Not All That Bright.

Bullies, as anyone who has dealt with them before will tell you, tend to be not all that bright.  And look, I know I’m hardly the first to the first to notice this, but Joe Biden would seem a prime example. They also tend to be rude, obnoxious and overbearing.  Think about it, gang. If not for those qualities would Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Or Chris Matthews have TV shows? Would Ezra Klein, Andrew Sullivan, or for that matter any of your favorite lefty tome authors,have websites?

Joe Biden, reacting to the deaths of our people in Benghazi.

Let’s face it…  Joe Biden was in no way shape or form chosen by Barack Obama to be the brains of the Obama/Biden ticket. look at history and you’ll notice that nobody but nobody brings Joe Biden along for his brain power. He was brought into the ticket for 1 reason, and 1 reason only… look like an idiot …IE…be himself…  so that Barack Obama can look good. Biden is one of the few people that could actually do that. In a scandal situation Biden is the ideal vice president. He can always claim plausible deniability. No prosecutor anywhere would ever expect him to know much of anything about what was going on.

Let’s remember Biden debated Sarah Palin and she handed him his head in a basket.. Let’s also remember that the average leftist considers Sarah Palin to be a complete idiot.  So…. Biden lost to a complete idiot by their lights.

So, they figured the only way he was going to come out in the VP debate the other nightwithout being handed his backside again, was to play the bully. It’s not what the situation called for, but it was the only arrow left in the quiver. It’s all the Democrats have, since the facts are simply not on their side.  The Democrats knew based on the loss to Romney other night that the American people weren’t going to buy what the Democrats were selling.. So the only thing they could do was get more shrill, rather like the tin foil hat crowd that they spent so much time disavowing the other day. I note with interest that the only group that was impressed by his performance was that self same Tin foil hat brigade.

Going into Thursday night’s debate with Congressman Paul Ryan, Biden and his fellow Democrats had a score to settle about the first of the three Romney/Obama Debates… at which, the self-immolation of the head of Biden’s Ticket, Obama, has leftists all over the country and likely the world, on a suicide watch.  Even Tingles Matthews figured out is wasn’t tingles, just tinkle, he felt running down is leg.  The perception is that Obama/Biden are now losing the re-election race they considered a lock, largely on account of the debate performance of The Chosen One. (The shift in polling numbers actually goes far deeper and is most certainly not limited to the debate…, but I’ll get to that under another cover.)

Biden also had a personal score to settle over the fiasco he made of the Palin debates.  He needed to redeem himself in front of his fellow liberals, who have long since started to question his usefulness to the cause of the left.

So it should have been no surprise to anyone when Biden came out Thursday night, and started sounding for all the world like the tinfoil hat crowd that so idolizes him. Angry, rude, obnoxious, with a total inability to shut up. His rudeness and condescension were palpable.  He interrupted Paul Ryan no less than 92 times by even CNN’s account, over the 90 minutes. CNN of course being no bastion of right-wing thought… that CNN even kept a count on such matters seems to be indicative of what they thought of Biden’s performance. Of course, each interruption came just as Ryan got going.  It was as if Biden was afraid of letting Ryan complete a point.

For so he was. He was deathly afraid of allowing anyone but himself on that stage (and the moderator, who was unquestionably in his corner) to MAKE a point for fear it would connect with voters.

And that’s something of  a trend I’ve noted over the years, from Democrats. A trend that I noted in the first para, here.  Limbaugh noted the other day…

The Democrat Party, for those of you who are casual participants, the Democrat Party is a very mean-spirited, extreme — Biden personified what we’ve been dealing with for 12 years, ever since Bush-Gore, ever since the 2000 election and the recount aftermath. This is who they’ve been.

I thought it was great. I thought they came out of their shell. None of this so-called compassion and understanding. Biden’s express purpose was to go out there and get that base revved up, and what does that base want? That base wants blood. The base wants rude. The base wants disrespect. The Democrat base is made up of people who literally hate Republicans. Biden gave them exactly what they wanted. In the process, he didn’t help Obama, and he didn’t help himself, with the electorate at large.

Limbaugh’s larger point here goes in a slightly different direction. But I think he’s onto something here. I’m personally a veteran of decades worth of political discussions with Leftists…. If you can call them discussions… and I can tell you first hand, that what we saw in the debate Thursday night is exactly what I’ve been dealing with online from the left since the 70’s.

What Limbaugh says he saw the other night, is exactly what we here at BitsBlog, have seen for decades from the left… in blogs and comments sections and before that in political discussion sections of BBS’s and Usenet.

