DAVID BROOKS AGONISTES: “It is fascinating to observe New York Times columnist David Brooks, like a fish on a hook, struggle and thrash, trying (perhaps) to break free of the Obama hook on which he first impaled himself in the 2008 campaign. One week he is throwing bouquets and the next he’s warning President Obama he is going to dump him. Aside from Brooks himself, a respected conservative pundit who has moved steadily left (no surprise) during his tenure at the New York Times, there are no doubt many upscale moderates who voted for Obama in 2008, can’t bring themselves to dislike the man but knows in their heart of hearts he’s been a poor president and has no idea what to do about the challenges that have only worsened during his term. Today, Brooks is back in break-up-with-Obama mode.”

YOU DIDN’T FILL THAT: #EMPTYSTADIUMDAY. Hey, who could have foreseen a chance of thunderstorms in North Carolina in the summer? Or a threat of lightning? So they had to move indoors. Unexpectedly!

UPDATE: Hey, wait a minute: “October 2008 in Pennsylvania: ‘A little bit of rain never hurt anybody’.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Kevin Hedges writes:

The Democrats should have no problem at all proving that Obama’s speech was moved indoors due to the weather and not due to poor turnout. All they need to do is point to the 50,000 convention-goers who would have attended the speech but now can’t. My guess is that most of them are from Milwaukee.

I must say, I have read your blog over the years for the variety of links, but I’m loving all the jokes lately. Granted, it’s the material, but still.

It’s a target-rich environment.

MORE: Limbaugh laughs.

THE BENEFITS OF MIDDLE-AGE FITNESS: “Being or becoming fit in middle age, the study found, even if you haven’t previously bothered with exercise, appears to reshape the landscape of aging. . . . Interestingly, the effects of fitness in this study statistically were greater in terms of delaying illness than in prolonging life. While those in the fittest group did tend to live longer than the least fit, perhaps more important was the fact that they were even more likely to live well during more of their older years.”

UPDATE: Reader Bart Hall emails: “Glenn, I know you also do some weight-lifting. I began Olympic lifting eleven years ago, at age 52, and at age 63 am not only back *up* to my playing weight as an athlete some 45 years ago, but have more energy and strength than in my 30s, when I was no slouch. It’s a huge surprise, and although it may not give me more years (my mother is now 95) they certainly will be better years, not least because we now have a one-year-old daughter at home. Better years, indeed.” Yes, this study was only on aerobic fitness. I think if they had included strength in their analysis, the results would have been even more significant. And a one-year-old daughter at 63? Mazel Tov!

And I should note that after incorporating some of Mark Rippetoe’s advice into my workouts, I’ve really seen the results. My fitness has gone all the way from “not bad, for a law professor” to “pretty good, for a law professor.”

Plus, getting back up to weight is a big deal. Losing fat is good, but many older people are under-muscled, and that’s not good.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ron Baakkonen emails about my Livestrong App recommendation: “I’ve been using the Livestrong app for about three months now (from your recommendation back in April and re-recommendation on May 30th). I’m down 30 lbs since then and feel like I’ve really turned a corner health wise. My doctor tells me he sees improvements in my glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol, body weight, and body fat. My wife tells she has seen improvements in, er, other areas. So, . . . thanks for that.”

Glad to help! Yeah, there are probably better ones out there — I just picked this because a friend’s wife had spectacular results with it — but anything that tracks calories and exercise is good.

MY LITTLE CRONIES: Key Solyndra figures get red carpet treatment at Democratic convention?

SO, ON MY KINDLE SHOWS UP S.M. STIRLING’S NEW NOVEL, Lord of Mountains. But I couldn’t get to it yesterday because I was finishing an advance copy of Lois McMaster Bujold’s new novel. Yeah, life’s not bad.

FRANK J. FLEMING: America Is Letting Obama Down. “The first term of the Obama administration has been a complete failure — a complete failure of Americans to deserve the great president they elected.”

ANNALS OF THE OBVIOUS: Politico’s VandeHei: ‘Mainstream media tends to be quite smitten with the Obamas.’

Related: Likability isn’t what it is cracked up to be. “After a period in which Democrats were harping on Todd Akin and making ham-handed appeals to women, Obama is faltering with a group that is usually an easy get for Democrats.” But not as easy as “mainstream media.” That’s not a “get,” it’s a “gimme.”

UPDATE: Ann Althouse: Michelle Obama’s DNC speech made us think about her speech pleading for the 2016 Olympics in Chicago. “As in her speech last night, there’s a misplaced emotionality that’s too much about her family’s personal need for gratification.”

WELL, GOOD: An Anti-Anti-Semitism Rally in Berlin. “Germans are donning yarmulkes and taking to the streets to protest a vicious anti-Semitic attack on a rabbi earlier this week.”

ROGER SIMON CHANNELS BILL CLINTON: Inside Bubba’s Brain — As He Writes His Convention Speech.

BACK-TO-SCHOOL COMMERCIALS PEDDLING NOSTALGIA? Forget those sunlit scenes of happy children playing outdoors. Too many students are deprived of outdoor time — and their minds and bodies both pay the price.

