Witch’s Will For A Morning In October
My Pick Of The Litter Today
Politico, NBC, ABC, MSNBC Criticize Team Obama’s ‘Absurd’ Big Bird Ad
At the same time Team Obama released a childish ad hitting Mitt Romney for daring to consider removing multimillionaire, one-percenter Big Bird from the federal government welfare rolls, the Romney campaign released a devastating graphic that shows that, since his debate debacle, Barack Obama has mentioned Big Bird and Elmo 13 times but has not mentioned Libya or his plan to fix the economy even once.
A media that is obviously disappointed with Their Precious One’s debate performance and recent collapse in the polls is not at all happy with this silly and stupid Big Bird attack. Politico criticized the ad as small ball, NBC News described it as “absurd,” and ABC’s Rick Klein seems confused by the desperate smallness of it:
Team Obama makes a play using … Big Bird? The new Obama campaign ad uses a mock-serious tone to jump on Mitt Romney’s most famous debate line. It’s all in good fun, but the contrast may not be what President Obama is after, not now, not in this race. Romney is getting more serious by the day, with a foreign-policy speech and now Paul Ryan about to make the case for conservative fiscal policies. Romney marches toward Benghazi, while the president marches down Sesame Street?
Even MSNBC’s Chuck Todd criticized the ad: “When is the Obama campaign going to stop talking about the debate? … They cannot seem to turn the page from the debate. … Any conversation about that debate, I assume, helps Mitt Romney.”
more: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/10/09/media-Backlash-Against-Big-Bird-Ad
Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not
White House Comes Clean: No Protest Outside Libya Consulate
Tomorrow marks the beginning of a major Congressional hearing on the terror attack In Libya and in a desperately transparent attempt to get ahead of damaging news, at the very last minute tonight, the State Department finally came clean:
more: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/09/State-Dept-Comes-Clean
Romney slams Obama for talking Big Bird
Mitt Romney on Tuesday slammed President Obama for talking about Big Bird on the campaign trail.
“These are tough times, with real serious issues. So you have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about Big Bird,” Romney said at a campaign event in Iowa. “I actually think we have to have a president who talks about saving the American people.”
VP Debate Will Again Feature Generational Gap
For the third time in as many presidential election cycles, the vice-presidential debate on Thursday night will showcase two candidates who came of age — both personally and politically — in different eras.
The generational gap between 69-year-old Joe Biden and 42-year-old Paul Ryan may not be at the forefront of either campaign’s debate practice sessions, but it is could have an impact on “perception battle” from the moment that the two men take the stage.
In the 2004 VP debate, the age difference between John Edwards and Dick Cheney was a relatively modest 12 years, but the physical distinctions between the youthful, energetic Democrat and the dour, white-haired Republican could hardly have been more striking.
Going into that contest in Cleveland, Edwards — a charismatic former trial lawyer — was widely expected to outshine the incumbent with a history of heart problems and a reputation for being proudly cantankerous.
Instead, Cheney more than held his own in a seated format that suited him well. He was able to draw attention to Edwards’ status as a relative newcomer on the national political scene via a rehearsed line intended to highlight his opponent’s poor Senate attendance record.
“The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight,” Cheney said to Edwards in one of the debate’s most memorable moments.
The assertion was later shown to be technically untrue, but during a debate in which the war in Iraq and other national security-related policies were central topics, it helped reinforce perceptions of Cheney as an experienced Washington hand, while Edwards was untested.
In what was indisputably a “change” election four years later, Sarah Palin sought to turn her relative youth into an advantage. At an Ohio rally three days before she squared off against Biden, the 44-year-old Palin drew attention to her Democratic opponent’s senior status.
“I’ve never met him before,” she said of Biden. “But I’ve been hearing about his Senate speeches since I was in like second grade.”
Going into their face-off in St. Louis, Palin benefited from coming into the debate with the lowest expectations of any vice-presidential candidate in memory.
Her performance, in which she winked for the cameras and avoided answering many of moderator Gwen Ifill’s questions directly, was largely deemed a success in light of her ability to stand toe to toe against a Washington fixture who had spent decades steeped in the intricacies of domestic and international policy.
Biden is now four years older, of course, and in Danville, Ky., on Thursday night he will be matched against an opponent two years younger than Palin was in 2008.
To put that age disparity into starker perspective, when Biden was first sworn into the U.S. Senate in 1973, Ryan was not yet 3 years old.
According to Obama campaign officials, the generational gap between the two candidates has not specifically been factored into the preparation Biden has been undertaking since Sunday in Wilmington, Del.
Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen has been playing the role of Ryan in hours-long mock debate sessions, which have been fueled by caffeinated drinks, Gatorade, and animal crackers. At 53, Van Hollen is more than a decade Ryan’s senior but has been in Washington four years less than the GOP vice-presidential nominee.
Belying his relative youth, Ryan has spent almost 14 years as a congressman and has served as the ranking Republican on one of the most prominent bodies — the House Budget Committee — for almost six years.
According to Republican strategist Tucker Eskew, who was part of the team that helped prepare Palin for her debate against Biden, any effort to inject the age gap into Ryan’s thinking could backfire.
“The last thing you want him thinking about is, ‘I’m going into the arena with a man with 30 years more experience’; you want him thinking he’s got the right ideas,” Eskew said. “He’s taken it to President Obama in face-to-face settings, so I don’t think he’ll be intimidated. I would be well-briefed on some of [Biden’s] pre-administration record because it’s ripe. I wouldn’t want to over-pluck those fruits, but I would want to have a few stored up and [be] ready to toss them.”
But even with his years of high-level Washington experience, the fact remains that Ryan is a year younger than Biden’s eldest son, Beau, and he often projects an even younger figure on stage.
O’s economic woes
Prez unable to spin this mess
by Charles Gasparino
People who know David Axelrod say he’s in a state of panic, and it’s only partly over President Obama’s dismal debate performance against Mitt Romney last week. The bigger worry for the president’s top political guru is the economy, and Obama’s utter inability to spin a positive tale about it.
You saw the same concern in the cheering on the left over last week’s unemployment number — finally dipping below 8 percent for the first time in almost four years. The problem is, people vote on the evidence of what they see around them, not on numbers from Washington — and the federal jobs figures are always a weak reflection of reality.
Worse, for Obama and the nation, better indicators of the economy’s health suggest things are headed down, not up. In other words, nearly four years of Obamanomics is pushing us back into the ditch.
First off, the jobless stats: The fact is, the government doesn’t have data good enough to authoritatively tell us how many people were looking for work last month; these numbers are always revised in later reports.
Anyway, they don’t count folks who’ve given up looking for work — and the broader measure that does (known as the long-term “U-6” unemployment rate) is still stuck around 15 percent.
More important, some other fairly reliable statistics are ominous. One is the rate of growth in corporate profits, where a building consensus is that earnings from major companies are heading back to levels not seen since 2009, when the country was just coming out of the Great Recession.
link: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/economic_woes_odmz1PEhVu2vNoEjZcy2EI
Kirsten Powers: Big Bird Ad Shows Obama Campaign Is “Out Of Touch”
“It’s a truly terrible ad. When you watch it, it’s short of shocking that they’re doing this. It suggests a campaign that’s completely out of touch of what’s going on right now,” Kirsten Powers said on the “Special Report” panel.
Feds paid $40M to firms tied to McCaskill’s spouse
more: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-paid-40m-firms-tied-mccaskills-spouse-171858968–election.html
Ahh, another pol who says they want to do good and end up doing really “well.” What a bunch of crooked hypocrites. Todd Akin is an asshat who can’t seem to keep his foot out of his mouth. Much in the mold of “Ol Crazy Uncle Joe Biden” our pathetic VPOTUS.
McCaskill is just another pol out to get rich at the public’s expense. Why am I not surprised? 
Entitlement Mentality in one video:
The Left in Meltdown
Let me suggest something that many conservatives realized after the debate: Obama did not do that badly. For Obama. He was the same listless, droning, exhausted-of-ideas scold we have seen for at least two years now (and maybe three).
He was Obama. This is what he is. He is not quick-witted. He is not, as I think I saw Mickey Kaus note, a wonk. He has never been a wonk, a detailed-policy guy.
He is a guy who speaks vacuously of hopes and dreams and change and fairness.
He always has been.
The problem, for the liberals, is not Obama. This is what you bought. This is your guy. It wasn’t his A game, but it was something close to his B+ game.
The problem was Romney, who was commanding, fluent, reasonable, articulate, sharp-witted, warm, occasionally funny, full of ideas, full of facts, full of thoughtful, detailed criticisms of Obama policy (who the hell expected him to bring up, as an afterthought, Dodd-Frank’s failure to specify what a “reasonably qualified” mortgage applicant was, and how that chilled lending? Obama sure didn’t!), and, therefore, ultimately, full of qualification for the job and yes, full of gravitas.
That’s the problem.
Not Obama. I repeat: This is who Obama is. He has never been this brilliant intellect and keen policy analysts liberals have, in their BubbleWorld, dreamed him as.
more: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/333653.php
Tears of a Clown
link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443982904578046711790216092.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet
The liberal media loved Obama to death
It was in Denver one week ago that the long-running romance between Barack Obama and the national press — aka the “Slobbering Love Affair,” as Bernard Goldberg put it — hit the wall. The motel bill, unpaid these many long months and ages, at long last came due.
