It's officially the easy lay-up autopilot content for left-wing on-line writers today.

The herd of independent minds, huh?

My favorite of these very similar pieces (and all very similar to observations I and others on the right have been making forever) is from some dullwit at the Atlantic, who claims that Obama now hates his job because his big warm heart can't take all the death and war that comes with the job.

I said it after the convention speech and I'll say it again: If there's something that seems shut down in our once ebulliently optimistic president, it most likely has to do with the wars. Obama is a naturally empathic individual, whose diverse, mobile, international background made him unusually able when it came to assessing new social situations and reading more than people say...

A person of his temperament cannot maintain the same open demeanor when he's dealing with war and death all the time. As, we must recall, Obama has been for years now. If Obama seems shut down, perhaps it is because he has to be to be who he is and do the job he needs to do day in and day out. If his heart didn't seem in it last night, I wonder if it's not in part because the last thing he needs to consider in his work on a day-to-day basis is his heart. It's a long way from being a community organizer, civil-rights lawyer and anti-war state senator to running a drone war that kills innocent civilians, ordering the death of militants, overseeing a policy that's led to an increase in American casualties in Afghanistan, and delivering funereal remarks at a ceremony honoring the returning remains of a slain American diplomat.

Yes, when Obama came bounding out to the podium to brag he'd ordered the killing of Osama bin Ladin, I could see from his visibly bulging erection that he was a deeply empathetic man who cannot abide taking human life.

I could also see, from his palpable glee when cracking jokes at the Press Correspondent's Dinner just minutes after having ordered the strike, that his giddy zingers and How You Like Me Now? demeanor was all just a brave face to mask something deeper, something akin to... regret? Fellow-feeling for all human life?

A jones for murder?

Something.

But I'm sure it's the "compassion" thing, Garance.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:43 PM | Comments (349)
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Stewart's biography, Yes, I'm As Gay As The Day Is Long, hits bookstores this month.

I like chapter 7: "And that Stomach-Pump Story Was True, Too."

Posted by: Ace at 02:12 PM | Comments (121)
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@benhowe notes the silly stunt by the babbling, incoherent old man Clint Eastwood seems to have... resonated in the public consciousness precisely as he intended it to.

Almost as if a celebrated story-teller and "movie tradesman" knew something about visuals and metaphor and narrative or something!

Posted by: Ace at 01:34 PM | Comments (289)
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Political Reporting, Buzzfeed style, or, as @benk84 calls it, "The Chive With Politics."

@ZekeJMiller

Romney motorcade just passed a hill flying a large confederate flag in rural SW VA

Ah. His motorcade just passed a hill flying a confederate flag. Numinous. Sets the stage. Novelistic detail, we call that. The single well-chosen telling detail that implies larger ones.

That's the local color he supplies for Romney.

And for Obama?

Pool: Obama insisted on taking a photograph in front of the sign that read "Michelle's Bakery."

Obama per pool: " And she spells it the right way, with two Ls. ThatÂ’s the correct way"

Pool: "Potus seemed enamored by the shop's name. "It is no coincidence that IÂ’m stopping at MichelleÂ’s bakery," "

Awww. Obama loves his wife so much he seeks out baked goods bearing her name.

Meanwhile Romney's motorcade has its GPS set to KLAN MODE, taking sketchy back-routes and by-ways once used by Quantrill's Raiders.

Top Ten Coming Buzzfeed Scoops From Zeke J. Miller, Boy Partisan

10. MULTIPLE ROMNEY VEHICLES SPOTTED IN STATES OF THE OLD CONFEDERACY

9. ROMNEY SUV MAY HAVE KLAN SYMPATHIES, SALT CORROSION

8. CONTROVERSY SWIRLS: MAIN ROMNEY MOTORCADE VEHICLE, NOW DUBBED "THE GENERAL LEE," REFUSES COMMENT

7. Analysis: If Tennessee Declared War on The United States, Whose Side Would Romney's SUV Fight For?

6. Source: Romney SUV Once Participated in Civil War Reenactment, Portraying a Toolshed

5. ROMNEY CONFEDERAMOBILE, "THE GENERAL LEE," SEEN IN VICINITY OF CIVIL WAR GRAVEYARD, ARBY'S

4. SECOND ACCUSED ROMNEY SUV, DUBBED "THE BULL CONNOR," SPOTTED AT SKETCHY RIB SHACK

3. Number of Vehicles in Romney Motorcade, 11, May Be Secret Reference to the Number of States in the Confederacy

2. ROMNEY MOTORCADE, CALLED BY ONE OFFICE-MATE A "ROLLING RACE RIOT WITH FENDERS," NOW HURTLING TOWARDS WASHINGTON, DC FOR WHAT IS ALMOST SURELY A SUICIDAL LAST-STAND CONFEDERATE-VENGEANCE BLOOD-ORGY

...and the Number One scoop coming from very objective BuzzFeed blogger Zeke J. Miller...

