THE APOCALYPSE NEARS

Signs that the Apocalypse ain't far away:

) Private Chelsea Manning (It's not the transgender thing; it's that someone with such obvious mental and emotional problems had practically unlimited access to sensitive documents pertaining to the nation's security)

) Senator Ted Cruz

) Republicans in general (Remember the good ol' days when Democrats were the whacko party? At least they were never a real threat to bring the American experiment to a crashing halt)

) Facebook

) Twitter

) The Middle East

) Climate change deniers

) Fox Noise

 

) A financial system that is totally at the mercy of computers (and hackers and technological glitches and whatall)

STAND YOUR GROUND = LICENSE TO KILL

Stripped of legalese and high-sounding bows to an individual's right of self-defense, the essence of stand your ground laws is a license to kill. You find yourself in a ticklish situation with a loud-mouth ahole, you don't have to expend energy in trying to defuse things. You can just blow his sorry a** away.

 

In the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman confrontation, whoever survived arguably had a stand-your-ground defense. Zimmerman was allegedly on the  ground getting his head pounded into the concrete, so he was justified in shooting Martin. Never mind that Zimmerman had stupidly put himself in harm's way.

 

If Martin had been the survivor, he most certainly would have had a stand your ground defense. He was being followed by some weird wannabe tough guy who had a gun. If that is not a threatening situation justifying a bit of preventative killing, nothing is.

 

Yeah, standing your ground is a great addition to the Second Amendment. No more need to show a preference for peaceful solutions or defusing actions. Rationality is for losers. The law says you can shoot first. Ain't that great?

F-BOMB IN COURT

Much to the delight of the nation's media, pundits, and assorted talking heads, the prosecutor in his opening statement in the George Zimmerman trial dropped the f-bomb. It was a planned drop, not one of those spur-of-the-moment “oh f***”s. The prosecutor was quoting Mr. Zimmerman in a call the latter had made to the police shortly before slaying another individual, a slaying Mr. Zimmerman claims was self-defense but the state, represented by the prosecutor, asserts was murder.

The prosecutor was not the first lawyer to drop the f-bomb in a trial. Cranky his own self did so almost four decades ago. At the time, Cranky had a little part-time law practice down in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he had grown up and was working on a graduate degree at the Big Green, or The College of W&M. One day a cousin dropped into his office, a young lady he had last seen when she was a child. She was now a young adult and in a bit of a jam.

Seems she had gotten into an argument with another young lady over the affections of a young gentleman, a truck driver as near as Cranky can recall. Some unpleasant words were uttered and there may have been a bit of hair-pulling. The local constabulary became involved, and Cranky's cousin found herself with a court date. Only a misdemeanor was alleged, so it wasn't the crime of the century.

Still, Cranky didn't get into a courtroom much. Thus here was an opportunity to shine. The only witness against Cranky's cousin was the other young lady. In fact, since only a misdemeanor was involved, there was no prosecuting attorney. The complaining young lady took the stand and told the judge her version of events. The judge, incidentally, who Cranky had been before on several other occasions, conducted his court in the head-down position. He was continuously writing and rarely looked up for eye-contact with anyone in the courtroom−attorneys, parties, police officers, spectators, anyone.

The young lady completed her perceptions of the truth as she remembered them. As one might expect, she was just an innocent victim of a wrathful other woman. But Cranky had heard his cousin's version of the incident, and that version included one item that the complaining young lady had not mentioned.

So Cranky got right to it: “Miss Jones, isn't it true that you called my client a 'Mothaf***ing B****'?”

The low rumble of courtroom back-up noise ceased. Jaws of spectators and attending law enforcement officers dropped. The judge looked up from his writing. And the young lady on the stand commenced a flustered bout of hemming and hawing.

Soon after, the judge ended the proceedings by instructing the two young ladies to stay the heck away from each other. Some months later, after several billing notices, Cranky's cousin paid him his $10 fee.

All in all, it was one of Cranky's finest courtroom moments, rivaled only by the time a young male client ran from the courtroom shortly after being told by the judge that he needed to spend some time at a state facility for troublesome youths. After following his client for several hours through the picturesque Colonial Capital, Cranky was able to flag down an officer of the law, who returned Cranky and the adventurous youth to the courtroom.

But that's another story.

BATON BEING PASSED

The big picture significance of Edwardo Snowden and the NSA situation is that the generational baton is being passed. Maybe slowly but certainly inexorably. This doesn't mean that Ed is any sort of hero, or even that he shouldn't spend considerable time in the slammer, provided he eventually surfaces in U.S. custody.

What it does mean is that the generation now on the precipice of power will not be denied, as previous generations on the precipice of power were not denied. The flow of time is inexorable, and no ranting and raving by the likes of Dick Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, and others standing athwart history yelling "Stop" can hold back the tide.

The generation on the precipice of power is a nerdy group. Computerized social media and computerized everything else have been their environment. They are the first generation fully a product of the Information Age. They don't see 9/11 as older generations do. Older generations see 9/11 as a momentous, paradigm-threatening event epitomizing and releasing forces that must be defeated. The precipice generation is not so sure. Many of its members have no strong recollections of "Before." They came to adulthood in uncertainty. Sometimes they wonder what all the fuss is about.

What they do see, in the United States that is, is a government and ruling class that can be somewhat hysterical. Every minor issue has the potential of going viral, of causing massive and conflicting paranoias. The members of the precipice generation may have concerns about the aggressiveness and rigidity of foreign powers and ideologies, but they have similar concerns about the aggressiveness and rigidity of the right and left sides of the political and cultural spectrums in their own country.

Edwardo Snowden, Bradley Manning, they represent a generational rebellion against the old order. And us members of the old order? We best prepare for change, at least as far as the dominance of our world view is concerned.

WORST ELECTION CHOICE EVER?

Voters in the Commonwealth of Virginia (not a state, Dude; we're a Commonwealth) may be facing the worst election choice in the history of democracy, a history stretching back to at least Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and their pals in ancient Greece.

Okay, that might be an overstatement. At least the two candidates for November's gubernatorial election are not crooks (that we know of). And at least the election appears to be real and not one of those pro forma phony (and often crooked) things held in many parts of the world.

Still, for voters in the vicinity of the political spectrum's center, it is hard to imagine two more unpalatable candidates than Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe. The Cuch is one of those far right whack jobs who have pretty much captured the Republican Party. Terry Boy is a Virginian mostly by virtue of paying Virginia taxes. The Cuch got his party's nomination by hijacking the nomination process from an open primary to a convention dominated by like-minded again'ers (those against just about anything). Terry Boy is on the verge of getting his party's nomination because the Virginia version of his party is devoid of state-wide leadership at the moment.

Do issues matter in this election? Probably some. What will probably matter most, however, is turn out. If turn out is low, the advantage goes to the Cuch who can count on the rabid support of fellow again'ers. If Terry Boy can persuade enough middle-of-the-roaders to overcome their apathy and show up at the pols, he has a chance.

But that's a lot of apathy for Terry Boy to overcome.

CONSERVATIVES AS GRADUATION SPEAKERS?

A conservative was complaining on a recent radio show that only a small percentage of graduation speakers at colleges and universities are of the conservative persuasion. Well, duh.

Of course conservatives are not well represented at graduation ceremonies. Graduations are a time of happiness, a time of optimism. Who wants to hear gloom and doom at such events? Gloom and doom may be correct. We may all be going to hell in a hand basket. But really, is that what you want to hear at your graduation, or your kid’s graduation?

Conservatives are all about gloom and doom. And about the past. They are ever moaning about the lost paradises of yesteryear. As a general matter, they are only happy when opining on two topics: their own alleged victimhood at the hands of liberals and the mainstream media, and the alleged decaying state of society.

Occasionally, a conservative will come along who doesn’t sound like Dr. Grump ninety percent of the time. Ronald Reagan was one such individual. But by and large, conservatives impress the rest of the populace as dour and dogmatic, incapable of expressing a positive view of the future without tying it to a particular political stance or a static economic structure.

So yes, Conservatives, you might be under-represented on graduation stages. But most of us get enough of cranky old aunts and uncles at Thanksgiving dinner. Who wants to hear one at a graduation?

"POSITIVE RESPONSE"

A local radio station has been running an ad by a medical clinic specializing in the sexual problems of the American male, the major problem apparently being the erectile dysfunction (ED) epidemic that is making the nation's obesity epidemic look like small potatoes (small potatoes, obesity, get it?). The ad suggests that the clinic focuses on the really hard cases (oops, another poor word choice), experiments with combinations of almost two hundred medicines, has successfully helped a 94-year old, and promises a positive response right there in the clinic or your money back.

The ad raises a number of troubling images, one of course being that of a 94-year old guy gettin' it on. Perhaps the most troubling images, however, involve what might constitute a "positive response." Here's one image. A patient is lying on a bed, or maybe just a gurney. He might be completely naked, or maybe just his head and groin are uncovered. Four or five medical types with clipboards and pens are gathered around. The group might consist of one or two doctors, maybe an intern, and several nurses, most likely elderly. They are watching for movement.

"There, it twitched."

"No, that was strong enough."

"Well, it was certainly close."

"It could have been just a PH." (PH being an acronym for the medical term "penile hiccup.")

Now, if the ad is producing images such as this, perhaps the clinic's advertizing efforts need some adjustment. No matter how bad a fella's problems are, the possibility of group observation of his groin by serious medical types might be more than he is willing to chance.