You saw a mean-spirited, rude, overbearing, disrespectful vice president of the United States who epitomizes and epitomized the Democrat Party today. Joe Biden is who they are. We deal with them every day. We’ve dealt with them for 12 years (in my case, personally). They’re not nice people. Contrary to their branding and contrary to their image. You saw Biden. That’s who he is! I didn’t tell you that’s who Biden was gonna be and he is. You saw Biden for yourself.

Exactly so. Thing is, it didn’t help Obama.  Some of the tweets during the event are instructive, and as you’ll see, the polling results as well:

 

@CNBC

[POLL RESULTS] Who do you think won the VP Debate? Paul Ryan: 56%, Joe Biden: 36%, Neither: 8%. #CNBC2012

@CNN

Check out our CNN Poll on debate winner: Ryan 48%, Biden 44%. on.cnn.com/SVefVK Do you agree? #CNNDebate

@piersmorgan

Trouble is, I don’t think this is a good subject to be lethally smirking about. Keep it serious, Joe…. #PMTdebate

@piersmorgan

OK, that rather large point aside, what points did Biden use the bully pulpit to impart?

Lies.

The very first exchange in the debate I consider emblematic.

 

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey. In fact —

MS. RADDATZ: And why is that so?

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: Because not a single thing he said is accurate. First of all —

MS. RADDATZ: Be specific.

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN: I will be very specific. Number one, the — this lecture on embassy security — the congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for, number one. So much for the embassy security piece.

Now, we saw the same claim from Katrina vanden Heuvel who is the editor, publisher, and part-owner of the leftist rag, The Nation in Face The Nation this morning. So obviously, this lie is going to be a meme going forward from the left. But lie it is.

Now, it’s true… Ryan DID in fact vote against that funding.  And good for him and us.

But not so fast. Transcripts are not out on it, yet, (I gather they take weeks to produce… Governmental efficiency again) …but apparently Biden’s never heard of Darryl Issa, and the hearing last Tuesday as regards the security in Benghazzi and the Obama-created disaster it was, and remains.  Nor has vanden Heuvel  Perhaps Biden  and vanden Heuvel missed the hearing being held on the topic of the Security in Benghazi, and the disaster the Obama administration made of it. ( here’s the vid. ) I sat and listened to the Issa hearing, the whole thing… and can tell you that the question as asked of the head of that division of the State Dept in charge of that security….  Words to the effect… Did Fiscal constraints cause  security gaps? And the director… Lamb, I think her name was, was forced to answer “no”.

Now, Joe, say it with me… “So much for the embassy security piece.”   So, turns out, the very first words out of Biden’s mouth, was a lie.  As I say, that I consider to be emblematic of the entire debate and Biden’s conduct in it.

Look, gang… That Biden did what he did should have been a surprise to absolutely nobody. In the end the only thing that’s going to do is widen the gap between Obama and reelection. The American people recognize lies when they see them.  The polls seem to reflect this.  Then again the press seems to indicate what we’ve always known…

@BDayspring

There’s something Biblical about this, too…

“When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs, and there is no rest.” –Proverbs 29:9

Robert Gibbs gives a preview of Barack Obama’s strategy for the second debate, from Keith Laing, Hill:

“I think the president will make sure people understand the choice, and certainly if Mitt Romney puts up his hands and says ‘I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut plan. I don’t want to cut taxes on the very wealthy,’ absolutely I think the president will walk through for voters in that room that are going to be undecided exactly what the Romney campaign wants to do and why it’s bad for this country,” Gibbs said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Dim Won, b/k/a Obama gave what fifty speeches in his  lame effort to sell Obama Care. No sale. Dim Won can not explain what he does not understand.    He can’t explain Obama Care in fifty speeches, he can not explain Obama economics, or utter lack therefor, in one ninety minute debate.

Will this Obama/Biden message of “We killed Osama but they forgot to remind us about the blowback” really carry them past the election? The buck stops where?

Tom Maquire, Just One Minute.

Givens Practically the entire administration knew that we had a security problem in Benghazi and that the attack was never the result of some stupid video. The Senile Delaware Blue Hen, Joe Biden, asserted that “we” did not know about the security threat in Libya.

It has been established that the State Department knew about the threats. The White House is arguing, that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden did not know about the threats. Ergo, the implication is that Mrs. Clinton did not inform the President, video:

It not a very plausible argument, but this administration seems to stick with implausible talking points.

