A PINCH OF HYPOCRISY: NY Times Called Bush’s 2.7% GDP in ’92 a ‘Letdown,’ But Obama’s Lower GDP a ‘Steady Improvement.’

As I recall, the health of the American economy turned on a dime in the MSM, once GHWB lost his re-election bid in ’92.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONSERVATIVE FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Pilots are from Mars, stewardesses are from Berkeley Venus, a pro-Romney flight attendant tells Dennis Miller.

VIRTUOSO POLL DANCING: That Q Poll Showing Obama Up by Five in Ohio Has a Flaw (Updated: PPP Too?)

WHY KIDS STILL NEED TO LEARN MANNERS.

JACK KELLY: Benghazi Coverup Much Worse Than “Third-rate Burglary.”

The ride on the Obama bus gets bumpier as more bodies are thrown under it.

The latest to go thumpity thump are journalists who trumpeted the administration’s excuse that faulty intelligence is why the president said for so long the attack on our consulate in Benghazi was a “spontaneous” protest over a Youtube video.

The journalists went under the bus because the Foreign Service and career intelligence officers the administration tried to scapegoat refused to go there. They’ve leaked emails that reveal the White House was informed while it was still going on that the attack was the work of terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida.

To put this in the context of the Mother of All Scandals, these emails are the equivalent of a transcript of what was on the 181/2 minutes of the secret White House tapes President Nixon’s secretary erased.

“What did the president know, and when did he know it?” Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn, asked during the Watergate hearings. The answer in the leaked emails is that the president knew everything, all along. . . . When the “three a.m. phone call” came (at 6:07 p.m. EDT), the president ignored it. The day after learning Ambassador Stevens had been murdered and sensitive intelligence documents were missing, he jetted off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas.

And for nearly two weeks afterward, Mr. Obama and his senior aides blamed the attack on the Youtube video — even though they knew that wasn’t true.

Read the whole thing.

GARY TAUBES ON CORRUPTION IN THE MEDICAL/DIET BUSINESS.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? With so much cool tech these days, do we need TV reporters standing in the teeth of hurricanes? What was once exciting and novel is now just a ritual. And a dumb one, as reporters stand on the beach warning people to stay off the beaches!!! But it’s just another dumb aspect of mainstream-media coverage you can blame on Dan Rather.

LEE SMITH IN TABLET: Pro-Israel Democrats and the Dershowitz Syndrome.

LOSING WEIGHT WITH THE HORROR MOVIE DIET. Unless you ruin it with Goobers or Raisinets.

STRATEGYPAGE: Austin Bay: More Benghazi Questions.

The Benghazi attack, if it proved to be a planned attack rather than a spontaneous response to a video created without Obama’s approval, would call into question at a politically inconvenient moment the fundamental assumptions that guide his administration’s Middle Eastern diplomacy — in particular, the history-changing impact of his own personality and his insistence that his diplomacy is smart. A planned attack would also demonstrate that the Terrorists War on America continues, no matter what George W. Bush and Barack Obama call the conflict, and that al-Qaida remains capable of orchestrating terror attacks that have strategically deleterious effects on U.S. policy.

The video-did-it narrative gave Obama a political shield to deflect criticism of personally dear policies and achievements. It also gave the old community organizer a rhetorical cudgel to wield against intolerant, Muslim-despising bigots in America. Partisan Democrats connect those code words to bitter clingers — Republican rubes who cling to their guns and religion while waging war on women. Obama went with, then stayed with, the video narrative because he and his campaign advisers believed it was a foreign policy shield and domestic political sword.

Read the whole thing.

SAUCE: When The Gander Objects. Hey, people forget that every weapon can point both ways.

BET THE WHITE HOUSE ISN’T CELEBRATING THIS ANNIVERSARY! It’s been a whole year since the $1.6 billion MF Global bankruptcy debacle became public. You may remember that one as the occasion for MF Global’s chief, former Sen. Jon Corzine – President Obama’s BFF on Wall Street – to admit that he had no idea what happened to $1.6 billion of his customers’ money. Rep. Tim Huelskamp would like to know why no charges have been filed by Obama’s Attorney General against Corzine.

IS OBAMA’S BLUE-STATE FIREWALL, INCLUDING OHIO, HOLDING? Fox News’ online politics editor Chris Stirewalt was politics editor at The Washington Examiner before joining the Ailes Brigade. So I know first-hand how sharp he is at deciphering political strategies and tactics. His daily Power Play column is a must-read. Here’s a quote from today’s installment that ought to give pause to everybody who thinks a Romney landslide is taking shape:

“Like any good scary story, the tale of the churning electorate now has a strong element of suspense. Hurricane Sandy has made it harder to poll, and given the existing challenges nationally and in survey-saturated Ohio – cell phones, caller ID, voter fatigue, dishonest answers – we can only guess at what changes are currently taking place in the electorate.”

