Right Wing Nut House

Unless a lot of voters have been lying to pollsters — and I’m not entirely dismissing the notion, although probably not in numbers to drastically effect the race — Barack Obama will win re-election to a second term.

It is likely to be a near thing in the popular vote, but not a nail biter in the electoral college. A billion dollars buys a lot of organization and the Obama team should once again be congratulated for using their campaign money to excellent effect in getting out their vote on election day.

For Romney, a bitter pill to be sure. To come so close and then fall just a little short will haunt him for the rest of his life. But to a large extent, it’s his own fault — and the fault of conservatives and conservatism. In the end, Romney tried to offer warmed over Reaganism with a dash of 21st century conservative populism to the voters. They weren’t fooled — not enough of them anyway.

Conservatism failed Romney as much as conservatives did — perhaps more. Intellectuals on the right have been largely driven from the public square by revanchist social darwinists, fevered anti-science evangelicals, and paranoid conspiracists. Much of the right just doesn’t trust anyone who thinks for a living because that thinking generally leads to conclusions that don’t sit comfortably with those trapped in the echo chamber of right wing blogs, talk radio, and Fox News.

For example, when someone dares to point out that Mitt Romney’s tax numbers don’t add up, or Paul Ryan’s budget plan has a trillion dollar gap in it, or that Rush Limbaugh is a clown, there’s no attempt to debate, only an effort to shout down or smear the messenger. Such is not conducive to promoting the kind of intellectual ferment necessary for a political philosophy to refresh itself and deal with contemporary challenges.

Instead, the GOP mantra of the last 30 years of tax cuts, fewer regulations, developing a strong military, and advocating for smaller government was trotted out in new clothes, given a pretty sheen of new rhetoric, and promoted as “change.” The country was ready to give Obama his walking papers if the Republicans had offered a candidate who represented a break with the past, who promoted an agenda based on what America had become in the 21st century and not what she was in the 1970’s and 80’s. But this was not to be. How could it when much of the right has invested so heavily in fantasies of cutting government to the bone, destroying the social welfare state, emasculating the EPA and other agencies, while forcing its own concept of theocratic morality on the rest of us?

Perhaps most egregiously of all, the takeover of the Republican party by the hard right has meant that the very concept of conservatism has been corrupted beyond recognition. I think the greatest failing of the hard right has to be its total denial of what Russell Kirk referred to as the “voluntary community.” The idea of “community” used to be central to conservative philosophy. This is a manageable social element — one step above individual and family. In modern American, the term “community” necessarily includes progressive levels of government — from local, to state, to federal — each tasked with responsibilities that make modern urban civilization possible.

What local government is unable or incapable of doing, the state government steps in and fills the gap. What states cannot manage, or refuse to address, the national government takes a hand. No rational person believes that there should be 50 different air and water quality standards, or 50 different regulatory regimes that govern worker safety. Interstate commerce would come screeching to a halt if that kind of thinking ever took hold.

The modern right, however, isn’t interested in the traditional notions of community, which necessarily include government. There is a great big hole in the hard right’s vision of community where government should be. The state has a role to play as provider, referee, and enforcer of community laws and regulations. Every major conservative philosopher of the last 100 years has recognized this to one degree or another. But the fantasies about reducing the size of government to something akin to what it was in 19th century America persist.

The concept of limited government — not smaller government or no government — should be promoted. But “limited” government is too close to “warmed over liberalism” for many extremists. The idea that government should grow at all is an anathema to most modern ideologues who have hijacked the name “conservatism” and besmirched its principles in a reckless disregard for what used to be called, “the common weal.” Individual liberty is a fine thing and it is the primary purpose of government to defend and ensure that freedom. But individual liberty cannot exist outside of the community. Necessarily, we voluntarily give up some freedom in return for living in a civilization where we aren’t at each other’s throats. The concept is so basic to conservatism, it’s a mystery why those who call themselves conservatives reject it out of hand.

I have no hope for a return to sanity anytime soon for the political right — not when the right mistakes disgust with the Democrats for an electoral mandate as they did in 2010, or that all they will need to win the presidency in 2016 is to tweak the message a bit and nominate a “true conservative” — like Rick Santorum or some other religious fanatic. The disconnect between the right wingers and 21st century America is too great, their notions of what America needs so out of kilter with reality, that only near complete marginalization by the electorate might snap them out of their stupor. Even then, the purists will probably complain that all they have to do is nominate a “real” conservative and they will win in a landslide.

