MARY GRABAR: It’s Not The Economy, Stupid. “It’s racial politics. And you don’t beat them by adopting them.”

CHARLES COOKE: Buzzfeed’s Illiterate Insinuation. They keep moving toward ThinkProgress territory. I don’t think they’ll prosper there, unless they’re getting Soros money.

HOW TO DEVISE PASSWORDS THAT DRIVE HACKERS AWAY. I use “nudepicsofHelenThomas,” personally. Nobody wants to be typing that in.

AND WITH GOOD REASON: Lawmakers raise questions on how Petraeus affair was handled.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Cheating on rankings at George Washington University.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Shouldn’t the obvious step upon hearing that GW undergraduate rankings were based on false data be an audit of GW’s other rankings? Like its law school ones?” Makes sense. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

BENGHAZI UPDATE: Were there Libyan “militia prisoners” at the Benghazi CIA annex?

UPDATE: Reader Tom McCobb writes: “The higher the pile of Benghazi cr*p gets, the more I think, ‘Yeah, Obama got re-elected; so did Nixon.’”

And say, does this revelation mean that the Obama Administration was operating one of those dreadful secret foreign CIA prisons?

ANDREW KLAVAN: It’s All Over. Not. “Since Tuesday, I have heard enough conservatives saying, ‘It’s over! We’re through!’ in serious, important-sounding voices to last me the next four years. I don’t care how important you make it sound, it’s whining; any child can do it. I’ll let you know when it’s over by putting you in the ground and throwing six feet of dirt onto your face. Until you get that secret signal, really, pull yourself together.”

See, libertarians are less despondent because (1) conservatives start out gloomier; and (2) we’re much more used to disappointment. Also, we’ve seen real progress in many areas over the last couple of decades.

UPDATE: Looking at this again, I’m reminded of a line from Firefly: “May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.” I aim to misbehave.

COMPETENCE: Pentagon releases Benghazi timeline: took 19 hours to respond.

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BEWARE: The “Squirrel Whisperer” Will Put Tiny Hats On All Your Squirrels. “It’s kind of a give and take. They’re not going to play with me unless I have food to give them.”

VIDEO: A robot version of the classic Roland TR-808 Drum Machine.

RESVERATROL NEWS: Compound in grapes, red wine could be key to fighting prostate cancer.

FIGHTER PILOTS NOT YET OBSOLETE: Predator Drones Once Shot Back at Jets… But Sucked At It. “There’s very little about their current capabilities — from their speed to their maneuverability to the range of visibility afforded to operators — that encourages operators to arm or employ them for air-to-air engagements in defended airspace.” It’s also likely, of course, that the fighter jocks who run the Air Force aren’t eager to speed the process along.

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NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Writing a single-atom qubit in silicon.

THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.

AT SOME POINT, I THINK, YOU’VE RAISED ENOUGH MONEY: It’s “Shock The System” Week At College Insurrection.

CAR NEWS: 2014 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series, Revealed. I’ve seen a few SLS’s on the road and they’re quite handsome cars, especially by comparison to most of Mercedes’ line. Of course, for the price they should be.

TIM FERRISS’S NEW BOOK: The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life.

IS THERE A HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE BUBBLE? The Minerva Project aims to create a high-status online university. Instead, it may be the sign of a venture-capital bubble in online education. Just remember, the Internet Bubble didn’t mean that the Internet wasn’t in the process of changing everything. It just meant that the flood of capital was coming faster than the flood of good ideas for a while.

DISASTER PREPARATION: A Camp Stove That Also Charges Your Cell Phone.

BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY. (Though the day is still young.)

IN THE MAIL: From Joseph H. Badal, Terror Cell.

UNEXPECTEDLY: PETA unintentionally red-lines the irony meter: “PETA Thanksgiving billboard asks kids: Would you eat your dog?”

Well, it does seem like a viable first step for any young man on the path to the presidency days.

AND THIS IS BEFORE ANYONE GETS AROUND TO REPEALING THE HOLLYWOOD TAX CUTS: Morgan Stanley Explains How Rich New Yorkers And Californians Could Get Really Screwed In A Fiscal Cliff Deal.

But, you know, we really should repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!

