Quote of the Day: Fools and the Prince of Fools

Via Smaizdata comes this pithy comment translated from the original Czech (this had appeared in a Prague newspaper):

The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their president.

Oh, dear.  Is it really that bad? DON'T ANSWER THAT! IT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION!

Here, Read This

Well, last night was bad and I (still!) have a chocolate hangover.  After a day of half-hearted research and trying to avoid obnoxiously gloating Obamacolytes, I'm too tired to write, but some of my favorite wordsmiths weigh in, so do read them:

• Larry Correia
• Sarah Hoyt
• Andrew Klavan
• Rachel Lucas

Well, obviously we have a lot of work to do.  But it's possible. Look, I've said before that it is incomprehensible how the establishment GOP can't seem to reach out effectively to minorities and immigrants, Asians and Hispanics.  I am so freaking hoping that Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and the young guard can jump-start a fresh approach that's so desperately needed.  

Meanwhile, I still cannot wrap my head around the fact that half the voting populace of the country saw the dismal economy first-hand and the looming wreck of entitlements and debt and still voted for more of the same.  I just can't.  It's like everybody's gone completely insane and can't even do basic math.

Now here's some Frank J. Fleming for a good laugh on a day when we're all licking our election wounds and watching the Dow swan-dive over 300 points today in response to yesterday's shenanigans.  

Yesterday, today ... We can't do anything about that.  But that brings us to:

Post-Vote: We Hate the Status Quo. Let's Have More of It!

Apparently so.  The same president and the same Congress that we've all been sniping about for (literally) years.  The same gridlock, economic mess, debt and deficit, and unserious approach to serious problems.  In fact, the entire debacle reminds me of this scene from Star Trek: Generations (1994):

Calling It A Night

More thoughts tomorrow; I'm exhausted.  I'll just leave you with this.  Some people have said, since we've all seen Obama's first term, the result was the triumph of hope over experience.  I add too that it is the triumph of denial over reality, and of a cold, narrow, bitter and embittering vision of ever-increasing division over a greater, warmer, brighter promise of inclusion.  Nobody seemed to care that the entire country is going to go bankrupt paying for entitlement addiction by spending borrowed money.  The sheer cynicism of the Obama campaign was breathtaking in places, as it quite knowingly decided to discard half the country with contempt, and the rank complicity and corruption of the media reached almost comical proportions.

I'm not going to lie: I'm sorely - sorely - disappointed with the Romney loss.  I honestly thought the whole thing could - no, would, given the dire straits that we're in at home and abroad - go our way.  It's a bad night for conservatives and libertarians, but ... (and I'm reminding myself as much as I'm reminding anyone) we're optimists.  Fundamentally.  Moping does not become us.

As believers in limited government, the American Dream, the boundless potential of the individual, and the power of actual (not crony) capitalism, free markets, and the private sector to create jobs and improve lives, we don't buy that other vision of drab collectivist dependency, that half-defeatist outlook on life, that zero-sum game, that grasping state leviathan distrusting any success (indeed, any activity) it does not somehow control and compel.  

Oh, soon there will be all kinds of "Monday morning quarterbacking" about the Romney campaign, but that's not really the point.  We have to articulate our cause better.  We have to engage still more.  If ever there were a time to be happy warriors, my darlings, it's now.  

UPDATE: Can't sleep.  I'm going to eat a bunch of leftover Halloween chocolate and read a novel that has nothing to do with school, and I'm going to do that until I pass out, probably with all the lights still on.

7 PM Eastern Time: The First Polls Close, So Cue Crazy Media Coverage in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

Oh, boy!  Here we go!  I think we're in for a loooooooooooooong night, gentle reader.  This could be a real nailbiter.  (PS: I don't give a hoot about which candidate "the world" prefers.  This is OUR election. Get your own!  Though ... I do like this sassy British op-ed.) 

Here's something amusing if you need something to take the edge off as you watch election returns (and loopy journalists) tonight:

IT'S ELECTION DAY! GO VOTE!

Go vote for the candidate of your choice.  Go exercise your right and responsibility as a citizen of this great nation.  (And for goodness sake, if you're in a swing state, you better go vote!  Do it with this in mind too.)

Can I say too: I AM SO FREAKING HAPPY THAT THE CAMPAIGN SEASON IS OVER.  I voted early to avoid the crowds at the polling place, so I intend today to do some work and then tonight to make a lot of popcorn and watch election returns.  I think we might even win this thing ("Ride right through them -they're demoralized as hell "?), but that doesn't mean I won't be on pins and needles all day long.  I'll leave you with one last bit of fun if you're also voting for members of Congress, one of the most reviled political organs ever:

Hope. Change. Whatever.

And It Begins! New Hampshire's Midnight Vote

It's the presidential election equivalent of midnight movie premieres!  New Hampshire has a charming long-standing tradition: two tiny spots in the little Granite State will vote at midnight and cast the first votes in the presidential election.  OK, citizens of Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, GO!  

(And as jaded and weary as I am, I still have to say that it's kind of exciting to see the voting actually and finally begin!)

UPDATE: Oh, boy:

The first presidential election results are in - and it's a tie.  

President Barack Obama and  his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, each received five votes in Dixville Notch,  New Hampshire. 

The people in the town in the state's northeast corner has opened its polls shortly after midnight each election day since 1968 - but today's tie was the first in its history.