A much better "positive response" image could involve young Swedish masseuses wearing the official uniform of the Swedish Bikini Team. Of course, developing a tactful, and legal, ED ad featuring Swedish masseuses would certainly be a challenge. But if you're promising a "positive response" or your money back, you gotta offer more than a group of dour medical types watching intently for the effects of a pill.

FIFTY SHADES OF, WHATEVER

Cranky is a little more than one month short of seventy. Cranky's wife is much younger, by a year to be more precise. So Cranky has a trophy wife.

But should that trophy wife be reading "Fifty Shades of Grey"?

Really, how is Cranky supposed to respond? Dinner at MacDonalds?

Or maybe washing the dishes one night.

Or being sure to put the toilet seat down.

Or vacuuming.

Or not complaining about his bunion. (You would be amazed at the size of that thing.)

Or maybe emailing Carolyn Hax for advice. (Note emailing instead of writing; Cranky is not unaware of social media and the Information Age.)

Or thinking, "It's just a phase."

Or suggesting more Nora Roberts.

Or recommending a different arthritis medication.

Or mentioning his heart condition.

Such weighty issues make Cranky sleepy. Time for a nap.

THE GOVERNMENT PROMISES NOT TO. . . .

After a thirteen-hour filibuster, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky extracted a promise from the Government to not drone him while he was having a frappe cappuccino or something at a cafe. Whether the promise is valid in just Kentucky or encompasses the entire country is a little unclear, but subsequent negotiations between the Senator and the Government will presumably clear up that particular point.

Now some might contend that Senator Paul's fear of a personal droning was a little unrealistic. After all, the Government's theoretical capability of doing something does not necessarily mean that the something will be done. But one individual's seemingly irrational fear is another's distinct possibility, even likelihood, and the Constitution's guarantee of freedom from fear makes no distinction between the rational and the irrational, and indeed authorizes no branch of Government to make the distinction. Embedded in the Constitution's Preamble−"in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"− is certainly the right to rationally or irrationally fear whatever one wants.

In any case, Senator Paul's success in achieving a personal promise from the Government concerning a particular fear of his has established a precedent. Taken to its logical conclusion, the precedent is that each and every citizen is entitled to a promise or promises from the Government to refrain from inflicting some unpleasantness upon him or her. Once the scope of this precedent becomes widely recognized, the deluge will begin. To cope, the Government might need to establish a new agency, the Department of Personal Promises, or DOPP. So much for balancing the budget.

An initial promise that many a citizen will request is "to not take my guns away." Despite the Second Amendment, more than two centuries of widespread gun-ownership, and promises galore by politicians over the years and across the political spectrums, fear of Government confiscation of guns is rampant in many areas of the country. So every citizen who desires a promise of no confiscation will be entitle to a personal letter from the Government: "Dear Mr. LaPierre, We the Government promise not to take your guns away. s/The Government."

Of course, given how deeply entrenched is the fear of gun confiscation, the promise will likely have to be re-expressed every month or so.

Other possible Government promises concerning fears some citizens might find unrealistic include:

) To not have your home nuked.

) To not have a microchip planted in your brain to control your thoughts.

) To not have poisonous snakes dropped in your backyard.

) To not have spider colonies put in your attic.

) To not be required to listen to Fox Noise at least four hours a day.

) To not be required to listen to MSNBC at least four hours a day.

) To not have black UN helicopters following you around.

And so on. A Government agency with the sole mission of promising citizens that their personal fears about Government intrusion won't come to pass might go a long way toward dampening the current epidemic of national paranoia. It certainly couldn't hurt. You have my word.

CHARLOTTESVILLE CATFIGHT

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell needed this like the proverbial hole in the head. The University of Virginia catfight between Board of Visitors member Helen Dragas and University President Teresa Sullivan has resurfaced. In spite of her ineptitude, and failure, last year in attempting to remove Ms. Sullivan from office, Ms. Dragas remained on the Board and indeed was reappointed by Governor McDonnell for another term, a reappointment confirmed by the Virginia Legislature in January.

Ms. Dragas apparently celebrated her reappointment by presenting Ms. Sullivan with a list of 65 goals for the latter to meet in the current school year. The number was pared down a bit by the full Board of Visitors but reportedly still remains formidable. Thus the conflict that captured the nation’s attention last June appears posed for round two.

And just when things were going well for the Governor. In recent weeks he was able to get a compromise tax plan through the state’s cantankerous Legislature, and he has received kudos for being a voice of reason—one of the few in the Republican Party—on the desirability of mitigating the effects of the sequester. So thanks a lot, Helen. You too Teresa, although Helen’s thick-headedness and tone-deafness seem the real problems here.

After all, 65 goals? That sounds like micromanagement carried to an exponential power. Was micromanagement your field of concentration at the University’s Darden School of Business, Helen? And Darden, is Helen a typical example of your output? And what about the dimwit who, after the events of last summer, put Helen on the Board of Visitors’ three-person evaluation committee? Wasn’t anything else available? Say, the prom committee, or the meeting scheduling committee?

But in large measure due to the interplay of three stereotypes, the situation certainly has entertainment value. The first stereotype is the Catfight, two women going at each other. MEOW, scratch, scratch. The second stereotype is the Queen Bee, a woman who reaches a high position turning on female peers and subordinates. Incidentally, the Review section of the March 2-3 Wall Street Journal features an article entitled “The Tyranny of the Queen Bee.”

And the third stereotype is exemplified by this very column: males getting an inordinate amount of pleasure watching Catfights and Queen Bees. A Seinfeld episode captured the stereotype, with Jerry, Kramer, George, and assorted other males, including several cops, enjoying Elaine’s travails with another female.

So, Helen and Teresa, don’t let up. Deep down inside, we really are enjoying this. MEOW, scratch, scratch. Who's getting the keg?

s/Cranky, a Wahoo Alum (BA,’65; JD,’72)

MATT DILLON AND GUN RIGHTS

With all the citing of precedents in the current debate over guns, an important figure in American history has been ignored. The views of Matt Dillon, one of the nation's Founding Fathers, have received practically no attention.

Mr. Dillon, as he was usually called by Chester, his trusty helper, had an unequivocal approach to guns: you couldn't wear your gun in Dodge City, where Mr. Dillon was the marshal. And this wasn't just about your modern day assault weapon with a magazine holding dozens, or hundreds, of rounds. This was about your old-timey six-shot revolver.

Yes, Mr. Dillon understood a basic thing about guns: they are frigging dangerous, particularly after you've had a few drinks in the Long Branch Saloon and have become enamored of Miss Kitty. Better you settle your problems with fisticuffs rather than lead, steel, uranium, or whatever bullets happen to be made of at your particular moment of history.

Remember in the beginning of each episode of Gunsmoke how Mr. Dillon slapped leather with some bad guy? Mr. Dillon wasn't the fastest on the draw, but he was the one standing when the smoke cleared. Wouldn't it be great to see Wayne LaPierre as the bad guy, standing there with an AR-15, a Glock, and bandoleers over his shoulders and across his chest? Hey Wayne, even with all that firepower you think you got a chance against Mr. Dillon? He ain't like those Congressional fru-fru boys, and girls, you've been pushing around for the last couple of decades.

Boot Hill, here we come.

GUNS AND MENTAL HEALTH

Perhaps even the NRA could agree with the proposition that individuals with serious mental health problems should not have guns. A no-brainer, right? But at what point, if any, do extreme political views indicate a serious mental health problem that would prohibit an individual from possessing a gun?

Take an individual on the extreme radical left. Does the espousal of armed overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a Communist dictatorship indicate a serious mental health problem?

Or just take a leftist-leaning individual who believes entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security are more important than balanced federal government budgets, even over the long term. Does this cavalier attitude toward deficit spending, toward unbalanced budgets, indicate a serious mental health problem?

Incidentally, the most definitely right-leaning Dick Cheney once said approvingly that "Reagan proved deficits don't matter." Does such a statement indicate the former Vice President has a serious mental health problem and consequently should have his guns confiscated? Actually, in the case of the former VP, the mental health issue is preempted by the competence issue. In shooting a hunting companion in the face, Mr. Cheney arguably displayed gross incompetence in the handling of a firearm. Ideally, such a level of incompetence should result in placement on the "No Guns For You" list.

Moving to the other end of the political spectrum, would a yard sign such as the following indicate a serious mental health problem: "The Second Amendment is the only thing between the People and Tyranny"? Some on the left might say so.

Thus the matter of guns and mental health is no easy thing to fit one's mind around. Fortunately, the nation has a Congress of predominately sane individuals who should be able to produce appropriate guidance.

OBAMA SHOULD GO BIG ON ENTITLEMENT REFORM

Democrats pretend it doesn't exist. Republicans acknowledge it but are unrealistic in their solutions. What is it? An aging population. The proportion of Americans over 65 has risen from 6.8 percent in 1940, to 12.4 percent in 2000, to 13.0 percent in 2010. The Census Bureau estimate for 2025 is 17.9 percent.

But the two major entitlement programs−Medicare and particularly Social Security−are implicitly based on unchanging demographics. Medicare was revamped by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2012−Obamacare−a very complex, and controversial, piece of legislation. The changes made in Medicare might be sufficient to ensure viability for some time to come, but continued monitoring will be necessary.

Social Security, on the other hand, is certainly unsustainable in its present form over the long term. What is the long term? Different observers have different opinions, which means disagreement, which in turn means a barrier to action. Consequently, the nation plods along, meandering into the future and hoping for the best.

