A Bright and Shining Libyan Lie

Victor Davis Hanson   "The new administration narrative faulted not one video, but the intelligence community for misleading them about the threat of an al-Qaeda hit on an American consulate -- and the Romney campaign for demanding answers about a slain ambassador and his associates. Meanwhile, the State Department, the Obama re-election team and the intelligence community were all pointing fingers at each other.

"What the Obama administration could not concede was the truth: The lead-from-behind intervention in Libya had proved a blueprint for nothing. Libya has descended into chaos. Radical Islam had either subverted or hijacked the Arab Spring. Al-Qaeda was not dismantled by the death of bin Laden or by the stepped-up drone assassination missions in Pakistan. Egypt was becoming Islamist; Syria was a bloody mess. Iran was on the way to becoming nuclear. Obama had won America no more good will in the Middle East than had prior presidents."

Nate Beeler

Oba-spin on the debate aftermath

WSJ; Henninger: The Un-President; Barack Obama shows an unerring instinct for policy deniability.  "One of the most familiar Obama positions—repeated at every campaign stop—is that he "inherited" a bad economy from George W. Bush. Set aside that whatever the cause, everyone concedes he took over a tough situation. More to the point is Mr. Obama's compulsive insistence that anything awry in the economy during his first term is "not my fault." "

Obama Dropping Al Qaeda Brag From Speech?   "Who has been politicizing the far greater tragedy of 9/11 more than Barack Obama?
"Lest we forget, George Bush was not even allowed to mention 9/11 when he was running for re-election. But Obama has made the killing of Bin Laden and the ‘defeat’ of Al Qaeda the centerpiece of his campaign."

First lady: President 'didn't point fingers, didn't place blame'   Wait...what?  "First lady Michelle Obama said Wednesday that President Obama did not look to blame others for the challenges he faced as president, an apparent rebuke to Republican accusations that the White House continues to point the finger at President George W. Bush for the lagging economy."  Incidentally, this link was provided by left-leaning memeorandum. 

Sununu battles O'Brien on Crowley comment    Catch the smug look on Soledad's face, one of contempt for anyone who might be against Obama's re-election. 

Is Atlas Shrugging? Job Creators Are Giving Up on the U.S. Economy

PJTV  (Video) "It's a special Ayn Rand edition of Instavision. Harmon Kaslow, the producer of the film Atlas Shrugged, Part II, discusses the relevance of the Ayn Rand classic to the policies of President Obama. This novel is selling better now than when it was first released. Are job creators going to give up on the U.S. economy? Find out."  

Via Instapundit

Branco Cartoon – Candy Blocker

Conservative Daily News

Threats to Assassinate Romney Explode After Debate

infowars.com   "Obama supporters voice desire to kill Romney over fears food stamps will be taken away"

"As we reported yesterday, in addition to threats by Obama supporters to riot if Romney wins, innumerable Twitter users are also making direct death threats against Romney.

"The primary reason given for Obama supporters wanting to see Romney dead is the fear that he will take away food stamps."

National Geographic Bombarded With Jihadist Threats Over Osama Film …(Will Obama Apologize?)

THE INFIDEL BLOGGERS ALLIANCE   "National Geographic Channel’s Washington DC headquarters has increased security after being inundated with terror threats due to the Osama Bin Laden they are going to release two days before the election. The American media has ignored this story."

More at the UK Mail:

"Instead, Owens said the premiere was set for November 4 to promote the channel’s upcoming fall schedule. 

The movie was produced by Harvey Weinstein, a major Obama supporter. In August, the Hollywood heavyweight hosted a lavish $35,800-a-person fundraiser for the president at his oceanfront Connecticut compound.

Weinstein was joined by actress Anna Hathaway, director Aaron Sorkin and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour at the event which was attended by about 50 wealthy donors."

We refer you to a following post that discusses the lock Obama has on Hollywood. TD

Kevin James: Hollywood Picks and Chooses Who Can Offend – George Clooney Finds First Amendment Unfortunate

Maggie's Notebook   ...."Actor Kevin James (a really, really funny guy) was courageous to say that Hollywood picks and chooses who can offend and who cannot and in this case, Nakoula’s First Amendment rights are worth a jail cell.  Some think it’s fine that he was nailed for offending Muslims. George Clooney, that one-man bastion of all-things humane, thinks the First Amendment is “unfortunate” for people like Nakoula."