Read the rest … if you dare.

AMANDA GREEN HAS HAD ENOUGH: Color me skeptical.  For someone like me who doesn’t watch the main stream media this was a jaw-dropper.  Have they really gone that insane?  Don’t let them saddle us with a four year disaster because of a storm. Vote, volunteer and GOTV… as if your country depends on it.

CENTRALIZATION IS BAD FOR LIBERTIES AND OTHER INDIVIDUAL THINGS: Once-Rare Response Is Now Routine and Overused.

JOHN TAYLOR: An Introduction To Romneynomics.

MORNING AFTER REGRETS: Obama as the cheap date.

WELL, IT IS THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY: ‘Climb stairs’: Amputee to scale US skyscraper with thought-controlled bionic leg.

IS THE POPE CATHOLIC, DOES THE BEAR LACK FLUSH TOILETS: Voter Fraud: Will The Democrats Vote Early, and Often? [Video]

IN RESPONSE TO DAVID IGNATIUS’ BENGHAZI OPED that I linked earlier, Michael McConnell writes:

David Ignatius’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post is a sign that the news block-out in the mainstream media over what happened in Benghazi is starting to break. Finally, the self-appointed guardians of the public’s right to know are starting to ask questions. But Ignatius still fails to hone in on the most important issue. He says, rightly, that there might have been good reasons not to use our available military resources to “bomb targets in Libya that night” (as if that were the only military option). “Given the uproar in the Arab world,” as he says, “this might have been the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a burning fire.” (Failing to defend our people with all available resources might inspire even more attacks, a point Ignatius does not consider.) But he does not ask who reached that decision. The President has stated that “the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to.” If someone decided that potential repercussions in the Arab world outweighed the need to do “whatever we need to do” to “secure our personnel,” who made that decision? Did the Secretary of Defense countermand the President’s directive? Did the President rescind his own directive? Or — and I hate to ask such a distrustful question regarding the man who is our Commander in Chief — was such a directive ever actually given?

These are all questions that need to be answered. And for that matter, where the White House Press Corps is concerned, need to be asked.

UPDATE: In response to a reader query, this is the lawprof Michael McConnell.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN — with this spooky flashback to 2004.

WELL, THE CEO’S ATTACKS ON ROMNEY WON’T HELP THEM WITH THEIR U.S. CUSTOMER BASE: GM Profits Fall 12%. But they’re making money in South America!

Say, post-bailout, some wondered if GM’s transformation into an Obama subsidiary would lead hipsters to switch from foreign cars to Chevys. Hasn’t happened, as far as I can tell.

UPDATE: One of their traditional customer base, reader Tom Armstrong, writes: “I’ll be damned if I’ll ever buy another GM or Chrysler product- and I’ve had multiple Chevy’s and Mopars. I will buy something American made; probably a Toyota or BMW. I might consider Ford, but they’re UAW, and as far as I’m concerned, the UAW is the puppet master of the whole debacle.”

There seem to be a lot of people who feel this way, and siding with Obama here won’t help that. On the other hand, if you’re CEO of GM, Obama’s who you work for, so . . . .

I DON’T KNOW WHAT CAME OVER HIM: when someone as uninterested in politics as my husband writes political satire, it’s telling (either that or he lived too long with me.)  At any rate, O Llama and I is free on Amazon today.  Stick or Treat, also free today, is his more usual fare — even if Amazon did something funny to the cover.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: CalPERS Goes After Compton. “California’s pension crisis is metastasizing. Last week we noted that the California public pension fund CalPERS was at loggerheads with the city of San Bernardino, which was using its bankruptcy filing as grounds to default on its obligations. This week, CalPERS sued the city of Compton, which owes $2.6 million to the fund. One detects its desperation here. . . . Spin it as you like, but math wins in the end. California’s retirement numbers just don’t add up, and clinging grimly to failing policies and dying institutions is not the way forward. CalPERS can sue every city in California, but that won’t fix the pension crisis — and it won’t get the California economy on track for the kind of growth that would make the tradeoff between pensions and services a little less dire.”

Something that can’t go on forever, won’t. Debt that can’t be repaid, won’t be. Promises that can’t be kept, won’t be.