Taiwanese News Animators Vs. the Election

Campaign Fatigue: One More Day

It's Guy Fawkes Day today, but the date that we all really care about is Election Day tomorrow.  Thank goodness this campaign season is almost over.  I think we're all exhausted.  I know I'm tired of hearing about campaign this and campaign that on every single communicative medium possible.  

We've reached saturation.  Polls, schmolls.  The only poll that matters is the one we have tomorrow.  Laughter is the best medicine, though, so here are a few things to make this last day a little more bearable:

It'd Be Funnier If It Weren't So True

Lemmings over the fiscal cliff.

Change You Can Believe In!

Hmmmm.  Well, that is certainly some change.  Oh, and at the end ... et tu, Canada?

Like Hormonal Middle Schoolers in Health Class

A sizable percentage of people in the Obama campaign is apparently obsessed with the birds and the bees.  From the DNC's weird morphing into LadyPartsFest and Birth Control-a-Palooza to the Lena Dunham "voting = sex" video to this fresh and completely creepy statement by David Axelrod, the evidence seems (to me, anyway) incontrovertible that these folks are not just crude and vulgar but unserious and desperately immature. What the heck is wrong with these people?  I mean, come on.  Oh, and Axelrod?  Here's some free advice, dude: Never ever say the word "loins" in public.  Like, EVER.

UPDATE: I just had another thought.  You know the term "NSFW" that you usually see attached to ... ah ... rather provocative images?  It applies perfectly to the Obama camp too!  It really is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.  Just look at the economy!  Unemployment figures!  

Oh No They Di'nt!

OH YES THEY DID.  I know I said no more posting about newspapers, but I finally got around to reading this new editorial by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and I couldn't believe what I was reading.  It's basically a passionately infuriated rant, and it pulls no punches about what it thinks.  Even more surprising is the editorial plainly calling the Obama Administration out for the Benghazi fiasco - something that many media outlets are apparently not covering.  Oh, my!  

"Secretary of Business" as Symptomatic

I've already mocked this, but Ricochet points out that the President's whole risible (and clueless) "Secretary of Business" suggestion is actually (and grimly) symptomatic of Obama's entire approach to business:

This is really how President Obama sees the private sector. It’s just one more interest group in need of care and feeding by Big Government. And since we already have a Commerce Department, let’s just rebrand that sucker and subject it to a little technocratic tinkering. Given this administration’s love of industrial policy — picking winners and losers — Obama might as call the position Secretary of Crony Capitalists.

Do recall, gentle readers, that crony capitalism is not the same thing as actual capitalism.

UPDATE: Well, that took no time at all.  Add this.

LOL: Leno on Politics

Politicizing Sandy

It started almost immediately. Ugh!  I suggest that you round up everybody who's engaging in this skulduggery and put them to work doing hurricane relief.  It might teach them some humility.

One Last Thought on Newspapers Breaking For Romney

I've been looking at this for a while (the latest previous is here with the Los Angeles Daily News).  Now yet another paper that endorsed Obama in 2008 has publicly declared for Romney, the Nashua Telegraph in the swing state of New Hampshire.  As ever, the argument is about the economy.  Here's a piece of it:

True leaders also don’t wait until two weeks before Election Day – in the form of a 20-page booklet, no less – to lay out a specific agenda for the next four years. Coupled with the negative tenor of the campaign, that merely confirms the president and his strategists felt that attacking Romney’s agenda was more politically expedient than releasing one of their own. 

Some cynics have suggested, only partly in jest, that Obama-Romney is at its core a contest between a man with no plan and man with a plan that doesn’t add up, a reference to Romney’s own unwillingness to lay out details of how he would balance his campaign promises with his tax-and-spending plans. 

Nevertheless, we are confident Romney is the candidate who would tackle the serious issues facing this nation, starting with jobs, the economy and the debt. In the end, we couldn’t say the same about the president.

Investors' Business Daily has its own editorial about this trend of newspaper editorial boards changing sides this time around. As I've said before, this is in itself rather interesting because so much of journalism these days leans (or flat out runs) left.  It's a fascinating look at the editorial boards, and I think some credit must be due to them for being able to look at the real world outside and understand that policies have consequences. Of course, the actual effectiveness of newspaper endorsements on the voting public is another issue entirely.  Here's an opinion piece about why they don't matter.

Preference Cascade-rama: LA Daily News Endorses Romney

Well, whaddyaknow?  Another one.  Oh, California will go for Obama, but the fact that any Los Angeles paper at all would endorse Romney is some kind of news to me.  The second largest paper in the City of Angels, the Daily News endorsed Obama in 2008, just like the increasing hoard of other newspaper endorsements that I've found interesting lately, and like all the others, hammers Obama on the economy.

Mark Steyn and a Tale of Two Asinine Videos

As usual, Steyn says it much better than I could.

The Des Moines Register Endorses ...

Romney.  For the first time in 40 years, this Iowa paper backs a Republican for the Presidency.  Hope and change, folks, because it's about the ECONOMY.  Anyway, add this to the growing list of papers who went for Obama in 2008 and are now endorsing Romney.  I know, I know, newspaper endorsements in themselves don't really sway the undecided reader, but I find them fascinating this time around as an exhibit of a preference cascade among the editorial boards.  As for the Des Moines Register in particular, I think we all kind of saw this coming.  By the way, here's a piece of its official endorsement: