Chris Matthews Goes Ballistic on Obama in Post-Debate Meltdown

I linked Matthews' meltdown at my debate analysis last night, but it's worth posting on its own.

Via Anne Sorock, at Legal Insurrection, "MSNBC’s Matthews gives epic smackdown of Obama."

Check Memeorandum and RealClearPolitics for all the day's analysis and spin. And boy, the Dems will be spinning enough to make a Whirling Dervish dizzy.

Perilous Times

Via Theo Spark.

Pat Caddell on O'Reilly Factor: 'There's a Purposeful Conscious Effort to Suppress News That Might Hurt Obama'

Pat Caddell's been making argument frequently of late.

PREVIOUSLY: "The Audacity of Corruption."

San Francisco's Tolerance Toward Tolerance is Wearing Thin

Tolerance. Isn't that an amazingly Orwellian word these days. Those least tolerant are the most prominent advocates for increasing tolerance. And the homo-radical freaks are the least tolerant of  all.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Proposed Ban on Public Nudity Offends Some in San Francisco":

SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco's tolerance toward tolerance is wearing thin.

A city supervisor here proposed a law Tuesday that would ban nudity in most public places across the city. For years, the city has held an "equilibrium" with nudity at public events and occasionally in neighborhoods, said the supervisor, Scott Wiener, but the nudity recently "has just gotten extreme."

At issue is a public plaza that regularly attracts nudists in the historically gay Castro neighborhood, prompting a debate about the limits of civil liberties in this famously tolerant city. After complaints about the naked people by some businesses and residents, Mr. Wiener proposed the bareness-busting bill.

The proposed ban doesn't sit well with some urban nudists.

"This is, in my opinion, an attack on freedom," said George Davis, 66 years old, who was soaking up the sun Tuesday wearing nothing more than sunglasses and a hat, reading a book about Twitter, the microblogging service. As one of the Castro's famous nudists, "I meet people from all over the world," he said, including South Korea, France and Liechtenstein.

Some argued a ban would mark a slippery slope for the city. "Today it is naked people, and next week it will be drag queens, and then the week after that it will be people who wear leather," said Mitch Hightower, 51, who organizes an annual "nude-in" body freedom demonstration in the city and runs an exhibitionist website.

And then after that it'll be about people who like to wear butt-plugs up their ass in public. End the intolerance!!

RELATED: At Zombie, "San Francisco’s naked protest and the ethics of public nudity."

Why Are We So Nasty to Each Other Online?

This is interesting, at the Wall Street Journal, "Why We Are So Rude Online: Online Browsing Lowers Self-Control and Is Linked to Higher Debt, Weight":

Jennifer Bristol recently lost one of her oldest friends—thanks to a Facebook fight about pit bulls.

The trouble started when she posted a newspaper article asserting that pit bulls were the most dangerous type of dog in New York City last year. "Please share thoughts… 833 incidents with pitties," wrote Ms. Bristol, a 40-year-old publicist and animal-welfare advocate in Manhattan.

Her friends, many of whom also work in the animal-welfare world, quickly weighed in. One noted that "pit bull" isn't a single official breed; another said "irresponsible ownership" is often involved when dogs turn violent. Black Labs may actually bite more, someone else offered.

Then a childhood pal of Ms. Bristol piped up with this: "Take it from an ER doctor… In 15 years of doing this I have yet to see a golden retriever bite that had to go to the operating room or killed its target."

That unleashed a torrent. One person demanded to see the doctor's "scientific research." Another accused him of not bothering to confirm whether his patients were actually bitten by pit bulls. Someone else suggested he should "venture out of the ER" to see what was really going on.

"It was ridiculous," says Ms. Bristol, who stayed out of the fight. Her old buddy, the ER doctor, unfriended her the next morning. That was eight months ago. She hasn't heard from him since.

Continue reading.

My theory is that online you're always right. People don't care about others' opinions. They seek out people who agree with them. So even if you're a friend in the "real world," online you become an enemy if you're on the wrong side of an issue.

Romney Advertisement Exploits Biden's 'Buried' Gaffe

Via Althouse.

WKBT-TV's Jennifer Livingston Responds to Email From Man Bullying Her About Her Weight

This has gone viral the last few days.

