GALLUP: Romney 51, Obama 45.

UPDATE: Undecided former Obama voters overwhelmingly chose Romney after last night’s debate. “I was not undecided between Obama and Romney. I was undecided between Romney and not voting.”

UPDATE: Reader Paul Millazzo writes:

For what it’s worth: Obama is making an appearance today at Ohio University in Athens, in the rural, Southeastern corner of the state. The OU Democrats requested his appearance, and it’s being sold as the product of their elbow grease. But just observing the logistical nightmare involved in moving the POTUS around makes you realize that this trip isn’t happening because some scrappy young college Dems wished it so. Although this area of Appalachia is very poor and can trend conservative outside the city of Athens, generally speaking the district couldn’t lean more to the left unless they air-lifted reinforcements in from Madison or Ann Arbor. Seriously, the voters here are congenitally incapable of rejecting any ballot initiative that involves a tax levy. Republicans are curiosities; faculty Republicans (like me), endangered species. So it begs the question: just why is Obama going to the trouble of showing up? The last sitting president to do so was Lyndon Johnson in 1964, and he was launching the war on poverty at the time. One can only imagine what Chicago’s internal polling is telling them about the state of the race in Ohio (and/or among college-aged, suburban voters from Columbus and points north, who disproportionately attend the school), if they feel compelled to shore up this bastion of Great Society liberalism in the Valley That Time Forgot.

Interesting.

MEGAN MCARDLE: What Exactly Would Barack Obama Do With a Second Term? The president has done shockingly little to lay out his second term agenda. “I suspect that Obama’s advisors knew all this months ago, and just figured it was too difficult to come up with a second term agenda that was both plausible and novel. Of course, it’ll be even harder now.”

WHY SHOULD BRITISH VIEWERS TRUST THE BBC? First, bias by commission:

On Monday evening, the BBC altered its programme schedule to broadcast an hour-long tribute to an old man who had died aged 95, with fawning contributions from the likes of historian Simon Schama and Labour peer Melvyn Bragg.

* * * * * *

Eric Hobsbawm took part in one of the most extraordinary conversations ever on British television. Speaking in 1994 to the author Michael Ignatieff about the fall of the Berlin Wall five years earlier, the historian was asked how he felt about his earlier support for the Soviet Union.

If Communism had achieved its aims, but at the cost of, say, 15 to 20 million people – as opposed to the 100million it actually killed in Russia and China – would Hobsbawm have supported it? His answer was a single word: ‘Yes’.

(more…)

TRACY QUAN: Taken 2′s Bizarre Take On Sexual Politics.

WHEN I FIRST SAW THIS HEADLINE, I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT OBAMA, THE PRESS, AND THE DEBATE: Best Face Transplant Ever.

COL. HUNT SPEAKS: Col. Hunt On The Newest Libyan Revelations.  FIXED.  Sorry.

“During this six hours all these decision-makers are being updated by their staffs … these are constant video, written, digital, audio updates to the chain of command that did not function, that just seized up. … Pakistan blowing up a nuke, that, that was an intelligence failure.  9/11– big intelligence failure.  What happened in Benghazi is, was an operational leadership failure on an entire government chain of command that did not act and had six hours to do so and did nothing.” Col. Hunt to Howie Carr

[Do not listen if you have blood pressure issues.  The management of this site is not responsible for rage-induced heart attacks. — SAH]

SOME INTERESTING ANTI-OBAMA ADS RUNNING ON BET TV in Washington State and Ohio. At least, that’s what the email says. Anybody seen them there?

AS ROMNEY BEGINS TO REACH WOMEN, YOU CAN SMELL THE LIBERALS’ DESPERATION:  The 2d presidential debate continued to show a Mitt Romney who cares about, respects and will actually help the lives of women.  According to the latest polls, his message of economic hope and prosperity is resonating, cutting into Obama’s previous advantage among women.  Latest evidence of progressive/liberal desperation as a result of the Romney surge?  A completely inane suggestion, within lamestream media types, that Romney’s comments about asking for and receiving “binders full of women” applicants for top government jobs while he was Governor is somehow sexist or out of touch.  Okay, I’m sorry, but that’s just utterly stupid, wrong, and well, desperate.

Oh, and BTW:  A Ron Suskind book documents that women in the Obama White House is run like a good ol’ boys club, with women being treated “like a piece of meat.”  And female White House workers make an average of 18% less than their male counterparts.  So much for the Lilly Ledbetter Act.  But then again, facts never seem to stand in this President’s way.

SCOTT SHACKFORD: Obama Unironically Bashes Romney for Investing in Surveillance Company That Helps Government Spy on Citizens.

Much of last night’s debate prompted little more than eye rolls and sarcastic tweeting from me, but one comment from President Barack Obama did prompt me to actually open my mouth and mutter, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Only one?

DESPITE CANDY CROWLEY’S BEST EFFORTS: Obama needed debate blowout but didn’t get it.

UPDATE: Thanks, Candy Crowley. Now I Hate the Mainstream Media More than Ever. “Candy Crowley’s bias was more insidious. She chose the questions and the questioners. She let Obama’s towering ignorance on gas prices slip by unremarked. She corrected Mitt Romney with incorrect facts, allowing Obama to escape the most dangerous moment of the entire debate. She did what she could to tilt this debate in Obama’s favor without ever acknowledging that she was doing so. She knew what she was doing. . . . CBS ‘moderator’ Bob Schieffer, you’re on notice.”

