NOISE.

Just when you find the perfect presidential candidate, you find he’s foreign born!

THE DEATH OF THE GROWN-UP: “Someday, someone is going to seek the presidency by demystifying it,” George Will writes. “Many voters will be astonished by, and even be grateful for, the novelty of being addressed as adults.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Suicide is now the leading cause of injury-related death in America, and the economy may be to blame.

THE GREAT EQUIVOCATOR: “I think that, you know, as president I bear responsibility for everything, to some degree,” Obama told CBS’s Sixty Minutes on Sunday night.

In much the same way, presumably that, as Mr. Obama said in early 2009, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

RELATED:  “CBS Doesn’t Air Obama Admitting Mistakes in Campaign Ads;” relegated to Internet out-takes.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Ohio State Head Spends $7.7M to Travel, Entertain.

THE FLESHLIGHT TAILOR-MADE FOR THOMAS FRIEDMAN’S MANSION.

Skewed and Unskewed Polls.

PUPPIES FOR OBAMA: It’s a bumper sticker…and a cookbook! (Probably a darn good floor polish/dessert topping, to boot.)

REPORT: Fort Hood Shooter Nidal Hasan In ICU. Well, a death from natural causes would certainly be more convenient than a trial, which would be embarrassing for a lot of people. But so far, the report is unconfirmed.

GEORGE WILL ON MIA LOVE. “Aspecter is haunting the Congressional Black Caucus, the specter of integration. It is discomforting enough that the caucus has included a Republican among its 43 members since 2011, when Florida’s Allen West became the first Republican to join since 1997. South Carolina’s Tim Scott, an African American, also came to Congress in 2011 but declined to join the CBC. And soon a second might move in. There goes the neighborhood.”

ROMNEY’S “TERRIBLE WEEK” JUST KEEPS GETTING WORSE: Obama, Romney Now In Statistical Dead Heat in Pennsylvania.

He’s had four years. Why can’t Obama close the deal?

Oh, yeah. Those four years.

“IT’S A CATASTROPHIC INTELLIGENCE LOSS . . . WE GOT OUR EYES POKED OUT:” Deadly Attack in Libya Was Major Blow to C.I.A. Efforts.

AT AMAZON: Markdowns on Bedding.

THE VIDEO MADE THEM DO IT– JUST KIDDING!  Stephen Hayes over at the Weekly Standard hits the nail on the head, asserting that for over a week the Obama Administration insisted the attacks on American installations were “spontaneous” outbursts against a stupid Mohammed video on YouTube.  He concludes:

So we are left with this: Four Americans were killed in a premeditated terrorist attack on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, and for more than a week the Obama administration misled the country about what happened.

This isn’t just a problem. It’s a scandal.

Yet unsurprisingly, the bulk of the lamestream media doesn’t seem to care.

“OBAMA IS NOT A FOREIGN BORN SOCIALIST GIVING AWAY FREE HEALTH CARE. That would be Jesus.”

Just one of the many bumper stickers of Madison, Wisconsin. (Enlarge to read text.)

AFTER THE MOB ATTACKS, Some Questions For President Obama. That the press is unlikely to ask, at least until after the election. . . .

THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Vaccine Protests And The Return of Whooping Cough.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Obama Campaign’s Flag Poster No Longer Appears In Store.

Looking at the above juxtaposition, I can’t understand at all why they’d pull that from the shelves. But then, pages have a tendency to disappear themselves from Obama Websites at purely random intervals for no apparent reason at all.

POPCORN LUNG???? REALLY????  Apparently so.  A jury in Colorado late last week awarded a staggering $7.2 million against a microwave popcorn manufacturer and grocery store, as remedy for “popcorn lung“–a rare bronchial lung disease apparently caused by inhaling that yummy fake butter smell.  Guess it’s time to break out the old pan and oil again and do it the old fashioned way.  Real butter is better anyway!

BIPARTISAN CONSENSUS ACHIEVED AT LAST: Bill Maher and Jonah Goldberg each question the MSM’s obsession with  undecided voters in the last month of the presidential election.

