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.

AND THEY THINK THIS IS A GOOD AND PROPER THING: For campaigns’ traveling press corps, social media has changed way game is played.

VOTER FRAUD IN NORTH CAROLINA: Former Morrisville councilwoman faces voter fraud charge. Her defense: “I forgot.”

NO FEAR.  THERE’S NO REASON TO CAMPAIGN THERE: Rats To Invade NYC Streets?

NOT THE HEARTBREAK OF PEOPLE WITH HORRIBLE HAIR: Biden says Transgender discrimination is the civil rights issue of our time.  To be honest, it might be.  In his native world.

HOMELAND SECURITY MEETS OFFICE POLITICS.

There’s something inspiring about those mind-numbing tales of office politics. When the furor over the extremism report erupted, Homeland Security officials refused to defend the document, Johnson’s team was “left floundering day-to-day without any meaningful work to do,” and the department ended up adopting a new civil liberties and privacy review process. As far as Johnson is concerned, he’s telling a tale of spineless bureaucrats succumbing to political pressure and snuffing out his valuable efforts. But if you remove the filter of the author’s perspective, you’ll see that what Johnson calls political pressure could just as easily be seen as popular protest working. Offended citizens rose up; an unelected bureaucracy backed down; a lousy approach to tracking terror threats took a blow. All we needed was a leak, some public outrage, and the ass-covering instincts of the civil service. Take heart, civil libertarians: If they cowered once, they can cower again.

Make it so.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Sports.

Also, today only: Swann 4-Channel Security System, $199.95.

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Studies Find Cancer Comes In More Shades Than Pink.

Once again, we have suffered through a full month of pink, pink and more pink, all in the name of “breast cancer awareness.” What once was a health-related cause has become the feel-virtuous-and-buy-stuff season wedged between back-to-school and holiday gift giving.

Read the whole thing, which is actually more about science than marketing.

BOB KRUMM: Urban Legends In The Wake of the Storm:

“An ATR spokesman comments, ‘the photo you have is of a photocopy of a piece of mail we sent out in September. Someone is either trying to be cute or deliberately trying to mislead.”

It’s not even the same flyer. The background is the same, but the words in the alleged flyer apparently have been photoshopped over the real ATR advertisement.

If you chose to be skeptical, congratulations; you are well-suited to wading through our nation’s sometimes confusing political minefield. If not, as a consolation prize, perhaps you have employment options with the Houston Chronicle or MSNBC.

Urban legends, or outright political fraud? More like the latter.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT HALLOWEEN QUESTIONS: So Your Daughter Wants To Dress Like A Hooker. What Do You Do?

DAVID IGNATIUS IN THE WASHINGTON POST: Benghazi Questions Deserve Answers.

So what did happen in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11, when Woods, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two others Americans were killed? The best way to establish the facts would be a detailed, unclassified timeline of events; officials say they are preparing one, and that it may be released later this week. That’s a must, even in the volatile final week of the campaign. In the meantime, here’s a summary of some of the basic issues that need to be clarified. . . .

Looking back, it may indeed have been wise not to bomb targets in Libya that night. Given the uproar in the Arab world, this might have been the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a burning fire. But the anguish of Woods’s father is understandable: His son’s life might have been saved by a more aggressive response. The Obama administration needs to level with the country about why it made its decisions.

My sense from this, and the piece in the NYT yesterday, is that they’re trying for a modified limited hangout between now and the election. (Bumped).

UPDATE: Obama Met With Panetta and Biden at WH As Benghazi Terror Attack Unfolded.

NEW TONE: At Alan Grayson’s Hollywood Fundraiser, Rape Jokes Abound.

LIBERALS TO ROMNEY: Only We Can Politicize Hurricane Sandy.

UH OH: Jay Leno Brings Up Benghazi.

EARLY VOTING IN ATLANTA: Reader Shane Nichols writes: “At 8:00 am, it is 41 degrees (cold for Atlantans) and this is the line outside the Buckhead (in town) Public Library (it snakes inside, not sure how long it is). The guy behind me in line said that he stopped on his morning commute to vote today because this was the shortest he’d seen the line outside since early voting began.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Romney Pressures Obama By Expanding Electoral Map.

As the East Coast recoils from Hurricane Sandy, the political news is of new states suddenly inundated with presidential campaign ads. First Wisconsin, then Pennsylvania, more recently Minnesota. Ann Romney is campaigning in Michigan, Bill Clinton in Minnesota.

All these are states Barack Obama carried by 10 points or more in 2008. Why is the electoral map scrambled this year?

One reason, which I wrote about last week, is that Mitt Romney seems to be running better in affluent suburbs than other recent Republican nominees. That’s one reason he made big gains after the first debate in Florida and Virginia, target states where most votes are cast in relatively affluent suburban counties.

The tightening race in Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Obama carried by 16 and 10 points in 2008, seems to reflect a move toward Romney in the affluent suburbs surrounding Detroit and Philadelphia.

Read the whole thing. And note this:

Obama’s comparative advantage on war and peace issues seems to be gone. His campaign and his convention boasted constantly of how he ordered the attack on Osama bin Laden.

The murder of our ambassador and three other Americans in Libya and the apparent failure to respond to cries for rescue undercuts the Obama narrative that the Muslim world is peaceful and friendly now that he is president. Turmoil and chaos abroad do not work in favor of an incumbent president.

Indeed.

OPTIMISM: Dick Morris: Here Comes The Landslide.

Peter Ingemi: Ride Right Through Them, They’re Demoralized As Hell!

Michael Graham: My Prediction: Mitt Wins!

Me: It’s nice to see some confidence compared with last summer, but don’t get cocky, kids.