Christie: High praise for Obama's efforts in critical times

While New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was praising President Obama's intense engagement  in  the post-Sandy devastation of Christie's state,  Mitt was doing photo-ops in Ohio on a day when he said he wouldn't be campaigning at all.  Christie emphatically described Obama's  quick action  to expedite FEMA's assistance as ''outstanding" and said he didn't care  if such  praise violated party loyalties in the presidential race.

Meantime, Romney was more circumspect about  FEMA, the agency that he has long dismissed as a drag on the federal budget,  having once said that critical disaster work could best be handled by the private sector!   He didn't say  how that would be fail-safe but it is a clue to his secret plan to end the deficit.   Does that make you feel more secure these days if your town is hit by another disaster with him in the Oval Office?

On Tuesday,  trapped by his past feeble notions, he ignored  all questions from reporters on  whether he  now felt that FEMA was necessary for the nation's domestic emergencies.  It was just Mitt being Mitt when he faces an unpleasant situation that can't be solved by metrics and IPOs.

Having watched this guy since the start of the primaries, I've concluded that his campaign is much like the Seinfeld series:  It's a campaign about nothing.

That being the case, the narrative must find a way to gain traction with lies.  Not that he nor his supporting cast worry much  that it all reflects on Romney's incurable waffling and dishonesty.   Indeed, any challenge to his plot devices is merely cause to repeat them.  When top Chrysler executives criticized his fictional  Jeeps-to-China  TV ads,  the trash talk continued to turn up on TV and radio, especially in the Toledo area where the auto industry has heavy impact  on the economy.

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Poor John McCain.  He grows more erratic by the hour.  There he was in Ohio with Josh Mandel at his side - ya know, the old soldier and his young aide-de-camp -  asserting on TV that Obama was  "unqualified" to be America's commander-in-chief.  The only thing I  can figure is that McCain  is bored and needs to hug up to Romney for a possible appointment to Team Romney if Mitt lands  in the White House. I think he might be holding a pair of sixes against a full house.

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The Columbus Dispatch today endorsed Sherrod Brown over Josh - the second conservative Republican paper forced to concede  the wide gulf that separates the two candidates.The other paper: The Cincinnati Enquirer.

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My column on the Romney campaign's lies about Obama and the auto industry is posted on Plunderbund.

McMitt foolishly plays his trump card

WELL, WE ALL got a chance Thursday to witness a revival of The Birther of the Nation. No, not D.W. Griffith's silent movie classic, but rather the reappearance of Birther McDonald Trump in his latest kingmaking r0le endorsing McMitt Romney. They formed the joyous glitterati in a Las Vegas Hotel, joining big money and still bigger egos. It's doubtful that the very poor will be impressed.

So that nobody could miss the value of his newly arranged praise of of Romney, McDonald described the front-running candidate as "tough, smart and sharp." He assured the gathering that with McMitt as president, "nothing bad can happen to the country we all love." (It took me back decades ago when a mob insider assured me that my article about him was so fair that "nothing bad will happen to you." One thing about these guys, they keep their word!)

The Republican race, with too many months to go, has become absolutely zoological, with strange noises coming from an odd assortment of pawing creatures. Trump, it must be recalled, once downgraded his latest catch as a "small business guy," adding that his own wealth was "many many times" that of Romney's. But why bring that up in McDonald's MacArthur-like triumphant return to center stage?

It also should be recalled that Trump cast himself as the savior of American truth and justice with numerous TV appearances demanding proof that Obama was a legitimate American citizen. When the president released his birth certificate, questions were then raised about his grades at Harvard, where he was the editor of the school's prestigious law review.

But let's be honest: Soon McDonald will slip out of the photo-ops, leaving McMitt out there unprepared to explain why he's ready for prime time with Obama. Meantime, it was fair for the conservative National Review to ask: What is wrong with this guy?

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Although McNewt Gingrich seems assured of losing Nevada, he continues to vow a long-term challenge to Romney. Among other things, he continues to rely on incantation to retrieve the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

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Unsurprisingly, PD endorses Issue 2

Yes on Issue 2 was the headline on the Plain Dealer's Sunday editorial supporting retention of the law embracing Senate Bill 5. And why should any of us be surprised? Here, after all, was the paper that also urged its readers to vote for John Kasich when he ran for governor - the same John Kasich who is out vigorously campaigning for....the issue restricting the power of public unions. When it comes to politics, the paper has seldom cast aside its predictability in defending its puffy noble causes.

In its Kasich endorsement in 2010, it found a number of reasons to caution the electorate about the volatile ex-Wall Streeter ever setting foot in the governor's office. But in the end, it insisted that he would still be a better choice than the incumbent,Ted Strickland, who happened to be a Democrat.

And so the PD couched its support of the GOP- hustled antiunion issue with endless advice about what to do with the flaws in the law - "imperfect though it may be" - if the repeal referendum is denied on Election Day. What the heck, it told us, those flaws can be corrected later. And good luck on that one. Even the PD conceded it won't be easy, noting:

"Yet whatever voters decide, a middle road that enables needed change without trampling on the dignity of public servants will be hard to find once this bitter political fight ends."

It could be fairly argued, of course, that if the law is that questionable in a number of respects, the same search for a middle road could be applied if the law is repealed and those same Republican lawmakers start all over again from scratch to find the beloved middle road that wouldn't trample on dignity. That, too, won't happen with the wrecking crew operating in Columbus these days under the guise of reformers.

The supporters of Senate 5 fumbled from the outset by slamming it at the public unions without concern for the likely backlash. Else they would not have included police and firefighters in the law's grasp. We are not dealing here with a highly intelligent and far-sighted group of lawmakers, folks. The only remaining question is why the corporate media keeps bailing them out of their disfunctional behavior.

The PD also wanders off to the governor's phony attempts to reach a compromise with the law's opponents before it reached the ballot (one of the true non-stories in the issue's history, induced by Kasich's deep concern that the repeal would succeed and not by any notion of valid compromise). It is now asking him to rise above the battle after election day. "When this campaign ends", the paper said, " Kasich has a chance to be healer. He must not pass it up."

Fat chance, that is, from this governor.

Palin's home-front downer

IT USED to be a clever talking point for the partisans on both sides to note that even the hometown newspaper - the folks who knew the most about one's opponent - found reason not to endorse that opponent.  Well, now.  The largest paper in Alaska has endorsed Barack Obama!  Although the Anchorage Daily News insisted that both McCain and Sarah Palin were too "risky" to endorse in a troubled nation and world, here is the paper's conclusion about Alaska's governor:

        "Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who  have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth.  To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crises would stretch the governor  beyond her  range." 

          You betcha.  As Palin has become more of McCain's  chattering nuisance in the final days of the campaign, she has quickly reminded me of the disruptive student in a grade school class  who was constantly waving an  arm for permission to go to the bathroom.