GREECE: The Thatcher Rule begins to kick in.

I THOUGHT THIS ONLY HAPPENED TO CHICAGO MACHINE HACKS ON ELECTION DAY: “Media Put 18,000 in Not-Quite-Full 5,000-Seat Arena for Obama in Wisconsin.”

HISTORY: Tom Hanks, other celebs, Californians tweet live pics of space shuttle Endeavour’s last ride.

THE TRAGIC UNTRUSTWORTHINESS of “human lie detectors.”

CAMPUS CARRY UPDATE: Debate on concealed weapons at college campuses heats up at Georgia Tech. “For the past two years, dozens of states have debated allowing college students to carry concealed weapons on campus. The issue is heating up in the Peach State where Georgia Tech students say an uptick of campus violence, has made them uneasy. Some want the right to carry concealed weapons on campus.”

Related: Push to Let College Students Carry Guns Picks Up Steam: Public Campuses in Five States Permit Practice in Wake of Virginia Tech Killings. (Via The Gun Wire.)

A WOMAN OF PARTS: Florence King reviews Naomi Wolf’s Vagina: A New Biography:

All this is not to say that Wolf’s book is entirely worthless. In fact, one section of it is priceless: the story of her experience with the Tantra man. Tantra is a system of vaginal healing wherein sympathetic male practitioners restore traumatized vaginas by gazing lovingly into them, murmuring to them, and gently massaging them. It sounds like the kind of service advertised in sleazy personals but it is not illegal and the practitioners are viewed as trained professionals, possibly because so many sex-research institutes have sprung up that activities like Tantra are assumed to qualify for government grants.

Wolf interviewed a London-based Tantra man for the Sunday Times. “He had worked intimately with the vaginas of hundreds of women,” she notes, so a year or so later she wanted to see him again to ask about some new findings. One visit led to another, and one thing led to another, until she was “in a state of — yes — oceanic bliss.” They didn’t have sex; he just gazed at her tasmap, or talked to it, or whatever (she doesn’t exactly say); but it worked. She left his studio on “a dopamine high.”

On her last visit, matters reached a point of no return. “I was in bed with an attractive stranger and there was no way to pretend that what he was proposing would not be a form of sex. The nice monogamous Jewish girl in me once again drew the line.”

Wouldn’t you know it? She’s a Tantra tease.

Read the whole thing.

THE SMARTEST DEER IN HISTORY?:  Apparently this Bambi has had enough of President Obama’s policies.  We cannot endorse the vandalism, of course, but we have empathy for his frustration.  :)

AND THEY BITTERLY CLING TO THEIR GUNS AND RELIGION, TOO: Bill Clinton: The American People Are Easily Confused.

Obama’s bitter clinger remarks in 2008 were at a private fundraiser, and were captured on a hidden cellphone camera; Clinton uttered his gaffe in an even more sparsely-attended private function; it’s a good thing Breitbart TV was around to capture it.

MUTE BUTTON:  As O’Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had stopped.

Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his tongue.

‘You can turn it off!’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said O’Brien, ‘we can turn it off. We have that privilege.’

THE MOST INCREDIBLE VOLCANO VIDEO OF ALL TIME.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Is Having Sex With A Robot Cheating? I dunno, is a vibrator cheating? That reminds me of this oldie-but-goodie post by Eugene Volokh on vibrators and double standards.

Sign of the times.

Obama can’t close the sale.  (Possibly because the wheels are coming off the bus.)

CLAIM: Boston Is The Best Place To Be A Nerd.

THE GROWN-UP PLEASURES OF THE HOBBIT: Conflict, greed, poetry: J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic book, celebrating its 75th anniversary, isn’t just for kids.

(H/T: The Brothers Judd.)

WAIT, WHEN DID CNN EVER CARE ABOUT ETHICS? “Was it Ethical for CNN to Use Ambassador Stevens’ Journal?”

Perhaps it was news they should have kept to themselves.

AT AMAZON, coupons, coupons and more coupons. Also, coupons!