At the very least, Social Security's age qualifications should be reexamined, and needs requirements should be considered. But many Democrats want to maintain Social Security in its present form, damn the changing demographics and the unlikelihood of maintaining the status quo solely through sizeable tax increases. As for Republicans, many of them want no tax component at all in any solution, meaning that they don't really have realistic solutions.

Significantly complicating the issue is fear on the part of both fervent Democrats and fervent Republicans of making a political mistake. Keep your head down. Let the other guy step into the line of fire.

This is where Obama should go big. The political center, where the majority of Americans reside, is not that much concerned about who is in power. The center wants solutions to problems. Obama, not having to run for office again, does not have to worry as much about offending the extremes on the left or the right. He does not have to tippy-toe around. He can throw out big ideas, big solutions, and let the chips fall where they may. An explicit proposal to revamp Social Security through both spending and revenue changes would put the left and right extremes on the defensive.

So, Big O, go for it.

CAN DEMOCRATS REMAIN THE ADULT PARTY?

For several years, the Democratic Party has been the nation's adult party, the party of reason, of logic, of compromise. But the characterization was not so much earned as bestowed by default. With the Republican Party resembling a group of infants going through the terrible twos−unrestrained desires, zero self-control, tantrums−appearing to be the adults required little effort.

As a result of being perceived as the adult party, Democrats largely triumphed in the November election and the year-end fiscal cliff standoff. In the election, Mr. Mitt and supporters did not come across as serious people with serious policies. They were all buzz words and absence of details. In the fiscal cliff mess, Republicans, particularly the House Republicans, seemed locked in an unstructured childhood fantasy that only they comprehended, and not really very well.

But in the political world, adulthood is not something that is necessarily permanent. Regressing to political childhood is all too easy, particularly when segments of your party are strongly ideological and bereft of any appreciation for opposing views or of what can reasonably be accomplished.

The Achilles heel of the Democrats, the factor that could destroy the current adult status of the party, is an inability on the part of some to see the need for a long-term balancing of government revenue and expenditures. Segments of the Democratic Party see a problem or an injustice and immediately want to throw money at it, damn the budgetary consequences. Or they refuse to acknowledge that circumstances change and that what were once acceptable monetary solutions are no longer appropriate.

Medicare and Social Security are two areas in which current policies are financially not sustainable over the long term. The population is aging. The proportion of people over 65 has risen from 6.8 percent in 1940, to 12.4 percent in 2000, to 13.0 percent in 2010. The Census Bureau estimate for 2025 is 17.9 percent. For Medicare and Social Security to remain viable over the decades ahead, such factors as age qualifications and needs requirements need to be revaluated. Can the Democratic Party participate in this revaluation? Or is the Party poised to abandoned the adult world for childhood fantasies?

THE REPUBLICAN GOAL: TO REMAIN A VIRGIN

To remain a virgin appears to be the primary goal of most Republicans in the fiscal cliff maneuverings, virginity to Republican true believers meaning never having voted to increase taxes. The easiest way to maintain one's tax virginity in the current circumstances is to do nothing and go over the fiscal cliff, let the automatic tax increases occur, and then quickly vote to reduce them, if not for everyone at least for everyone but the very rich.

If instead, a Republican, before the fiscal cliff is reached on January 1, votes to make permanent the current temporary rates on all but the very rich, his action (there aren't that many Republican hers in Congress) could be interpreted as an affirmative vote to increase taxes on those very rich. The Republican could argue that technically he was still a virgin, but technical political virginity is a tough case to make, just as is the case for technical sexual virginity among sexually active youth.

Granted, John Boehner's (most definitely not pronounced "Boner's") Plan B, which would have raised tax rates only on the very rich, was blessed by Pope Grover the First. But really, what does a Pope actually understand about virginity? Parenthetically, is virginity a requirement for being Pope, and if so, is it unquestioned virginity or just technical virginity?

Anyway, the reason the fiscal cliff mess is going down to the wire may be to enable Republicans to maintain their virginity. Instead of criticizing their actions, or non-actions, the sinners among us ought to stand in admiration of their restraint, a restraint that we sinners obviously lacked in the back seat of that '58 Edsel oh so many years ago, even if it was just a technical violation.

GUNS AND TECHNOLOGY

Here's the problem with the Constitution's Second Amendment: technology. When the Bill of Rights−with the Second Amendment−was adopted in 1791, "arms" were ye olde muzzle-loading musket, ye olde flintlock pistol, in short, ye olde old. Two rounds a minute would be a good rate of fire with these weapons.

Today, "arms" might, depending on who is doing the defining, include a fully automatic AR-15 spitting out 800 rounds per minute. How long would it take a Revolutionary War soldier to fire 800 rounds? At two rounds a minute, 400 hundred minutes, or more than six and a half hours.

So a Constitutional provision that protected the right to own a weapon firing two rounds a minute is now protecting the right to spray 800 rounds a minute? Even if the Constitutional protection is limited to semi-automatic weapons, an AR-15 in semi-automatic mode can spew 50 or more rounds a minute, depending on the quickness of the shooter's trigger finger and the size of the weapon's magazine. In the Founding Fathers' era, a shooter would need close to half an hour to get off 50 rounds.

Maybe it's time to repeal the Second Amendment, or at least adopt Justice Antonin Scalia's strict constructionist approach to Constitutional interpretation: the Constitution means what it meant when adopted in the closing years of the 18th Century. As for the term "arms," that means the Second Amendment's protection is limited to two rounds per minute.

What say you, NRA?

OVER THE CLIFF

What th' hell, Thelma, let's go over the cliff. It can't be any worse than watching the ridiculous minuet the donkeys and elephants in Washington and the talking heads there and in the Big Apple are engaged in. High school student councils across the nation do a better job of governing, and you remember what kind of dorks were on student council.

Besides, how bad can the likely consequences be? The nation would return to the tax rates of the later Clinton years. Remember those years? They were a time of budget surpluses, full employment, prosperity. W, draft-dodging Dick Cheney, and their myopic followers hadn't yet put the nation on a path to economic and fiscal disaster by cutting taxes−and consequently revenues−undertaking two wars on the nation's credit card, authorizing a prescription drug program for Medicare without paying for it, and in general making hedge fund managers look like responsible fiduciaries.

And for good measure, conducting foreign policy in a manner that would make Attila the Hun envious.

Barack is being criticized for not being a negotiator, for not buttering up the likes of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Maybe there's something to the criticism, although making nice with the Boehners and McConnells of the world would be beyond the ability of most sane people. But the real problem does not appear to be making nice but ideological rigidity. The Republican party of the second decade of the 21st (and maybe last) Century is in the hands of the lowest common denominator. Egged on by Fox Noise, conservative talk radio, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, and their fellow travelers, the members of the lowest common denominator appear ready to take the nation into the economic abyss.

So why fight it? Let's join hands, stomp on the accelerator, and go over the edge. The uncertainty has an appeal that a future of partisan bickering, intransigence, nitpicking, and political gamesmanship lacks.

BENGHAZI: A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS

In an effort to create a Watergate-level scandal, Fox Noise and its flunkies in the U.S. Congress (talking about you, Senators McCain and Graham), are making an already murky event much more opaque. Here’s a framework for analyzing and interpreting what has transpired. The framework doesn’t provide answers but merely tries to separate the important questions and issues from the unimportant, and to highlight the complicating facets of the matter.

First, it is helpful to think of events in Benghazi as taking place in three phases: the pre-event phase, the attacks themselves, and the public explanation aftermath. Second, not just the U.S. State Department was involved. The attack was against both a State Department consulate and a significant operational center for U.S. intelligence operations. And third, the attack occurred at a moment when demonstrations were erupting in various locations in the Islamic world over an inflammatory anti-Islamic video produced by an individual in the United States.

The interplay of these factors makes for a very messy picture that is ripe for simplistic political exploitation by those so inclined (talking about you, Fox Noise).

First, consider the three phases, or timelines. In the pre-event phase, the broad issue was the security of U.S. embassies, consulates, bases, and personnel around the world. Was the security of the consulate and operational base in Benghazi neglected? Reports are that additional security was requested in the months before the attacks. But were these unusual requests, or are they common? The fact that requests were made and rejected is not in and of itself sufficient to establish negligence. Security levels are dependent in part on the perceived threat and in part on adequate resources. Tradeoffs are necessary, and within limits defensible whatever the outcome. The decision to not increase security in Benghazi is one that must be judged from a broad perspective and with a number of considerations in mind.

The actual event phase lasted only a few short hours. Questions have been asked about when the Secretaries of State and Defense were informed, when the leaderships of the intelligent organizations were informed, when the President was informed, as if early knowledge by any of these individuals had the potential for making a difference in what transpired. Given the relatively short elapsed time of the events and the remoteness of the location relative to major collections of U.S. forces, early, even immediate, notification of the highest levels of government, if it did not occur, would likely have made little difference. Complicating the situation was the lack of clarity about what was actually happening. The more pertinent issues concern the responses at lower levels of the government agencies involved. Establishing the timelines of these responses is necessary to get a clear picture of what happened, but focusing on when the President was told is little more than political gamesmanship.

Phase three of the events was the shifting public explanations that stretched over several weeks. Opponents of the Obama Administration see in the shifting explanations a conspiracy or conspiracies amounting to something on the level of a Watergate scandal. But the much more likely explanation is confusion arising from the involvement of multiple, and secretive, agencies of the U.S. Government: State, Defense, intelligence agencies, and maybe more. It would be wonderful if government were a well-functioning machine, but it’s not and that’s just the way of things. And it’s not just government. Very few large organizations, if any, operate smoothly.