IF SO, HE SHOULD STOP ENFORCING FEDERAL MARIJUANA LAW EVERYWHERE: Will Obama Let Washington And Colorado Keep Their Legal Pot?

While our president may be famous for saying he inhaled as a teenager (“because that was the point”) marijuana is still very much banned under federal law. It’s designated as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, just like other oh-so-not-legal drugs as LSD and heroin. After essentially promising to defer to state law on medical marijuana early in the Obama administration, the Justice Department has, by some accounts, lowered the boom. According to Americans for Safe Access, the Drug Enforcement Administration has raided at least 200 cannabis dispensaries since 2009 and prosecutors have brought more than 60 indictments against medical marijuana providers.

“There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,” Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, told Rolling Stone earlier this year. “He’s gone from first to worst.” . . .

The hope is that, if Washington and Colorado set up smart laws with well defined bounds, federal prosecutors will decide to leave legal recreational marijuana alone, just like they mostly have with medical marijuana. Will that theory hold up? We’ll find out in the coming year or so, as state regulators figure out their game plan. But the good news for pot fans is this: In 2010 Attorney General Eric Holder officially opposed California’s initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. This time around, he was silent.

Then again, it also happened to be a presidential election year, and Colorado was a swing state. Of course Obama wasn’t going to intervene. Now that he’s been reelected, and two states want to adopt drug laws more liberal than the Netherlands, the president might not be so mellow. But Colorado and Washington can hope.

That whole “hope” thing hasn’t really worked out.

RIGHT ON SCHEDULE:  Time to go after those awful “price gougers:”

When allowed to function properly, the free market works very smoothly in bringing people the goods and services they want, in the amount that they want them, and for the price at which they value them. As much as people don’t like hearing it, the laws of supply and demand are no less vital in the event of an emergency — but politicians sure do love to rag on those greedy, profiteering businesses that jack up their prices in the event of a sudden supply shock or demand spike (a.k.a., “price gouging”). Anti-price gouging laws are a huge mistake that hurt the public at large, because all they accomplish is preventing the free market from doing what it does best: Quickly and efficiently adapting to conditions in a way that benefits everyone, and in an emergency especially, price gouging can save lives.

Predictably, of course, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, so begins the outrageous outrage against those who had the audacity to raise prices on things like gasoline and lodging, via NBC:

NBC, you say? They’re pretty cool themselves with the notion of manipulating prices of consumer goods such as gasoline when faced with what the network perceives to be a natural catastrophe.

RON BAILEY: Environmentalist Money Buys Elections. Remember, if the Washington Post likes the cause, it’s not “special interest” money, it’s public interest money.

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MICHAEL BARONE: Obama Wins By Going Negative And Turning Out Base.

Lukewarm. That’s the feeling I get from the election numbers.

Turnout was apparently down, at least as a percentage of eligible voters. The president was re-elected by a reduced margin. The challenger didn’t inspire the turnout surge he needed.

Every re-elected president since Andrew Jackson has won with an increased popular vote percentage. Barack Obama didn’t. He won 53 to 46 percent in 2008. His numbers as I write are 50 to 48 percent over Mitt Romney. That could go up to 51 to 48 percent when California finishes its count, which took five weeks in 2008.

Obama owes most of his electoral vote majority of 332 to negative campaigning. His strategists barraged the target states of Florida, Ohio and Virginia with attack ads on Romney for months.

The ads took a toll. Preliminary figures show that outside the eight clear target states, Obama’s percentage declined by 2.8 points. In the firewall states, it was down only 1.4 and in five other target states down only 2.1.

As I said yesterday, Republicans needed more Lee Atwater and less Karl Rove.

LIFE IN THE PROGRESSIVE HAVEN OF OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA:

A KPIX news cameraman was punched and robbed during a live broadcast outside an Oakland high school, the latest in a spate of holdups targeting the media, police said Thursday.

Reporter Anne Makovec and cameraman Gregg Welk were on the air shortly after noon Wednesday outside Oakland Technical High School near the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway. They were at the school to do a story on the passage of Proposition 30, the tax measure preventing deep cuts to education.

