Death and Deceit in Benghazi

A Friday night edition of "Special Report with Bret Baier."

A great report. The segment beginning at 22:30 minutes, covering the timeline of the administration's cover up, is simply devastating:

Baby Walrus Adapts to Life in City

I'm a sucker for these animal stories, at the New York Times:

A team of 15 is caring for him around the clock. His favorite toy is a plastic bucket. He has taken swimmingly to a large pool. And on Friday, he had his first taste of solid food — surf clams.

“He’s hitting every milestone we’re hoping to see,” said Jon Forrest Dohlin, director of the New York Aquarium in Coney Island, Brooklyn, part of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “He still has some issues with his bladder, but they are trending in the right direction. Behaviorally, he’s doing great and we’re feeling good about his progress.”

He was describing Mitik, or Mit for short, one of two walrus calves separated from a herd in the Artic Ocean and orphaned in Alaska in July. The Alaska SeaLife Center took them in and found new homes for each. (The other walrus, Pakak, went to the Indianapolis Zoo.) The New York Aquarium, eager for a young companion for its two older walruses, stepped up, flying a staff member, Martha Hiatt, to Alaska to work with Mit for a month.

On Oct. 11, Ms. Hiatt, the aquarium’s behavioral husbandry supervisor, along with a veterinarian, accompanied Mit on a FedEx cargo jet from Anchorage to Newark. The walrus, believed to be about 16 weeks old, stayed in his crate during the six-hour flight. “It was loud,” Ms. Hiatt said of the trip. “He pretty much sang to us the entire time. We stayed with him, talked to him and hosed him off now and then.”

At the aquarium, Mit has adapted to his new environment, a state-of-the-art medical facility built in 2008 that was designed for marine mammals. There is a large, eight-foot-deep pool that is a considerable leap from the one he used in Alaska. “He’s in it from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to sleep,” Ms. Hiatt said this week. “He’s a big swimmer. He plays and swims literally until he falls asleep.”

RTWT.

Trainers are worried the walrus will not warm up to his own species when they prepare him for exhibition at the zoo. I guess they should have thought more about that when they decided not to return him to the wild.

President Obama's Closing Act: An Epic Collapse

From Hugh Hewitt, at Townhall:

The ongoing collapse of President Obama's campaign may lead to some extraordinary stunts during Monday's last debate, but no matter what he tries, it is very unlikely that the president can reverse the enormous momentum behind Mitt Romney's campaign.

(One data point. Congressman John Campbell, a frequent guest on my radio show, polled his district this week. It is Califronia's 45. John McCain carried it by 4.7 points in 2008. Mitt Romney is almost 20 points ahead in this cycle. Campbell reports that this sort of result is showing up across the country.)

The nation is simply finished with a president whose rhetoric has never been matched by his actions, and whose performance has removed Jimmy Carter from the bottom of the rankings of the modern president.

The president of course has his passionate supporters. These are the same people that spent last Tuesdaynight declaring him the winner of his second meeting with Mitt Romney, and Wednesday and Thursday trying to infuse the word "binder" with game-changing significance.

They are the same people who spent Friday denying that "not optimal" was not a big deal.

"Binder" -- big deal. "Not optimal" -- no deal at all. That's the state of the Obama campaign: A nearly Orwellian effort at making some words matter and others disappear while facts are pushed aside It hasn't worked. It won't work.

John Campbell is my congressman. The Irvine area, which is part of the 45th district, along with Newport Beach primarily, isn't hurting for Democrats. I see Obama bumper stickers all the time and my local 7/11 never seems to run out of the Mitt Romney election cups, but the Obama ones are nowhere to be found. Could be something else but it makes you wonder. Maybe I'm in a low rent coffee shop?

I'm not predicting a Romney win at this point, although it's looking more and more likely. A couple of the key battleground states still look competitive for Obama, especially Ohio, which is a must-win state for Romney. But again, it's looking that Obama's collapsed with very little time to recover. And the last debate's on foreign policy, and even if he does well, it keeps the laser focus on the Obama administration's foreign affairs, which aren't doing so well in the polls of late. Deeds on the ground have to turn around a collapse like that, not blustery rhetoric attacking your opponent in debate. Perhaps voters aren't in the mood to hand the foreign policy keys over to this president for a second test drive around the global test-track.

My father-in-law did say he thought Obama's going to lose, so there's another data point to add along with folks like Hugh Hewitt. It's going to be a very exciting next couple of weeks, that's for sure.

PREVIOUSLY: "End of the Obama Regime."