Hat tip video: William A. Jscobson, Legal Insurrection.

Exit question, do they make buses that big?

Breaking bews, from WHEC-TV, Rochester, NY:

Gates Presbyterian Church will be holding its annual ham dinner on October 27 from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Along with ham, dinner will include potatoes, vegetables, salad, dessert and a drunk.

Tickets can be obtained at the church office located on 1049 Wegman Road, opposite Tinseltown.

All proceeds support the Missions of the church.

How lovely, dinner with a wino.

Time for the senile old Blue Hen to retire to Delaware.  Peggy Noonan shows Old Joe how to do snark:

“National Democrats keep confusing strength with aggression and command with sarcasm. Even the latter didn’t work for Mr. Biden. The things he said had the rhythm and smirk of sarcasm without the cutting substance.”

Ed Driscoll, Instapundit.

I note with interest David’s take on the Big Bird ad.

The Obvious: Democrats have never cut any program but the Military.   The fact was and remains PBS is profitable in the extreme, to the point where Big Bird alone, given merchandising and so on, could fund all of PBS’s activities. I submit that if you’re not serious about cutting that off you are simply not serious about any kind of spending reduction.

let’s call this ad what it is…. desperation

I suggest the problem it exposes is somewhat deeper than may be obvious.

Look again at the ad in question;

“Bernie Madoff. Ken Lay. Dennis Kozlowski: Criminals. Gluttons of greed. And the evil genius who towered over them?” a voiceover says as a silhouette of Big Bird moves on screen.

“Big. Yellow. A menace to our economy. Mitt Romney knows it’s not Wall Street you have to worry about, it’s Sesame Street.”

OK, so we see that from Obama’s point of view, Wall Street types are greedy criminals, in the view of Obama and Company. Rather like what Marx preached, if I’m not much mistaken.   The point about Marx aside for the moment, I’ll ask again what I’ve been asking for the last three years… When you make enemies of successful people, enemies of anyone motivated by profit, why on earth is anyone surprised when companies leave the country, taking jobs with them, and when as a result, the beconomy takes a dive?

Clearly the lesson of the last three years has been lost on Obama… he’s still of the misbegotten idea that the problem is Capitalism, and the solution is government.  He’s still holding onto this fantasy, even when the rest of us… including a rather healthy number of people who used to believe the Obama hype enough to vote for him last time, have grown up and are planning on voting against Obama.You’d think the evidence to the contrary would be overwhelming.

Then again, this is the same guy who told us a movie was responsible for Benghazi a week after it was obvious to everyone else what the story was…

When you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit     Barack Obama, and his entire campaign are out of ideas and have resort4ed to bird droppings,  from,  Wall Street Journal:

According to financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2011, Sesame Workshop and its nonprofit and for-profit subsidiaries had total operating revenue of more than $134 million. They receive about $8 million a year in direct government grants and more indirectly via PBS subsidies. Big Bird and friends also receive corporate and foundation support, and donations amount to about a third of revenue. Distribution fees and royalties comprise another third and licensing revenue makes up the rest.

At the end of fiscal 2011, Sesame Workshop and its subsidiaries had total assets of $289 million. About $29 million was held in cash and “cash equivalents,” mainly money-market mutual funds. Another $121 million on the balance sheet was held in “investments.” According to the accompanying notes, these investments included stakes in hedge funds and private-equity funds. It’s unclear from the financial statements if Big Bird has ever invested in funds run by Bain Capital, founded by Mitt Romney, but no doubt Sesame would be welcomed as a client by many investment managers

The strangest line in the sand, since Saddam Hussein decision to defend Kuwait.

More, Obama campaign leaves Big Bird droppings, across political spectrum, from Ed Morriswsey, Hot Air:

When your campaign strategy loses Matt Lauer, Chris Matthews Bob Shrum, and earns four Pinocchios from the Washington Post, where exactly does that leave you? In a fine, feathered mess, that’s where.

Mitt Romney wants to talk about twenty-three million unemployed or under employed. Barack Obama wants to talk about yellow feather, multimillionaire welfare queen.     True, Romney is a millionaire, but Big Bird is even richer, just not as rich as John Kerry.

Addendum: more, Steve Blanco, Legal Insurrection:

It is approved by Barack Obama, video:

Hat Tip:   Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.

Well the President  did sign the Affordable Care Act into law, despite having never read it.    So why expect any better from a campaign advertisement.