As Makovec was finishing her report, police said, five men rushed up and grabbed a $6,000 camera from the tripod. Viewers saw the live picture being jarred and turned sideways for about two seconds.

One of the assailants punched Welk in the mouth before the group fled in a Mercedes-Benz, which apparently was accompanied by a Lexus, police said. Welk declined treatment by paramedics but saw his doctor.

“He is fine, and he is actually working today,” KPIX spokeswoman Akilah Bolden-Monifa said Thursday.

Bolden-Monifa said the station would continue to report in Oakland but declined to specify whether any changes would be made to protect its crews.

Sources, however, said all KPIX crews covering stories in Oakland would be accompanied by security guards, day or night, effective immediately.

Wow, now you need armed guards escorting your camera crews? How third-world. But then, that’s how things usually go in progressive havens.

GARY TAUBES, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Denmark To Abolish Tax on High-Fat Foods.

MEGAN MCARDLE: DC Government vs. Market Competition, Round 7,894.

I think that DC needs a new regulation. All current councilmembers should have to register–and run–as Republicans in 2014. This would encourage political diversity in DC, creating a space for Republicans as well as Democrats to compete in our elections. It’s is a pro-competition initiative that would empower a currently disenfranchised minority and help the DC government build new ties to a party from which it is currently somewhat alienated.

What’s that you say? This regulation would effectively cause all current council members to lose their seats? Well, I don’t think I agree with that. A revitalized DC Republican party ticket might sweep the current polls. Just because Barack Obama carries 90% of the vote in DC doesn’t mean that a Republican can’t be competitive in our city. But even if you were right, I don’t think that’s a reason to oppose this legislation. I mean, sure, it’s sad for current council members who might like to serve another term, and, I dunno, run on the ticket of the party they actually vote like better. But isn’t that really a small price to pay for a more fair and transparent system that’s more finely tuned to the needs of DC voters?

Stop snorting. I don’t see why council members would oppose such a sensible rule, since after all, that’s how they think business should be regulated. Whether it’s car services or food trucks, the city likes to hamstring upstart competitors by enacting ostensibly neutral “sensible regulation” which just happens–who knew!–to have the side effect of putting those new entrants out of business. This is always done in the name of the consumer, even though the consumer has expressed no desire for many of the “benefits” provided by the new legislation, like . . . paper receipts, or taxis that are all the same color.

It’s like they’re corrupt tools of the established interests or something.

ROGER SIMON: A Tale of Three (or More) Roger Simons. “Everyone was confused by this, including me. It went so far as my being flown across country to appear on Meet the Press only to find they expected the other Roger Simon. (Yes, that really happened. My consolation prize was five minutes on air with Norah O’Donnell, who had no idea what to make of my strange libertarian utterings.) I finally did bump into the other Roger at some Washington news gathering or other. He didn’t look pleased to see me, though perhaps that was projection.”

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS: Bacon Band-Aids.

DOWN IN THE DUMPS OVER THE ELECTION? Let Stephen Kruiser bring back your mojo.

SO SAD I’LL BE AWAY FROM MY TV TODAY: Sunday shows feature many members of Congress arguing money and stuff.

THE ISLAND OF Lost Apple Products.

POLITICO: 6 lingering questions about the exit of Gen. David Petraeus.

THE ENDURING APPEAL OF FIREFLY.

Firefly” aired for only one season 10 years ago, but Nathan Fillion still hasn’t gotten over it.

“It was the best character I ever played,” Fillion told The Post. “The best dialogue to ever come out of my mouth was on that show.

“It was my first time truly being in love with my work,” he says. “It’s the bar to which we compare every job.”

I’m beginning to think, though, that in real life Joss Whedon would have been on the side of the Alliance.

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Also, bestsellers in Dress Watches.

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON (CONT’D): New York officials reportedly consider closed prison for displaced Sandy victims. “The New York Post reports that state officials are considering the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility on Staten Island to feed and house as many as 900 victims with nowhere else to turn. . . . As many as 40,000 New Yorkers need shelter from extreme weather events, according to city estimates. On Staten Island alone, about 5,200 people applied for temporary FEMA housing, but only about two dozen people have been successfully placed, federal sources told the newspaper.” (Emphasis added, because . . . wow).

