. Biden claimed, “We did not know they wanted more security again.” A White House spokesman said on Friday that the Veep was referring only to the White House, not State.

Asked about this on Friday, Mrs. Clinton passed on the opportunity to clarify what she was doing the night of the attacks, when she knew about changed intelligence, and what she told Mr. Obama. She said a review board is looking into it, and in passing she defended Ms. Rice whom she said “had the same information from the intelligence community as every other senior official did.”

CNN reported Monday night from Lima that Mrs. Clinton finally addressed the White House comments by saying “I take responsibility” for what happened in Benghazi. She added that “I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha” so close to an election. That’s nice, but it still leaves many questions, such as why her own comments to the U.N. differed so much from the substance and tone of Mr. Obama’s. Saying you take “responsibility” in brief interviews from faraway Peru is a long way from acting as if you’re responsible.

Bottom line, boys and girls:

But they badly misjudged both the public’s interest in the debacle, as well as the willingness of certain portions of the MSM to dig for the truth.  As Yogi Berra might have said, this one ain’t over ’til the fat chick says it’s over.  And though Hillary may well be willing to take a bullet for Barack, we wonder at what cost?  And more importantly, why?

Perhaps he’s promised her unwavering support in 2016; or she might believe telling the truth and exposing the ineptitude of the first Black President would jeopardize her chances of ever heading the Dimocratic ticket.

Whatever she does, the one thing you can depend on is no one volunteering the truth….until well after November.

Next up, Bill McGurn tells us all about another charlatan:

The Wizard of Obama

The president didn’t just lose a debate. He lost an entire image of genius and control.

 

After President Reagan’s listless performance in the first presidential debate of 1984 raised speculation that he was too old for the job, the Gipper took command in the second debate. Of his opponent Walter Mondale, Reagan famously said that he wouldn’t try to score political points by exploiting his opponent’s youth and inexperience.

Perhaps Barack Obama can likewise reassert himself in Tuesday evening’s town hall in Long Island. But his problem is this: In Denver he didn’t just lose a debate—he lost the carefully cultivated illusion of a larger-than-life figure who was Lincoln and FDR and Moses all wrapped in one.

Mostly this image was the making of his own immodesty, starting the night he clinched the 2008 Democratic nomination. Mr. Obama might have simply declared victory and congratulated Hillary Clinton on a valiant fight. Instead it became the backdrop for one of his more infamous egoisms. History, he said, would look back at his victory as the moment “the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

This was no aberration. A man who interviewed for a job on the campaign was told by Mr. Obama: “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Everything about his campaign fed that idea. The Styrofoam Greek columns at the Democratic convention when he was nominated. The faux presidential seal with its own Latin motto. And before the campaign, the two books he authored about—himself.

The press, far from exhibiting any skepticism about this immodesty, bowed before it. Leave aside the NBC reporter who conceded it was hard to remain objective in the face of all the “infectious” energy emanating from Mr. Obama’s quest for the White House. Or the New York Times commentator who knew Mr. Obama was meant to be president by the crease in his pants leg. Or the historian who told radio host Don Imus that Mr. Obama’s IQ was “off the charts”—but when asked what it was could only answer that he was probably “the smartest guy ever to become president.”

An editor at Politico (and veteran of the Washington Post) put it this way: “I have witnessed the phenomenon several times. Some reporters need to go through detox, to cure their swooning over Obama’s political skill.”

None of this abated after Mr. Obama was elected. He arrived in Washington for his inauguration in a train to provoke comparisons to Lincoln. Soon he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for—well, it’s still not exactly clear what he was awarded it for. He affected unworthiness, but it is more telling that he didn’t decline it.

In short, Mr. Obama was the man who declared that he would change the thinking of the Muslim world by the mere fact of his election, restore science to its rightful place, and win what he called the “necessary war“ in Afghanistan.

And then came this month’s debate in Denver.

That night, the American people watched “the smartest guy in the room” struggle to put together a simple declarative sentence, and then ask the moderator to move onto another topic after Mitt Romney had given a strong statement about jobs and growth and tax revenues.

Some 67 million Americans were watching on TV. What they saw was the scene from the Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy’s dog pulls back the curtain to reveal there is no wizard at all, just a man from the Midwest who pumped himself up into something far beyond his mortal self—and got the whole of Oz to believe it. Yes, we had earlier glimpses that Mr. Obama might not be all he has pretended. We saw how quickly he becomes irritated whenever an interviewer departs from the full fawn, such as when a Dallas TV reporter corrected him about his margin of defeat in Texas in the last presidential election. We’ve even seen the occasional lampoon, such as the 2008 Saturday Night Live skit satirizing how journalists who went hard on Hillary Clinton during Democratic debates served up softballs to Mr. Obama.