And from ABC's Good Morning America yesterday, "Jennifer Livingston Fights Weight Criticism; Wisconsin News Anchor Blast Viewer's Email On-air."

FULL VIDEO: First Presidential Debate 2012

Oh boy, was this one for the history books.

There's going to be a bunch of fact-checking and spin all through the week and into the Sunday news shows, but the unshakable fact is that Mitt Romney destroyed Obama on Wednesday night. It was a crushing performance and the left is completely demoralized. Jonah Goldberg captures things well at National Review, "There Went the Boom" (via Memeorandum):

I’ve been getting more and more cautiously optimistic about Romney in the last few days and, going in, I had a pretty good feeling about tonight’s debate. But I had no expectation that Romney would simply control the night the way he did. I don’t think Obama did terribly on the merits, even though he clearly lost by a wide margin on points. But you don’t really score a debate like this on points. Romney simply dominated and deflated Obama. This was the first time millions of people ever heard Mitt Romney make a case for himself at any length. Most Americans didn’t watch the GOP debates. The ratings for Romney’s convention speech were sub-par and he never really talked about policy anyway at the convention. But tonight Romney brilliantly dismantled the straw man Obama has been running against for months. I think it was David Freddoso who said on Twitter that if all you knew about Romney was what you saw in Obama’s TV ads, you’d get the sense that Obama’s been lying to you all this time. Romney helped himself tonight — possibly a lot.

Actually, more than a lot. Romney helped himself enormously. More at the link.

Lying Liar Stephanie Cutter Lamely Defends Obama's Debate Performance, Attacks Moderator Jim Lehrer

I don't think I can ever recall a more accomplished liar. And we know from earlier this year that Stephanie Cutter is bald-faced liar. She's a remorseless bitch if there ever was one. And she's spins President Obama's historic debate debacle in true Stephanie Cutter contempt-for-the-truth style. Via Politico, "Obama's Stephanie Cutter knocks Lehrer" (at Memeorandum):

DENVER, Colo. -- Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter took a swipe at moderator Jim Lehrer's largely passive debate performance tonight, saying the PBS anchor had allowed Mitt Romney to act as the moderator.

"I sometimes wondered if we even needed a moderator because we had Mitt Romney," Cutter told CNN shortly after the debate, though she told POLITICO that Lehrer did his job as moderator and that her comments were strictly about Romney.

(See also: Complete coverage of the Colorado presidential debate)

Cutter's decision to knock Lehrer may signal an acknowledgment by the Obama campaign that the president did not perform as well as his challenger, Mitt Romney -- which was the general consensus of the media, including the usually pro-Obama MSNBC. (MSNBC hosts Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz slammed Obama's performance.)

Many on the left criticized Lehrer for being too silent. He rarely interrupted the candidates when they went over their allotted time, and when he did it was almost always a losting battle. His attempts to control the conversation were so notably nonconfrontational that they became memorialized in a Twitter handle named @SilentJimLehrer.

But Lehrer's passivity also allowed the two candidates to engage one another, and if Obama did not engage Romney or land any singificant blows, he may have no one to blame but himself. Though it is the moderator's responsibility to keep time and keep the candidates on topic, it was up to the president -- not the moderator -- to take on his challenger.

More at the link.

BONUS: Check the great post-debate roundup at The Lonely Conservative, "Presidential Debate 1 Wrap Up – Romney Won."

Did the White House Order a Libya Cover-Up?

From Con Coughlin, at Telegraph UK, "Did the White House order a cover-up over the murder of Libya's US Ambassador?":

Immediately after the murder of Chris Stevens, America's Ambassador to Libya, I suggested that the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11 could have profound consequences for President Barack Obama, particulary if he failed to take appropriate action against the murderers – the most likely candidates being members of al-Qaeda's new terror franchise in Mali.

But with the US presidential contest entering its critical final phase, the Obama administration deftly avoided getting into any controversy over the murder of Mr Stevens and three other members of the consulate staff by leading everyone to believe the murders were not part of an al-Qaeda plot, but the result of an outbreak of violence caused by a blaphemous film clip. This was certainly the line advanced by Dr Susan Rice, the American Ambassador to the United Nations, and a close confidante of Mr Obama.