Poor, pathetic, wretched creatures.

It’s just too tempting to compare the media response to government relief efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the response to Sandy. The dichotomy is stark.

ABC News:

The residents of Staten Island are pleading for help from elected officials, begging for gasoline, food and clothing three days after Sandy slammed the New York City borough.

“We’re going to die! We’re going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!” Donna Solli told visiting officials. “You don’t understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It’s been three days!”

Staten Island was one of the hardest-hit communities in New York City. More than 80,000 residents are still without power. Many are homeless, and at least 19 people died on Staten Island because of the storm.

Three days after Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Nagin was on the radio, literally weeping about the lack of federal response to the desperation of the city (link is dead):

“You know the reason why the looters got out of control?” Nagin said. “We have most of our resources saving people. They were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. You pull off the doggone ventilator and look down and they’re standing there in water up to their fricking neck.”

“I need reinforcements,” he said. “I need troops, man. I need 500 buses.”

The relief efforts made so far had been “pathetically insufficient,” Nagin said.

“They are thinking small, man, and this is a major, MAJOR deal,” Nagin said. “God is looking down on this and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Every day that we delay, people are dying, and they’re dying by the hundreds, I am willing to bet you.”

Rolling now, Nagin described distress calls he’d heard. Nagin mocked the efforts to block the 17th Street Canal breach.

“I flew over that thing yesterday and it was in the same shape it was in after the storm hit,” he said.

“There is nothing happening there. They’re feeding the public a line of bull and they’re spinning and people are dying down here.”

Although much of what Nagin was bitching about wasn’t true, there is rough symmetry between his remarks about the federal response and that of the Staten Island resident.

And yet…

There is no gaggle of national media today reporting around the clock about the desperation of Staten Island residents. There is no in depth reporting on conditions in New Jersey which is a little better off but hardly out of crisis with supplies running low and electricity still out for hundreds of thousands. There are no reporters relaying wild, unsubstantiated rumors about babies being murdered or “10,000 dead.”

In fact, I would say that media coverage of the aftermath of the hurricane has been subdued, rational, and factual. The question becomes: Since Katrina was a far more devastating storm in its destructive power and help for the victims was hampered by impossible conditions, how come the feds are getting a pass on Sandy despite obvious snafus and far less damage to infrastructure?

Well, there’s the distraction of the election. Reporters in 2005 didn’t have anything better to do and networks had no other big stories to cover. But any semi-independent observer would have to ask if there wasn’t a bias against President Bush and that the race of the Mayor of New Orleans (Nagin is black) didn’t play a role in assigning responsibility for the paltry response to the crisis.

Nagin panicked. He spread wild rumors about conditions at the Superdome which, while desperate, were nowhere near as bad as he was making them out to be. His demand for “500 buses” was ludicrous considering he had 300 buses available in a parking lot a couple of miles from the Superdome that he could have used to evacuate thousands prior to the storm making landfall. And most egregiously, he forgot to tell FEMA that there were thousands of additional residents taking refuge in the convention center — a place made a living hell because no one knew about the city using the facility as an evacuation center except Nagin.

The federal response could have been better. But as I showed in this timeline I prepared at the time, the delay in getting federal resources to New Orleans had far more to do with flooded and impassable roads, washed away bridges, and a fearful lack of coordination between state, federal, and local authorities than any inadequacies by FEMA. Who’s to blame for that? Take your partisan pick.

Am I playing the false equivalency game? To an extent, yes. No two disasters are the same and I would say that from what I’ve seen, the federal response to Sandy has the virtue of being better organized and not so ad hoc. But where the world came down on Bush’s head for the failures of government, Obama appears to be skating through undamaged.

And considering what the residents of Staten Island are going through, is that just?

Join us for another riveting episode of the RINO Hour of Power hosted by Rick Moran with special co-host Jazz Shaw.

In exactly 7 days, Americans will go to the polls. But will all Americans vote next Tuesday? Damage from Hurricane Sandy may force some states to delay the vote in order to deal with the humanitarian crisis.

