HMM: At least 70 House seats in play, says Obama’s campaign adviser.

Is he inflating? So that if the Republicans “only” pick up 50, it can be spun as a Democratic victory? Or are things really that bad?

PETER BEINART: Obama’s Foreign Policy Has Failed.

JOHN RATZENBERGER: We Need More Skilled Workers.

GREGG EASTERBROOK: It’s time for Obama to stop declaring new recovery plans.

Here’s what the endless succession of plans has in common – they haven’t worked. If something hasn’t worked, why does this cause us to think more of the same is required? The White House, Treasury Department and Congress should stop contemplating new plans.

Endless emphasis at high political levels on the need to “do something,” if only to appease the press, communicates the message that U.S. leadership is either panicky or has no idea what’s going on or both. When leaders act perpetually panicked, voters and business managers become nervous. Voters want new leaders and business managers put off decisions until they have a better idea what may happen next. The result, for the economy, is slower growth than the mainly good world situation — no resource shortages, low international tensions, rising education levels, liberalizing trade – would seem to suggest.

Read the whole thing.

LOS ANGELES: Leading the Nation in Vacant Lots.

COMING TO THE GAME LATE: Now Obama wants tax cuts for business. Plus an astounding deficit graphic.

KOS MEDIA AND RESEARCH 2000 reach tentative settlement.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN THIS WOULD HAPPEN: Judge Keeps Ban on Stem Cell Funds. And they were right!

TIM CAVANAUGH: Manliness Is Next to Joblessness. “Daily Markets’ Mark Perry declares the Great Mancession in session, with help from a mesmerizing time-lapse chart tracking employment growth by job type since 2008. Click here to watch the real-time shrinking of majority male sectors in opposition to the growth of two majority female sectors — education and health care. . . . In fact the most disturbing thing in the job sector statistics is that health care jobs have been growing at such an insatiable rate. Are people sicker than they used to be?”

UH OH: Here Are 13 Signs That We’re Actually In A Depression Right Now.

CLIVE CROOK: Obama Surrenders On Jobs.

JONATHAN CHAIT: “Obscure blogger linked by InstaPundit.” Ipse dixit!

But does the Washington Examiner’s Fenty endorsement change the analysis?

HEH: “He could end all of this if he’d just show us his dog licence.”

ERIC SCHEIE on environmental eliminationists and Ebola.

A TEA PARTY MAJORITY?

THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE shortlist.

VERONIQUE DE RUGY: How Unreliable Is CBO Scoring?

CAN THE LEFT RAISE MIDDLE-CLASS INCOMES? Prof. Bainbridge has his doubts.

JAMES TARANTO ON THE CHANGING RACIAL ZEITGEIST: “It used to be that white conservatives were ever fearful of being cast as racist. Today Tucker feels it necessary to declare defensively that she isn’t prejudiced. Liberals, even black liberals like Tucker, no longer feel confident simply asserting their moral superiority when it comes to matters of race. This turning of the tables suggests that blacks and whites, as well as liberals and conservatives, are approaching a sort of equality. We won’t have gotten beyond race until both sides can make their arguments in good faith without such disclaimers. But this new parity is a big step in the right direction.”

STACY MCCAIN: Anti-Palin Folks Behind Effort To Revive Murkowski Candidacy. Murkowski has to be thinking about whether a spoiler run in Alaska is worth the enmity of Tea Party folks nationwide. My guess is she’ll decide that it’s not.

A BOLD TAX PLAN: People Should Smoke And Drink More. It’s for the children!

ONE-DAY ONLY SALE: Taxi, the complete series.

DAVID ADDINGTON GOES TO HERITAGE, Jack Goldsmith comments.

HEH: The BBC Fails to Understand the Tea Party Movement — Says the Telegraph UK.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Buck Up, America!

I don’t want to minimize the challenges that face us, and especially the suffering of those among us who’ve lost jobs and seen the value of their homes and their savings erode. Indeed, in the months to come I will be posting about the challenges ahead of us and the costs of failure. If anything, we are still underestimating the risks, and the upheavals ahead are in many cases even bigger and scarier than is yet generally understood. Living up to the challenges of our time is going to take everything we have — and then some.

But even from that perspective, the current mood of pessimism and hand-wringing seems overdone.

Depends on what happens in November, I guess. . . .