Yeah, but if you let your kids play outdoors, they’re sure to be snatched by pedophiles or eaten by velociraptors or something.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on select clothing — for men and women.

Also, today only: Dirt Devil AccuCharge 15.6-Volt Cordless Hand Vac, $29.99.

REASON TV: The Machine: The Truth Behind Teachers Unions.

MCJOBS: Gen Y most likely to hold low-paying jobs in retail. “The most common jobs held by Gen Y are merchandise displayer and sales representative, which they are about five times more likely to hold vs. all workers, shows a PayScale analysis of about 500,000 profiles submitted to the company in the past year by Millennials ages 19-30. Those jobs are also among the lowest paid.”

POINTS AND FIGURES: Obama And Hard Choices. “Last night, the Democratic convention kicked off. They talked a lot about the choices that Obama made. I thought about those choices. Obama always takes the easy way out, makes the easy choice.”

OBAMA’S SPEECH IN ONE BUMPER STICKER: “I’ll Spend Your Money Better Than You!”

POLITICO: Bill Clinton’s 8 Digs At Obama.

YOU KNOW, I’M BEGINNING TO THINK WE WERE BETTER OFF FOUR YEARS AGO: Another Dismal Assessment of Obamanomics: United States Drops to 7th in WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index. Well, crony capitalism tends not to be very competitive.

UPDATE: Related: Obama’s (Un)American Auto Bailout.

ROLL CALL: GOP May Seek Vote on Welfare Waiver Proposal. “Charging President Barack Obama with seeking to roll back work requirements for an aid program for low-income people, Congressional Republicans may seek a vote that would repeal a White House move designed to give states more flexibility in implementing the program. . . . Hatch’s comments come after the Government Accountability Office said the Department of Health and Human Services’ announcement that states could seek waivers from certain compliance requirements under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program was subject to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to keep agency rules from taking effect. Such a resolution cannot be filibustered and needs only a simple majority in the Senate to pass if acted on during a 60-day window.”

CONN CARROLL: What was the biggest Democratic disaster from day one? I’d have to say it was when the debt crossed the $16 Trillion mark.

But the “Government Is The Only Thing We All Belong To” video was pretty bad. And it set up this Romney response: “We don’t belong to government, the government belongs to us.” But there are more options at the link. . . .

ED MORRISSEY: President Obama Is Running Scared From the “Reagan Metric.” With good reason. “‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ seems like a simple question. But for Team Obama, it’s clearly terrifying.” It’s terrifying because it’s clarifying.

And I guess that explains this:

WHY, EXACTLY, is the Department of Justice regulating defibrillator choices? “And patients, expect to hear some more strange rules as to why you can’t that defibrillator even though your doctor says, based on evidenced-based medicine, you need it, okay? This is the way things are likely to be from now on it seems.”

FOUR YEARS AGO IS LOOKING PRETTY GOOD: Investor’s Business Daily: Better Off? Let’s Count the Ways We’re Not.

By most measures the country isn’t making slow progress; it’s falling further behind. Some examples:

• Median incomes: These have fallen 7.3% since Obama took office, which translates into an average of $4,000. Since the so-called recovery started, median incomes continued to fall, dropping $2,544, or 4.8%.

• Long-term unemployed: More than three years into Obama’s recovery, 811,000 more still fall into this category than when the recession ended.

• Poverty: The poverty rate climbed to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% in 2009, and economists think it may have hit 15.7% last year, highest since the 1960s.

• Food stamps: There are 11.8 million more people on food stamps since Obama’s recovery started.

• Disability: More than 1 million workers have been added to Social Security’s disability program in the last three years.

• Gas prices: A gallon of gas cost $1.89 when Obama was sworn in. By June 2009, the price was $2.70. Today, it’s $3.84.

• Misery Index: When Obama took office, the combination of unemployment and inflation stood at 7.83. Today it’s 9.71.

• Union membership: Even unions are worse off under Obama, with membership dropping half a million between 2009 and 2011.

• Debt: Everyone is far worse off if you just look at the national debt. It has climbed more than $5 trillion under Obama, crossing $16 trillion for the first time on Tuesday and driving the U.S. credit rating down.

Ironically, the only people better off under Obama are corporate chieftains, who’ve seen corporate profits climb more than 50% under Obama’s “recovery,” and investors, who’ve benefited from a near-doubling in the Dow industrials from its March 2009 lows.

Given this record, we can only hope Obama doesn’t have the chance to get a “complete” on his plans.

Indeed. Oh, what the hell, let’s run that graphic again:

DICK DURBIN NEVER FAILS TO AMUSE: Outraged Sen. Durbin refuses to explain why God was taken out of Democratic platform.

FACT-CHECKING AS LIES AND SPIN: James Taranto on the “Pinocchio Press.” “The partisan fault-finding directed against Republicans is accompanied by partisan excuse-making for Democrats. . . . One gets a sense of desperation from both the Democrats, who are trying to re-elect a president with a lousy record, and the MSM, who are trying to restore the authority they enjoyed when they aspired to objectivity, or at least pretended convincingly to do so. Obama may yet eke out an ugly victory, but the decline of the MSM’s authority seems inexorable.”

Obama hasn’t accomplished the things he promised, but his presidency certainly has been clarifying.