We’ll examine this issue as well as other aspects of the presidential campaign with Investors Business Daily columnist Andrew Malcolm.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, when the right wing screwballs call me a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only), what they really mean is that I am a “CINO” (Conservative in name only). It’s a minor point since the GOP — as Reagan and Buckley always dreamed it would be — is now the Conservative Party. All vestiges of Rockefeller Republicanism, Midwest Main Street Conservatism, and intellectual conservatism have been rubbed out to be replaced by a hard right hybrid of authoritarian populism, and fervid evangelical mysticism.

So calling me a RINO is a badge I wear with honor. Moreso today following these two articles in the two publications I work for.

I will not comment on them except to say I do not agree with the sentiments expressed.

Roger Simon in the featured article at PJ Media: “Beyond Impeachment: Obama Treasonous over Benghazi”

When you ascribe an action to the protest of a video when it is actuality a planned terror attack by Ansar al-Shariah, an established offshoot of al-Qaeda (if that’s not your “enemy,” then who) — and you knew that all along, you watched it live without doing anything, and then you told those who wanted to help to “stand down”? Meanwhile, our government may have been conspiring to arm another offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria.

How much more treasonous can you get? Benedict Arnold was a piker.

Indeed, the discussion of Benghazi has just begun. And don’t be surprised if the conversation escalates from impeachment to treason very quickly. In fact, if Obama wins reelection you can bet on it. The cries of treason will be unstoppable. Not even if the mainstream media will be able to deny them.

As Pat Caddell noted, those same media lapdogs have muzzled themselves in an unprecedented manner in this matter, but our Canadian friends at least have some semblance of honor left, writing:

It is undoubtedly worse than Obama simply turned his back on cornered American citizens in a foreign land, knowing undoubtedly they would die. But that Barack did so without any compelling reason—except political—is beyond evil. Only a moral monster would have made that decision when it was within his powers to possibly save them with almost no effort of his own.

Moral monster? Those are extreme words but they fit an extreme situation and are appropriate to the use of the t-word. But it’s worse. Many now are trying to figure out the motivation for this behavior — beyond the obvious electoral whoring mentioned above, the need to be seen in a certain manner at a certain moment to be sure the Ohio vote doesn’t fall the wrong way.

But is there more than that? Is the treason yet greater? Were Obama and others covering up more than their ineptitude? Just what was Ambassador Stevens doing in Benghazi that day? Why had he left the Libyan capital to meet with the Turkish ambassador on the anniversary of September 11?

Daren Jonescu writing in The American Thinker: “Would Obama Incite Civil Unrest to Win?”

Could Obama really be reduced to attempting to win re-election through mob protests and intimidation — i.e., through a climate of fear?

Let us examine the broad facts. According to the recent polls, most of which have been conducted by organizations sympathetic to Obama, Romney appears to be on his way to victory. Obama’s policy record is insupportable on the basis of its results, and his campaign knows it. His one ace in the hole, his alleged effectiveness in the Middle East, has been exposed once and for all as a disastrous lie. And his opponent’s past seems to be scandal-free, thus eliminating the one major comeback technique his inner circle has shown any past skill in executing.

All appears lost for Obama according to normal campaign channels. It is time for the Hail Mary pass. But do we have any grounds for imagining that he and his team would stoop so low as to seek to incite mass incivility, on or before Election Day?

Let us examine a few more facts. Barack Obama’s primary occupation before electoral politics was as a community organizer in Chicago. He was an adviser to ACORN, the election fraud racket and socialist activism organization founded by former SDS radical Wade Rathke. His mentors in Chicago included Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, the Weather Underground leaders who staged the Days of Rage in 1969; Rashid Khalidi, apologist for and promoter of anti-Israeli violence; and Jeremiah Wright, whose most famous words are “God damn America!” In his youth, of course, Obama’s primary male role model was Frank Marshall Davis, a communist and, naturally, a community organizer.

Would any of the people I just named stop short of using intimidation or civil unrest to achieve their political ends, if they believed it would be effective — or that it was their only hope?

Too speculative, you say? What does any of this have to do with Obama himself, you ask?

Join us tonight for another swashbuckling episode of the RINO Hour of Power, hosted by Rick Moran with special co-host Jeff Kropf of KUIK radio.

The campaign is entering its final two weeks with the polls showing a very tight race. What will be the strategies of both candidates as they head for home? What states will they concentrate their resources on? What are some of the likely electoral college scenarios in play?