State Departments Stonewalls on Libya After Report Destroys Their 'Bad Intelligence' Excuse…

At Weasel Zippers.

And the full Department of State video is here. The key exchange comes at just before 10:00 minutes.

PREVIOUSLY: "New State Department Docs Show Ambassador Stevens Warned of Security Threats Before Benghazi Attack."

Amid Falling Profit, McDonald's to Revisit 'Dollar Menu'

At the Wall Street Journal:

McDonald's Corp. reported a 3.5% decline in third-quarter earnings as sales slowed more dramatically than expected because of a sluggish economy and a disappointing marketing campaign.

McDonald's predicted its sales and earnings growth will "remain pressured" over the next few quarters by the weak economy, and conceded that it needs to be more aggressive in advertising low prices.

As the world's largest fast-food chain, McDonald's has touted its global scale and mix of both value-oriented and higher-priced menu items as key to enduring tough economic times. But the once-resilient restaurant operator isn't weathering the current market turbulence as well as it did the crisis of 2009 because the downturn is more widespread and competition is closing the gap.

"We face softening demand, heightened competition and rising costs in many of our markets," Chief Financial Officer Pete Bensen said. In a weaker economy, customers tend to stop getting extras like drinks and desserts and premium items like Angus burgers, which all offer higher profits to McDonald's. Plus, they may not go out to eat as frequently.

McDonald's shares were down 4.5% to $88.72 in 4 p.m. composite trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, as Wall Street analysts were expecting an increase in per-share profit for the quarter, not a decline.


Chief Executive Don Thompson said McDonald's move earlier this year to shift its marketing focus in the U.S. to the higher-priced and more profitable "Extra Value Menu" from the successful "Dollar Menu" didn't "resonate as strongly" with consumers.

"We're going back to talk of the Dollar Menu," Mr. Thompson said.

End of the Obama Regime

Newt Gingrich and Liz Cheney on Hannity's:

They're talking about those Gallup numbers I've been covering around here. It was Romney up 51-45 earlier this week, and then up to 52-45 on Thursday. That's when Nate Silver had his meltdown.

More on the Gallup tracking numbers as we go along. It's funny!

Andrew Malcolm Dissects New Media and the Future of Journalism

A great clip.

Nick Gillespie talks to Andrew Malcolm:

Feds Arrest Anarchists in Seattle, Olympia and Portland

I'm surprised this is even being reported.

Shouldn't they be arresting those "violent" tea partiers, or something?

At the Los Angeles Times, "Anarchists targeted after Seattle's violent May Day protests:"

SEATTLE — Early on the morning of July 25, residents of a neighborhood in northeast Portland, Ore., were awakened by the sound of a battering ram plowing through the front door of a small house. Inside, the sleepy young occupants stumbled out of bed as FBI agents rushed in with assault rifles.

Leah-Lynn Plante, a thin, tattooed woman who volunteers at a bookstore that specializes in anarchist literature, shivered in her underwear in the backyard as a SWAT team hauled

out computers, clothing, books and artwork — looking, the agents said, for evidence of who participated in this year's May Day demonstrations in Seattle that saw smashed windows at banks and clashes with the police.

What bothered Plante was that they weren't just looking for sticks and black masks. The FBI search warrant also listed "anarchist" and "anti-government" literature and material among items to be seized.

"It was like something out of George Orwell's '1984.' It was absolutely horrendous," Plante, 24, said shortly before she was taken into custody Oct. 10 for failing to testify before a federal grand jury in Seattle about her friends in the anarchist movement.

Plante is one of three activists being held at the Federal Detention Center near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in an investigation of anarchists in the Pacific Northwest that has led to subpoenas in Seattle, Olympia and Portland. The secretive probe has raised alarm among civil rights advocates who say witnesses are being asked to answer questions not only about their own activities May 1 — Plante says she wasn't even in Seattle — but what they know about certain groups or organizations.

The investigation in Seattle is one of several across the U.S. targeting anarchists. Last month, three self-described anarchists pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a bridge south of Cleveland. Three purported anarchists were arrested in Chicago in May and accused of conspiring to burn down buildings with Molotov cocktails during the NATO summit there.

Oh, civil rights advocates are worried! It's the end of the republic! Bwhahahaha!!

Blast in Beirut Seen as Extension of Syria's War

At the New York Times, "Blast Kills at Least 8, Including Top Security Official":

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A powerful bomb devastated a Christian neighborhood of this capital city of Lebanon on Friday, killing an intelligence official long viewed as an enemy by neighboring Syria and unnerving a nation as Syria’s sectarian-fueled civil war spills beyond its borders and threatens to engulf the region.

