VOLUNTARY UNDERBUSSING: State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, regarding the murder of Ambassador Stevens: “Look, I’m generally dumber than most of the rest of the government. I mean, that’s what I’m paid to be.”

Gee, that’s reassuring. On the other, it brings to mind one of Mark Steyn’s favorite riffs:

When the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dumped some of his closest cabinet colleagues to extricate himself from a political crisis, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe responded: “Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life.”

Or as Steyn writes in his column today:

Liberals are always going on about the evils of “outsourcing” and “offshoring” – selfish vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney shipping jobs to cheap labor overseas just to save a few bucks. How unpatriotic can you get! So now the United States government is outsourcing embassy security to cheap Welshmen who, in turn, outsource it to cheaper Libyans. Diplomatic facilities are U.S. sovereign territory – no different de jure from Fifth Avenue or Mount Rushmore. So defending them is one of the core responsibilities of the state. But that’s the funny thing about Big Government: the bigger it gets, the more of life it swallows up, the worse it gets at those very few things it’s supposed to be doing. So, on the first anniversary of 9/11 in a post-revolutionary city in which Western diplomats had been steadily targeted over the previous six months, the government of the supposedly most powerful nation on Earth entrusted its security to Abdulaziz Majbari, 29, and his pal, who report to some bloke back in Carmarthen, Wales. In the days before the attack, Joe Biden had been peddling his Obama campaign slogan that: “Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.” The first successful terrorist attack on U.S. sovereign territory since 9/11, and on the very anniversary and by al-Qaida-linked killers, was not helpful to the Obama team. And so the nature of the event had to be “politicized”: Look, over there – an Islamophobic movie! “Greater love hath no man than this,” quoth the President at Chris Stevens’ coffin, “that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Smaller love hath no man than Obama’s, than to lay down his “friend” for a couple of points in Ohio.

Currently on tap: where to outsource the aftermath of the Libya debacle.

DR. STRANGELAUGH: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Iranian Bomb.

Wait, I thought “Science” “Czar” John Holdren was the Dr. Strangelove in this administration.

UPDATE: More Kubrickian analogies: “Krauthammer: ‘Biden’s Debate Prep Was Watching The Shining’ – ‘Excellent Imitation of Jack Nicholson.'”

CHANGE: Washington Post-owned Newsweek in February of 2009, at the apex of Hopenchange: “We Are All Socialists Now.”

Washington Post today, at the perigee of Hopenchange: “Democrats are in the center of ‘polarized’ U.S.”

If so, why are they so paranoid?

(Besides, I thought Obama was a conservative — head JournoLista Ezra Klein said so himself, in the Washington Post last year. Shouldn’t the Post want a more centrist sort of president such at Mitt Romney to fit their own worldview?)

AN “URGENT INVESTIGATION” into how solar storms can disrupt satellite navigation.

PRAGER UNIVERSITY: Do You Have Free Will?

THIS IS WHAT KEEPS ROMNEY UP NIGHTS – VICE PRESIDENT JOEY GIGGLES WINS OBAMA’S SECOND TERM: Only in an alternative universe, you say? I learned long ago to listen closely when Philip Klein talks.

A FRENCH COMPLAINT ABOUT “THE TALIBANS OF AUSTERITY” inspires some thoughts by Theodore Dalrymple. “In the professor’s usage the dictionary meaning of the word austerity is but his connotation; his denotation is the attempt, by means either of increased taxation or reduced expenditure (especially the latter, of course) to balance government budgets. . . . But to call the attempt to balance a budget ‘austerity,’ in other words to say living within your means implies ‘rigorous abstinence, asceticism,’ a kind of killjoy puritanism, is to suggest that it is both honest, just and decent to do otherwise. And this is indicative of a revolution in our sensibilities. In fact, it is grossly dishonorable to live beyond your means, at least when you transfer to the cost to others, as is inevitable when borrowing becomes an entire, chronic way of life – as it has in many countries.”

OUCH: Rudy Giuliani: Libya is a ‘teaching moment,’ because ‘Obama will be teaching next year.’

BEST. CORRECTION. EVER: Fact-checker at ‘the most accurate magazine in America’ gets a few things wrong.

PUTTING THE PARTY BACK INTO THE GOP: Tawny Kitaen digs Paul Ryan, Lindsay Lohan endorses Mitt Romney.

And that’s on top of Stacey Dash’s endorsement of Romney last week.