To answer these and other questions, Bryan Preston of PJ Media will appear as a guest. The panel will also review last night’s debate and talk about the media’s role in deciding the election.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like, what kind of person you would be, if the circumstances in which you were born were radically different?

Suppose you’re a white male who had been born black, or native American, or even a woman? Do you think that you would be a different sort of person? Would your personal morality, political beliefs, or your outlook on life be altered from what it is now?

I find it a stimulating exercise to play this little imaginary game on occasion because it forces you to place yourself outside your regular existence and walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Most often, I find myself doing this when reading history or biography. Would I have been a rebel or a tory? A supporter of the union or the south? Who would I have voted for in the election of 1900?

Of course, you are a prisoner of your own environment and life experiences, so it becomes an exercise in futility to truly and deeply understand what it might be like to be a black man in America, or, like Russell Means, a Native American activist who died today at the age of 72.

New York Times :

Russell C. Means, the charismatic Oglala Sioux who helped revive the warrior image of the American Indian in the 1970s with guerrilla-tactic protests that called attention to the nation’s history of injustices against its indigenous peoples, died on Monday at his ranch in Porcupine, S.D., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was 72.

[...]

Strapping, ruggedly handsome in buckskins, with a scarred face, piercing dark eyes and raven braids that dangled to the waist, Mr. Means was, by his own account, a magnet for trouble — addicted to drugs and alcohol in his early years, and later arrested repeatedly in violent clashes with rivals and the law, once tried for abetting a murder, shot several times, stabbed once and imprisoned for a year for rioting.

He styled himself a throwback to ancestors who resisted the westward expansion of the American frontier and, with theatrical protests that brought national attention to poverty and discrimination suffered by his people, became arguably the nation’s best-known Indian since Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

But critics, including many Native Americans, called him a tireless self-promoter who capitalized on his angry-rebel notoriety by running quixotic races for the presidency and the governorship of New Mexico, by acting in dozens of movies — notably in the title role of “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992) — and by writing and recording music commercially with Indian warrior and heritage themes.

I sometimes think that if I had been born black, or native American, I would have become a Communist. Or there are times, I imagine I would have resigned myself to my unequal station in life and simply gone about living — resentful and bitter at the hand dealt me by fate. Other times, I think I would have been a simmering, smoldering, in your face kind of activist. No Martin Luther King, I. You hit me, I hit you back twice as hard. There would have been rage — not only for any current slights but for past injustices that I think I would have experienced viscerally and not intellectually — as if the wounds were deep and recent.

My life experiences do not allow me to really imagine what it would have been like to be Russell Means. But I want to believe I understand where he is coming from. He was a very angry man. I doubt whether he hated injustice more than he hated the white man, which some might find understandable and thus excuse his racism as justified under the circumstances. He made no effort to rise above his own anger — something many racial activists are able to do successfully.

But Means’ activism served a large and worthy purpose by calling attention to the miserable plight of Native Americans. Recent years have seen tribes running casinos on their reservations (”like the buffalo returning” quipped one Native American leader) and while the gambling houses raise millions, still not enough is being done by tribal councils and the US government to lift the poorest of the poor out of abject poverty. In 2010, the poverty rate on reservations was 28.4 percent, compared with 22 percent among all American Indians (on and off reservations), and 15.3 percent among all Americans. This is an intolerable state of affairs and Means tried his utmost to call attention to it.

More than fighting poverty, Means fought for dignity. It seems trite and vainglorious to say that someone fought for an intangible like dignity, but in the case of Means and Native Americans, it is true. Certainly the helplessness born of the indignity of reservation life is a contributing factor to poverty. Did Means change that dynamic? He definitely inspired younger Native Americans to take up the cause and the pride of heritage he infused in them will pay dividends in years to come. The entire American Indian Movement — violent and racist as it was at times — has been a source of inspiration to the generations born since the 1960’s. When weighed on the scales of history, AIM will probably be considered an overall plus for instilling racial values in the young and attempting to preserve Native American culture.

Means was not one to practice cultural relativity. That wasn’t how he saw himself. He was a rabble rouser, a prick on the conscience of white Americans.

And considering the beastly treatment by the US government toward Native Americans, we needed a prick every now and again to be reminded of our sins, but more importantly, our responsibilities to the “First Americans.”