Compounding the confusion was the fact that demonstrations were occurring in many locations in the Islamic world over a video produced in the United States. Distinguishing a violent demonstration from an organized terrorist attack is easy only if you’re a commentator in a comfortable safe studio and you have the time and energy to quibble over the difference between “extremist” and “terrorist.”

So did the confusing responses leave the U.S. Government looking good, or even competent? No. But were they the result of conspiring public officials trying to accomplish something that even Fox Noise can’t quite pinpoint? If your answer is yes, you have qualified for citizenship in United States of Paranoid America.

UPPER BODY STRENGTH

One of the great things about the Internets is that any yahoo can broadcast his or her opinions to the World. The World might not be listening, but that's the World's problem. Anyway, Cranky reacted negatively to a recent op-ed in Rupert's paper, The Wall Street Journal. Cranky sent the WSJ a letter to the editor, which apparently fell on deaf ears. But the World should have the benefit of Cranky's thoughts, so here is his unpublished letter. (UPDATE: The WSJ did in fact publish an edited and abbreviated version of the letter on November 20.)

Michael O'Hanlon's op-ed, "A Challenge for Female Marines" (Nov. 13), accepts without question what Cranky considers the fallacy of excessive upper body strength as a necessity for individuals in Marine or Army infantry positions. Mr. O'Hanlon cites two components of Marine Corps testing in the Corps' Infantry Officer Course: endurance and upper body strength. He gives each equal importance.

But writing as an individual who served in Vietnam for two and a half years (1966-69), was an Infantry platoon leader in an Airborne unit (the 173rd Airborne Brigade), and retired from the Army Reserve with the rank of Colonel after 31 years of service, Cranky firmly believes that endurance is far more important than upper body strength for successful service in the Infantry, particularly when the tests of upper body strength are contrived and subjective.

Mr. O'Hanlon mentions three strength standards demanded of Marine Corps infantry officers. The first is being able to lift oneself−while wearing body armor and carrying a pack−up and over walls. He calls this essential in modern combat.

But what are the details of this standard? How high are the walls: 4 feet, 6 feet, 8 feet, 10 feet? What is the combat load? Is there any research as to what and how often walls of various sizes are encountered? Or is the standard just a seat-of-the-pants estimate by someone who just happens to be blessed with superior upper body strength? During his time as an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam and later as an infantry advisor to a Vietnamese infantry unit, Cranky encountered zero walls in need of climbing. But then, that was the nature of the jungle and the rice paddies.

Second, Mr. O'Hanlon describes as also essential being able to move a wounded fellow Marine across a field to safety. Does that mean being able to lift and carry a wounded comrade? Or is dragging permitted? And is any adjustment made for whether the comrade is bigger than normal and the carrier smaller? Cranky will bet the mortgage that in few, if any, infantry companies in the Marines or the Army can every single individual carry every other individual for a meaningful distance. There just have to be some outliers.

Third, Mr. O'Hanlon notes as essential being able to haul part of a dismantled mortar to an ambush site. Finally, we have a requirement that is somewhat realistic. One of Cranky's "commands" was of a 81mm mortar platoon in an infantry company. Actually, there were only about fifteen members of the platoon, and the platoon had only one, rather than the more normal two or three, mortars, but such were the conditions in '67. Anyway, the mortar base plate, the tube, the tripod, and the mortar rounds certainly made for heavy loads. But they were loads of endurance and stamina much more than of upper body strength.

Cranky has two daughters, one a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. Neither has exceptional upper body strength. But both have completed a number of marathons and several 50-mile ultramarathons. One has completed a 100-mile ultramarathon. Both have accompanied Cranky on grueling multi-week backpacking trips into remote wilderness areas in various Western states. In Cranky's opinion, each has both the endurance and upper body strength necessary for the infantry, provided the upper body strength standard is not based on a figment of some weightlifter's imagination.

A SCANDAL MAZE

This thing is really getting complicated. A short time ago it was reported that the object of Paula Broadwell's ire, Jill Kelly of Tampa, Florida, who first alerted the FBI through an agent who was a "friend," has had extensive correspondence with the current Afghan Commander, Marine General John Allen. As the cliche goes, you couldn't make this up. Here's a chart of the players. Connecting the boxes should keep the nation occupied for many months.

WANTED: BIOGRAPHER(S)

Events of the last few days have convinced Cranky that he needs a biographer. As an exemplary federal government bureaucrat for many years, Cranky enjoyed a career that could serve as a model for aspiring young federal bureaucrats. Cranky's accomplishments are many and well-known, but a detailed biography is really the best avenue for telling the complete story, for enabling the public to fully appreciate Cranky's bureaucratic greatness.

The first requirement for Cranky's biographer is that she be a she. It is well known that in most instances the deepest communications occur between individuals of the opposite sex. And Cranky's full story will require deep communication.

Also, to avoid the loss of understanding that can occur when works are translated from one language to another, a biographer for each major language should be involved. Thus, in addition to an English biographer, there is need at the very least for a Swedish biographer, a French biographer, an Italian biographer, and an Hispanic biographer.

And then there's the Orient with its many languages and huge number of potential readers. Each language will require its own biographer.

The project is daunting but the rewards will be great. Now let's get started with selecting those biographers.

OVER

Well, it's over. Apparently−and hopefully−there won't be disputes, recounts, hanging chads, and whatall. Mr. Mitt gave a gracious concession speech. And Barack gave an inspiring victory speech in which he noted the problems ahead, pledged efforts at bipartisanship, and praised the fact that the American system encourages both the airing of disagreements and their peaceful solution.

Now the tough work begins. The "fiscal cliff," budget deficits, entitlement spending outrunning revenues, the list is long. Barack sounded intent on making significant overtures to the Republican opposition. Will there be reciprocation? The common ground is there, but have we become so blinded by partisanship that we won't be able to find it?

In terms of comedic relief, the highlight of the evening had to be the dispute between the Fox Noise anchors and Karl Rove over whether the call on Ohio as a Barack victory came too early. Cranky knows that this comment is not in the spirit of bipartisanship, but Karl, you really have no business overseeing the multimillion dollar disbursements for Crossroads America. Meaning no disrespect Karl, but your talents are rather more limited. Have you thought about a Home Depot franchise?

APOLOGIES

First, apologies to Mrs. Mitt, Ann Romney. She called the other evening and Cranky said some pretty nasty, childish things to her. There may have even been some obscenities uttered, and some derogatory statements about her dancing horse Rafalca's performance in the Olympics. It was entirely unnecessary for Cranky to suggest that Rafalca rather than Seamus, the family dog, should have been strapped to the roof of the family car for the infamous cross-country trip. But Mrs. Mitt seemed to take Cranky's indiscretions in stride as she did not pause in her entreaties for Cranky to vote for Mr. Mitt.

Apologies also to Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia. It was inappropriate for Cranky to suggest during their phone conversation that the Governor take the vaginal probe he and Attorney General Cuccinelli want to insert in Virginia women and put it up their own orifices to "where the sun don't shine."

And apologies to Mike Huckabee for comparing him during his phone call to Virginia's collection of "whack-job television politico-evangelicals who are more concerned about the collection plate than about saving souls or successful government."

Also to Barbara Bush. Cranky should not have suggested when she called this evening that the names of both her husband and sons were likely to surface in the ongoing prostitution scandal in Kennebunk Maine.

And finally to Mr. Mitt himself. When he specifically asked for Cranky's spouse by her first name, Cranky should have paused before jumping to the conclusion that hanky-panky was afoot. After all, for Cranky's spouse, greasy hair has always been a turnoff.

PAUL RYAN WINS NYC MARATHON

Barely breaking a sweat, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan coasted to victory in the New York City Marathon. Even the vaunted Kenyans were nowhere to be seen as Mr. Ryan posted an unofficial time of under three hours. Mr. Ryan did receive a congratulatory tweet from a "B.O., on behalf of my fellow Kenyans."

For his winning strategy, Mr. Ryan credited a Michigan dentist, Kip Litton. Dr. Litton was featured in the August 6, 2012, issue of The New Yorker magazine for his unusual marathon talents of finishing a marathon despite not being observed on many portions of the course. Dr. Litton has also performed exceptionally well in marathons in which he was apparently the only participant.

When asked about his future running plans, Mr. Ryan said it depended in part on the outcome of Tuesday's election. If he and Mr. Mitt are successful, Mr. Ryan indicated that balancing the federal budget would likely require most of his efforts. He promised, however, to bring the same intensity and attention to detail to that task as he has brought to marathoning.

AMERICANS FOR LIMITED GOVERNMENT: AN AMERICAN GESTAPO?

An organization calling itself Americans for Limited Government is sending a "Vote History Audit" to individuals in various localities across the nation. The audit contains the names of the recipient and a few neighbors, the addresses of both, and whether or not the recipient and the neighbors voted in the elections of 2004 and 2008. The audit does not say how the listed individuals voted, just that they voted. The one page audit contains the following ominous paragraph:

"As a further service, we will be updating our records after the expected high turnout for the Tuesday, November 6, 2012 election. We will then send an updated vote history audit to you and your neighbors with the results."

