The Patriot Post® · Tuesday Short Cuts

Insight: “Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all legal professions of history have based their job security.” —Frank Herbert (1920-1986)

Upright: “The Democrats’ dirty little secret is that the inequality they complain of is most common in places where they have put policies like minimum wage increases and paid leave into place. California has the highest poverty rate (compared to living costs) in America, New York City the most economic inequality. … One thing you didn’t hear the Democrats talk about [in the debate] was how to increase overall growth above the anemic Obama levels of 2 percent. Do they have anything to say about that?” —Michael Barone

Oops: “Biden to launch a presidential campaign” —a premature Washington Post headline its editors say was “inadvertently published”

The BIG Lie: “I think that [regarding] Benghazi, most of the questions have been answered. I think that we haven’t heard enough about the fact that this really was a CIA station there, not so much a consulate, and those guys should be able to protect themselves in most circumstances. … [Y]ou got to remember that diplomats get killed in every administration.” —Joe Klein

“Bad things happen on every president’s watch — also, every secretary of state’s — and the proper place to lay blame is on the perpetrators.” —Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson defending Hillary Clinton on Benghazi with a statement he would never make about mass murderers, gun owners and the NRA

It’s all Bush’s fault, part … oh forget it: “[T]he Republican Party is trying to blame Hillary Clinton for the deaths of four Americans serving in Libya in 2012. Three years later, they continue to hunt her, hunt her down you can say, on the groundless argument that someone must be to blame. Well, you follow that argument and the trail of 9/11, and you end up with George W. Bush.” —Chris Matthews

Late-night humor: “Analysts are saying that Joe Biden was actually the biggest loser in the debate, and that he missed his chance to enter the race. Yeah, they said entering now would be awkward and inappropriate — or as Biden put it, ‘Those are my two middle names! I’m in!’” —Jimmy Fallon