Join us tonight for another fascinating episode of The RINO Hour of Power., co-hosted by my orignal RHOP partner Jazz Shaw.

Mitt Romney surged in the polls following the first debate with President Obama, but now seems to be leveling off, and even losing some ground to the president. Has he peaked too soon? Or will another strong debate performance tonight give him further momentum?

Rich Baehr, American Thinker Political Correspondent and regular RHOP guest host will join us for a discussion of the polls and a look at the race 3 weeks from election day.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

There is a Texas woman who won multi-million dollar scratch off lottery tickets in her state 4 times in a little more than a decade.

First, she won $5.4 million, then a decade later, she won $2million, then two years later $3million and in the summer of 2010, she hit a $10million jackpot.

It turns out she was a Stanford University professor specializing in statistics and may have been able to figure out how to game the system, although Texas lottery officials discount that idea.

But the odds of her winning 4 scratch off tickets of those amounts are “one in eighteen septillion and luck like this could only come once every quadrillion years.”

I bring this up because last night, Sue bought a scratch off ticket at our local grocery store and won $5,000.

This is extraordinary in and of itself. The odds of winning $5,000 are one in 30,000.

But 5 grand is chump change to Sue. In 2004, after we had both lost our jobs and I had just started blogging in September, November 12 proved to be a lucky day indeed:

The other day, significant Otherhawk and I went to the store to pick up a few essentials; Oscar Mayer Bologna, Velveeta cheese, Hellman’s REAL mayonnaise, and Rosen’s Jewish Rye…all of which no self-respecting man in western civilization can live without.

On the way out the door, Otherhawk did something she NEVER does; she bought two instant scratch-off lottery tickets. We sat in the car scratching them. Mine was a bust, no winners. But Otherhawk matched one number on the card.

We were expecting no more than a $5 or $10 winner. So, imagine our surprise when she scratched off the space where the prize amount was revealed:

THE PRIZE AMOUNT WAS $100,000!!!

That’s right…$100,000. We. Just. Couldn’t. Believe. It. In fact, it still hasn’t sunk in. The odds of winning the grand prize were 1:672,544. Which just goes to show you…

“THE FORCE WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU” (Obi Wan Kenobi)

We still only buy scratch tickets once a month or so, which makes this serendipitous event last night a truly remarkable occurrence.

For some, it might prove the existence of an all powerful and loving God. To others, it validates chaos theory where random atoms spinning around the universe, colliding willy nilly with other atoms, makes the random seem foreordained.

I was lucky when I found my Zsu-Zsu at age 50. And today, I have another reason to thank my lucky stars we’re together.

Join us tonight for another stellar episode of The RINO Hour of Power, hosted by Rick Moran and guest host tonight Fausta Wertz of Fausta’s Blog.

New polls out this week show that Romney has erased whatever lead President Obama held and has caught him and even surged in front in some polls. Can he maintain his position? Or is he destined to fall back?

To answer those questions, Bridget Johnson, Washington, D.C. editor of PJ Media, will join the show to discuss this surge by Mitt Romney as well as preview the vice presidential debate scheduled for Thursday night.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show. You can join us live by clicking the icon below or by clicking here.

I’ve got a piece up at PJ Media I would like to share.

A sample:

The world is slowly returning to its proper axis after being out of kilter for a while. San Francisco is once again the best team in the NFL. The Chicago Cubs lost 100 games. Hockey players are locked out, causing the fourth work stoppage in 20 years. NBC is the number one TV network again. Nucky Thompson is back and is as slimy as ever. And Nicholas Brody has also returned, teasing us with the prospect that he really isn’t an American terrorist, just some poor, misunderstood Muslim convert who may be the next vice president of the United States.

Oh…and did I mention Republicans have given us permission to believe the polls again?

That’s right. Mitt Romney’s stellar debate performance has revived his moribund campaign, energized his supporters, and put the magic back in opinion polls. Somehow, the same random sampling that pollsters were using when Mr. Romney was in deep trouble has produced favorable results for the GOP candidate. The latest Pew survey interviewed 567 Romney supporters and 552 Obama partisans. The sample shows the race dead even among registered voters and gives Romney a 4 point lead among likely voters.

The Pew poll on 9/19 interviewed 1,188 Obama supporters and 1,062 of Romney’s. That survey gave the president an 8 point lead over the Republican and had GOP partisans howling about “rigged” polls.