Yes, but do NYT editors read their own paper? The New York Times reports that between 2006 and 2010 Medicare costs were actually rising as doctors took advantage of electronic medical records to bill for services that often haven’t been performed….

(Oh, and very honored to be part of the instapundit crew once more — the internet should prepare to be assimilated.)

WHAT IF SPARTACUS HAD A PIPER CUB? MSNBC and Jeff Greenfield ponder what if Al Gore had won in 2000 — which since 2009 has been an annual story for bored journalists on both sides of the aisle. (Glenn Beck was commissioned by liberal New York magazine in 2010 to explore to topic for some reason.)

But then, considering that modern American progressivism is currently engaged in blocking new dams, new roadways, reliable electricity and bankrupting the welfare state, and with an assist from their cousins overseas destabilizing Europe, the left seems to be asking these days, at least unconsciously, what if FDR had lost in 1932?

Perhaps the best take though on the MSNBC segment comes from a Hot Air commenter: “So now they’re admitting [Gore] didn’t win?”

Hey, it takes time to get over the Day Your History Began.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST PINCH SULZBERGER…

THE WORLD’S BIGGEST CELEBRITY: Chris Wallace Asks Obama Adviser ‘President Has Time for Whoopi Goldberg But Not World Leaders?’

This isn’t exactly “unexpectedly,” of course.

(What is unexpected for me is the opportunity to sit in at Instapundit once again — a big thanks to the Professor for the opportunity.)

WHY AMERICANS EAT SO MUCH TUNA. “The tuna revolution really took off, however, during World War I. European countries, and eventually the American government, bought the inexpensive canned fish to feed the troops. (Uncle Sam was so desperate for protein during the Great War that the government even tried to push whale as a beef substitute.) Returning soldiers continued eating tuna, which displaced salmon as America’s fish of choice by the 1940s, and fishing boats had to venture further and further from shore to satisfy demand.”

LOOKING FOR LOVE: Smitten Traveler Goes 4000 Miles Looking For Lost Love. “A Canadian dentist is on a quest to find a woman he spoke with for maybe two minutes in a cafe in Ireland last year. As Travelers Today explains, 34-year-old Sandy Crocker visited County Clare last summer and asked a young woman for directions to the Cliffs of Moher. They spoke briefly, he left, became hopelessly smitten, and is now back in County Clare for a month trying to find the woman he thinks should be his wife. The problem: He doesn’t know her name or anything else about her.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Choose (and Use) a Roadside-Assistance Plan.

I’M OFF TO A SECURE AND UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, so my crew of able guestbloggers will be popping by. Unlike previous trips, I’m not going offline completely — or even mostly — but I did think that it would be fun to have them back, as readers seemed quite happy last time. So stay tuned for Ann Althouse, Ed Driscoll, Elizabeth Price Foley, Sarah Hoyt, Mark Tapscott and Michael Totten. And I’ll be around too, this time, to join in the fun.

READER BOOK PLUG: Reader William Stroock’s To Defend The Earth, a collection of short stories about alien invasion.

IN THE MAIL: Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad.

MICKEY KAUS calls Tim Noah on the #Math.

I’m not sure it’s precisely apposite, but I think Reynolds’ Law is worth a mention here.

IDENTIFIED: The Gene Behind Cheetahs’ Spots And Tabbies’ Stripes.

I EAGERLY AWAIT THE DEMANDS FOR DEMOCRATS TO REJECT ALL SUPPORT FROM THESE IRRETRIEVABLE BIGOTS: Unions reject partner benefits. “The Toledo Police Patrolman’s Association and two units of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 7, in three separate votes, rejected the benefit. Don Czerniak, Local 7 president, said the employees overwhelmingly disagreed with extending the benefit to unmarried couples — which could have covered both heterosexual and same-sex couples who register as domestic partners.”

OUT: OUTSOURCING. In: Onshoring.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Hunting, Airsoft & Paintball. Once again, credit Amazon for carrying stuff some online merchants won’t.