The blast, which sheared the faces off buildings, killed at least eight people, wounded 80 and transformed a quiet tree-lined street into a scene reminiscent of Lebanon’s long civil war, threatened to worsen sectarian tensions. By nightfall, black smoke from burning tires ignited by angry men choked the streets of a few neighborhoods in the city, which has struggled to preserve a peace between its many sects, including Sunni, Shiite, Christian and Druse.

Within hours of the attack, the Lebanese authorities announced that the dead included the intelligence chief of the country’s internal security service, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, instantly spurring accusations that the Syrian government had assassinated him for recently uncovering what the authorities said was a Syrian plot to provoke unrest in Lebanon.

“They wanted to get him, and they got him,” said Paul Salem, a regional analyst with the Carnegie Middle East Center.

But if the attack was targeted, the blast was most certainly not. The force of the explosion left elderly residents fleeing their wrecked homes in bloodied pajamas and spewed charred metal as far as two blocks. Residents rushed to help each other amid the debris, burning car wreckage and a macabre scene of victims in blood-soaked shirts.

It was the first large-scale bombing in the country since 2008 and was the most provocative violence here linked to the Syrian conflict since it began 19 months ago.

The attack struck a heavy blow to a security service that had asserted Lebanon’s fragile sovereignty by claiming to catch Syria red-handed in a plan to destabilize its neighbor, which Syria has long dominated. It threatened to inflame sectarian tensions by eliminating General Hassan, a Sunni Muslim known for his close ties to fellow Sunni politicians who support the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. General Hassan was viewed by Syrian opposition activists as an ally and protector.

More at the link.

Is Atlas Shrugging?

Via Glenn Reynolds, an interview with Harmon Kaslow, the producer of the film 'Atlas Shrugged, Part II', "Job Creators Are Giving Up on the U.S."

Not Good Enough

From the Republican National Committee, "Not Fixed."

Eva Longoria Gets Schooled on Twitter

From Michelle Malkin, "Obama Campaign Co-Chair Eva Longoria Gets Schooled":

Liberal celebrities want all of the adoration that social media engagement has to offer — but none of the accountability that actual engagement requires. For the Hollywood elite, it’s “do as they say, not as they tweet.” But actress and outspoken Obama campaign co-chair Eva Longoria learned a hard lesson this week on Twitter:

Conservatives online are mad as hell and aren’t taking it anymore.

On Tuesday night after the second presidential debate, Longoria shared a “retweet” from one of her 4.4-plus million followers on the micro-blogging network. “I have no idea why any woman/minority can vote for Romney,” the message read. “You have to be stupid to vote for such a racist/misogynistic tw*t.” (I’m editing the vulgarity for family newspapers, but the tweet’s foul reference to a woman’s reproductive organs was neither censored nor disavowed by Longoria on her Twitter timeline.)

On Wednesday morning, the editors at Twitchy.com, my Twitter curation/aggregation site, captured and saved Longoria’s retweet for posterity. Conservative minorities and women raised their voices. A representative sample...

More at that top link.

And at Twitchy, "Obama campaign co-chair Eva Longoria retweet: Women, minorities ‘stupid’ to vote for ‘racist/misogynistic’ Romney; Update: Malkin speaks ‘truth to Hollywood powder puffs’; Update: Longoria deletes retweet," and "Obama campaign co-chair Eva Longoria deletes retweet calling women and minorities ‘stupid’ for supporting Romney."

Well, I'm tempted to call Ms. Longoria the "C" word, but I don't normally go quite that far.

It's a close call on this one, but I'll restrain myself. Let's just say she's freakin' idiot.

Norway Base Jumper Survives When Stunt Goes Awry

Pretty crazy.

See: "BASE jump stunt in Norway goes horribly wrong."

Hot Heidi Klum for Jordache

This ad ran while I was watching Fox News yesterday.

No wonder they have the best cable news ratings!

Why Does Obama's White House Pay Women Less?

At IBD, "No Equal Pay For Women in White House Despite Ledbetter Law":

According to a report published by the Washington Free Beacon in April, the 2011 annual report on White House staffers revealed that the median annual salary for female White House employees was 18% less than male employees — $60,000 compared with $71,000.

During the 2008 campaign, columnist Deroy Murdock wrote that female staffers in Obama's U.S. Senate office were also shortchanged. "Obama's average male employee earned $54,397," Murdock inferred from Senate salary records. But the future president's "30 female employees (earned) $45,152, on average."

