SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:48 P.M. ET:

MORE POLL ALIGNMENT – Three major national polls – Rasmussen, Gallup, and ABC/Washington Post showed identical results today.  Romney at 50%.  Obama at 47%.  It does not appear, from results released thus far, that the debate changed many minds.  In the Electoral College, though, Romney dropped from 206 to 191 in the RealClearPolitics analysis, whereas Obama stayed at 201.  The Electoral College situation is fluid, and that's where the election will be decided. 

WAPO DOES THE EXPECTED – The Washington Post endorsed Barack Obama today, which is as surprising as saying the sun came up in the morning.  The Post's editorial page is vastly superior to that of The New York Times, and I'd hoped that the endorsement would be more nuanced and better argued than the one the public got.  Newspaper endorsements don't normally affect elections, but tell us something about the newspaper.  The Post concluded: "In a second term, working with an opposition that we hope would be chastened by the failure of its scorched-earth campaign against him, he is far more likely than his opponent to succeed. That makes Mr. Obama by far the superior choice."  And that is a ridiculously simplistic statement.

DISGUSTING – A so-called "expert" at the UN is calling for the punishment of American firms doing business with Israel.  The "expert," the infamous Richard Falk, was an international law professor at Princeton and a well-known leftist militant for decades.  He is also a 9-11 truther, having written the foreword to the truthers' standard tract.  In addition, he published an openly anti-Semitic cartoon on his website.  Even the U.S. delegation to the UN has expressed public revulsion toward him.  Falk works for the Human Rights Council, which is run by thug regimes.  Bush refused to allow this country to have anything to do with the council.  Obama embraced it.  Another act of genius.

TROUBLE IN THE FAMILY – Hillary Clinton says she may stay on at State if Obama is re-elected.  The White House says that while Obama would "welcome" a decision by Clinton to stay on, it didn't know she was considering it.  Such enthusiasm.  I think Clinton might announce she's staying just to spite Obama, for whom she appears to have little love.  Obama really can't fire her.  Among other things, she knows too much.

October 25, 2012