Also, today only: Up to 54% off on Schwinn Exercise Bikes.

Also, a reminder that when you purchase through the Amazon links on this page, or the search box in the right sidebar, you support this blog at no cost to yourself. It’s much appreciated.

NOW ON YOUTUBE: Poliwood: Dinesh D’Souza: The Author & Filmmaker the White House Can Not Ignore.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS NOT BUYING THE ANTI-FRACKING CAMPAIGN: Latest anti-drilling claims are so much laughing gas.

In their desperation to block Gov. Cuomo from giving the okay for fracking in New York, die-hard opponents of the natural gas drilling technology are floating laugh-out-loud-funny health and environmental threats.

Most hilariously, the enviro-activists have demanded that state officials explore an alleged link between fracking and — we kid you not — syphilis.

They argue that a drilling boom would draw an influx of male workers from other states who would engage in activities of a kind that would spread sexually transmitted diseases.

They also contend that a boom would trigger a housing crunch, adding to homelessness and the health ailments that go along with it.

And that increased truck traffic would not only lead to more road fatalities, but would also — again, no kidding — discourage people from getting the outdoor exercise they need to stay fit.

This is absurd. If New York starts saying no to entire industries on the grounds they might trigger population changes, rising home prices and truck traffic, it might as well turn out the lights.

Well, that’s the enviros’ goal, you know.

MARK STEYN: BOWING TO THE MOBS. “After a week and a half of peddling an utterly false narrative of what happened in Libya, the United States government is apparently beginning to discern that there are limits to what even Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice can say with a straight face. The official line — that the slaughter of American officials was some sort of improvised movie review that got a little out of hand — is now in the process of modification to something bearing a less patently absurd relationship to what actually happened. That should not make any more forgivable the grotesque damage that the administration has done to the bedrock principle of civilized society: freedom of speech.”

Related: Free Speech & Its Enemies.

Also: “Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens was unavailable for comment.”

I GOTCHER “EPISTEMIC CLOSURE” RIGHT HERE: MSNBC Panel Baffled: Why Anyone Would Think ‘Redistribution Of Wealth’ Is Bad?

MICHAEL S. GREVE: Is the Fed still constitutional?

#OBAMAFAIL: Drone Czar Hit By Surgical Journalistic Strike.

DOING JOBS THE DUTCH WON’T DO: Ghent prostitutes told to wear more clothes.

Mayor Daniel Termont told AFP he was not “anti-prostitutes.”

“I’m not a puritan,” he said. “Far from it! A city like Ghent needs prostitutes, but they have to respect certain rules.” . . .

Local newspaper Di Morgen cited one veteran prostitute as saying particularly competitive new arrivals from eastern Europe were behind this cranked-up atmosphere compared to a decade ago.

The immigrants are always hungrier.

ON OBAMA OWING NAKOULA AN APOLOGY:

We’re barraged by new distractions, so let’s catch things that are slipping down the memory hole. It’s not just Nakoula. It’s Chris Stevens. Our ambassador was murdered, and he was murdered after he was targeted and he was not given security.

Shame on those who disrespected Nakoula’s freedom of speech. Their faults are apparent and need to be remembered. But what happened to Chris Stevens? I don’t trust that we’ve learned the whole story. Why wasn’t he protected? Was he an inconvenient man? We saw such an effort to create static around his death. Look — riots over here, here, and here! Offensive video on the internet! Man with a “towel” around his face! And hey check out the most important thing that happened all week: Romney said “47%” to some people back in May!

The very fact that we’re thinking about Nakoula — and futzing with Romney rhetoric — makes me feel that Chris Stevens got stuffed down the memory hole.

Who wanted that forgetting and why?

Well, I have a hunch. Plus, from the comments: “Anybody tries to call himself President who hears an American consulate is under attack and just goes back to bed owes said Ambassador a lot more than an apology.”

Plus: “There aren’t that many assassinations of American officials. I have never seen anything like this one, where we as a people are encouraged to dilute the incident with all these other events of a much more mundane variety. An assassination should stand apart — clear and shocking and in need of precise investigation.” I’m pretty sure that investigation will be designed to ensure that no findings are made until after the election.