Whether one “believes” the polls or not, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the race is close. It was close when Romney was supposedly in trouble and it’s close now. It is likely that a few hundred thousand votes — maybe less — in two or three states will determine who will be sitting in the Oval Office on January 20, 2013. This has been foreordained for months, and the dynamics that have prevented either candidate from pulling away remain the same. That fact is that people are looking for a reason to vote for Romney and kick Obama out, but the Republican candidate has been unable to give them one.

This is partly his fault, but it is mostly due to a vicious campaign of lies and half-truths that have painted the GOP candidate as a cross between Gordon Gekko and Babbitt — an evil, uncaring plutocrat who would ship his grandmother’s job to China if given the chance. Romney was able to break through the clutter during the debate where 68 million Americans began to wonder who this smiling, confident, moderate guy was and what did the GOP do with the “real” Romney. The change in voter attitudes toward Romney is remarkable. The aforementioned Pew poll shows that voters now think he’s not such an ogre after all. His favorable rating is over 50% for the first time, placing him in a tie with Obama. And he is slaughtering the president in voter perceptions on how well he can handle the deficit (+15) and create jobs (+8).

I was not joking about being given permission to believe the polls again. The logic used to justify this rediscovery of the efficacy of polling is so precious, that you just want to wrap your arms around the right winger and give them a great big hug.

From the comments:

Rick, you miss the point, again. It isn’t that we believe the polls, it’s that even with their easily proven left-slant, Romney is ahead!

The reason many of us are calling for a Romney landslide is that he is ahead even in biased polls. I suspect the real margin is more like 10+ percent.

Right. You will find that pony if you keep digging in that manure pile, I promise!

If anything, the follow-up comment is even more bizarre:

That was exactly my reaction after reading that. I still believe the polls are understating Romney’s actual position. They’re still rigged but no amount of rigging can hide the apparent reality.

I agree. The reality on the Planet Mongol sure beats the reality on Planet Earth.

A final thought from a real space cadet:

Moran’s snark about the polls is as silly as most of the stuff he writes. Apparently, he thinks that people now accept the polls as gospel. Of course, he neglects to mention that the polls could hardly NOT show a Romney surge, after even democrat pundits awarded him an overwhelming victory. And he disingenuously fails to point out the the voting model in many of the key polls has now been changed, dramatically in some instances. Who knows why. Perhaps because the have to switch over to registered and likely voters at some point, why not when Romney is clearly surging so they can make the case for an obama comeback when the surge phenomenon subsides.

Other than Rasmussen, all of the polls are as dishonest now as they were two weeks ago. Maybe they better reflect the current state of the election, but if they do, it certainly isn’t due to the integrity of the pollsters. And even Rasmussen, btw, should be viewed sceptically.

The only poll I put any faith in was the one the media couldn’t hide or distort…the poll of horror in the eyes of the liberal media when they realized the horse they had protected for five years was finally exposed as an absolute failure.

The “voting model” has changed? Oh, really? From what bodily orifice did the gentleman pull that one from? That’s just bat guano crazy and a perfect example of making sh*t up as you go along.

Pew, Rasmussen, Gallup, Reuters, etc. don’t change their “voting model” (whatever the hell that is) without everyone who knows how to read knowing about it. I would chalk this up to typical internet commenting bullsh*t except there is nothing typical about it; it’s extraordinary internet commenting bullsh*t and the gentleman should be congratulated for being so inventive.

Be that as it may, I have no idea what Romney will do about Iran, Syria, al-Qaeda, or the rest of the mess in the Middle East. All I’m sure of is that he won’t think the Muslim Brotherhood are “moderates” and that he won’t treat Vladmir Putin as if he’s a partner in anything. He probably won’t be any tougher on China than Obama, but it’s good to make them think he will be. And if you listen to some subtle hints by Romney, you will hear him talk about the most significant change in US foreign policy since the end of World War II — the pivot toward Asia. President Obama has begun this shift, much to his credit, but if the wealth of the world is shifting to the east, it makes good sense to elevate Asia to a more prominent place in our thinking.

Europe isn’t dying - yet. Nor is it irrelevant. But the axis of the planet is tilting toward China and the emerging economies in the far east and getting in front of the curve by recognizing the importance of India, Indonesia, and the dynamic economies in southeast Asia is vital to our future security and economic well being.