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON (CONT’D): A major disaster occurs on the outskirts of one of the most advanced civilizations on earth, and 10 days later there are victims walking 6 miles to find food?

Yep. In Coney Island. “Down on Surf Avenue, businesses are shuttered, leaving local residents unable to get basic necessities like food, medicine, or even do laundry. Once the sun goes down, residents say it’s too dangerous to venture out anyway.”

Plus: “A lot of people are desperate. They don’t know where they are getting their next meal.”

Related: Doctors Without Borders Tend To NY Storm Victims. Just like it was some third-world country. President Bush sent Americans to the third world. Under President Obama, the third world comes to you!

IF SHE DOES, I’VE GOT A DOCUMENT TO DROP ON HER: Will Ashley Judd run for the U.S. Senate? Actress to challenge ‘Mitch McConnell in 2014.’

ANDREW MARCUS: After Election 2012: WWBD — What Would Breitbart Do?

Everything that Andrew predicted in my film, Hating Breitbart, played out in real-time during the election right before our eyes. From Candy Crowley interrupting and taking Obama’s side in the debate to George Stephonopoulous’s introducing the ‘war on women’ narrative in the primary debates, members of the so-called mainstream media did everything they could to re-elect Obama and they were successful. And many of us are, as Andrew so often was, righteously indignant. Some might even be feeling hopeless, tired or defeated. And while I can understand a temporary crisis of faith, I believe Andrew would refuse to surrender to a defeatist attitude over one election loss.

He understood that the true fight is with the Mainstream Media and Institutional Left and that they don’t get ‘elected.’ We must bring the fight directly to them relentlessly. That was always his fight and that does not change with an election cycle.

No, it doesn’t. And if you get a chance to see Hating Breitbart, I highly recommend it. I felt like Andrew was still alive while watching it.

UPDATE: Reader John Miller writes: “The reality is that if every cent spent on the Romney campaign had been spent instead acquiring and dismembering legacy media properties, the long-term result would have been better than where we are now. Holding and extending statehouse control has to be conservatives’ #1 priority, but if there’s money floating around out there, at this point it’d be better spent exterminating NBC and the NY Times than propping up national candidates.”

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21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: New York Times: “The fact that you’re willing to accept your wife’s infidelity for some greater political good is beyond honorable.”

SPIN: It’s good that Sandy victims are stuck without power.

Related: “It was a democratizing experience,” he said. “Because no one had power.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: ‘If your stomach is starting to obstruct the view of your manhood you shouldn’t ignore it.”

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GOLF AND PRIORITIES: New Yorkers Still In The Dark As Obama Hits The Links. “Imagine the howls if Bush played golf during the post-Katrina cleanup.”

New White House line: Hey, golf is work!

UPDATE: A reader emails that if we had a Republican president we’d see a reprise of this.

PAUL RAHE: David Petraeus & Barack’s Benghazi Bungle.

THE ELLEN JAMESIANS WERE UNAVAILABLE FOR COMMENT: Heartbroken Man Cuts Off Tongue to Win Wife Back He Verbally Abused.

HILLARY CLINTON refuses to testify on Benghazi.

CHANGE: Afghan Troops Switch From U.S. Copters To Donkeys. ” Just how big a void is the US leaving in Afghanistan?”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Deep tuition freeze affects pockets of academia.

All is proceeding as I have foreseen. And you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. “Roger Williams is also making a concerted effort to encourage — but not require — undergrads who major in the liberal arts to add an actually useful minor, notes The Chronicle of Higher Education. So, for example, a student who majors in sociology might be urged to minor in business as well.”

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: My prudish husband has left me because I lied about my sex life.

OOPS: Crippling Stuxnet virus infected Chevron’s network too. “I think the downside of what they did is going to be far worse than what they actually accomplished.”

YESTERDAY A READER EMAILED asking me to send a link to what I regard as the best law review article ever. I thought I’d go ahead and repost it, too. It’s Arthur Allen Leff’s Memorandum From The Devil. It’s a review of Roberto Unger’s Knowledge and Politics, which ends, “Speak, God.”