HAPPY DIVERSITY WEEK!

THEY TOLD ME THIS WOULD HAPPEN IF BARACK OBAMA WERE ELECTED: Car Rental Agency Charged With Discriminating Against Heterosexual Renters.

RAND SIMBERG: German Troops Riot In Italy Over Disney Film.

WELL, THAT’S GOOD: Verizon iPhone 5 reportedly SIM unlocked out of the box, ready for worldwide use. All phones should be this way.

JOHN PODHORETZ: Romney The Giver: Parsing Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns. “We learned yesterday that last year Mitt Romney paid $1.9 million in taxes on an income of $14 million — and gave $4 million to charity.”

AT AMAZON, Top Deals in Electronics.

HAPPY Gunblogger Saturday!

GOTCHER PHOTO-METAPHOR ALERT right here!

WELL, YES: Being booed by AARP is a badge of honor.

POLITICIZED ENGINEERING: Germany’s wind power chaos should be a warning to the UK. “Germany has gone further down the ‘renewables’ path than any country in the world, and now it’s paying the price . . . The more a country depends on such sources of energy, the more there will arise – as Germany is discovering – two massive technical problems. One is that it becomes incredibly difficult to maintain a consistent supply of power to the grid, when that wildly fluctuating renewable output has to be balanced by input from conventional power stations. The other is that, to keep that back-up constantly available can require fossil-fuel power plants to run much of the time very inefficiently and expensively. . . . Both these problems have come home to roost in Germany in a big way.”

BUT HEY, WE BEAT ARGENTINA, CHAD, AND UZBEKISTAN: Corporate Tax Competitiveness Rankings for 2012: U.S. Is #87 Out of 90 Countries.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Sports.

GALLUP ON Romney’s “Terrible” Month.

“This is from Gallup today. Notice what’s happened since the 47 percent ‘gaffe’. Also, this is registered voters. Likely voters probably favors Romney.”

UPDATE: Obama Campaign: Pay No Attention To Those National Tracking Polls.

CHARLIE MARTIN: An Ego’s Descending Spiral: The deadly danger of refusing to admit one is unqualified.

SCANDALS OF CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD: The Exquisite Garbo.

AT AMAZON, Warehouse Deals in Pet Products & Supplies.

Also, today only: Panasonic 3D Blu-Ray Disc 5.1 Surround Sound Home Theater System, $294.99.

AP: Obama ignores almost 50% of America as President.

IT’S A NICE GESTURE, BUT I DON’T THINK DRIVING SKILLS ARE THE ISSUE, EXACTLY: Goodyear offers free driving lessons to Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes:

Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes seem to constantly be in trouble for their behind-the-wheel activities. Lohan may or may not have hit a pedestrian with her Porsche SUV in New York early Wednesday, and Bynes was ordered by a judge not to drive after multiple incidents.

So tire maker Goodyear has decided to offer the actresses some assistance. They’ve sent letters to both women offering them free trips to the company’s Ohio headquarters for a private safe driving lesson with a Goodyear professional driver at the company’s track. (“No paparazzi allowed!” chirps the letter.)

I just think the issue goes deeper than an absence of driver’s ed.

ELECTRICITY RATES WILL NECESSARILY SKYROCKET.

Look, folks, I am in this field. I have been for more than 30 years. Losing 36,000 MWs of the most cost-efficient generation capacity in the US is a disaster. You have no idea how bad the increases are going to be. They will be disastrous to the individual energy consumers and apocalyptic to large users – those who create jobs.

I shudder to think of what this is going to do to grid reliability as well. A lot of those coal plants help support the grid during disruptions. They regularly provide both energy and MVARs (Mega Volt-Ampere Reactive) that keep the grid from collapsing when large loads are added or lost. (That’s about as simple as I can make it and still be understood.) Losing these stabilizers will make it very hard to hold the grid. I pity the load dispatchers.