These, however, were only moments. They were nothing like the 90 minutes of presidential incoherence in Denver and the outrage of liberals who now hail Joe Biden for his savvy—not to mention the days of pointed, sustained Obama ridicule on late-night TV that, for the first time, laughed at the president rather than with him.

In the two remaining debates, Mr. Obama will surely be more assertive, more competitive, and more engaged than he was in round one. But this time the curtain has been pulled back and the aura is gone. That means Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent—for the first time in two presidential contests—will finally be contesting a mere mortal, not a wizard of his own Oz.

All of which makes the 2012 election a….

….horse of a different color.

Moving on, the WSJ‘s Bret Stephens pens this open letter….

To the Wavering Voter

Mitt Romney won’t make war on women, the Middle East or the middle class.

 

Dear Wavering Voter:

No, abortion rights and access to contraception will not be jeopardized if Mitt Romney becomes president. Not remotely, not vaguely, not even close. No woman in America, including Sandra Fluke, will have war made upon her by a President Romney.

Maybe you think the job of a president is to be our DJ-in-Chief and set the mood music for the country. In that case, the slow-jam Obama administration has everything to recommend it, while a Romney presidency may get on your nerves like a hokey country song. But it won’t get in your way.

How am I so sure? It’s not a question of Mr. Romney’s sincerity on social issues. It’s the fact that since Roe v. Wade became the law of the land almost 40 years ago, Republican presidents have named seven justices to the Supreme Court, while Democratic presidents have named only four. Guess what? Roe v. Wade is and will remain the law of the land.

No, we will not have another war in the Middle East. Not even if President Romney orders Iran’s nuclear sites bombed to smithereens.

Remember “Operation Desert Fox”? Probably not. That was a four-day, full-on bombing campaign against Iraq ordered by Bill Clinton in December 1998, on the eve of his impeachment. The ostensible purpose of the campaign was to degrade Saddam’s WMD capabilities, which then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called “the threat of the 21st century.”

It must have worked beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Air strikes may be acts of war, but not the kind of war President Obama is warning will be our lot if Republicans are elected. Incidentally, Mr. Obama also says “all options are on the table” when it comes to Iran. If he isn’t serious about keeping a nuclear weapon out of the hands of the ayatollahs by any means necessary, he should come out and say so.

No, America will not once again become the global pariah it supposedly was under George W. Bush if Mr. Romney is elected.

That’s because, as we’ve lately discovered, we never ceased being a pariah in places like Cairo and Karachi. The Pew Research Center finds that positive attitudes toward the U.S. are broadly lower today throughout the Middle East than they were in the last year of Mr. Bush’s presidency. True, Mr. Obama has made America somewhat more popular again in Europe, so you can visit Paris again without fear of a political harangue at Les Deux Magots cafe.

But there’s a rub: Fewer people can afford the trip. Travel by U.S. citizens to Europe has declined every year of the Obama presidency. We’ll always have Paris, dear—we just can’t afford to go there this year.

No, your taxes will not go up by a couple of grand. They especially won’t go up “to pay for huge new tax breaks for millionaires,” as the Obama campaign keeps insisting.

The $2,000 figure is based on a study by an outfit called the Tax Policy Center. Of the study itself, Don Marron, the center’s president, concedes: “I don’t interpret this as evidence that Governor Romney wants to increase taxes on the middle class in order to cut taxes for the rich. Instead, I view it as showing that his plan can’t accomplish all his stated objectives.”

Discerning readers may note that there’s a difference between saying a tax plan isn’t going to achieve everything it sets out to do and claiming it will jack up your taxes. (Which, of course, leaves out anyone who’s truly undecided at this point.) As for the $5 trillion tax cut the Obama campaign insists Mr. Romney is offering, Obama campaign spokesperson Stephanie Cutter admitted on CNN that “it won’t be near $5 trillion” once deductions and loopholes are closed.

It would be nice if the Romney campaign showed a more Reaganesque zeal for tax cutting. It doesn’t. In the meantime, the questions raised by the Obama campaign are: How stupid does it think the electorate is? And how stupid are we, really?

No, your grandmother will not be thrown off a cliff.

Then again, she might just be if you think that we can retire 76 million baby boomers over the next 18 years without adjusting to a world of longer lifespans and potentially lower trend growth.

This is the ugly reality unfolding at stunning speed throughout Europe today, and it could soon be our future, too. Depending on how you count (and on what happens with ObamaCare), Medicare will go broke sometime in the next four to 12 years. Ask yourself how old you’ll be in 2024: If you think you’ll probably be dead by then, you can relax. Otherwise your choice is to reform the programs, or watch them explode.

“Lawmakers should not delay addressing the long-run financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare. If they take action sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare.” That’s from the 2012 annual report of the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees, not some hack partisan study.

Yes, the rich will probably get richer.

And if you’re eaten alive by the thought that someone, somewhere, is doing better than you, then you surely know how to vote.