Dr Rice, in common with other senior officials in the Obama administration, insisted that the assault on the US consulate had been "spontaneous", rather than a carefully planned attack by terrorists. By making this claim, the White House effectively silenced any criticism that the Obama administration was culpable for not taking more effective measures to protect the consulate.

But now it appears that Rice's version of events – endorsed by the White House – was wrong. Within 24 hours of the attack taking place, Washington was informed by a variety of intelligence sources that the attack had indeed been pre-planned and was undoubtedly the work of al-Qaeda which, apart from attacking the consulate, had also attacked the CIA's safe house in Benghazi.

As a result, rather than absolving itself of any blame for this tragic incident, the White House – and Mr Obama – now find themselves at the centre of a mounting storm over what precisely they knew about the attack on the consulate, and when.

Now that Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has confirmed there was an explicit link between al-Qaeda and the attack, questions are being asked about the role Dr Rice played in trying to play down the significance of the attack. The Republicans have already called for her to resign from her post for misleading the American people.

But the real smoking gun is whether the Obama administration was warned in advance that al-Qaeda was planning an attack...

Continue reading.

It's a cover-up alright. Indeed, the Libya debacle is perhaps the biggest diplomatic clusterf-ks in American history.

See also Eli Lake, "U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Bombed Twice in Run-Up to 9/11 Anniversary."

Mitt Romney Kicks Ass in First Debate

I thought my perspective was biased, that Romney just destroyed Obama in the debate. But the results are coming in, and it's a bloodbath for the Democrats.

See BuzzFeed for the big headline, "How Mitt Romney Won The First Debate." (At Memeorandum.) Also at Washington Free Beacon, "Liberal Media Calls It for Romney."

I'll be updating, but if you're checking my blog as this post goes live, click your remote over to MSNBC. This is a devastating night for the left. It's a collective meltdown over there. Ed Schultz just said that Mitt Romney was "in his wheelhouse on the economy." And Chris Matthews was literally going ballistic. I'll be looking for the video and will update.

Check back from more reporting and analysis.

8:10pm Pacific: At the Los Angeles Times, "In position to surprise, Romney has sharp answers in first debate." And the Wall Street Journal, "Candidates Spar Over Taxes: Obama, Romney Lay Out Differing Views of Government, Regulation, Deficit Cuts."

And The Other McCain, "MITT ROMNEY WINS FIRST DEBATE."

8:16pm Pacific: Here's some raw video from CNN. I'll link the full clip as well, when I find it.

8:27pm Pacific: Glenn Reynolds has video from MSNBC, "CHRIS MATTHEWS IN POST-DEBATE MELTDOWN..."

8:45pm Pacific: At CNN, "CNN Poll: Romney wins debate by big margin."

JetBlue Will Fly Upset Voters Out of the Country

Great, if Romney wins we can ship loads of depraved progressives overseas.

But I'll tell you, JetBlue's going to have to expand operations if President Clusterf-k wins a second term.

At Politico:

JetBlue Airlines is offering Americans upset about their candidate's defeat in the upcoming November election a chance to leave the country for free — if only temporarily.

"If your candidate doesn't win, don't worry. Election protection could be your ticket out of the country," the company writes on a new website.

The site allows voters to declare their support for a candidate — and if that candidate loses, they'll be entered into a contest to win one of 1,000 trips to a tropical destination.

More.

40th Birthday! Smokin' Cameron Diaz Cover Shoot for British Esquire

Some pre-debate Rule 5.

At London's Daily Mail, "'I feel better at 40 than I did at 25': Cameron Diaz defies her age as she shows off cleavage in new sultry men's magazine shoot."

What Voters Want in Tonight's Debate

I know what I want: Romney needs to go for the jugular (metaphorically, of course).

From Susan Page, at USA Today, "What voters want in Wednesday's debate":

WASHINGTON — If Mitt Romney is going to change the trajectory of a close race that is bending in President Obama's direction, his best opportunity will be during 90 minutes on a Denver stage Wednesday night.

Obama has opened a modest advantage over Romney since the political conventions ended last month, especially in the battleground states. But as the presidential rivals prepare to face off in the first of three debates, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows Obama with vulnerabilities and Romney with assets — even on the question of whether Americans have become too dependent on the government.

