Under the Hammer

Modern technology is wonderful. It amazes me that I can sit down and send a message to someone anywhere in the world for free and receive an answer immediately. Letters used to take weeks, months, sometimes years to cross oceans, but today the same information is transmitted instantaneously and free.

But technology has its downside as well, and President Barack Hussein Obama is learning about the problems with electronic communication. The problem is that people can go back and find the records.

Obama tried to blame the whole Benghazi confusion on the State Department and the intelligence community. It simply was not believable that during and after the attack the State Department and the intelligence community believed that the attack was the result of a spontaneous demonstration. Four people were killed in the attack but everyone else survived, plus there were the surveillance videos.

Obama clearly was doing his best to push this entire controversy past Nov. 6 because after Nov. 6 it won't matter whether he got an email from Ambassador Chris Stevens the day before the attack demanding more security, or a text message during the attack describing the well-organized planned attack that was taking place.

The truth is that Obama knew that it was an organized planned attack, but it doesn't fit in with the worldview that he is trying to sell to the American people that the US has defeated al Qaeda and the world is a safer place because of President Obama. The truth didn't fit in with his message, so he changed the story that he told to the American people and now he has been caught. It may change someone's vote to know that the president deliberately misled the American people to better his chance of getting reelected.

But that doesn't seem nearly as bad as describing four deaths as "not optimal," as Obama did when he was interviewed by comedian Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. In fact it might be a good rule to consider – not to discuss serious matters on a comedy show. Stewart and Obama may find a lot of humor in four Americans being killed because the president refused to provide them with proper security, but most people in this country don't find death humorous.

And it is cruel to the families of those who were murdered to show them so little respect that the president of the United States went on a comedy show and traded barbs about the deaths of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. They were men who died in the service of their country and died in the service of their president. A comedy show is not the place to talk about men who sacrificed their lives for this country.

But then this a president who sends form letters to the mothers of soldiers who were killed when he sent them into battle. President George Walker Bush often handwrote notes to the families of those killed; Obama sends them a form letter.

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Most Republicans seem to have wanted Mitt Romney to go after Obama on the failure of US policy in Libya and the resulting deaths of four Americans. The first question of the debate about Libya seemed like a perfect opportunity, but Romney didn't take the bait.

Romney could have also gone after Obama when Obama said that his most important job as president was to "keep the American people safe and that is what I have done."

I wanted Romney to say, "That didn't work out too well for Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty in Libya. And according to one of the stories that you are telling about those events you didn't even have any idea what happened to them for two weeks and it took you three weeks to get the FBI to the site to investigate. "

But the Romney team figures they are ahead at this point. The public pollsters show Romney in the lead nationally and in some of the key states. But when the books are written about the campaign, I think those first-hand accounts will reveal that the campaign polling clearly had Romney out in front and pulling away at this point. The Romney campaign is acting like it has more votes than it needs and it just has to make sure it doesn't lose too much ground.

The polls that the public sees just aren't that good. Proof of that is that they still have North Carolina in the "leaning Romney" category. Barring some last minute surprise that will cause even hardcore Republicans to vote for Obama there is no way that Obama can win North Carolina. So any poll that doesn't put North Carolina solidly in the Romney camp, and I haven't seen one that does, is automatically suspect.

If the Romney team doesn't see itself ahead at this point then his final debate performance doesn't make much sense. But if he is ahead then it makes all the sense in the world, because if he is ahead then he just doesn't want to mess anything up.

The idea was to go out and run time off the clock while making sure that the other team didn't score. So Romney was just playing defense. He wasn't trying to score points and he didn't care if Obama gained some yards as long as he didn't complete a long pass that would put him in scoring position. Romney was perfectly content to let Obama gain three or four yards running the ball up the middle and that is what he did.

Judging from the campaigns, not only does Romney think he is ahead, Obama is convinced that Romney has won and is running around the country like a madman attacking Romney, trying to make something happen.

And Obama has to attack Romney; he has no other viable campaign. Obama can't run on his record and he has a big problem if he presents a great plan to bring the country's economy back around because then the question is, Why aren't you doing this now? Why do you have to wait to get reelected?"

He is, however, for the first time presenting a plan for his next four years. So with two weeks to go in the presidential campaign the Obama team has actually come up with something they are willing to write down on paper and give to people about what Obama plans to do if reelected. Of course, what he plans to do is exactly what he has been doing. Golf on Sundays. Nice vacations three or four times a year, and a lot of travel. Oh, and blame everything on Bush and the Republicans in Congress.