Limited Government?! Under what possible rationale does an organization purporting to be for limited government take upon itself the task of publicly revealing to his or her neighbors how often a private citizen goes to the polls? The ALG may not be a government body, but this invasion of a citizen's privacy is Big Brother in the extreme. If the federal government made a practice of publicizing a citizen's attendance record at the polls, you can be sure that the likes of the individuals providing testimonials on the ALG website, getliberty.org, would be screaming bloody hell. Those testimonials are by Ed Crane, Founder/President of the Cato Institute, and Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

An AGL spokesperson was quoted as saying that the purpose of the mailing was only to increase participation in the electoral process. But doing so by publicly shaming citizens smacks of authoritarianism in its most virulent manifestations: Nazism and Communism.

The AGL is a right-leaning group, but this strange desire by political groups to publicly out the voting attendance record of private citizens is not confined to the right. The left-leaning MoveOn.org reportedly has a similar, although somewhat less revealing, campaign underway. In the MoveOn effort, the recipient's voting participation is scored against a neighborhood average but the records of individual neighbors aren't revealed.

Admittedly, an individual's participation in voting−not how he or she votes but how often−is currently a public record. But just because it is legal to publicize something does not mean it is a good idea. The Executive Director of MoveOn.org was quoted in USA Today as calling the practice "creepy." To say the least, that is a gross understatement.

MR. MITT AND WEIRD MONEY

In The Wall Street Journal of November 2 was an article on Mr. Mitt's financial holdings and how difficult disclosure or divestment of them would be if he were elected. The article contained selected assets valued at $1 million or more, divided into two groups: Bain-related and not Bain-related.

The Bain-related group contained two private-equity funds, a public-equities fund, an employee IRA co-investment fund, and a distressed-debt fund. The not Bain-related group contained two hedge funds, a private-equity fund, and a Tagg Romney private-equity fund. (Alert to Josh, Matt, Ben, and Craig Romney: Brother Tagg might be number one on the runway as far as disposition of Dad's estate is concerned.)

Just this selected portion of Mr. Mitt's holdings would provide all the material needed for a full semester investment portfolio class in an MBA program. How many folks in the ninety-nine percent can even attempt a definition of a private-equity fund, a hedge fund, or a public-equities fund? The only term that might be somewhat familiar to ordinary Americans is IRA fund, but even here the addition of "co-investment" likely adds confusion.

The content of the WSJ's listing of selected Mr. Mitt assets highlights two points. First, despite his forced folksiness, Mr. Mitt ain't like most of us. He is one rich dude. Second, despite his claims of being a successful businessman, Mr. Mitt is really both more and less than that. He is successful at money, but he is not a businessman who made and sold a tangible product or provided a service recognizable by most of his fellow citizens. He is someone who tore businesses apart, repackaged them, and sold the results to others.

And he did this in a time of seismic change in the world of finance, a time when the computer put money-creating power into hands of many beyond the traditional banking structure, a time when such exotic things as derivatives, credit default swaps, hedging, and electronic trading appeared and laid the foundations for the financial collapse that occurred in 2007-2009. In short, Mr. Mitt came on the scene in a time of weird money.

Mr. Mitt was a very special type of successful businessman at the dawn of the Information Age. But he doesn't appear to understand the world in which he achieved success. He speaks and appears to think in the platitudes of the fading Industrial Age. He professes to be forward looking, but in realty he is blindly rushing into the uncertain future with the intellectual tools of the fast-fading past.

A MINORITY TWICE OVER

Polling data indicate that a sizeable majority of white men are supporters of Mr. Mitt, and that a sizeable majority of old people−geezers−are similarly inclined. That makes Cranky a minority twice over. Cranky is a white guy geezer who is pro-Obama.

Where did Cranky go wrong? Back in the '60s, he didn't march in the streets, trash his college, or do drugs (he did do a fair amount of alcohol, however). He even ended up in uniform in Southeast Asia, trying to halt them Commie hoards. Moreover, he maintained a connection to that uniform for over thirty years. So shouldn't Cranky be in the ranks of Mr. Mitt's most stalwart supporters?

Well, here's the problem with Mr. Mitt's most stalwart supporters. They enthusiastically adhere to the late William F. Buckley's definition of a conservative as one who stands "athwart history yelling 'Stop!'" Mr. Mitt reeks of the 1950s when white guys were both in the majority and top dogs, and when today's geezers were experiencing blissful or at least tolerable childhoods. In short, Mr. Mitt's most stalwart supporters seem to lack a sense of time marching on.

The future ain't gonna be easy, folks. The Information Age and its tool, the computer, are posing challenges we are only beginning to perceive. Both Mr. Mitt and Barack want to create jobs. But the computer is eliminating jobs, and its job-elimination propensities will likely accelerate. After two centuries of industrialization, the uneasy relationship among job creating technologies, increasing productivity, meaningful work, and unemployment might be tipping toward the latter.

Looking back is not where the future will be found. Barack may not be perfect, but at least he gives an impression of someone who knows the future will require adjustments in many areas. Mr. Mitt doesn't give that impression. Mr. Mitt exudes the past, and the past is no longer within reach.

EARLY VOTING: REALLY SUCH A GOOD IDEA?

Early voting has become a big part of the election of 2012. More and more states are jumping on the bandwagon, either allowing early voting without restrictions or loosening the restrictions on absentee ballots. The later path, being followed in Virgina for one, is creating a number of fibbers as voters claim they have to vote early because they will be away from their homes on election day, when in reality they won't. What if the election in Virginia is close and one side or the other starts going after likely fibbers to have their ballots disqualified and their persons fined, jailed, or whatever?

Can't happen, you say? Then you haven't been paying much attention to recent American electoral history.

But early voting of any sort−whether without restrictions or with just the loosening of absentee ballot restrictions−poses another problem that might cause significant problems. What if after voting early for a candidate you learn of some really nefarious thing about him or her, so nefarious that you want to take back your vote. The right, of course, would give you its version of such a vote changer: the discovery that Barack's Hawaii birth certificate was a fake.

On the other hand, Mr. Mitt might have some things in his past that could be vote changers. Evidence has already surfaced that in his youth Mr. Mitt was something of a bully, on one occasion even forcibly shaving the head of an individual who was not part of the in-crowd at a highfalutin prep school. But there are other possibilities. Maybe Mr. Mitt was born in Mexico, the birthplace of his father, and the Michigan birth certificate is fake.

Or maybe during his time as a missionary in France he experienced a bit more French "culture" than he is letting on. Or maybe a lot more French "culture," if you catch my drift. Maybe, just maybe, mind you, he drank wine and coffee, smoked disgusting French cigarettes, and had a fling with Catherine Deneuve. Just speculating.

Anyway, this early voting thing has the potential for significant problems, maybe not in this election, but the future goes on for a long time. Someday many decades from now, early voting might install a candidate in office who was shown before the end of the voting period to be a liar, scoundrel, or worse. That future generation would look back to this time and ask, "How could those clowns come up with such a ludicrous idea as early voting?"

SANDY AND CAMPAIGN ADS

The electricity on the street was out only 24 hours! And the even better news is that the local cable provider is not yet reconnected, so no Fox Noise! Electricity, warmth, and no Fox Noise. It don't get much better. Unfortunately, other folks nearby won't have electricity for awhile. But they don't have Fox Noise either!

Inhabitants of the so-called battleground states have had to endure an avalanche of campaign ads. Oh, for the good old days when it was just commercials for cars, soap, nasal spray, headache remedies, erectile dysfunction treatments, and the like. But at least many of the commercial ads come with disclaimers and warnings. Not so the campaign ads.

Some warnings that might be appropriate for campaign ads:

) Do not take with alcohol, caffeine, amphetamines, uppers, downers, or any other forms of stimulants or relaxers.

) See your doctor if your erection lasts more than four hours.

) See your doctor if you have an erection.

) Do not be worried about nausea and vomiting. They are normal reactions.

) See your doctor if you don't experience nausea and vomiting.

) Do not watch if you are attempting to cure a nicotine, alcohol, or other drug addiction. This ad will make the effort exponentially more difficult.

) Do not watch if you are attending anger management classes.

) Do not watch in the presence of breakable items, such as glass and small pets.

The Campaigns should also adhere to warnings. One warning is to be careful what your ad is collocated with. For example, the juxtaposition of a link to Mr. Mitt's official site with a video of Hurricane Sandy destroying a house in North Carolina might not be ideal.

MR. MITT AND HURRICANES

Getting the daily blog in before the electricity goes. Recall that the Republican convention was disrupted by a hurricane or tropical storm or something. Now another major storm is arriving as the election approaches. What is the common denominator? Mr. Mitt. The guy brings bad weather. Think about it as you cast your vote, if you haven't already done so.

Opps, that last gust was a doozy. Guess Mr. Mitt got really irritated with the preceding paragraph.

Just caught a Fox Noise commentary by Brit Hume. It's hard to avoid the impression he's hoping a major disaster is in the offing that could be blamed on Barack. Hey Brit, can't you see that it's your boy Mr. Mitt who's responsible for the bad weather?

A PAUL RYAN MARATHON

Did the October 28 Marine Corps Marathon in just over three hours. Well actually, it was well over six hours, but Mr. Paul has shown that preciseness with numbers, whether they be marathon times or calculations regarding federal budgets and deficits, isn't that important.

In fact, next year I'm thinking of taking the approach described in an article in the August 6, 2012, issue of The New Yorker. The article detailed the marathon activities of a Michigan dentist who claimed good times in a lot of marathons but apparently had employed a sophisticated strategy of avoiding many of the miles between the start and the finish. The MCM course is a series of zigzags that would provide numerous shortcut opportunities. But I won't be a glutton. Claiming a time of just over four hours seems sufficient.