The question: Can the Republican challenger seize on those openings? If he fails — and he admittedly has struggled since clinching the GOP nomination in the spring — his path to victory over the final four weeks of the campaign becomes much steeper.

"The vast majority of viewers tune in to these debates to cheer their candidate on; they've made their decision and want that decision confirmed," says Mitchell McKinney, an associate professor at the University of Missouri who studies presidential debates and political communication. But there also will be viewers who are only "weakly committed" to a candidate "and still need some persuading."

Almost eight in 10 Americans in the USA TODAY poll say there's nothing either candidate could say or do in the debates that would change their minds about their vote. Still, one of five say the debates could sway them — including 24% of Obama supporters and 18% of Romney supporters.

Continue reading.

And see ABC News, "Analysis: Presidential Debate Day Arrives" (via Memeorandum).

MSNBC Hack Rachel Maddow Responds to Obama's Hateful New Orleans Race Speech

That's racist!

She's the biggest flaming asshole on the network, and it's a deep bench, so that's saying a lot:

And check Elizabeth Foley at Instapundit, "WELCOME TO POST-RACIAL AMERICA (PSYCH!)." (Via Memeorandum.)

PREVIOUSLY: "Devastating Side-by-Side Comparison of Barack Obama's Race Speeches."

More at Memeorandum.

BONUS LULZ: At the Hill, "Gibbs: Obama believes Katrina response failures were ‘colorblind’."

Dozens Killed as Bombs Hit Center of Aleppo in Syria

The other Obama debacle.

At Telegraph UK, "Syria: Aleppo hit by four car bombs":

Four blasts ripped through a government-controlled district close to a military officers' club in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 40 people and wounding more than 90 on Wednesday, opposition activists said.

The attacks within minutes of each other struck the main Saadallah al-Jabiri Square and a fifth bomb exploded a few hundred metres away, state television said, on the fringes of the Old City where rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been fighting.

"Five minutes after the first explosion a second bomb exploded. A third exploded ten minutes after that," a state television reporter said. "There was a fourth car bomb which exploded before engineering units could defuse it."

The station also broadcast footage of three dead men disguised as soldiers in army fatigues who it said were shot by security forces before they could detonate explosive-packed belts they were wearing. One appeared to be holding a trigger device in his hand.

Rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad announced last week a new offensive in Aleppo, Syria's largest city and commercial hub of 2.5 million people, but neither side has appeared to make significant gains so far.

The explosions also came a week after rebels bombed military command buildings in the heart of Damascus and clashed with security forces for several hours.

Continue reading.

In Debate, Romney Must Make Forceful Case That America's Survival as Properous and Respected Nation at Stake

I'm glad somebody's making this argument. Mitt "Mr. Nice Guy" Romney's just about killing me here.

From Fred Barnes, at WSJ, "Romney's Dangerous Game of Playing It Safe":

For his Wednesday-night debate with President Obama, Mitt Romney has been advised to be tough but affable. He should put his warm and caring side on display, while picking apart the president's record and rebutting dubious statements by Mr. Obama. "I'd be tempted to go back to that wonderful line by Ronald Reagan, 'There you go again,'" Mr. Romney said last week.

The advice is good, but even if Mr. Romney follows it scrupulously, he is not likely to dominate the debate. His performance won't be commanding enough to give his campaign the momentum it needs. His chances of defeating Mr. Obama on Nov. 6 will suffer.

Mr. Romney should do in the debate what he hasn't done in his speeches, media appearances or TV ads—in other words, in his entire campaign. He must make a forceful case that America's survival as a prosperous and respected nation is at stake. In that context, the election becomes an urgent choice between a national turnaround and further decline. The Romney advertising has been especially sorry at drawing that distinction. The generally bland commercials feel like they could have run at any time in the past 40 years.

Voters understand that America is in trouble. For years, they've told pollsters the country is headed in the wrong direction. Today they're even more gloomy. At every focus group I've heard about recently, they agree with the notion that their children will be worse off than they are. A Fox News poll in August found that by nearly a 2-1 ratio voters think American civilization is in decline. In short, faith in the American Dream has tanked.

