"Voters expect politicians to stretch the truth. But when the offender is as persistent with mistruths, half-truths and no-truths as Mr. Obama is, voters expect the other candidate to blow the whistle. They want their leaders to show toughness and be competitive. Which brings us back to the coming Oct. 3 debate, to be followed by two others on Oct. 16 and 22. 

"During these widely watched events, Mr. Romney must call out the president. That is not so easy: Mr. Romney can't call Mr. Obama a liar; that's too harsh a word that would backfire. Mr. Romney must instead set the record straight in a presidential tone — firm, respectful, but not deferential. And a dash of humor is worth its weight in gold. ... 

"What exactly about the past four years do Americans like? And why would they want four more years like them? Mr. Obama knows how most Americans would answer these questions, which is why he is being so fast and loose with the truth. Mr. Romney's job is to shine a light on this for voters."

"The repercussions from 9/11/12 — the day the roof fell in on the Obama administration’s Middle East policy — continue to rumble across the diplomatic and political landscapes. Before that day, much of the country’s political and media establishment had been studiously ignoring signs of trouble in the Middle East or, when problems were too serious to ignore, studiously refraining from drawing conclusions about the overall state of U.S. policy in the region.
 
"The anti-American riots that have been rocking the Muslim world since 9/11 have shaken the establishment out of its complacency. Increasingly, even those who sympathize with the basic elements of the administration’s Middle East policy are connecting the dots. What they are seeing isn’t pretty. It’s not just that the U.S. remains widely disliked and distrusted in the region. It’s not just that the radicals and the jihadis have demonstrated more political sophistication and a greater ability to organize and strike than expected and that the struggle against radical terror looks longer lasting and more dangerous than thought; it’s that the strategic underpinnings of the administration’s Middle East policy seem to be falling apart. A series of crises is sweeping through the region, and the U.S. does not — at least not yet — seem to have a clue what to do."

"In 1988, Michael Kinsley issued a now-famous definition: 'A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say.' 

"Now, almost a quarter century later, we need a new definition for the word. Here’s mine: 'A gaffe is a statement that makes a Republican politician look bad.' ... 

"A frustrated liberal media used the word 'Teflon' to describe their inability to make gaffes and misstatements stick to Ronald Reagan. Barack Obama doesn’t need Teflon. 

"He’s saved by the new rule of gaffes rigorously applied by the media: Democrats don’t make them." 

"What makes media bias so infuriating is not its existence but the stubborn refusal of the guilty parties to admit it. It’s all part of the larger con of American liberalism, which sees itself as immune to ideology, on the side of facts and logic and all things 'pragmatic.' The mainstream press simply won’t admit the obvious, reality-based truth: They are a de facto arm of American liberalism. To paraphrase Ron Burgundy, it’s not 'the media,' it’s the liberal media — and that is a scientific fact."

"At their convention, Democrats endlessly congratulated themselves on their one foreign-policy success: killing Osama bin Laden. A week later, the Salafist flag flies over four American embassies, even as the mob chants, 'Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas.' 
 
"A foreign policy in epic collapse. And, by the way, Vladimir Putin just expelled USAID from Russia. Another thank you from another recipient of another grand Obama 'reset.'"

"The initial headlines shouted that the IG report had exonerated Holder. That's one interpretation. But the portrait the report paints of Holder's management is deeply disturbing. Time and again, information and warnings about the operation's enormous risks flow from Arizona to Washington … and suddenly, mysteriously, stop just short of Holder. 

"The inspector general's report concludes that they can find no evidence Holder knew about Fast and Furious until well after Terry's death, but … well, the circumstances of Holder being so out of the loop, so in the dark about a major operation certainly appear unusual, perhaps to the point of straining credulity. ... 

"Repeatedly, everyone under Holder seems to do everything possible to make sure he isn't informed about an operation that, in the words of the IG report, failed 'to adequately consider the risk to public safety in the United States and Mexico'. In fact, information about the program went all the way to Holder's office – but somehow, the memos, emails and other communications never reached the man himself. It's as if he wasn't there."

"Democrats need to change their party mascot from the donkey to the squirrel. They divert the media's and the electorate's short attention spans with fleeting, fuzzy objects -- like the main canine character in the animated Pixar movie 'Up,' who was easily distracted from his main thoughts and serious duties by every last little moving trifle. 

"Embassy attacks? Quick, find a squirrel! Warnings ignored? Squirrel! American troops killed by long-plotting jihadis exploiting security weaknesses? Squirrel! First Amendment sabotage by White House officials in the name of political correctness? Squirrel! Chronic joblessness, high gas prices, exploding dependency? Squirrel! Squirrel! Squirrel!  

"As Election Day draws nearer, the Obama campaign and its surrogates in the Fourth Estate have infested the political arena with an army of tactical and rhetorical rodentia."

"Obama officials fasten on the video so they can flinch from hard truths. They can’t bring themselves to say that the protesters hate us and our freedoms. They can’t admit that electing President Barack Hussein Obama, with generations of Muslims in his family (as he boasted in his Cairo speech), wasn’t enough to win over the Muslim world. They can’t look dispassionately on an Arab Spring that is sputtering out into more radicalism and more disorder. And, most disturbing of all, they can’t muster a full-throated defense of free speech that doesn’t give ground to the premises of Muslims hostile to it."

"We are reaching -- or may already have passed -- the practical limits of 'economic stimulus.' Last week, the Federal Reserve adopted an open-ended bond-buying program of $40 billion a month to goad the economy into faster growth. But even before the announcement, there was skepticism that it would do much to lower the unemployment rate, which has exceeded 8 percent for 43 months. The average response of 47 economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal was that a similar program might cut the jobless rate 0.1 percentage point over a year. 

"There is a desperate air to Bernanke's latest move. At best, it will reinforce a long-awaited housing revival. At worst, it will founder on obvious problems. How much lower can the Fed drive long-term interest rates? How much money can the Fed shovel into the economy without rekindling inflationary expectations and behavior? The Fed is on the brink of moving beyond what it understands and can control."

"[A]t at the same time that it does nothing, the administration warns Israel sternly, repeatedly, publicly, even threateningly not to strike the Iranian nuclear program. With zero prospect of his policy’s succeeding, Obama insists on Israeli inaction, even as Iran races to close the window of opportunity for any successful attack.
 
"Not since its birth six decades ago has Israel been so cast adrift by its closest ally."