Incidentally, the Michigan dentist might be ideal for a position in a Romney-Ryan Administration. Fudging the numbers is the only way their promises have a chance of working out.

MR. MITT AND BIPARTISANSHIP

Increasingly, the President is getting zinged for failing on the bipartisanship front. He didn't do enough to bring Republicans to the table, to work out mutually acceptable solutions to the nation's problems. Peggy Noonan, she of the Ronnie Reagan fan club, in October 27's Wall Street Journal makes much of Barack's supposed failure to reach out. In his new book, The Price of Politics, Bob Woodard dwells on Barack's perceived bipartisan inadequacies. Mr. Mitt has been amping-up his own alleged bipartisan abilities. He knows how to sit down with the opposition party and work stuff out.

Well, for the most part the President indeed has been unable to bridge the partisan gaps. But whose fault was it? Maybe a little blame goes to the President and his fellow Democrats. But the party that took the hard line, the no compromise positions over the last four years, was the Republican party. Grover Norquist said no new taxes, nothing that even could be perceived as a tax increase, and the Republican Party jumped.

Nothing is more instructive regarding the current Republican attitude toward compromise than the responses to the question asked during one of the Republican primary debates: would you walk away from a hypothetical deal calling for 10 to 1 spending cuts to tax increases. The eight debaters, including Mr. Mitt, all raised their hands that they would walk away. And this is the attitude Barack is found guilty of not accommodating?!

It would certainly be ironic, or maybe just a perversion of justice, if Mr. Mitt were to win the election on his recently discovered bipartisanship strategy when in fact the major lack of bipartisanship over the last four years has been due to his own party.

THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND FOX NOISE

Here's a what if. What if Mr. Mitt gets a slim majority of the popular vote but loses in the Electoral College? Given the current national and state poll numbers, this possibility is not that farfetched. As most know, Barack would then be the President because the Constitution, that hallowed document, works that way. Something the Founding Fathers cooked up to put a little distance between the rabble and the elite.

In the election of 2000, Al Gore actually won the popular vote, receiving over 500,000−a half million−more votes than W. But the Constitution's Electoral College−with an assist from a divided Supreme Court−made W the 43rd President of the United States. Except for a little grumbling from a few on the left side of the political spectrum, the result was accepted. It was what the Constitution mandated. It was the way the system worked.

But if the opposite result were to occur in 2012−the Democratic guy on the left winning in the Electoral College but receiving fewer popular votes than the Republican guy on the right−would the right be so accepting? In particular, would that nest of loony invective known as Fox Noise be as uncomplaining as it was twelve years ago?

One can envision four years of constant complaining about the minority President−hey, we're only referring to his coming in second in the popular vote. Honest. Actually, the folks at Fox Noise would secretly probably be pretty happy. After all, it's much more fun to whine, complain, and be the victim than to have the responsibilities that come with winning.

MR. MITT AND NUMBERS

It's becoming clear that Mr. Mitt thinks in numbers. Consequently, matters involving subtlety, ambiguity, murkiness, nuance−in other words, most things involving flesh and blood people−aren't his forte.

The number of Navy ships is one example. Mr. Mitt has made a big deal about the number of Navy ships in 1916 or '17 versus the smaller number today. But as Barack pointed out in the third Presidential debate, and as many others have similarly noted, comparing ships then and now is comparing apples and oranges. Capabilities are vastly, exponentially different. For one thing, how many of those WWI era ships had an electronic computer on board?

But to Mr. Mitt, the number of ships is apparently a compelling statistics.

Mr. Mitt's infatuation with pegging China as a currency manipulator is another example. Currency exchange rates are just numbers. Many free marketers believe exchange rates should not be set by government but should fluctuate according to the laws of supply and demand. But in actuality, many governments attempt to control exchange rates in one fashion or another. For large industrial countries, the control is often through the Central Bank activities of buying and selling currencies and government and other securities.

China has longed tried to keep the value of its currency low−in comparison to other currencies−to promote exports. Free marketers object, contending that China's government-set rate results in the artificial promotion of exports and the artificial curtailment of imports. Mr. Mitt has several beefs with Chinese economic policies. He accuses China of theft of intellectual property−patents and copyrighted material. He's likely right to at least some degree. He accuses China of unfair trade practices. Again, he's probably right to some degree.

But Mr. Mitt is not alone in his criticisms of China: most of Barack's policies regarding the country are not that much different than those Mr. Mitt would attempt to implement. But Mr. Mitt would go farther and officially label China a currency manipulator, never mind that the moment for that might have been 2007−five years ago−and today, in part because of changed economic conditions both there and here, the action would be somewhat irrelevant except for the overall negative impact on U.S.-China relations. (See Matthew O'Brien, "Romney's China-Bashing Is 100% Correct ... but 5 Years Late," The Atlantic, October 24, 2012, for a fuller discussion).

The point is that labeling China a currency manipulator would be easy, would involve at a basic level not much more than numbers, and would thus fit Mr. Mitt's apparent view of the world: I can solve any problem I can put a number on.

HEART ATTACK

Almost had a heart attack this morning. There, on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, was an editorial critical of Mr. Mitt. How dare they! It was at the bottom of the page, but still. . . .

The Journal's editorial page is normally in lockstep with Fox Noise, only the Journal uses bigger words. In this particular editorial, the Journal chastised Mr. Mitt for saying that on day 1 of his Presidency, he would label China a currency manipulator. The Journal characterized the likely result as "a showdown that would shake the global trading system" and argued that such a "heavy-handed government solution" was unwise.

Several things are of interest here. First, Mr. Mitt's view of China as an international economic villain was about the only foreign policy position of his to survive from the previous weeks and months. If China had not come up, Mr. Mitt would have been in almost total agreement with everything Barack said on foreign policy during the evening. In fact, Barack spent much of the evening pointing out the discrepancies between Mr. Mitt's current and previous views.

Second, the matter of Chinese currency manipulation is a matter of numbers, of statistics. Most of the other foreign policy issues touched on during the debate involve, at a fundamental level, much more amorphous stuff: ancient grievances, national pride, jihad, historic trends. Mr. Mitt does not seem comfortable with amorphous stuff. He is a man of numbers. His business career was confined to the world of finance, to numbers. Reduce a problem to numbers, and he has the solutions. But the real world is much more complex than just numbers.

Finally, the Journal's disagreement with Mr. Mitt on a matter is just a foretaste of the donnybrook that would likely ensue in the Republican ranks if Mr. Mitt were to be elected. To take back the White House, the Republican party has papered over its many internal differences. On day 1 or shortly thereafter of a Mr. Mitt's Presidency, that paper would likely be shredded. Social conservatives, tea partiers, Wall Street big money, main street little money, big business, small business would each be pushing agendas. Could a party that has made no-compromise an anthem over the last four years come up with enough internal compromises to govern?

TWO WEEKS TO GO

Two weeks to go. The debates are done, so the potential for a disastrous gaffe by one or the other candidate is much reduced. Now it's just repetitions of the same mind-numbing stump speeches. Saturday Night Live is strangely a rerun for October 27. SNL is at its best for Presidential elections, and it's going with a rerun ten days before the election?! At least its November 3 show is live, although the host, Louis C.K., is somewhat of an acquired taste.

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert usually take off a week every month. Hopefully, they won't desert us for these final two weeks of the most important election ever, or at least the most important since the last election. If the comedy people leave us in this time of need, we'll be left mostly with Fox Noise from the loony right, MSNBC from the not-quite-as-loony-but-not-by-much left, and CNN from the visual effects swamp it has become mired in. Letterman, Leno, Fallon, O'Brien, Kimmel, and a couple of others will still be providing some comedic relief, but Stewart, Colbert, and SNL are the top of the line.

One of the notable lines from Monday night's debate was Barack's retort to Mr. Mitt's complaint that America's Navy is the smallest it's been since 1917. The President stated, "we also have fewer horses and bayonets," the larger point being that warfare, weapons' capabilities, and military technology have changed exponentially since the time of the First World War. Among other items that the military has fewer of today, the President could have listed camp followers of the sexual services genre. Pity.

THE MR. MITT, BARACK, AND BOB SHOW

Debate in a nutshell: Mr. Mitt's obvious goal was to avoid stepping on his honker. This he pretty much did, to Barack's consternation and Fox Noise's obvious relief. To attain his goal, Mr. Mitt had to pretend he hadn't held different positions in the past, but he has become pretty adept at this so it wasn't much of a challenge. He also had to agree with Barack on many matters. So the conclusion is that foreign policy under a Mr. Mitt Administration wouldn't be all that different than it has been under the Barack Administration.

Mr. Mitt does think that through a combination of toughness and reasonable persuasion he can bring the different anti-government factions in a place like Syria together. Some might argue that such naiveté is reminiscent of the Bush-Cheney years and therefore a disqualifier for the position of Commander in Chief. Supporters of Mr. Mitt are unlikely, however, to be so critical.

Perhaps the most perplexing comment by Mr. Mitt came in his closing statement. He briefly praised the Greatest Generation−that Tom Brokaw-created fantasy about the supposedly pretty near perfect generation that survived the Great Depression and won World War II, never mind about Jim Crow, post-war McCarthyism, and stuff like that. And then he said something to the effect that this election would mark a passing of the torch to a new generation. It was like the last fifty years were of little import.

Hey Mitt, did'ja hear about the '60s, baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, computers, a guy named Bill Clinton who became President in 1992? The Greatest Generation faded from the scene some time ago. A lot of history has occurred since the 1940s, and one gets the impression you don't quite have a handle on it.