Here’s a bit: “I am something of a connoisseur of these attempts by scholarly humans to find and describe some meaning in their personal and species existence, and when nonironic divine address comes out of Langdell Hall these days, attention must be paid.”

Oh, okay, one more irresistible passage: “But having opted for ‘mankind is the good,’ you just couldn’t stand it. It is not hard to see why. For if human nature were to be the good, then there was nothing for you or anyone else to do to change it in any way. Indeed, even as a matter of scientific curiosity, there wouldn’t be much call to find out what human nature was, for whatever it turned out to be would be what it ought to be. Now that is a loathsome idea. Under its reign, a man like you, rightly appalled at the world, would, have no role at all. That was too dreadful a possibility.”

If you like this, you might also read Leff’s Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural Law.

And give Unger credit for growing in office, or something. Though he’s one of Obama’s old professors, he recently said: “His policy is financial confidence and food stamps.”

ON PETRAEUS, QUESTIONING THE TIMING:

FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.

“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”

Indeed.

READER BOOK PLUG: From reader Peter Salomon, Henry Franks: A Novel. Booklist calls it “the thinking teen’s horror choice of the year.”

JOEL GEHRKE: Obama 2012 Looks A Lot Like Granholm 2006.

A TALE OF THREE (OR MORE) ROGER SIMONS: Say the secret word, and you get to meet the Three Grouchos.

KYLE MCENTEE: Law Schools Should Cut Enrollment 50%.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Are the new Dallas Mavericks Dancers uniforms too skimpy? I say no.

HE’S PLAYING INTO MY HANDS: Obama: Compromise — But Not On Tax Cuts For The Rich.

Time to repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts, then!

UPDATE: Reader Kevin Black emails: “Obama’s new negotiating strategy: Son of ‘I Won.’ This should turn out well…”

THERE’S NOTHING HOLDING THE JOINT UP, Mark Steyn writes:

So Washington cannot be saved from itself. For the moment, tend to your state, and county, town and school district, and demonstrate the virtues of responsible self-government at the local level. Americans as a whole have joined the rest of the Western world in voting themselves a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. The longer any course correction is postponed the more convulsive it will be. Alas, on Tuesday, the electorate opted to defer it for another four years. I doubt they’ll get that long.

Plus, Steyn reminds readers that he’s the author of “After America — or, as Dennis Miller retitled it on the radio the other day, Wednesday.“

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON (CONT’D): Missed Opportunities and Miscalculations in New York Gas Shortage.

IN THE MAIL: From Steve White & Charles E. Gannon, Extremis.

THE FIRST “moneyball” election?

PRIORITIES: Under their new collective bargaining agreement, Transportation Security Administration officers get to spend more taxpayer money on their uniforms every year than a United States Marine Corps lieutenant can spend in a lifetime.

“TSA employees will see their uniform allowances nearly double to $446 per year,” the House Transportation Committee noted in a press release on the TSA’s new collective bargaining agreement. “By comparison, a combat Marine Lieutenant receives a one-time uniform allowance of $400. The cost of the increase in TSA uniform allowance is an estimated $9.63 million annually.”

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., faulted TSA for failing to streamline its bureaucracy or address criticism of security failures, such as the recent inspector general report on the failure to screen checked baggage at the airport in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The TSA should be abolished, and its functions privatized. For that matter, the entire Department of Homeland Security — whose creation, longtime readers will remember, I opposed in prescient terms — should be abolished, too.

GONNA BE SOME HARD TIMES COMING DOWN: Starting with that allusion to Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Victor Davis Hanson explores the Anatomies of Electoral Madness:

The crux for the next four years is whether we become California or transform into a sort of socialist Germany, where the work ethic, fiscal sobriety, and ingenuity trump counter-productive energy and social policies. In other words, will the frackers, horizontal drillers, farmers, engineers, Silicon Valley, Napa Valley, the American farm belt, the coal industry, Boeing, Apple, and Caterpillar just keep chugging along, pulling the rest of us into the accustomed prosperity despite, rather than because of, us? Will the American spirit, like German industriousness, override socialist redistribution, or succumb to it?

As far as why a majority voted as it did, I prefer the wisdom of the Old Oligarch, Plato on Democratic Man, or Tocqueville to the latest spin from Republican grandees.