Maybe I should buy that generator.

I THINK IT’S A WAY OF CONVINCING THEM THAT THERE’S NO INTELLIGENT LIFE HERE: Romantic or Reckless? The Plan to Message Aliens with Twitter. Luckily, the transmitter is underpowered.

HMM: Anti-Obama Movie Mailed to 1 Million Ohioans.

THIS MAKES ME FEEL OLD: Smiley-Face Emoticon Turns 30.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE: Even The Asteroid Belt Has Water. This is very good news.

GOLF: Lining Up A Putt: The Insidious Effects of Gravity.

IF GEORGE W. BUSH WERE PRESIDENT, WE’D HAVE HEARD ABOUT IT ENDLESSLY: The U.S. Suffered Its Worst Airpower Loss Since Vietnam Last Week and No One Really Noticed. “The last time VMA-211 was combat ineffective was in December 1941, when the squadron was wiped out during the 13-day defense of Wake Island against the Japanese.”

WHAT’S WRONG WITH David Frum? “Why push it to the point that your friends feel so embarrassed — indeed, mortified – by your purposeful insults to their other friends? David, you’re wrong, and I don’t mean incorrect, I mean wrong.”

WELL, IT IS THE 21ST CENTURY: A Slumber Party Conducted Via Text.

CHANGE: “The new job that everyone wants is stay-at-home mom. This makes sense to me.”

Let me second the advice on living below your means, and nourishing a generous emergency fund. And supporting your partner “like steel.” Whether or not you’re a stay-at-home mom. It’s good advice under pretty much any circumstance.

JOE PAPPALARDO: 5 Things We Learned at the Air Force Convention.

ROGER KIMBALL: President Dukakis. “In other words, I am sticking with my prediction that Romney will win and win big. I even have a few modest bets on the race. Of course, it’s possible that Obama will win. It was possible that Michael Dukakis could have won, too. He had the illusion of momentum, just as Obama does.”

IN THE MAIL: From Rick Acker, When The Devil Whistles.

CRUMBLING NARRATIVE: CS Monitor: Say, this admission on Benghazi terrorist attack might cause Obama a few problems.

RASMUSSEN: Obama and Romney Tied. So we keep hearing about how Romney has had one terrible week after another, but the polls are all tied up. What will happen if Romney ever manages to have a good week?

Of course, Obama’s Army in the press will do its best to prevent that.

UPDATE: Related: Obama’s Palace Guard: How media fact checkers made themselves of service to the president in the welfare reform debate. They’re just Democratic Party operatives with bylines now.

IF WE HAD A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT, THIS WOULD BE A BIG STORY: Walter Russell Mead: Afghan Surge Ends: Not with a Bang but a Whimper.

We should all be very glad that we have a Democratic president right now; otherwise the news would be terrible. We would be seeing a rash of horrible and depressing stories in the newspapers about strategic failure, with unremitting second guessing and belittling of a president who agonized for months before the surge and then saw his plan fail. We’d be hearing non-stop reports in the media about the incompetent and klutzy leader who torpedoed his own policy by announcing a withdrawal date; the man who tried to please everybody and do everything—and failed at all he tried.

The press would be jumping on this narrative. There would be continuous coverage of the disarray in Afghanistan: the soldier’s we’re training are shooting us, the corruption is intensifying, and the opium trade spreading. There would be story after story about how Afghanistan seems little changed after the surge, and how peace is still not at hand. These stories wouldn’t be on the back pages; they’d be perceived as major news with profound implications for America’s global position and the Sunday shows and nightly TV news round ups would be full of talking heads endlessly analyzing each wrinkle of the failure.

There would be bitter, wounding comparisons between the president and LBJ in Vietnam. If we had a conservative Republican president right now, we’d be hearing him compared to the noble Duke of York, who marched 10,000 men to the top of the hill only to march them down again.

And we’d be hearing all kinds of damning stories about the failure of the U.S. government to deal with the chaos in Pakistan.