One last thing: Bob Schieffer, you done pretty good. But then Mr. Mitt wasn't the argumentative pushy guy of debates one and two.

CRUCIAL QUESTIONS

Two crucial questions are before the nation for Monday night's final Presidential debate of the 2012 elections. The answers to these questions will determine for years to come who we are as a people. The answers may well impact the future of humankind on this planet. It is impossible to overstate the importance of these questions.

First, will Bob Schieffer restore respectability, even a bit of machismo, to the male side of the journalistic profession? Jim Lehr did not do a horrible job, but he was definitely not in charge at the debate he moderated. He pretty much let two domineering politicians, or at least the one domineering politician who was fully in attendance, run all over him. In contrast, there was no doubt who was in charge in the two succeeding debates. Martha Raddatz in the Vice Presidential debate and Candy Crowley in the second Presidential debate had, in their respective arenas, the largest cojones on the stage. Bob, it's time to man-up.

Second, will the debates trump Monday Night Football? For over forty years, Monday Night Football has been an institution integral to the American way of life. It is enshrined in the Constitution as "the Pursuit of Happiness." Or maybe that's the Declaration of Independence. In any case, it is surely covered by the references in the Constitution's Preamble to forming "a more perfect union," promoting "the general Welfare," and securing "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." If a mere Presidential election attracts more attention than Monday Night Football, the days of American hegemony are numbered.

The answers to these questions will be determined Monday night. The stakes could not be higher.

LIBYA II

The deaths of four Americans in Libya constitute just the type of tragedy that Mr. Mitt's New York campaign office−Fox Noise−and the partisan Republicans in Congress thrive upon. Many of the facts of the tragedy are murky. Multiple layers and agencies of the nation's national security establishment are involved, meaning that sorting out the details and timelines of the events and the Government's responses takes time. The public responses from the White House and various parts of the security establishment have thus far been couched in cautionary language and uncertainty.

Not so the analyses of many of the President's critics. In an unclear situation such as Libya, innuendoes and outright fabrications are tempting for opponents of the President to make, and they have succumbed to the temptation with alacrity. Fox Noise has no problem finding its version of certainty regarding the events. For example, Fox commentator Charles Krauthammer in yesterday's Washington Post emphatically stated: "But there was no gathering. There were no people. There was no fray. It was totally quiet outside the facility until terrorists stormed the compound and killed our ambassador and three others."

Hey Charles, those assertions have not been definitely established as facts, at least according to other reports that are surfacing. So how do you know? Incidentally Charles, whatever happened to that moderate, reasonable columnist that you were twenty or so years ago? You have become quite grouchy and extremely partisan in your advancing years.

Anyway, the President will undoubtedly hear more about this on Monday night. His explanations over the last week have not been the best. It has become an anthem of American politics that an office holder or seeker should avoid admitting uncertainty or error. But when uncertainty is obvious, refusing to acknowledge it can make the politician look unconnected.

Last Thursday on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, Mr. Stewart threw the President a softball on the Libyan tragedy that could have been answered in part by acknowledging the uncertainty still surrounding the incident. Instead, the President brushed aside the obvious and emphatically stated a list of things he will be doing in the future, including bringing the killers to justice. A more nuanced discussion Monday night might be the better approach.

MR. MITT, PENSIONS, AND WEALTH

Mr. Mitt just can't stop reminding us that he is one rich dude. In last Tuesday's debate, he was on one occasion like the proverbial dog with a bone, or a small child persistently demanding satisfaction: "Mr. President, have you looked at your pension? Have you looked at your pension? Mr. President, have you looked at your pension?"

The President noted that his pension was nowhere near the size of Mr. Mitt's. But perhaps he should have thanked Mr. Mitt for once more reminding Americans that he−Mr. Mitt−is not like most of us. He is a multi-millionaire who doesn't have much to worry about regarding his finances, for now or for his later years.

When coupled with his $10,000 bet remark in a Republican primary debate, his causal statement that many of his friends own NASCAR teams, his installation of elevators for cars in his California beach house, his other vacation homes, and his refusal to release his tax returns for any but the most recent years, Mr. Mitt's browbeating of the President over the latter's pension serves to keep front and center Mr. Mitt's membership in the nation's one percent of very monetarily fortunate people.

Rich individuals have succeeded in politics. Most have avoided calling undue attention to their wealth, and in general their fellow citizens have taken a let-sleeping-dogs-lie attitude. But Mr. Mitt has a tin-ear about his wealth and keeps inadvertently reminding us about it. To some, he comes across as a guy who, despite what he says, just doesn't comprehend lives that are dominated by day-to-day finances.

Mr. Mitt appears to believe that a few simple macro-economic steps, starting with reducing taxes, are all that are needed for everyone to have the opportunity to climb the ladder of success to financial security if not financial wealth. He most likely would not begrudge all his fellow citizens having beach houses with car elevators. But even if taxes were eliminated entirely, such an earthly paradise just ain't gonna happen. Someone who understands the real world and not just the world of venture capital, equity funds, and unbridled capitalism just might make a better President.

LIBYA

Mr. Mitt, his Republicans, and Fox Noise are fixated on Libya. They apparently think that therein lies the road to the White House. Maybe, but if so we really are catering to the lowest common denominator.

The death of four American State Department employees, one the Ambassador to Libya, is both tragic and a proper subject for thorough, critical investigation. How did this happen? What security measures were absent? What early warning signs were overlooked or misinterpreted? How can we improve the security decision-making process and the decisions themselves?

State Department employees are not soldiers, and certainly not front-line soldiers. But they are in harm's way for the United States of America. Just from where they are posted, their jobs can be dangerous. Embassy and consular security are matters being constantly scrutinized and revaluated.

But the never-ending security scrutiny and revaluation are not conducted in a vacuum. Security resources and budgets are limited. Not every imagined or perceived threat can be addressed. If some believe that security requests for Libya were ignored, they should put this in the perspective of how frequently security issues come up for all Embassy and consular posts. The guess here is that such issues are commonplace, and that very often budget considerations override security concerns.

Barack and his Administration have indeed botched explanations for the Libya tragedy. But the botching seems due to too many authoritative-sounding explanations before all the fact were known. In a rush to provide possible explanations, the various Administrative spokespersons ignored a crucial point: certainty about what happened and why just weren't there yet.

But this failure on the part of the Administration is no excuse for the criticisms and innuendos that are being cast by Mr. Mitt and his campaign staff at Fox Noise. They are insinuating lies, fabrications, and posturing for political purposes. They are besmirching the honor of fellow citizens having responsibilities for carrying out the foreign policy of the United States in difficult, ever-changing circumstances. They are, in short, disgraceful opportunists.

IF WE'RE ALL BROKE, WHO'S FUNDING THE POLITICS?

Granted the economy is not in the best of shape. An anemic recovery might be the most accurate way to describe the last few years. But Mr. Mitt and Republicans contend we are in dire straits. If that is the case, who is providing all this money that is going into political ads and campaigns?

Put another way, if things are as bad as Mr. Mitt makes them out to be, wouldn't political ads and political campaigns be nonexistent because no one would have the discretionary money to contribute to their creation and operation? Okay, so that's a very simplistic way to look at the complexity of a modern Information Age economy. But what seems to be a fact is that people with a lot of money are putting some of it toward convincing those with much less money to vote in certain ways.

Are the people providing the discretionary money motivated by altruism or self-interest? Most are probably along a spectrum stretching from pure altruism at one extreme to pure self-interest at the other. The tempting generalization is that rich Democrats and liberals are mostly along the altruism portion of the spectrum, and rich Republicans and conservatives are mostly along the self-interest portion of the spectrum.

Let's abruptly segue into a related−in a big picture sort of way−topic: job creation. The underlying economic problem is that at the moment, there aren't enough jobs for everyone who wants (and needs) to work. In other words, the demand for jobs is greater than the supply. Why is that so? The arguments in the political arena are centered on such matters as tax policies, government regulations, foreign competition (read China), and the like.

But a Luddite of the early 19th Century would say, "Hey, we saw this coming." Over the last several centuries, technology has increased human productivity, which means fewer humans are required to produce the goods and services required for human existence. So what are other humans doing? Creating Facebook and the umpteenth version of the iPhone, staffing a coffee shop on every corner, providing leisure activities, participating in political campaigns, and so on.

In other words, the current attention on job creation is narrowly focused on peripheral matters. Underlying seismic shifts in the nature of economic activity in the post-Industrial Age are probably too frightening for discussion outside of academia and specialized research organizations (which themselves represent types of discretionary spending). It is much easier on the intellect to conduct a political campaign on the basis of yesterday's assumption than to venture into the unknown.

THE CANDY, BARACK, AND MR. MITT SHOW

Fox Noise is certainly unlikely to admit it, but Mr. Mitt got his clock cleaned tonight. Oh, he scored a few points. But an energized, aggressive Barack put himself back in the game. Mr. Mitt came out on the loosing end of auto industry restructuring, taxes, social policies, immigration, China policy, jobs going overseas, and Candy Crowley.

Mr. Mitt's main thing seemed to be his five point plan of generalities. He cited the plan several times, usually as a solution to a particular problem he was trying to explain his solution for. He seemed particularly fixated on China, accusing it of being a currency manipulator, intellectual property pirate, and general trouble maker. China is definitely not an international economic choirboy, but it's not a criminal enterprise either. Subtle confrontation would seem to be a better long-term approach to dealing with the country than campaign rants.