But then, what is this election about? If you’re a wavering voter, it might be worth asking yourself what matters to you more: bringing yourself up, or bringing millionaires and billionaires down?

Class division….class envy….class hatred; truly a child of his spiritual father….

And in Tales From the Darkside, courtesy of George Lawlor and FOX News, as we suggested immediately upon hearing of his supposed mental disorder….

Rep. Jackson is subject of criminal probe

 

Federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are in the final stages of a criminal probe into allegations that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. misused campaign money to decorate his house, according to people familiar with the matter.

The probe of Mr. Jackson, a Democrat and the son of civil-rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, is nearing completion, and attorneys for the lawmaker recently sought assurance from senior Justice Department officials to not seek an indictment before the November election, according to people familiar with the matter. Those people said the Justice Department officials refused to make such a promise, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Sure they did….wink, wink!

A spokesman and a lawyer for Mr. Jackson didn’t immediately respond to messages Sunday seeking comment. Mr. Jackson, 47 years old, represents a Chicago congressional district that heavily favors Democrats, and his re-election is likely.

The U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., is overseeing the FBI’s corruption probe, and it is distinct from an earlier investigation into former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attempts to sell the U.S. Senate seat left vacant when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. Mr. Jackson denied any wrongdoing in that matter, and the part of that investigation that dealt with Mr. Jackson has been dormant for many months, according to people familiar with the probes.

The existence of the campaign-finance probe was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times last week, but at the time it was unclear exactly what conduct was being scrutinized by the FBI.

The investigation into possible misuse of campaign funds began before Mr. Jackson vanished from the public eye in June. At first, aides said he stopped working to receive treatment for exhaustion, but it was eventually revealed he had been at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., receiving treatment for a bipolar disorder. He returned to his Washington home in September but has remained out of the public eye even as he seeks another term in Congress.

Bi-polar our arse!  Only one more Chicago apple….

….that didn’t fall far from the tree.  The truly sad part?  Regardless of when the indictment(s) are handed down, there’s positively, absolutely no doubt whatsoever he’ll be reelected.  Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me thrice, I’masking for what I get.

In a related item, it’s the “You Can’t Make This Sh*t Up!” segment, courtesy today of James Taranto and the educated idiots comprising both the Florida Board of Education and Duke University faculty:

Not-so-great Expectations

“The Florida State Board of Education passed a plan that sets goals for students in math and reading based upon their race,” reports CBS Radio’s Tampa affiliate:

On Tuesday, the board passed a revised strategic plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level. For math, the goals are 92 percent of Asian kids to be proficient, whites at 86 percent, Hispanics at 80 percent and blacks at 74 percent. (Note the increased expectations for Asians in math versus reading; that’s because Asians are just “better” at math, while Blacks are apparently equally-challenged in both subjects.)

“Many community activists” are “infuriated,” the station reports, picking up a Palm Beach Post story that quotes Juan Lopez, a middle-school “magnet coordinator,” as saying: “To expect less from one demographic and more from another is just a little off-base.” (Only “a little”!)

Of course, that’s exactly what the University of Texas and many other institutions of higher education do under the rubric of “affirmative action.” Lopez must be hoping Abigail Fisher prevails in her lawsuit against UT.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has an op-ed from Nicholas Carnes, an assistant professor of public policy at Duke University, who complains that presidential candidates are too rich–and he doesn’t just mean Mitt Romney:

By Election Day, that choice has usually been made for us. Would you like to be represented by a millionaire lawyer or a millionaire businessman? Even in our great democracy, we rarely have the option to put someone in office who isn’t part of the elite.

Of course, many white-collar candidates care deeply about working-class Americans, those who earn a living in manual labor or service-industry jobs. Many are only a generation or two removed from relatives who worked in those fields. But why do so few elections feature candidates who have worked in blue-collar jobs themselves, at least for part of their lives? The working class is the backbone of our society, a majority of our labor force and 90 million people strong. Could it really be that not one former blue-collar worker is qualified to be president?

Two thoughts come to mind; first, Taranto took the words right out of our mouth when he concluded, “We’re curious what proportion of the Duke faculty is made up of former blue-collar workers.”  Second, “‘Many community activists’ are ‘infuriated'”?  What about ALL of the parents, most particularly those of the Black and Hispanic students?!?

As with so many of life’s mysteries, the solution to this particular puzzle is perhaps best summed up by a couple of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons:

As we said: educated idiots.

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to the Lighter Side….

Then there’s these two pearls of wisdom forwarded by Brenda Berry:

Finally, we’ll call it a day with “One Giant Leap For Anybody” segment, courtesy of Mike McKee and two guys with exceedingly large ones; Joe Kittenger on the left, and Felix Baumgartner on the right:

 

First came Kittenger:

Then, over half a century later, Baumgartner pushes the envelope a little further:

And appropriately enough, Joe Kittenger wasn’t only there to watch, he was part of his team.

Magoo