The debate cartoons just keep coming

Pre-debate cartoon showing quite different expectations for Mr. Obama


But later that same day...

Another toon like this.  Another.

5 To-Dos for Obama Before His Next Debate

....2. Ditch John Kerry;  Many are now speculating that Kerry's apparently lackluster prep may have left the president in danger of experiencing the same outcome as Kerry did in 2004: a loss. Ohio Sen. Rob Portman played the role of President Obama in Romney's prep sessions. Let's just say that in keeping with the sports analogy, Portman deserves a bonus, and Kerry may need to have his contract terminated.

What once was "Hope and Change" is now "Mope and Blame," and this time it's John Kerry under the President's bus.

Rush Limbaugh has this take on Kerry's failure to prepare Obama:

"....And because Kerry wants something, it is said that he went soft on Obama in debate rehearsals, because he didn't want to make Obama mad. Now, if we're dealing with somebody that petulant, if we're dealing with somebody that childish and immature -- which might well be the case. But they're asking us to believe a lot here."...

Reporter Lara Logan brings ominous news from Middle East

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Sun-Times Media   Lara Logan "made a passionate case that our government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”
"Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us.

As a journalist, I was queasy. Reporters should tell the story, not be the story. As an American, I was frightened.

"Logan even called for retribution for the recent terrorist killings of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other officials. The event is a harbinger of our vulnerability, she said. Logan hopes that America will “exact revenge and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on its own soil. That its ambassadors will not be murdered, and that the United States will not stand by and do nothing about it.”"  (Emphasis added)

Video of her 60 Minutes interview.

US preparing to strike targets tied to Libya embassy attack  I don't see Obama having the cojones to do it, but, as with the debates, lowered expectations are good for this president.

"Obama has a range of options available - including drone strikes, Special Operations raids like the one that killed the al-Qaeda leader; and joint missions with the Libyan authorities - but all carry substantial political, diplomatic and physical risks. Administration officials say no decisions have been made on any potential targets, the Times said."

Obama's media

Covering for Obama's debate performance:  "By the way … the list of excuses for Obama’s performance continues to grow.  We had the “angry black man” excuse and, of course, the altitude.  Now we have the following: John Kerry didn’t properly prep Obama, Obama was thrown off by all of Romney’s lies, and Romney used a cheat sheet."

Signs accumulate that liberals are embarrassed by Obama  "President Obama's poor debate performance may have shattered some illusions among his supporters in the liberal media elite. Having invested themselves in the illusion of him as the fulfillment of the liberal dream of shattering glass ceilings and pernicious racial stereotypes, his evident lack of preparation felt like a betrayal to some. They are starting to catch on that they bought into an illusion.  So they are turning on him.

"Witness the shocking empty chair cover on the New Yorker, edited by Obama hagiographer* David Remnick:"

*ha·gi·og·ra·phy 
1: biography of saints or venerated persons

2: idealizing or idolizing biography

Hitler finds out Obama blew the debate

From Meemsy   Caution; we regret the need for a strong language advisory

Hat tip to Neal Boortz

Romney on foreign policy; The Romney Doctrine

Foreign Policy Magazine carried this before Romney's speech:  Advantage Romney? The GOP contender will seek to strengthen his foreign policy credentials today with a major speech at the Virginia Military Institute.
"In the speech, titled "The Mantle of Leadership," he'll ref George Marshall and Winston Churchill and lay out his priorities in each of the world's hot spots, according to The Cable's Josh Rogin, and explain how he believes it's time to "change the course" in the Middle East."

Max Boot, a leading military historian and foreign-policy analyst calls Romney's address  A Strong Romney Speech
"Take my opinion for what it’s worth (I am, after all, a Romney defense advisor) but that was a strong speech  that the governor delivered on foreign policy at VMI today. It was his most sustained and most convincing critique of the Obama record on foreign policy. At the heart of the speech were, I thought, his criticisms of Obama’s record on Iraq, Syria, and the fight against Al Qaeda. This is what he had to say:...
                                                    
Read the main points here...
...."That is a powerful indictment that, if delivered this cogently, Obama should find just as hard to counter in the final presidential debate, devoted to foreign policy, as he found it hard to counter Romney’s critiques of his economic policy record in the first debate."

From Nice Deb; Video: Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy Address

Ace of Spades HQ; Romney's Foreign Policy Speech  "Much of his language is admirably old-fashioned in the best of ways -- the vocabulary is not much different from what you'd find in a Churchill address. There's a reassuring quality in that; the mind naturally associates timeless words with stability and solemnity.
"A good speech, certainly presidential, well-written and very well delivered. It did not contain any bold pronouncement, but reflected the basics of the standard Reagan foreign policy, as modified post-9/11."

The New York Sun; The Romney Doctrine
"What marks the Romney doctrine is a policy of strength and confidence, one that sees our strength rather than our apologies as the road to peace. We haven’t heard enough of it in the campaign so far. ... His remarks at Lexington make it clear that he has much more to say. It is a moment to be seized by those who are working for a change in direction at home and abroad and who remember, from the early 1980s, how fast America moved off the defensive and onto the road to victory once it had the right leadership in the White House.

Caroline Glick; The reign of imagination

Caroline Glick

"As he suffocated to death at the US Consulate in Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US, did US Ambassador Christopher Stevens understand why he and his fellow Americans were being murdered? ....

"Hence Israel - the first target of jihadist Islam's bid for global supremacy - is a strategic burden rather than an ally to the US.

"Hence the US abandoned its most stalwart ally in the Arab world, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and supported the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in the most strategically vital state in the Arab world.

"Hence it supported a Libyan rebel force penetrated by al-Qaida.

"Hence it is setting the stage for the reinstitution of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan."

Read the full article here...

The debate on Saturday Night Live

SNL covers the debate

Hat tip to conservativedailynews.com