It had been the real thing, not a commonplace fling with your generic Democrat, but the love of a lifetime, the genuine article, the sum of all dreams: He was not just a Democrat, he was also a liberal. He was not just a liberal, he also biracial, also multinational; also hip, cool, and clever. He was themselves as they wanted to be. Like them, he was gifted at writing and talking (and, as it turned out, not much beyond that), like them, he stood up for Metro America; like them, he viewed the people outside it with a not-very-measured disdain. “I divide people into people who talk like us and people who don’t talk like us,” said David Brooks, speaking for all of them. “You could see him as a New Republic writer … he’s more talented than anyone in my lifetime … he IS pretty dazzling when he walks into a room.”
Dazzled indeed, they turned on their old flames, Bill and Hillary Clinton. They dumped John McCain, with whom they had flirted; and when Romney appeared — rich, square, and looking like Dad in a mid-50s sitcom — it was clear the long knives would be out.
And so they attacked him, on all of the critical issues. He was rich; he cut the hair of a schoolmate in prep school; he was rich; he transported his dog in a sinister manner; he was rich; he managed somehow to give some people cancer; he was rich; and he failed to make friends with his garbage collector (as Obama undoubtedly had). Oh, and he was rich.
more: http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-liberal-media-loved-obama-to-death/article/2510130#.UHVPAK7rSSo
Old Smirkin Joe
I’d like to share a story on Senator Joe Biden that happened 31 years ago, and may be relevant to Biden’s Thursday evening debate with Paul Ryan. It involved Biden’s international humiliation of a good man, and it became a habit for Biden. I’m confident Biden may aim to repeat the performance with Paul Ryan in the vice-presidential debate, looking to “Quayle” the youthful Wisconsin congressman in a way worse than Lloyd Bentsen might have done.
link: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/10/10/old-smirkin-joe
This article seems to me to be a good “indicatior” of how Biden will act. Having shown the lack of character that caused him to humiliate a good man once there is no reason to suppose he will behave differently now. 31 additional years in Washington D.C. is hardly apt to improve a man’s character or give him more integrity.
Then there is always Biden’s behavior at the Anita Hill hearings. Remember that? Here’s a link to jog your memory: http://askville.amazon.com/happened-anita-hill-joe-biden/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=15027397
Media Malpractice:
Revealed: VP Debate Moderator Martha Raddatz Hosted President Obama at Wedding, Never Told Public
The liberal media/politician/bureaucrat revolving door spins so rapidly, sometimes it’s hard to keep pace. Today we learn via the Daily Caller that the moderator for tomorrow’s vice presidential debate, ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz, hosted President Obama as a guest at her 1991 wedding to the man who would later become Obama’s FCC commissioner, Julius Genachowski.
That’s shocking enough in its own right but things are further compounded by the fact that ABC News, home of veteran Democratic adviser George Stephanopolous, has long known about this conflict of interest and did nothing about it. Even worse, the network has actively tried to prevent the public from learning of it.
It is bad enough having all these liberal hacks moderating debates, although I concede that Leher did a fair job of being fair, but there must be some liberal hacks who have some semblance of credibility in being able to function without bias. Someone? Somewhere? 
Worth reading:
Barack Obama, Pants on Fire
link: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/10/barack_obama_pants_on_fire.html
Paul Ryan Accuses Reporter of ‘Trying to Stuff Words Into People’s Mouths’ After Gotcha Question
Eat crow and pray for Joe
link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82203.html?hp=l4
Election 2012: Nevada Senate
What’s Going On In The World?
Caribbean cruises leave wave of bitter merchants
FALMOUTH, Jamaica (AP) — Tourists emerge by the hundreds from a towering, 16-deck megaship docked at the Caribbean’s newest cruise port. They squint in the glare of the Jamaican sun, peer curiously at a gaggle of locals beyond a wrought-iron fence and then roar out of town on a procession of air-conditioned tour buses.
Few stop to buy T-shirts, wooden figurines or beach towels from the dozens of merchants lining the road outside the fence, or visit the colonial-era buildings that dot the town. Not many even venture beyond the terminal’s gates, unless it’s in one of the buses that whisk them past increasingly disgruntled vendors and taxi drivers.
That’s not the way townspeople in the old Jamaican sugar port of Falmouth were told it would be.
link: http://news.yahoo.com/caribbean-cruises-leave-wave-bitter-merchants-060028955–finance.html
Quote For Today:
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