Kevin appears to be one of a persecuted minority:
Celebrities Pile on Mitt Hate Post Debate
"Celebrities rushed to Twitter over the last 24 hours to give their assessment of the second presidential debate. Some, like Judd Apatow, Chris Rock and Jared Leto, served up pure hatred for GOP nominee Mitt Romney"

'Paul Ryan Girl' Video Reveals Fear of Being Openly Conservative in Show Biz
"Enter Maredith Walker. Not only did she audition for the part, she wanted her name on it. She was beautiful, talented and would show up early on a Sunday morning for an all-day shoot. What was not to like? Well, she was a true conservative. She had things like, oh, principles she lived by. One, was that marriage is sacred. You don’t come on to other women’s husbands. I agreed with that principal but … this was fiction. We had a YouTube video to make!"
"Walker wanted to be in a YouTube video that honored Ryan but did not dishonor his wife. She refused to hide under a rock for “her career” because she knew that the gifts God had given her, her looks and talent, could serve something bigger than herself. And in the end, she has not ruined her career. She just launched it."

Update: ‘The View’ Co-Hosts Freak Out When Hasselbeck Suggests Hollywood Is For Obama  (Video)  "Hasselbeck’s comments caused an explosion from the four other hosts, resulting in a cacophonous shouting match directed towards Elizabeth.  Goldberg, not wanting to have a full discussion on what had just ensued, conveniently ended the conversation by taking the show to commercial and failing to resume the dispute after the break. 

"Once again, the co-hosts on The View silenced the lone conservative on the show because she dared to call them and the majority of Hollywood for what they truly are, liberal supporters of President Obama." 

Ann Coulter: OBAMA AT HOFSTRA: RELATIVELY ALERT, THEREFORE BIG WINNER

Human Events  "The trend is set and Obama’s voters are moving away from him in droves. People can see that Obama has to go to college campuses, the David Letterman show and “The Daily Show” to get a friendly audience these days. Even Lindsay Lohan is for Romney.
....."In the media room, journalists cheered Obama’s cheap shot about Romney being rich, according to The Washington Times. Say, who did the Democrats run for president right before Obama? That would be the richest man in the U.S. Senate, John Kerry. But liberals believe Kerry acquired his fortune more honestly than by building businesses and creating jobs. He married a rich woman.

"For all the media cheerleading, millions of Americans still know they’re out of work. They know, as Michael Jones noted, that everything is more expensive, including even-handed moderators."

What the Frack?! How the 2012 election could come down to one thing: coal.

FOREIGN POLICY  "For political reasons, Obama will never say a cross word about coal. It is too popular in too many blue and swing states. He will continue to sing the praises of "clean coal" and maintain the pretense that there is a future for coal in a climate-constrained power system. But he will not do anything to halt coal's inevitable economic decline. He'll enforce existing EPA regulations and give the agency space to issue new ones. He'll back the natural gas industry and the clean-energy industry. And he'll let history take its course."

President, Debate Moderator Can't Keep Facts Straight on Libya

This may turn out to be the significant part of the debate, partly thanks to Crowley's, um, gaffe.  As they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Sunshine State Sarah   "During tonight's presidential debate, Mitt Romney directly challenged Barack Obama on the issue of the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. With some assistance from teammate moderator Candy Crowley, Obama once again avoided telling the American people the straight truth about the events that led to the deaths of four Americans and heightened concerns about the safety of our diplomats around the globe.
(I loved the intense look on Mitt Romney's eyes as he stared at the president while asking him about the White House response to the attack)

"After the debate, Crowley was forced to eat crow and admit that Romney's comments on Libya were actually correct:"...

"Now, this list might look strange to mainstream media types. You know, because it contains actual facts. Read on below..."...

Jennifer Rubin; Obama still wrong on Libya; Crowley blows it   "In what surely was one of the weirdest incidents in a presidential debate, CNN’s Candy Crowley egregiously sided with President Obama on his false remarks on Libya, was repeatedly and decisively fact-checked post-debate as wrong (somewhere between “mostly wrong” and “pants on fire” in my book) and then backed away from her own incorrect assertion. As was the case in the vice presidential debate, the biggest story may be the after-the-debate tumult over White House misrepresentations on Libya."  (emphasis added)

Fox News; CNN’s Crowley first plays umpire, then joins Team Obama  "CNN’s Candy Crowley made her presence felt as a moderator in a major way on two points, but none larger than the issue of Libya.

"The terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and four others in Benghazi has become a sore point for Obama, but Crowley made sure she called Romney out before Obama could tag him."