Read the whole thing.™

WELL, THAT CERTAINLY REPRESENTS A CHANGE, DOESN’T IT? Obama: Our top priority now is jobs and growth. Hence the “now,” I guess.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Randles is unmoved: “It just doesn’t have the same impact it did the first 30+ times he’s said the same thing during the last four years.”

GOT A NICE LETTER from reader Tobias Truman who runs an online disaster-prep store. He sent me some Lifestraws and a bug-out bag — always nice to have another — and observes: “I’ve found our sales to be decent indicators of how the populace is feeling. While our Red-state sales have been steady after the election, our Blue-state sales have almost doubled. (Though folks in Puerto Rico still buy more supplies than any other as disaster-prep is a big part of church outreach there.) There’s no denying right-leaning folks are battening down the hatches in O-land.” Well, on the one hand, “do not take counsel of your fears,” but on the other hand, “be prepared.”

And I love this P.S.: “My wife and I are another Gary Taubes success story; thank you for your posts pointing us to him. My wife and I have lost 70lbs since summer . . . and we really do eat a LOT of bacon.” He’s worth a read.

HMM: Petraeus fell because of the affair, the drone program, or Benghazi — which is it? “Given the timing of these 3 sets of facts, it’s hard to believe Petraeus left because of the affair or the problem with his gmail. It seems much more likely to have to do with the drones or Benghazi.”

FUN FROM THE ARCHIVES: My prayer for Stanley Hauerwas from 2002. Further thoughts here.

MEGAN MCARDLE: How Can Republicans Take Back The Majority? I Have A Few Little Ideas Right Here.

EVERYBODY’S GOT ADVICE: Barbara Yaffe: Republicans need to take a page from Stephen Harper’s playbook. Well, to be fair, following that playbook requires that Ed Morrissey bring down the current government.

And I somehow missed this during the election: “Romney, in his campaign, was forever jabbering about protecting religious groups’ rights not to fund contraceptive pills for their employees, closing Planned Parenthood, restricting abortion.”

I believe, actually, that it was the Democrats who were jabbering about those subjects. Romney’s error was letting them set the narrative. Next time, the GOP will want less Karl Rove, more Lee Atwater.

AT SOME POINT, YOU’VE RAISED ENOUGH MONEY: IowaHawk: Let tax cuts expire on $250k+ income, get $50-$60B in revenue. Confiscate endowments of Harvard, Stanford & Yale, get $70B.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Sex Robot ‘Longevity Orgasms’ May Help Extend Human Life Spans, Futurists Suggest.

Hey, kids: Don’t date robots!

Futurama – Don’t date robots from John Pope on Vimeo.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: From Katrina To Sandy, FEMA Rumors and Failures Keep Swirling.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: IRS Flunks GAO Audit . . . Again.

A GLOOMY TAKE ON THINGS FROM DAN GIFFORD:

Romney lost because he refused to provide an alternative for fear of being labelled a warmonger, flint-heart or social reactionary. He refused to engage with any of the issues that made this Presidential election so truly momentous. Up against the bullying of the totalitarian left, he ran for cover. He played safe, and as a result only advertised his own weakness and dishonesty. Well, voters can smell inconsistency from a mile away; they call it untrustworthiness, and they are right …
like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilization stand poised to occupy the void.

Well, I think we’ll get someone different next time.

UPDATE: Oops. It’s from Melanie Phillips. Dan Gifford just emailed it to me. Sorry — insufficient coffee.

DEAR MATT DRUDGE: Please stop drawing attention to things that might inconveniently excite the rabble.

JIM TREACHER: Petraeus resigns, and it definitely has nothing to do with Benghazi.

Plus, blog comment of the day:

Okay. Just so we’ve all got our history right:

1990′s: Use an ill-timed military exercise to divert attention from the botched handling of an extramarital affair.

2010′s: Use an ill-timed extramarital affair to divert attention from the botched handling of a military exercise.

I would say “heh,” but it’s not exactly funny.

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WAR ON MEN: “Mommy, Why Would You Write a Book with Such a Mean Title?” The Insta-Wife reviews Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men And The Rise of Women, but the quote is from Rosin’s own young son.