Defining what constitutes "equal work" is subjective, and part of the difference above may be explained by the fact that only one of Sen. Obama's top five staffers was a woman and only seven among his top 20.

Which raises another question for the champion of women's rights.

Journalist Ron Suskind, author of "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President," has a recorded interview with former White House communications director and Mao Tse-tung fan Anita Dunn in which she complained Obama's White House was a hostile work environment for women.

"I remember once I told Valerie (Jarrett) that, I said if it weren't for the president, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace," Dunn told Suskind. "Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women."

While President Obama champions women's rights to which Republicans are supposedly hostile, Lilly Ledbetter herself might have found his White House an unfair and hostile work environment where the boss needs to practice what he preaches.

All hypocrisy, all the way down.

Whoa! Real Housewife Joanna Krupa Wears Totally Sheer Top for Thursday Dinner With Fiancé Romain Zago

That might be a tad over the top, if that's the right metaphor.

At London's Daily Mail, "A bit revealing for date night! Real Housewife Joanna Krupa wears ENTIRELY see-through top for dinner with her fiancé."

New State Department Docs Show Ambassador Stevens Warned of Security Threats Before Benghazi Attack

Fox News has been hammering on this story all day.

See, "Documents show Stevens worried about Libya security threats, Al Qaeda before consulate attack" (via Memeorandum):

Across 166 pages of internal State Department documents -- released Friday by a pair of Republican congressmen pressing the Obama administration for more answers on the Benghazi terrorist attack -- slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and the security officers assigned to protect him repeatedly sounded alarms to their superiors in Washington about the intensifying lawlessness and violence in Eastern Libya, where Stevens ultimately died.

On Sept. 11 -- the day Stevens and three other Americans were killed -- the ambassador signed a three-page cable, labeled "sensitive," in which he noted "growing problems with security" in Benghazi and "growing frustration" on the part of local residents with Libyan police and security forces. These forces the ambassador characterized as "too weak to keep the country secure."

In the document, Stevens also cited a meeting he had held two days earlier with local militia commanders. These men boasted to Stevens of exercising "control" over the Libyan Armed Forces, and threatened that if the U.S.-backed candidate for prime minister were to prevail in Libya's internal political jockeying, "they would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi."

Roughly a month earlier, Stevens had signed a two-page cable, also labeled "sensitive," that he entitled "The Guns of August: Security in Eastern Libya." Writing on Aug. 8, the ambassador noted that in just a few months' time, "Benghazi has moved from trepidation to euphoria and back as a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape." He added, "The individual incidents have been organized," a function of "the security vacuum that a diverse group of independent actors are exploiting for their own purposes."

"Islamist extremists are able to attack the Red Cross with relative impunity," Stevens cabled. "What we have seen are not random crimes of opportunity, but rather targeted and discriminate attacks." His final comment on the two-page document was: "Attackers are unlikely to be deterred until authorities are at least as capable." By Sept. 4, Stevens' aides were reporting back to Washington on the "strong Revolutionary and Islamist sentiment" in the city.

Scarcely more than two months had passed since Stevens had notified the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and other agencies about a "recent increase in violent incidents," including "attacks against western interests." "Until the GOL (Government of Libya) is able to effectively deal with these key issues," Stevens wrote on June 25, "the violence is likely to continue and worsen."

After the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi had been damaged by an improvised explosive device, earlier that month, Stevens had reported to his superiors that an Islamist group had claimed credit for the attack, and in so doing, had "described the attack as targeting the Christians supervising the management of the consulate."

"Islamic extremism appears to be on the rise in eastern Libya," the ambassador wrote, adding that "the Al-Qaeda flag has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities ..."

More at the link.

And the New York Times is mocking the White House. See, "Suspect in Libya Attack, in Plain Sight, Scoffs at U.S." (via Memeorandum):

BENGHAZI, Libya — Witnesses and the authorities have called Ahmed Abu Khattala one of the ringleaders of the Sept. 11 attack on the American diplomatic mission here. But just days after President Obama reasserted his vow to bring those responsible to justice, Mr. Abu Khattala spent two leisurely hours on Thursday evening at a crowded luxury hotel, sipping a strawberry frappe on a patio and scoffing at the threats coming from the American and Libyan governments.

Libya’s fledgling national army is a “national chicken,” Mr. Abu Khattala said, using an Arabic rhyme. Asked who should take responsibility for apprehending the mission’s attackers, he smirked at the idea that the weak Libyan government could possibly do it. And he accused the leaders of the United States of “playing with the emotions of the American people” and “using the consulate attack just to gather votes for their elections.”