The Middle East is obviously perplexing to Mr. Mitt. He appears to have the attitude that prevailed among the neocons in the Bush Administration: if America blusters and screams enough, it will get its way. Not sure the nation needs to tread that path again.

Mr. Mitt kept harping on his business background. He alleged that he knows how to create jobs. In fact, he alleged it a number of times. But the specifics, other than cutting taxes, were absent. And the tax issues were clouded by fuzzy math, which Barack pointed out several times.

Perhaps Barack's best counter to Mr. Mitt's incessant call for tax cuts was to remind the viewers that the Bush tax cuts of the early 2000s were a major cause of the current economic problems.

Bottom line: if you ever find yourself in a ticklish situation, say in a redneck biker bar in some remote area of, say, Idaho, and you need someone to watch your back, you could do a lot worse than Candy Crowley and Martha Raddatz. Indeed, if it were a choice between those two and Mr. Mitt with his little three-hour marathon partner, well, it wouldn't even be a choice.

WAITING FOR THE GAFFE

The nation anxiously awaits Tuesday night’s debate. Will Barack Obama bounce back from his desultory performance of two weeks ago, a performance that increases in desultoriness with each retelling, particularly retellings by Republican-leaning pundits?

Will Barack managed to knock that weird smirk off Mr. Mitt’s face, a task that none of Mr. Mitt’s challengers in the Republican primaries managed to do, but then that crowd was not exactly the cream of the crop?

Will Mr. Mitt be able to continue his thus far successful etch-a-sketch strategy of morphing from a centrist-leaning governor of a left-leaning state, to a tea party conservative, to a moderate Northeastern Republican of the Nelson Rockefeller variety?

Will Candy Crowley be a Jim Lehr, a Martha Raddatz, or some new variant of I’m-in-charge moderator? The thought here is that Ms. Crowley just might be a bigger part of the show than anticipated, especially if Barack and Mr. Mitt get wild and wooly.

Barack will certainly be a different performer than in the first debate. But in the past he has not been an excitable guy, and excitable is apparently what political pundits want. And what political pundits want is what the supposedly independent thinking people end up wanting because most of those supposedly independent thinking people don’t know what they are thinking until the pundits tell them.

One thing both the pundits and the people would sorely love to witness is a major gaffe on the part of Barack, Mr. Mitt, or both. Gaffes do not necessarily result in permanent damage to a candidate’s chances, but they certainly provide entertainment of the first order. Watching a candidate try over a period of days and weeks to extract himself or herself from the sticky clutches of a gaffe is delicious fun. The gaffe becomes almost a living, breathing entity, a lion in the Roman Coliseum toying with a hapless slave. Maybe the slave will end up devoured. Or maybe the lion will tire of the game, leaving the slave shaken and mauled but still functioning in a zombie-like state. In either case, the blood-lust of the Coliseum crowd has been temporarily satiated.

FOX CALLS JOE RUDE

The folks at fair and balanced Fox Noise are all over VP Joe Biden for his performance during the debate with Wonder Boy Paul, he of the sub-three hour marathon. (Just a reminder that his actual time was a tad over four hours and that his predecessor as a Republican VP candidate, a certain Ms. Sarah Palin, has run a faster marathon.)

Anyway, the two words being most applied by Roger Ailes’ flunkies to Joe Biden the debator are “rude” and “bully.” Fox Noise calling someone else rude and a bully!? Talk about the proverbial pot calling the proverbial kettle black. Fox Noise’s whole persona is built upon rudeness and bullying. The fair and balanced network has made millions refining the concepts.

But appearing hypocritical has never been a barrier to Fox in its pursuit of liberals, Democrats, academia, non-Christians, and others who don’t fit the network’s narrow idea of true Americans.

Speaking of words that Fox has trouble recognizing when applied to itself, what about victim? Liberals allegedly complaining to be victims are a common target of Fox’s rants. But Fox can claim victimhood quicker than a three-hour marathon when criticism is directed its way or toward one of its allies, such as Mr. Paul from Wisconsin.

BIPARTISANSHIP

Mr. Mitt says Barack Obama failed to bring Democrats and Republicans together. Well, Duh. It’s pretty much impossible to produce togetherness when one side has a my way or the highway attitude. Hey, Republicans, I’m talking about you.

The Democratic Party is far from perfect, but in general it is considerably more compromising than the current Republican Party. A substantial number of Democrats accept the fact that getting your way one hundred percent of the time is not how government is sustained in a democratic republic. Many present-day Republicans do not seem to accept this fact. Moreover, many Republicans come across as putting party before country.

Mr. Mitt says that his accomplishments as Governor of Massachusetts, where the legislature was more than seventy percent Democratic, shows he can bring Democrats and Republicans together. Well, yes, one might counter, because those Massachusetts Democrats had a significant proportion of reasonable, compromising individuals. President Obama, on the other hand, has found no such group of reasonable, compromising Republicans in the United States Congress.

FACTS AND POLITICS

Facts and politics, particular election politics, have at best a tenuous relationship. The major problem is that to a politician running for office, just about everything he or she says is a fact, but his or her opponent begs to differ. In other words, agreement between opposing politicians on the facts in an election year is likely to be nonexistent.

Agreement about the facts of what happened in the past and what is happening currently is difficult enough to reach. But extrapolating into the future—predicting, in other words—and labeling the result as fact is really pretty absurd. And politicians exacerbate the problem by leaving out the assumptions, economic and political relationships, and caveats that went into their predictions.

So why this sorry state of “facts” in the political world? Why are politicians so prone to label as “fact” every debatable point? Because politics, and especially elections, are geared toward the populace’s lowest common denominator, for whom most everything is viewed as either a fact or a falsehood. Those not in the lowest common denominator acquiesce in this approach, perhaps because acquiescence is the path of least resistance. Indeed, in a way politics can be quite soothing because intellectual rigor is not necessary.

So enjoy the next few weeks. Throw your “facts” around with abandon. Come November 7, election season “facts” will give way—not completely but significantly—to the end of the year’s fiscal cliff “facts.” That ought to be fun. And then will come the budget and budget deficit “facts.” That ought to really be fun.

THE JOE, PAUL, AND MARTHA SHOW

In foreign affairs, Paul wants us to not be weak. Joe says we are not weak.

Paul knows what the Iranian Ayatollahs thinks. A young Irish guy from Wisconsin with about zilch foreign affairs experience knows what Iranian Ayatollahs think. Think about that.

Paul has a smirk just like Mr. Mitt’s. Do they teach that at Republican retreats?

Paul says Mr. Mitt cares about 100 percent of the American people. He has great personal generosity. Hey Mr. Mitt, could I get some of that personal generosity?

Paul is taking a lot of swigs from whatever is in his cup.

Paul is talking a blue streak, throwing out a lot of “facts.” Joe is interrupting because he doesn’t think the “facts” are actually “facts.” Martha is getting irritated.

Paul won’t give specifics about his 20 percent tax cut proposals. It’s all a framework problem. Paul and Mr. Mitt have a framework. Trust them.

Both Joe and Paul have been to Afghanistan. They both have been out in the field. Our forces are doing fabulous.

Joe says we are leaving Afghanistan in 2014. Paul wants his friend to come home. But he is not as emphatic about the timeline.

Paul says we haven’t done right in Syria. Paul says a Mr. Mitt-Ryan Administration would have done better. How? Well, we would have done better.

Abortion? Everybody same-same.

Joe finishes by emphasizing his devotion to the middle class. Paul finishes by emphasizing his and Mr. Mitt’s hostility to President Obama.

Main impression? Paul and Mr. Mitt’s similar smirks.

ROMNEY AND CHENEY SIMILARITIES

Mr. Mitt and former Vice President Dick Cheney have several thinks in common.

) Mr. Mitt and the Dickster each avoided the draft during the Vietnam War through five (5) deferments. In their defense, it wasn’t exactly a fun war.

) Mr. Mitt and the Dickster have unusual but similar ways of treating companions. The Dickster once shotgunned a hunting companion in the face, neck, and upper torso. The companion survived. Mr. Mitt once strapped a container with his dog Seamus to the top of the family vehicle for a twelve-hour ride. Seamus also survived.

) Mr. Mitt and the Dickster are both of the neocon persuasion, meaning they favor an in-your-face aggressive foreign policy that results mainly in irritating the rest of the world. But maybe that’s the point.

OBAMA'S OPENING STATEMENT FOR DEBATE TWO

The President’s opening statement at the next debate with Mr. Mitt maybe should be something like the following.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, Candy Crowley, and Mr. Mitt. Before we get too far into tonight’s effort, I was hoping we could clarify a point. Which Mr. Mitt am I debating tonight? Is it the former centrist governor of Massachusetts who provided the model for Obamacare? Is it the uncompromising far right ideologue of the Republican primaries for whom Obamacare was an obscenity? Or is it the etch-a-sketch semi-centrist who suddenly appeared a couple of weeks ago and whose objections to Obamacare appear limited mostly to the name?

And it’s not just Obamacare. Mr. Mitt in his various guises has been all over the map on taxes, budget deficits, financial regulation, other types of regulation, and foreign policy.

All this shaking and baking makes a substantive give and take on the issues rather difficult. Our exchanges are in danger of being reduced to:

“That’s not my position.”

“Well, it was once was your position.”

“No it wasn’t.”

“It certainly was.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

“So’s your mother.”

Somehow, I feel the American people are expecting a little more from us. So I’m pleading with you Mr. Mitt, tell me, the folks here in the audience, and the millions of viewers round the nation, which of you am I facing tonight?