Addendum: more stupid video:

Hat tip: Weekly Standard

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman could not be reached for comment.

Mitt Romney gave a foreign policy speech at Virginia Military Institute.  In desperation,  the Obami had roll Maddy “Mad as Wet Hen’ Albright to respond,  from Wall Street Journal:

The Obama campaign responded to Mitt Romney’s foreign-policy speech Monday by painting Mr. Romney’s stances as vague and naive, and said he didn’t make clear how he would handle multiple global hot spots differently from President Barack Obama.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on a conference call organized by the Obama campaign said the speech “sounds pretty good but I think it is really full of platitudes and free of substance.”

Polling shows voters give the edge to Mr. Obama on handling of foreign policy, and the president repeatedly trumpets what he sees as his clearest victories: ending the war in Iraq, weakening al Qaeda and ordering the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. On Monday, his campaign voiced little concern with a debate over national security and foreign policy. “Bring it on,” said spokesman Ben LaBolt

The late Usama bin Laden was not the enemy. Rather bin Laden was just one enemy soldier. Merely saying al Qaeda is dead or weakened will not make it so.   Unlike Ambassador Chris Steven, al Qaeda is far from dead.   Unlike VMA-211,  al Qaeda is far from weakened.     In his own private little world, Obama thinks he is winning the war on Man Made Disasters.    In the real world, Obama is still stuck on a golf  course come where.

Clarice Feldman, writing in American Thinker:

In my opinion the writing is on the wall: Obama’s toast.

Thus Clarice concludes. Read her entire article to see see how Clarice reaches her conclusion.

From Investor’s Business Daily, by way of Glenn Reynolds:

Even If Obama Did Cook The Jobs Numbers, They Still Stink. “The fact is that even with these inexplicable results, this jobs report shows an economy that continues to struggle. After all, an economy that’s creating just 114,000 jobs is barely producing enough new jobs to keep up with population growth, much less drive down the real unemployment rate. What’s more, the drop in the official unemployment rate, if those numbers are to be believed, was driven largely by a big upturn in part-time jobs. Workers who can’t find full-time work, or forced to take huge pay cuts to land work, are not signs of forward momentum. And that’s why the BLS’ broader, but little noticed,measure of the unemployed — which includes discouraged workers and those working part time because they can’t find full-time jobs — remained unchanged in September at a gut-wrenching 14.7%.”

No argument on any of that… if… I say again, If… you take the numbers at face value. Trouble is we’ve learned the hard way about taking anything this administration says at face value.

But for the sake of discussion, let’s do so for a moment. IBD’s point is well taken, and it does cause wonder on two points;

• How bad would it have been absent the diddling?
• And, what about next month? The numbers HAVE to come back to reality, in the next month, and the report will be out just a couple days before the election.

I suppose we’ll find out in a months time the answer to both these questions.

For clarity, let me restate;

Is the Administration DIRECTLY fiddling with the numbers?  Likely not, though I’d not put it past them, given the level of untruth we’ve been seeing out of the WH these past nearly four years. I’m sorry gang, but I just can’t put it past them.  The level of cynicism coming out of this white house and its protectors in the press have made me cynical on this the point.  The level of trust simply is not there, mostly because of the demonstrably large number of times this administration has been less than honest.

And I’d add that this administration on the whole, and particularly at the head of it, doesn’t seem smart enough to be able to pull off anything of the kind. To be a good enough liar to cover your tracks one needs be smart, and Obama simply isn’t.  It seems more likely to me that it comes down to how the numbers are touted by the WH and the press.

Inside Baseball stuff; To those wondering what was happening with Sitemeter, apparently it had something to do with the fact that the config never got changed after joining the TCR family. A lot of site hits were going missing. I’ve fixed that problem.

It doesn’t appear to be Obama’s year. Eric Pianin at MSN of all places, notes;

President Obama ventured into the Rose Garden Tuesday morning to announce new measures to crack down on oil market manipulation and address soaring gas prices. But as he departed, a television reporter shouted out the burning question of the hour: Would the director of the U.S. Secret Service resign?

Obama ignored the question.

With more and more unsavory details leaking out about the Secret Service Colombia sex scandal, it would come as no surprise if Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan were shown the gate before too long. The Obama White House has no compunction about firing underlings to try to blunt political controversy.