If Obama could bring peace to the Middle East why wouldn't he do it now? Why would he have to be reelected to do something worthwhile? The man has been president for four years and has accomplished little if anything. Even Obama, as arrogant as he is, doesn't try to run on his own record. He just says that Bush left the country in more of a mess than he thought.

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One of the biggest lies of the debate was when Obama talked about Israel being "our greatest ally in the region." Obama refused to even meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he was in the US this fall. Obama said it didn't fit into his schedule, but during the same time he managed to find time for David Letterman and a lot of campaigning, which indicates his priorities.

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Also, the White House has refused to say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Obama has been as rude to Netanyahu as one head of state can be to another, and now he is trying to say that he believes Israel is our closest ally. You simply don't treat your friends the way Obama has treated Israel. As president he has never visited Israel.

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It was also amazing that Obama let Romney keep talking about the US economy in the debate that was supposed to be about foreign affairs. The president, any president, has a huge advantage in talking about foreign affairs.

For the past four years Obama has been receiving detailed briefings daily on what is going on in the world. According to some reports Obama tends to skip some of these briefings, but still he has far more information at his fingertips than anyone else in the world. It is an advantage that incumbents have over challengers and is magnified many times in the presidential race because it is what the president has been doing for four years. And even if he has skipped some briefings a lot of that information has to stick.

But in the debate it certainly didn't appear that Obama knew more about foreign affairs than Romney. In fact, Romney did what presidents often do and mentioned some obscure groups and movements that may be big news in national security briefings but haven't made the daily newspapers. It made Romney seem like he was more knowledgeable.

Obama's comment about horses and bayonets was just rude. It was a good idea, but the way he said it was rude and mean. No one doubts that Romney knows all about aircraft carriers and submarines. But Obama is a rude man. He is rude to our allies, rude to the people he should be working with in Congress, rude to his political opponents and rude to foreign heads of state who visit him in the White House.

Romney once again didn't take the bait.

But Romney's big advantage in this race is the economy. The question that people are going to be asking when they go into the polls is, "Am I better off than I was four years ago?" And for the vast majority of Americans the answer is no.

Not only did Obama allow Romney to talk about the economy, he got sucked in and started talking about it himself.

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The liberal mainstream media are having a hissy fit right now. The liberal media have figured out that their candidate is not going to win and they are beside themselves. The attitude seems to be, how can the American people ignore all the horrible things they have written about Romney and vote for him?

So they are really piling on, and one of the biggest complaints you hear from the left is that Romney has changed his position. There is plenty of truth there, but what all of these pundits know is that presidential candidates run the same way in election after election.

The people who vote in primaries are more partisan that the general population. The Democrats who vote in the Democratic primary are farther left and the Republicans who vote in the Republican primary are farther right than those who vote in the general election. To win the primary a Democrat has to run left and a Republican has to run right. To win the general election the candidate, whether Democrat or Republican, has to appeal to voters in the middle. So both Democrats and Republicans run toward the middle in the general election.

It is as much in how they say things as what they say. There is a difference this year in that Obama didn't have a credible primary challenger, so he didn't have to run left. However, Obama is already so far left that there isn't much more room on the field.

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The New York Times Sunday magazine did a hit job on Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan this week. It is amazing what they manage to weave into an article like it belongs. But the reporter, Mark Leibovich, seemed to dislike Sen. Rob Portman even more than Ryan.

Here's one phrase about Portman, which is really interesting if you have a few facts: "One mark against the wealthy senator was that he might be perceived as too much of a Grey Poupon Republican …"

Here's the problem. Portman is certainly wealthy, and he is a senator, but he is not a "wealthy senator." He is kind of average by Senate standards. Portman doesn't even make the list of the 50 wealthiest members of Congress. Portman, according to Roll Call, is worth about $6.72 million.

The top of the list of the 50 wealthiest members of Congress is: Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) $294 million, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) $220 million, Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) $193 million, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) $82 million, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) $76 million, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado) $66 million, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) $55 million, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) $53 million, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) $45 million and rounding out the top ten Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Florida) $44 million.

So of the top 10 richest members of Congress, three are Republicans and seven are Democrats. And Portman doesn't make the top 50, yet The New York Times refers to him as a "wealthy senator." How many times have you read – wealthy Sen. Dianne Feinstein, wealthy Sen. John Kerry, or wealthy Sen. Frank Lautenberg?

Even our own wealthy Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) beats out Portman. She comes in at number 47 with $7 million.

The article is an incredible piece of liberal Democrat propaganda, but very smoothly done. It makes it sound like offering someone barbecue sauce is a bad thing. The tone is really incredible.