MORE: Reader Steve Hartley writes: “The only thing the MSM ‘notices’ is the fact that there are no consequences whatsoever for their blatant, partisan support. As you’ve mentioned before, behavior that’s rewarded will continue, behavior with consequences won’t continue.” That’s true.

MSM VERSUS THEIR AUDIENCE: Press: Romney Loses Debate; Voters: Romney Wins Debate. “It’s hard not to notice a trend, here,” Rob Long writes at Ricochet. “Undecideds — or, to be more precise, soft Obama voters — are moving to Romney.”

WELL, YEAH, BUT WHO LISTENS TO JAY CARNEY? Jay Carney on 9/20: The White House “hadn’t” called Benghazi a “terrorist attack.”

JOURNALISM: Bizarre Coincidence: Democrats Get More Time in All Three Debates. It’s almost like the journalist-moderators play favorites here.

Related: “I can’t imagine how Crowley let this happen.” She didn’t let it happen, she made it happen.

Also: Mediaite: Candy Crowley’s Debate Moderation Exemplifies Why Americans Do Not Trust Their Media. “My singular take away moment of last night’s debate was one that elevated Crowley from moderator to debate participant. Crowley shot from the hip and echoed a talking point from the Obama campaign regarding their handling of the Libya attack to criticize Mitt Romney mid-debate. What’s more? She was wrong.”

Her goal was to blunt Mitt Romney’s successful criticism, and that’s what she did. She was acting as a Democratic Party operative with a byline, not as some sort of impartial “professional journalist,” which was no surprise.

UPDATE: Reader Dick Halferty writes: “I find it interesting that the 3 minute plus time allotted to POTUS Obama is approximately the time it took President Abraham Lincoln to make the Gettysburg address. Barry did not use his extra time that well.”

CROWLEY BACKTRACKS ON HER BACKTRACK: As Romney advisor John Sununu said on CNN this morning, “It’s always good to come on the groupie channel.”

RELATED: Crowley On September 30th: Administration Took Weeks To Admit Benghazi Might Be A Terrorist Attack.

A NOT-SO-MUCH-OF-THE-ABOVE ENERGY POLICY: Oil and gas leases, acres, and permits all down under Obama.

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, President Obama claimed, “Very little of what Governor Romney just said is true. We’ve opened up public lands. We’re actually drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration and the previous president was an oil man.” But here are the facts, according to the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land management.

In 2008 under President Bush, there were a total of 55,085 oil and gas leases in effect on federal land. In 2011 under Obama, there were just 49,174, a decrease of 11 percent.
In 2008 under Bush, there were 47.2 million acres of federal land under lease. In 2011 under Obama, there were just 38.5 million, a decrease of 19 percent.
In 2008 under Bush, the federal government approved 6,617 oil and gas permits. In 2011 under Obama, the federal government approved just 4,244 permits, a decrease of 36 percent.

The decrease in oil and gas leases, acres, and permits under Obama has led to a decrease in oil and gas production on federal land.

And thus to higher gas prices, and less energy independence.

IT’S OFFICIAL– CROWLEY INTERRUPTED ROMNEY 28 TIMES, OBAMA ONLY 9:  I told you so (see #6).  I’m no math whiz, but that’s more than 3x more interruptions of Romney than Obama.  Crowley a progressive shill?  You decide.

THE FOG MACHINE: Speaking of Fog.

ANY CRITERION BEYOND COMPETENCE WILL DO THIS:  Female quotas ‘negatively affect’ business, says minister. Quotas are also based on the flawed idea that individuals are fallible and have prejudices but a concatenation of politicians, bureaucrats and regulations is pure and has no ulterior motives.  If that sounds sane, carry on with  quotas.

PETER SUDERMAN: Obama Campaign Can’t Make Obama’s Deficit Math Add Up Either.

GREEN PARTY EXCLUDED, JAILED: Green Party candidate arrested outside debate site. “After being denied entrance to the campus because they lacked credentials, the two candidates sat down in the street in front of the university with an American flag on their laps, the Long Island Report explains. They were led away by police officers after refusing to move. Stein and Honkala objected to being excluded from the debate, saying they are on 85 percent of state ballots and should be part of the national discussion.”

Here’s some background on Jill Stein.

THEY KEEP USING THAT WORD: The Endless, Empty Refrain of ‘I Take Responsibility’  Hint — for adults responsibility comes with another word “consequences.”

BARRY RUBIN: The Murders in Libya, The Presidential Debate, and The Pattern of Obama Foreign Policy.

THEY’RE CALLED “DOODLES” FOR A REASON: JFK’s Doodles From a Meeting at the Height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

OVERRATED: China’s High-Speed Rail Boom Has Echoes of Great Leap Forward. “If this story were about irrigation projects and featured a different cast of characters it could have been published back in 1952. It has serious and scary echoes of the Great Leap Forward: the shoddy workmanship of huge construction projects, top officials pressuring lesser officials to get things done faster than humanly possible, workers cutting corners and using unsatisfactory materials to meet tight deadlines, pervasive bribery and ballooning budgets, leading to destruction and tragedy. There is one important difference between the July 23 rail crash and comparable disasters during the Great Leap Forward: the role played by the Chinese public in compelling Beijing to investigate the tragedy. Widespread anger about a blatant cover-up led officials to fire those responsible, slow trains to more reasonable speeds, issue new safety precautions, and review the entire high-speed rail network. The public outcry was so strong that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was forced to visit the site, where he vowed to continue the investigation and crack down on corruption.”