WaPo; Crowley skews hard for Obama in disastrous presidential debate

Neal Boortz asks Crowley: WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?   "I mean, really?   You’re supposed to be moderating a debate, and suddenly you feel compelled to weigh in on the side of one of the combatants?  And to top it all off, you get it WRONG?"
...."Obama did NOT say the attack on the consulate was a terrorist act.  What he did say was that “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.”  Well, hopefully that’s right!  But that was a statement of policy, not a description of what happened the night before in Benghazi.  Obama clearly stopped short of calling THIS particular attack an act of terror.  Sorry .. but that’s the way the English language works."

American Thinker; Crowley: Obama's Teleprompter Substitute   "She grabbed the ball from Obama's hands and slam dunked it! And the audience applauded. Why in the world did they applaud? I thought they were undecided ergo objective. Why didn't they emit a collective gasp in horror at Crowley's totally unacceptable intervention in the debate? Had they too memorized the speech? And forgotten everything said by the president and his men and women since then?"
 
More detail on the Libya statement here  Mr. Obama did indeed say,  "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."
But here the article quotes extensively Obama's words that came subsequently showing he did call the act a response to that video.


Lucianne has many links for you to follow:
The Hill; Moderator Crowley helps Obama rebut Romney on Libya
UK Mail; Desperate and dirty! Obama goes for jugular in ugly clashes with Romney during fiery debate - but will it turn round his ailing campaign? 
American Spectator; With a little help from the moderator, the president returns to his "energetic" pandering and deceptions.

"Can you say that a little louder, Candy?" Obama craved more credit from the moderator, Candy Crowley, for her correction to Mitt Romney that the president had in fact used the word "terror" a day after the killing of his ambassador in Libya. "He did, in fact, sir," Crowley said to Romney."

hopenchangecartoons

Reading List of some late posts

Michael Gerson; Biden’s toxic victory   "Normally, a debate “victory” doesn’t require quite so much damage control. Following Vice President Biden’s manic, careening ride through global politics last week, President Obama is left to make a variety of cleanups and clarifications."
....If Biden’s behavior were universalized, American politics would be a squalid, carnival sideshow. Or cable television. Whichever is worse. Americans have every right to hate politics if it looks like this. Via Lucianne

Debate Audience Selected by Firm Squeezed by Obama Justice Department  "Think the deck for Tuesday's town hall debate might have been stacked? The firm hired to select the audience asking questions is under pressure from the Obama Justice Department, and some observers suggest may have already succumbed to that bullying."

Gaming the Presidential Debate; How will it play out?   "And bouncing back is easier for Obama than it is most other presidents. What makes Obama tough to beat is that he has a very high floor of support nationwide, especially in the swing states. His approval rating has fallen below 40% only a couple of times and almost immediately risen above it. It makes Romney’s job very difficult indeed because, in effect, the GOP candidate has to lower the president’s floor of support in order to overcome what is certainly going to be an Obama advantage in get-out-the-vote operations on Election Day."

Tonight’s MSNBC pre-debate talking point: If Romney wins and ObamaCare is repealed, many more people will die   MSNBC being MSNBC.

There’s no such thing as an undecided voter! And neither candidate this year can compete with Bill Clinton’s empathy! Matt Latimer on the five things he’ll be screaming at the TV during Obama-Romney 2.

Victor Davis Hanson; A Presidency Squandered

National Review; In January 2009, the future seemed to be all Barack Obama’s.

A few excerpts from Hanson's insightful column: ...."Never has a president entered office with so much goodwill from so many diverse quarters.

"Rarely does a president enter office with a majority in both the House and the Senate. Not only did Obama do so, but his soaring ratings put enormous pressure on the Republican minorities to join the Democratic majorities. Liberals were talking about a new era of Democratic political dominance." 

"No prior president had such a supportive media. ....Barack Obama was not just a liberal Democrat whom they would tilt toward, but a messianic figure for whom they gladly sacrificed the last ounce of disinterested coverage."

....And so here we are, three weeks before the election, with a squandered presidency and a president desperately seeking reelection not by defending his record, but by demonizing his predecessor, his opponent — and half of the country.

"What, then, was Obama’s first term?"

Media on trial at tonight’s presidential debate  "There is little doubt that the media have been covering for Obama for the past four years. But Powerline Blog predicts that if Obama has another lackluster performance, his willing accomplices, the media, *might* begin to turn on him. They compare this election with the way the media turned on Jimmy Carter in 1980:"...