UPDATE: “Chicks Dig Mitt!” Stacy McCain proclaims.

And/or they’re repulsed by the blatant misogyny of his opponent.

BLAME GAME: As Benghazi blame nears Hillary, Clintons grow furious. “With tensions between President Obama and the Clintons at a new high, former President Bill Clinton is moving fast to develop a contingency plan for how his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, should react if Obama attempts to tie the Benghazi fiasco around her neck, according to author Ed Klein. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, Klein said sources close to the Clintons tell him that Bill Clinton has assembled an informal legal team to discuss how the Secretary of State should deal with the issue of being blamed for not preventing the Benghazi terrorist attack last month.”

HOW BLIND PEOPLE picture reality.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: New tone? Despicable lefties fantasize about ‘hate f**king’ Paul Ryan.

For an ideology whose buzzwords are peace, tolerance, diversity and coexistence, the left sure seems rather “unexpectedly” obsessed with “hate f***ing” its enemies, doesn’t it?

YOUR DOG WANTS STEAK: Asking the important questions: What Your Dog Is Thinking.

(Headline via a popular Fark meme.)

PERSONALLY, I BAILED AFTER THE FRANK McGEE ERA: Where Have ‘Today’ Show Viewers Gone?

POLITICAL APPOINTEES DO WHAT POLITICAL APPOINTEES DO: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich explains in no uncertain terms to CBS’s Nora O’Donnell, Charlie Rose and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm the facts of life about why a politically appointed spy chief like James Clapper would bob and weave to protect his boss in the Oval Office. I’m no Newt acolyte but the man can be devastating, as is seen in this clip from Right Scoop.

KAUS: Obama’s got drama now.

Will Hillary now shiv Obama back + leak that WH knew? Getting interesting! HRC v BHO/HRC v Joe. Will WJC keep stumping? dailycaller.com/2012/10/12/whi…

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) October 12, 2012

UPDATE: Allahpundit asks, “Is the White House throwing Hillary under the bus on the Benghazi attack?”

VICE PRESIDENT TOMMY UDO: Kiss of Death: The Democrats were right about that wheelchair thing; they just had the wrong guy pushing it, Michael Walsh writes.

HOW BADLY DID BIDEN BLOW IT LAST NIGHT? As Glenn mentioned earlier, Tom Brokaw attacked Biden’s performance last night, commenting that “Biden ‘Shouldn’t Be Laughing’ When Discussing Nuclear War,” as John Nolte writes at Big Journalism.

Recall that right around this time in 2004, Brokaw was defending Dan Rather over RatherGate. Given those standards, if you’ve lost Tom Brokaw…

RELATED: Kruiser Control: When You’ve Lost Matt Lauer…

GALLERY: Failed “Sexy” Halloween Costumes.

WHY DEMS LOVED BIDEN’S BOORISH BEHAVIOR: Commentary’s Jonathan S. Tobin writes:

The problem here is not just that presidents and would-be commanders-in-chief must appear presidential. It is that the liberal base of the president’s party is so filled with anger and contempt for Republicans that they can’t abide even a show of civility from their champions.

Though President Obama may decide to show up and demonstrate a bit more involvement and passion in the upcoming debates, he is unlikely to satisfy his supporters’ need to bash the GOP. Though liberals are saying Biden has stopped the bleeding begun last week in Denver, the president’s failure to misbehave in the same manner is bound to raise the same complaints next week.

The veep is generally hired to be the snarling attack dog (See also: LBJ, Agnew, Gore, Cheney and now Biden), to allow the president to appear, well, presidential in comparison. On the other hand, as Kyle Smith of the New York Post writes, “If Obama thinks he’s going to turn the tables by being a colossal jerk in the next debate, well….I certainly hope that’s what he’s thinking, and I do believe he is.”

AT AMAZON, it’s the Kindle Daily Deal.

WHY DID PAUL RYAN DRINK SO MUCH WATER DURING THE DEBATE? Meanwhile, I never saw Biden drink water, and at the first debate, I never saw either Obama or Romney drink water. I made this poll.

COLD WAR HISTORY: HMS Conqueror’s biggest secret: a raid on Russia. “The submarine that sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands war was involved in a much more daring and dangerous Cold War operation only weeks later.”

HOW MANY SANDWICHES COULD YOU MAKE FROM A TUNA THAT SIZE:  Giant eyeball found on beach, posing mystery for marine biologists.