We’d also be reading stories linking the apparent U.S. failure in Afghanistan to the empowerment of anti-American movements throughout the Middle East. The recent riots would be used as a stick to beat the president with—his weakness, indecision and strategic inconsequentialism in Afghanistan would be endangering our interests all over the region. Instead of concentrating on the real terror threat, the press would tell us, this hypothetical clueless Republican president wasted time, treasure and attention on a failed strategy in Afghanistan. The press would try to hang the corpse of the U.S. ambassador in Libya around the neck of a Republican president, if we had one right now.

But thankfully we have a Democratic president, and in an election year the normally feisty American media—the same media that worked night and day to expose every flaw and contradiction in the Bush policies in the region (and they had plenty to expose)—is too busy reporting the flaws in the Romney campaign (again, there’s much to report) to pay attention to anything as insignificant as a comprehensively failed presidential strategy in a foreign war.

Yeah, we’re real lucky that way.

FOUAD AJAMI: Muslim Rage And Obama’s Retreat.

This is not a Jimmy Carter moment—a U.S. Embassy and its staff seized and held hostage for 444 days, America’s enemies taking stock of its weakness, its allies running for cover. But the anti-American protests that broke upon 20 nations this past week must be reckoned a grand personal failure for Barack Obama, and a case of hubris undone.

No American president before this one had proclaimed such intimacy with a world that stretches from Morocco to Indonesia. From the start of his administration, Mr. Obama put forth his own biography as a bridge to those aggrieved nations. He would be a “different president,” he promised, and the years he lived among Muslims would acquit him—and thus America itself. He was the un-Bush.

And so, in June 2009, Mr. Obama descended on Cairo. He had opposed the Iraq war, he had Muslim relatives, and he would offer Egyptians, and by extension other Arabs, the promise of a “new beginning.” They told their history as a tale of victimization at the hands of outsiders, and he empathized with that narrative.

He spoke of “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.”

Without knowing it, he had broken a time-honored maxim of that world: Never speak ill of your own people when in the company of strangers. There was too little recognition of the malignant trilogy—anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and anti-modernism—that had poisoned the life of Egypt and much of the region. . . .

Our foreign policy has been altered, as never before, to fit one man’s electoral needs. We hear from the presidential handlers only what they want us to believe about the temper of distant lands. It was only yesterday that our leader, we are told, had solved the riddle of our position in the world.

Give him your warrant, the palace guard intone, at least until the next election. In tales of charismatic, chosen leaders, it is always, and only, about the man at the helm.

Obama didn’t learn much in his sojourn abroad, and apparently much of what he did learn turned out not to be so.

Related: James Taranto on Obama’s Apology Ad:

What message does the ad actually send the Mohammed Tariq Khans? On the one hand, a message of weakness: Assemble a big enough mob, kill enough people, burn enough flags and churches, and you too can grab the attention of the most powerful man and woman in the world. On the other hand, a taunt. If Obama and Mrs. Clinton really mean it, the Khans must think, why haven’t they presented the video makers for public mincing? The State Department’s ad contains no answer to that crucial question.

If our government is going to run an ad to educate Pakistanis (or whoever) about American attitudes, wouldn’t it make sense to include an explanation as to why America’s leaders cannot and will not enforce the mob’s standards of blasphemy? To an American, what’s objectionable about this ad isn’t so much the apology for the video’s offense as the abject failure to defend basic American principles of freedom. That same failure makes the ad less than worthless as an educational tool.

Obama didn’t learn much in his sojourn at Harvard and Chicago law schools, and apparently much of what he did learn turned out not to be so.

Oh, and it’s not a Jimmy Carter moment — because at this point, Jimmy Carter would be a best-case scenario. And an increasingly implausible one, I’m afraid.

THOUGHTS ON asymmetric online warfare.

MORT ZUCKERMAN ON “Obama’s Dishonest, Divisive Campaign.”

PROF. JACOBSON: Finish Hard And Fight Through The Finish Line. “It has been an exhausting month so far, but I’m actually feeling pretty good about the election.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Unemployment rates rise in 26 states in August.