1. * Update: Due to an error beyond BuzzFeed's control, it turns out it wasn't Romney's motorcade at all. It was a funeral procession.

Posted by: Ace at 12:48 PM | Comments (267)
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The media is big on "control," isn't it? They always want one of their own subtly guiding things.

Jim Lehrer has a few words in response to those who thought he let President Obama and Mitt Romney ramble on and roll over him in WednesdayÂ’s presidential debate:

“So what?”

...

Q: People could see that they talked over you and went past the time limits that you were trying to enforce. What was your reaction as that was happening?

A: It was frustrating as it began happening, when they didnÂ’t answer the questions directly and they went over time. But I kept reminding myself: “Hey, wait a minute. Waaait a minute. This isnÂ’t about rules. This is about the reality of the exchange of the two candidates.” So I just backed off. . . . I had no problem doing that. Yes, there were times when I pushed them, and sometimes they ran over and ignored me and all that sort of stuff. So what? I mean, it isnÂ’t about my power, my control or whatever. It was about what the candidates were doing, what they were talking about and what impression they were leaving with the voters. ThatÂ’s what this is about. ItÂ’s not about how I felt about things.

There were several minutes in the middle of the debate where I just backed off and they just talked. And I thought those were the magic moments.

We understand why the media insists it must have "a firmer hand on the till," as one critic insisted: Just as that metaphor suggests, they wish to guide the vessel safely to port.

I hate moderators and I love Jim Lehrer's version of it. Here's how the media cheats: There are some questions which Obama can't bring up, but would like asked of Mitt Romney. Culture war type questions -- they hurt liberals, too.

Obama can't bring up contraception as a question for Romney. Because doing so hurts Obama. A lot of swing-vote Catholics are not happy with his mandate.

But if a "neutral third party" badgers Romney about it, while not mentioning it to Obama... best of both worlds for the liberal cause: Romney gets hit with a swing issue that might lose him some voters, but Obama doesn't lose any of his voters over the same wedge issue.

And that's what they mean by control.

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (181)
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If only that decolletage was Libyan Intelligence reports.

I got it from DListed.

Posted by: Ace at 10:52 AM | Comments (409)
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Ed notes there are two employment surveys each month: One of businesses (in which 410,000 businesses report) and a large phone survey of households (in which 60,000 homes are called).

The latter survey is much more volatile than the first. It tends to have lots of noise in it, and big swings. But even so, this big spike is notable for being bigger than recent swings (see chart at bottom).

It's this last survey that informs the actual unemployment figure. The first number, the payroll survey, tells us the net job creation in a month.

Now, according to the household survey, 873,000 jobs were created last month. Very close to one million jobs. That's not unprecedented; it happened last in 1983.

Only thing is, when that happened in 1983, that was in the first blast of the Reagan boom, and the country's Gross Domestic Product was growing at a blistering 9.3% rate.

Current rate of GDP growth? Something like 1.3%.

Jumps almost as big as this one (but not quite) have happened when the GDP growth rate was 5% or so.

But at the 1.3% level? At this level of economic growth -- not even enough to keep up with population growth-- what exactly would be driving the employment train?

If anyone's too young too know, let me explain to you what a 1983 economy feels like: It feels like the movie Wall Street. As Adam Carolla says, "pre-AIDS, mid-coke." Poppy music on the Blaupunkt. People buy plastic watches to wear on their ankles and in their hair. The world is your Cinnabon's.

It's the kind of economy where you sort of have some leverage with your boss because the economy's so hot that labor is a seller's, not buyer's market.

Not just for good jobs. For crap jobs too. A sizzling economy makes a lot of crap jobs. So you can quit your job and have a pretty good idea you'll have a new one in a couple of weeks.

Is that the way the third quarter of 2012 feels to people?

So. You can buy that this number is real, and we all just missed the signs of a 9.3% growth spurt, or you can wonder if maybe this isn't just an "implausible statistical quirk," as one analyst calls it. Every poll -- and that's what the household survey is, a big poll -- is subject for the occasional outside-the-MoE error.

