The Foundation

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker.” –John Adams

Editorial Exegesis

“The contrast between the Nobel Committee’s choice for its Peace Prize a year ago and today couldn’t be more stark. In 2009, the Norwegian group tapped President Obama for its prestigious award. On Friday, they chose a genuine hero: Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Mr. Obama was nominated within days of taking office, and the committee ridiculously claimed it awarded him the prize not for his accomplishments, but for the promise of what he might achieve. Mr. Liu was selected ‘for his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.’ Such is the distinction between style and substance. Mr. Obama has performed on the world stage with an audience of billions. Mr. Liu’s stage is a lonely Chinese prison cell, where he’s serving an 11-year sentence for his role as co-author of ‘Charter 08,’ a human rights manifesto published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2008. … The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests brought him home to Beijing, where he was instrumental in persuading student demonstrators to vacate the square prior to the start of violence on June 4. Mr. Liu was imprisoned following the crackdown and released in 1991 after he ‘repented,’ according to state media. He was rearrested five years later for signing a letter calling for the impeachment of then-President Jiang Zemin and spent three more years in prison. Mr. Liu’s persecution calls attention to Mr. Obama’s thin record as a peacemaker. … Mr. Liu’s persistent acts of defiance in the name of freedom have the power to inspire real change in China and elsewhere. Evidently, the Nobel Committee learned a lesson from its poor choice last year and took pains to rectify the mistake by honoring a real hero this time around.” –The Washington Times

Upright

“The big question for the election next month is whether the voters keep their eye on the ball and judge candidates by what policies they advocate or whether they can be thrown off the track by red herrings. We have already seen in 2008 what can happen when voters fail to pay attention to a presidential candidate’s track record, and let themselves be dazzled by rhetoric, symbolism and media hype.” –economist Thomas Sowell

“When a coalition of health care groups recently urged Congress to withhold money from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Obamacare, we were painfully reminded of Obama’s corrupt recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the centers. The health care groups are trying to pressure Berwick to answer basic questions about his health policy views. Berwick has advocated rationing and insists that health care funding must be used as a vehicle to redistribute wealth. Obama appointed Berwick not unaware of these ideas, but because of them.” –columnist David Limbaugh

“The woman in charge of our immigration enforcement [Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano] said she ‘doesn’t know’ what to do about the country’s celebrity illegal alien, Nicky Diaz, former housekeeper for California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman. Hang on – it gets ditzier. Secretary Napolitano … [said] that ‘obviously this is ultimately a matter for California voters to decide.’ I’m guessing the Arizona folks have a question for her: ‘Madam Secretary, if it’s 'ultimately a matter for California voters to decide’ what to do about an illegal immigrant, why can’t we? By the way, Gov. Jan Brewer loves your answer.‘” –columnist Jan LaRue

“Here is a quick summary of President Obama’s recent debate with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Chamber of Commerce: The Democrats’ economic policies have failed. Obama: Look out! Foreigners!” –columnist Jacob Sullum

“There’s an irony to occupying the Oval Office. When presidents think they’re bigger than the job they hold, they shrink in office. When they think they’re smaller than the honor they’ve been temporarily bestowed, they grow into it. Obama has done nothing but shrink.” –columnist Jonah Goldberg

United States Navy Birthday

On Oct. 13, 1775, the U.S. Navy was born when the Continental Congress authorized the arming of two sailing vessels with 80 men and 10 carriage guns in order to intercept British supply and munitions transports. The Declaration of Independence came nine months later, followed by the creation of the Department of the Navy in 1798. Today, our Navy is the most powerful in the world. We at The Patriot Post offer our thanks to all our sailors for a job well done and wish you a Happy 235th Birthday! God bless you and your families.

Please visit The Patriot Shop for a great selection of items bearing the Navy’s insignia.

The Demo-gogues

The latest scare theme: “Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for [campaign] ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations. So groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections, and they won’t tell you where the money for their ads come from. … This is a threat to our democracy.” –Barack Obama

“[Republicans] are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate. If they’re successful in doing that, they’ve already said they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill.” –Barack Obama (We would avoid the hand-to-hand metaphor if we were him.)

It’s all about him: “The campaign by itself didn’t deliver the change that we need. It just gave us the chance to make the change happen. We’ve got a lot at stake right now. On Nov. 2nd, I’m going to need you just as fired up as you were in 2008. I hope you’re ready to fight. … Don’t make me look bad, now.” –Barack Obama

Whose money is it? “They want to borrow $700 billion dollars and then they want to give out taxes worth an average of $100,000 to millionaires and billionaires. And when you ask them, ‘Where are you going to get this $700 billion?’ they don’t have answers. They don’t know.” –BO, class warrior

Ever the charmer: “We want to reward people who manufacture things in the United States, in Wisconsin, not to take them overseas to China and to other countries! [pause] You’re the dullest audience I’ve ever spoken to. Do you realize how many jobs Wisconsin lost? It’s staggering!” –Joe Biden

Campaigning for dummies: “[I]t’s just too hard to explain [our policies]. It sort of a branding, I mean you know they kind of want the branding more at the front end.” –Biden on why Democrats aren’t polling well