Mr. Abu Khattala’s defiance — no authority has even questioned him about the attack, he said, and he has no plans to go into hiding — offered insight into the shadowy landscape of the self-formed militias that have come to constitute the only source of social order in Libya since the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

It's not looking good from President Eye Candy. Not looking good at all.

Peggy Noonan piles on, "The Year the Debates Mattered."

Just read it all at the link. Another breathtakingly perceptive piece. And as the polls demonstrate, the public is quickly catching on.

Unfortunately for Obama, There's Still One More Debate — And Romney Will Be Ready

From Charles Krauthammer, at the Washington Post, "The great gaffe":

“And the suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, governor, is offensive.”

— Barack Obama,
second debate, Oct. 16....

The rub for Obama comes, ironically enough, out of Romney’s biggest flub in the debate, the Libya question. That flub kept Romney from winning the evening outright. But Obama’s answer has left him a hostage to fortune. Missed by Romney, missed by the audience, missed by most of the commentariat, it was the biggest gaffe of the entire debate cycle: Substituting unctuousness for argument, Obama declared himself offended by the suggestion that anyone in his administration, including the U.N. ambassador, would “mislead” the country on Libya.

This bluster — unchallenged by Romney — helped Obama slither out of the Libya question unscathed. Unfortunately for Obama, there is one more debate — next week, entirely on foreign policy. The burning issue will be Libya and the scandalous parade of fictions told by this administration to explain away the debacle.

No one misled? His U.N. ambassador went on not one but five morning shows to spin a confection that the sacking of the consulate and the murder of four Americans came from a video-motivated demonstration turned ugly: “People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent and those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons.”

But there was no gathering. There were no people. There was no fray. It was totally quiet outside the facility until terrorists stormed the compound and killed our ambassador and three others.

The video? A complete irrelevance. It was a coordinated, sophisticated terror attack, encouraged, if anything, by Osama bin Laden’s successor, giving orders from Pakistan to avenge the death of a Libyan jihadist.

Not wishing to admit that we had just been attacked by al-Qaeda affiliates, perhaps answering to the successor of a man on whose grave Obama and the Democrats have been dancing for months, the administration relentlessly advanced the mob/video tale to distract from the truth.

And it wasn’t just his minions who misled the nation. A week after the attack, the president himself, asked by David Letterman about the ambassador’s murder, said it started with a video. False again.

Romney will be ready Monday.

He will be.

See also, "'Not Optimal'."

Image Credit: Via Instapundit.

Gallup Still Has Romney Up, 51 to 45

The survey has a seven-day polling cycle so there's continued volatility in the numbers.

That said, no doubt Nate Silver's still freakin' out over his super sophisticated razzmatazz polling predictions.

See Gallup: "Election 2012 Likely Voters Trial Heat: Obama vs. Romney."

BONUS: At Rasmussen, "Daily Swing State Tracking Poll: Swing State Tracking: Romney 49%, Obama 47%."

And from A.B. Stoddard at The Hill, "Obama spinning toward a loss":

President Obama is losing. So says the latest Gallup poll, and so do those swelling numbers in key states like Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia and Ohio.

Democrats say wait, he won the second debate. They are holding their breath, hoping polls next week will show that this week's debate brought the herky-jerk of the campaign back full swing, with Obama back to his September lead in the swing states and poised to win. But with two weeks to go, a sudden surge in voter support for a president as unpopular as this one, in an economy this weak, is simply hard to believe. Conservatives like Karl Rove note that this late in October, no candidate with support higher than 50 percent (see Mitt Romney: Gallup) has ever gone on to lose.

Perhaps Obama lost the presidency weeks ago, on Oct. 3, when he sleepwalked and scribbled through the first debate and helped make Romney a new candidate overnight. It was Obama's night to finish Romney off; behind in the polls, even Romney likely woke up that morning thinking it was over. But Obama underestimated the task, the challenger and the electorate — all in 90 minutes. So a win this week was critical but perhaps not decisive. There is no obvious reason for Obama's performance to reverse the course of the campaign and blunt Romney now. And though there is one final debate next week, a back-and-forth on national security and foreign policy isn't likely to make the sale for anyone who still cannot make up his or her mind.

Bob Schieffer to Moderate Final Debate on Foreign Policy

At the Los Angeles Times, "As final debate moderator, Bob Schieffer could throw more curves."

I hope Schieffer takes the Candy Crowley clusterf-k into consideration on Monday. The guy needs to be more even-handed than any moderator in history.

More at the Washington Post, "Questions for the candidates at the final presidential debate."