You don't even have to think Obama cooked the books (though Jay Cost reminds that that does happen) to look at the number with suspicion.

The economy simply did not add 873,000 jobs last month. It simply did not. The payroll survey says it added a mere 114,000.

There is absolutely no confirmatory data suggesting that the 873,000 number is right and the 114,000 number is wrong. As one guy asked on Twitter -- did payroll taxes jump up past month?

It's either a lucky outlier for Obama -- or luck had nothing to do with it -- but it doesn't represent current economic conditions.

If Obama and Solis really believed the economy grew 873,000 jobs, why aren't they celebrating that? Why aren't they bragging about it? Why aren't they doubting the 114,000 figure, and noting the 700,000 in undercounted jobs they should be getting credit for?

Answer: Because they know it's ridiculous.

Gallup Does Its Own Poll... And they didn't find a big drop in unemployment. They found the unemployment remaining at 8.1% (seasonally adjusted).

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 AM | Comments (295)
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Bumped by Ace. This is a big story today, but DrewM actually hit it last night. I just want to make sure everyone sees it.

...

Alternate title...Stephanie Cutter is really, really bad at her job.

Last night Obama kept hammering Romney about "A 5 trillion dollar tax cut" and when Romney said, no that's not my plan, Obama attacked saying Romney's one "Big bold idea is never mind"

Amazingly CNN fact checked the claim and called BS on Obama's strawman. Tonight Stephanie Cutter agreed with them.

As I wrote earlier, this whole argument gives liberals fits.

Good for CNN for catching on but plenty of other outlets are still running with this idea and that Romney hasn't laid out enough specifics about how he'll "pay for" the tax rate reduction to make it revenue neutral.

Most of Obama’s and the Democratic Machine Media (DMM) frustration with Romney’s supposed lack of “specifics” is simply based on their underlying disagreement with his philosophical approach. Obama latched on to the idea that Romney wants a $5 trillion tax cut which would lead to an equal sized hole in the federal budget. What Romney is proposing is a cut in tax rates that will be paired with decreases in deductions, credits, etc and economic growth to match the “lost” revenue. Liberals simply don’t credit this idea as real and therefore dismiss it. They insist that only their definitions and expectations about how the economy works are “real” and anything else is simply fantasy.

That is an argument only voters can decide not DMM figure citing the supposedly “non-partisan” Tax Policy Center (which is a joint venture of two liberal organizations, the Brookings Instiution and the Urban Institute).

Last night Romney laid out his case for his side of that argument without accepting ObamaÂ’s or the DMMÂ’s terms. That is what has outraged them so much.

But don't worry! Joe Biden will save them!

Relatedish: Romney and Ryan had a big rally in Virginia tonight. Mitt got the NRA endorsement in front of a huge crowd. I remember when the DMM cared about crowd size.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:16 AM | Comments (241)
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The mystery of the Cheat Hanky.

A Romney spokeswoman says it was a handkerchief, but the Internet isn't buying it. A video circulated on Friday showing Romney pulling an item out of his pocket and putting it on the podium before the debate. The liberal blogosphere immediately suggested he had prepared notes for the debate...

During the debate, he used the so-called "handkerchief" as a... handkerchief.

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (223)
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...unless we stop them November 6th.

Win in November and that’s the game. Between the compliant, incurious and obsequious press, a cadre of fully-established-and-in-place White House Czars, continual “flick of the wrist, law of the land” Executive Orders, a noodle-spined congress, a senate controlled by a man who feels no compunction about stopping any-and-all-legislation not completely to his liking, and a couple more Supreme Court Justices?

“Hey, transmit to Vladimir (and Chavez, and Ahmadinejad and who-all else) that if they can just wait until after the election — then I can do as I damn please. I’ve got the precedents. I’ve got the tools, I’ve got the talent; I’ve got the drones, foreign and domestic.

And I’ll never have to answer to the press, the congress or the American people, again.”

Basically, all they have to do is grit their teeth, hold on and — with the help of their mainstream pals — plow through any pesky, irritating Benghazi resistance. If they emerge victorious in November? The world is their oyster, with an R in every month.

...

A kind of coup d’ Etat? But, of course. Some of us described how it would go down ‘way back in 2005.

I find myself thinking this way a lot.

Posted by: Ace at 08:39 AM | Comments (164)
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