Don’t know much about economics: “It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance. The biggest bang for the buck.” –House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-lusional)

Put on a happy face: “We’re not losing. … I feel that we will be in the majority and that I will be speaker of the House. But it’s not about me, it’s about the middle class.” –Nancy Pelosi (D-nial)

Dezinformatsia

That nutty Tea Party: “If we have a Republican Party that actually takes the White House, actually has control of Congress, but contains a large wing of these people, it’s going to be incapable of making real choices. These are people who are as irrational as they seem in these ads. … There are some seriously strange people running, thanks to the Tea Party. … It’s not just suspicion of government. We have people out there believing that this basically centrist moderate president we have is a socialist bringing Sharia law to America. None of that is rational.” –New York Times columnist Paul Krugman

“I think that the Tea Party – I think that that piece of the Republican Party is vapid. It has no ideas. It will lead us down a dangerous road. … I think the reason they need to sort of run on the vapid claims about less government equals more freedom is because, at its root, what they are going back to is a Herbert Hoover vision of government – pre-FDR – saying, we want to take away the very pieces of government that created the middle class.” –CNN’s new host Eliot Spitzer, ignoring the fact that Hoover laid the foundation for government interference that FDR ran with later

Gut buster: “We have so many different voices. We’re not trying to push Democratic talking points, as some people accuse us of.” –MSNBC President Phil Griffin

This just in: “With the exception of core Obama administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters.” –Time’s Mark Halperin

“Obama has a considerable ego.” –New Yorker columnist David Remnick

Sometimes they nail it: “The New York Times looked into the Chamber [of Commerce] specifically and said the Chamber really isn’t putting foreign money into the campaign. … But this part about foreign money, that appears to be peanuts, Mr. Axelrod, I mean, do you have any evidence that it’s anything other than peanuts? … If the only charge, three weeks into the election that the Democrats can make is that there’s somehow this may or may not be foreign money coming into the campaign, is that the best you can do?” –CBS’s Bob Schieffer to David Axelrod

Newspulper Headlines:

‘I Think That When You Spread the Wealth Around, It’s Good for Everybody’: “Gunman Wearing Obama Mask Robs Sheetz” –News & Record (Greensboro, NC)

Out on a Limb: “POLL: Speaker Nancy Pelosi Did Not Drain Swamp, Key Voters Believe” –TheHill.com

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Do Gassy Camels Add to Global Warming?” –WNYW-TV website (New York)

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: “Now It’s Official: Obama Is Another Reagan” –Salon.com

Breaking News From Luke 10:25-37: “Samaritan Recounts Dramatic Kidnapping Rescue” –ABCNews.com

Bottom Stories of the Day: AP Sources: All Hopeful Mideast Talks Can Go On"–Associated Press

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Village Idiots

Generating fear over nothing: “The fact is that the Chamber [of Commerce] … won’t release any information about where their campaign money is coming from. And that’s at the core of the problem here. What we’ve seen in part because of a loophole that the Supreme Court allowed earlier this year, we now see tens of millions of dollars being spent by the Chamber and a number of organizations some of which just cropped up. … So I guess, my question … is why not simply disclose where this money is coming from? And then all of these questions will be answered.” –White House adviser David Axelrod

Tempest over the Tea Party: “What they’ve done is essentially created a monster [with the Tea Party]. Their rhetoric has been so uncompromising, so inaccurate, so ludicrous, that … they’ve given permission for this wing of the Republican Party … this is a Tea Party group, to say outrageous things. For the mainstream voter, it is frightening to see that.” –former DNC Chief Howard Dean

“These are the small-town enemies of everybody. They just dislike everyone. They couldn’t come out and say: ‘We don’t want a black president’ – we’ve finally got past that roadblock. So what they did was set out to slaughter the opposition party, the Democrats.” –author Gore Vidal on the Tea Party

Village Victimitis: “We have seen a small but vocal group of bigots and hate-mongers manufacture an atmosphere of anti-Islam hysteria through smear campaigns that rely on distortions, misinformation and outright falsehoods. … It will take joint efforts by people of goodwill of all faiths to challenge this epidemic of hate.” –Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations

Short Cuts

“The White House admitted … that ninety thousand stimulus checks were sent out to dead people last year. It’s worse than that. The dead are late in reporting whether they spent their stimulus money to install solar panels or to retain teachers.” –comedian Argus Hamilton

“In Rolling Stone magazine, Obama berated members of his base for their lethargy and ‘sitting on their hands complaining.’ One leftist remarked, ‘I’ve never seen a politician run an election with the message 'Don’t be stupid, quit your bitching and vote for me.’” –columnist David Limbaugh

“The week ended with 36 attendees at an Obama rally in Maryland collapsing in apparent illness. As one wag said it seems like just yesterday Obama crowds were swooning; now they are simply sickened.” –columnist Clarice Feldman

“There are rumors of an Obama-Hillary ticket for 2012, though some insiders say Obama doesn’t feel he needs Hillary on the ticket. At this point, I don’t think Hillary feels that she needs Obama on the ticket.” –comedian Jay Leno