But it’s unlikely this mushrooming scandal will disappear any time soon, amid reports that nearly a dozen U.S. Secret Service agents and more than five military personnel caroused and consorted with prostitutes at a hotel in advance of Obama’s Colombia visit last week. And this comes on top of congressional hearings this week into revelations that General Services Administration officials squandered $823,000 on a Las Vegas retreat back in 2010 – complete with a $75,000 bicycle building exercise, a clown show and $6,325 spent on commemorative coins.

So far, at least a half dozen House and Senate committees have opened investigations into the GSA and Secret Service scandals, with many other Republicans seemingly eager to join in the finger wagging and condemnations. “As I look through this, there’s no wonder that the American people have lost faith in their government,” lamented freshman Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa. “I want indictments!” declared Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.

Before all this misery beset the administration, it looked as if Obama had turned the corner on the economy and was back in the political catbird’s seat heading into the fall election campaign. While unemployment, economic growth and the housing market still left much to be desired, Obama could make the plausible argument that he had succeeded in leading the country out of the worst financial meltdown and recession of modern times, that he saved the U.S. auto industry by bailing out GM and Chrysler, and that he restored investor and consumer confidence.

I should point out that were scandals what is going to end the Obama presidency, I’d say that they should already have done so. The list of scandals in this administration is impressive in the extreme.

Not smallest among them is the fact that Soros was the main beneficiary in Obama’s “stimulus” plan. All this stuff has been known for some time among the more politically connected. Meaning, anyone who has been paying attention.  Additionally, I passed along, last night, yet another scandal as regards foreign funding for the Obama campaign.  

But Pianin continues;

By contrast, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, had been so brutally savaged by his GOP primary rivals as a flip-flopper, liar and faux conservative – and had done such a good job of alienating women and Hispanic voters – that the November election was shaping up as a cakewalk for Obama. Romney was dismissed by liberal critics and pundits as a politically tone deaf multi-millionaire aristocrat who boasted about enjoying firing incompetent people, who said he wasn’t worried about poor people and who confided that his wife owned two Cadillacs.

But practically overnight, the whole complexion of the contest has changed. The race has begun to tighten, based on fresh polling; economic trends are getting worrisome again, and the European debt crisis has taken another bad turn.

The Gallup Organization’s inaugural daily tracking poll had Romney leading Obama by two percentage points, 47 percent to 45 percent, while Rasmussen Tracking had Romney up by one point. Obama led Romney by nine points in a CNN/Opinion Research poll, 52 percent to 43 percent, and Reuters/Ipsos had the president up by four points.

Moreover, fresh analyses of the electoral map by RealClearPolitics, the Washington Post and other news organizations show that Romney begins the general election campaign with 170 of the 270 electoral votes he would need to win the election. In order to pick up the additional 100 electoral votes, Romney only needs some states that routinely went to Republicans before the 2008 race (namely Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Montana) while retaining a few states that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., managed to win – including Arizona and Missouri.

The way it’s starting to look by way of the polling numbers and the other factors Pianin reports,   all these scandals might not be what brings Obama’s presidency to its overdue end.  All it took was Romney cleaning Obama’s clock at their first meeting.

Of course that doesn’t stop the scandals from being revealed and investigated.I’m stocking up on popcorn, myself.

The Washington Examiner is reporting tonight, on Another Obama Campaign Funding Scandal which may be the biggest bombshell in years:

Some say President Barack Obama was clearly off his game during Wednesday’s televised Presidential debate. Others say it was his anniversary and he would rather be enjoying a relaxing evening with Michelle. And then there are those that say, he was bored – just didn’t want to be there.

But late yesterday a story began circulating, initially reported by Washington Examiner reporter Paul Bedard, that perhaps the commander-in-chief has a scandal brewing over donations coming into the Obama-Biden campaign fund via foreign entities, many using untraceable prepaid credit cards.

Everyone should know that with today’s technology everything is traceable. With the use of forensic science, it seems that no crime, big or small, is left uncovered. Everything is traceable – it’s simply a matter of time..
…..

According to the Washington Examiner, “a taxpayer watchdog group conducted a nine-month investigation into presidential and congressional fundraising and has uncovered thousands of cases of credit card solicitations and donations to Obama and Capitol Hill, allegedly from unsecure accounts, and many from overseas.”
….

Regarding this new election 2012 scandal, Bedard reported that “the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.”

Maybe now, we have some idea why Obama seemed a little distracted at the debate the other night?

Stay tuned… this one’s going to get large, and in a hurry.

Addendum:(Eric) And it’s not like Obama and Company haven’t pulled this before.  How criminal need the Democrats get before being alled on it by heir own rank and file?