According to a Rasmussen poll last week, 15% of likely voters are uncommitted or willing to change their vote. "One of the distinguishing features of those potentially persuadable voters is that they don't see the choice between Romney and Obama as particularly significant," Mr. Rasmussen said. "Just 28% say it will be very important which man wins."

Like a wide receiver in football, Mr. Romney needs to create separation between himself and his opponent. If they're quibbling over the legitimacy of Mr. Obama's $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan or whether Mr. Romney's tax proposal is revenue neutral, the advantage will go to the incumbent. Mr. Romney can prevail in those arguments without coming any closer to winning the presidency.

The Republican challenger needs to go where Mr. Obama cannot go. What's required are ideas, initiatives and policies commensurate with America's moment of peril. This means, first of all, embracing the conservative reform agenda: entitlement reform, overhaul of the tax code, curbs on spending, an unhampered economy, regulatory relief, consumer-driven health care, a welfare state that doesn't promote dependency, a revitalized civil society.

Continue reading.

Devastating Side-by-Side Comparison of Barack Obama's Race Speeches

This one's worth running in its own right:

PREVIOUSLY: "Barack Obama Unedited Video at Hampton University, 2007."

EXTRA: At The Blaze, "See How the Left Is Reacting to 'Obama's Other Race Speech."

And check this roundup at Instapundit as well.

Obama and Romney Deadlocked Among Likely Voters

Actually, if the survey over-sampled Dems, then Romney could in fact be ahead.

At National Journal, "Obama, Romney Tied Among Likely Voters."

Obama Still Wants to Fundamentally Transform America

From David Horowitz, at FrontPage Magazine:

An American compound in Libya is invaded by al Qaeda terrorists and an American ambassador is purportedly tortured before being killed. Muslim mobs attack American embassies in 27 countries chanting,”Death to America.” The White House response? A statement blaming the outrages on a filmmaker in the United States, along with apologies to the Muslim world.

The American economy languishes with millions unemployed in the worst times since the Great Depression. Yet the president spends his first years in the White House focusing on a plan to create a trillion-dollar socialized health care system opposed by a majority of Americans. Then he campaigns for re-election on a platform blaming rich Americans for the economic woes.

What’s going on here?

The answer lies in a famous statement the president made on the eve of his election, when he told a crowd of cheering supporters: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” These are not the words of a traditional, pragmatic-minded American politician. A practical politician attempts to address problems and fix them, not to fundamentally transform an entire nation. Transforming nations is what radicals aspire to do. But Mr. Obama’s actions in the past four years — beginning with putting Obamacare in front of the economic crisis — are nothing if not radical.

Radicals are sometimes referred to as “liberals in a hurry.” They share goals but not means. Both Mr. Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, expressed early sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose rage at the American social order quickly turned violent and destructive.

But while Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi may pursue their agendas through the traditional process of democratic government, ends still determine means. The radical nature of the goals they pursue does have consequences, the first of which is to divide the nation in an hour when they should have been uniting it.

In a national crisis such as America faced in 2009 when 800,000 of us were losing our jobs every month, traditional leaders would have regarded their first task as one of rallying the country on a common agenda and bringing Americans together. Instead, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi put their radical agenda first — passing a massive health care bill, the most transformative legislation in American history, and passing it over the opposition not only of Republicans but even of Democratic voters in Massachusetts, who elected Republican Scott Brown to cast a vote against it.

Far from pursuing national unity to solve the crisis, Mr. Obama put his goal of transformation in front of everything. In order to achieve the change he wanted, he shut out the congressional Republicans in drafting his revolutionary legislation, and then disregarded the majority of Americans when they rejected his plan, defeating Democrats in special elections in New Jersey and Virginia — states that he had won. His radical goals caused Mr. Obama to squander his political capital on a divisive campaign in the first two years of his administration that has changed and embittered the political landscape, and that has persisted for four years and could continue.

Of the Obama election effort dominated by themes of class envy and conflict, a longtime liberal and Democrat, Mortimer Zuckerman, the publisher of U.S. News & World Report, has said: “It is a dishonest, divisive campaign. It’s discouraging of enterprise. It does the opposite of uniting the country to deal with the current economic crisis.”

More at the link.