OLIVER STONE: “I find Obama scary.”

A NEW BLOG INSPIRED BY THIS WEEK’S ELECTION: TrumpetOfReason.com.

MICHAEL WALSH ON PETRAEUS: David and Bathsheba. “He needs to be called before the Intelligence Committee and to testify about the truth of what happened in Benghazi, including the real reason that ambassador Stevens was there — which, if the rumors of a gun-running operation to Syria are true (shades of both Fast and Furious and Iran-Contra) could be highly deleterious to the administration, and which might have had an effect on the election had they been publicly known. Petraeus should welcome the opportunity, and in fact insist on it. It would be his final act of patriotism — and should he be prevented by the administration and its Democratic allies in Congress from testifying, then his forced silence will speak almost as loudly and even more eloquently.”

UPDATE: Ralph Peters: “Timing is just too perfect.” “Just as the administration claimed it was purely coincidence that our Benghazi consulate was attacked on the anniversary of September 11th. Now it’s purely coincidence that this affair — extra-marital affair — surfaces right after the election, not before, but right after, but before the intelligence chiefs go to Capitol Hill to get grilled. As an old intelligence analyst, Neil, the way I read this — I could be totally wrong, this is my interpretation — is that the administration was unhappy with Petraeus not playing ball 100% on their party-line story. I think it’s getting cold feet about testifying under oath on their party-line story. And I suspect that these tough Chicago guys knew about this affair for a while, held it in their back pocket until they needed to play the card.”

CHANGE: Modern male friendships. “The report argues the evolution of friendship has moved from the reserved 19th and 20th century model, in which men were more independently minded, to a 21st century interconnected world of the kind depicted in films such as ‘Wedding Crashers,’ in which two friends openly profess their emotional reliance on each other.”

Actually, such friendships were common in Victorian times. Things changed because of growing awareness of homosexuality, and resultant fear of looking gay, which has now abated since nobody cares.

KATRINA ON THE HUDSON: A Storm-Ravaged Neighborhood Struggles To Survive.

ENDING COFFEE CONFUSION with language reform. “Instead of the tall, grande or venti sizes favoured by big-name shops such as Starbucks, customers in Debenhams can now simply ask for a cup or mug.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Welcome to Star Scholar U., where professors are the credential.

IT’S TIME TO REALIZE what you voted for.

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NEWS YOU CAN USE: 5 New Uses For Bubble Wrap.

GENERAL PETRAEUS RESIGNS OVER AN AFFAIR, BUT . . . “Is the resignation really about the affair… or is it connected to Benghazi?”

Who was the affair with? That would seem to matter. He was scheduled to testify on Benghazi next week.

UPDATE: Moe Lane: “Seriously, Is there a single member of this administration that has a better public reputation now than when he or she started?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: “If only Petraeus was president instead of head of the CIA then sleeping around wouldn’t be an issue.” That depends. Is he a Democrat?

MORE: So extramarital affairs are now “get of of testifying free” cards? Good to know.

MORE STILL: Stephen Hayes: If David Petraeus was truly “looking forward to testifying” about Benghazi, as his friends claim, what’s stopping him from doing so?

Also: “The way to defuse every single conspiracy theory is to testify, as planned.”

NEGATIVE REVIEW: Spielberg’s Boring Lincoln Like Cramming For the Oscar Final. “Lincoln won’t win any Oscars, and doesn’t deserve any. It’s a hopeless bore that, in an attempt to humanize an icon, turns him into a mere politician. The film has a couple of very strong points but otherwise it’s a near total write-off and a waste of your time.”

AT ABOVE THE LAW: Departure Memo of the Day: Parenting Gets The Best Of One Biglaw Associate. It’s true. You can’t “have it all.” But you never could, and it was never just a problem for women. They’re just the ones who complain about it most loudly. I remember one bigshot partner at my old firm — a huge success, but when his five-year-old drew a family picture in Kindergarten, he left him out of it. That caused him to do some soul-searching and change his approach to work, and undoubtedly his career suffered as a result.

As David Lat Elie Mystal observes: “A lot of people have trouble keeping friendships while working Biglaw.” That’s why these jobs pay a lot. They’re hard.