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On Monday, I wrote that it would be wrong to prejudge CNN host Candy Crowley before she turned in her performance as a debate moderator. Just the week prior, ABC reporter Martha Raddatz was preemptively criticized for inviting President Barack Obama to attend her wedding in the 1990s, but she ended up being a straight moderator who advanced the vice presidential debate admirably. I wanted to extend the benefit of the doubt to Crowley, to not preemptively criticize her before she was worthy of criticism. Well, the verdict is in and criticism is entirely warranted. My singular take away moment...

Time for your daily reminder that State didn’t merely stick Chris Stevens with “average” security despite him living and working in one of the jihadi-est places on earth. The security they provided him was actively, inexplicably, inexcusably bad. And before you read any further, let me remind you that the ominous chat-room message posted by Sean Smith the day he died about a Libyan guard taking photos of the compound still hasn’t been addressed by anyone in the government that I’ve seen. Did Stevens’s security break down to the point that his killers actually had someone on the inside?More red...

In the baseball playoffs, the tie goes to the runner. In debates, ties are decided by the moderator and that’s what happened during the Tuesday night presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York. CNN’s Candy Crowley made her presence felt as a moderator in a major way on two points, but none larger than the issue of Libya. The terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and four others in Benghazi has become a sore point for Obama, but Crowley made sure she called Romney out before Obama could tag him. When Romney said Obama had not called...

On NBC, DEM Rep. --former . Gov Jennifer Granholm (D-MI)-- again repeated VP Biden's line that that was the info we got from the intel, at the time of the attack, and that it was the REP. that cut the defense, thus(as a result) it affected (somehow) the security around the embassy... My question is, why is it that liberals can not stop hammering us on Iraq and refuse to take the truthful answer that we all thought that Saddam Hussein had WMD according to our intel at the time? -- BTW The DEM Mayor Kasim Reed (D-Atlanta) kept spinning...

Asked directly on Wednesday evening if Tuesday's deadly violence in Libya was "linked to a terror attack" – possibly al-Qaeda – a State Department official demurred: "Frankly, we are not in a position to speak any further to the perpetrators of this attack. It was clearly a complex attack...

The State Department has released a transcript of a briefing that two high-ranking department officials gave to a number of reporters via conference call on October 9 (Tuesday). I am not certain about this, but I believe the transcript was only made public today. You should read it in its entirety; it is the most detailed description I have seen of the events in Benghazi on September 11. While this is by no means clear, it appears that the State Department may have released the transcript as part of the escalating conflict between Barack Obama and Joe Biden and the...

In my estimation, last night’s debate was a draw. Both men did what they needed to do for the debate, but neither had enough of a breakout performance to make much of a difference in the race. I’d expect to see very little impact to the Mitt-mentum that developed after the first debate, for reasons which I’ll address in a moment.That wasn’t the conclusion reached by Frank Luntz’ focus group of former Barack Obama voters, and now undecideds, in Nevada. That panel overwhelmingly chose Mitt Romney as the winner, with observations about Romney’s presidential mien and Obama’s defensiveness and lack...

On CNN's "State of the Union" on September 30, Candy Crowley insisted David Axelrod, President Barack Obama's chief strategist, was wrong when Axelrod tried to claim President Barack Obama called the Benghazi attack "an act of terror" on the day after. "First, they said it was not planned, it was part of this tape," Crowley said when Axelrod tried to spin her. This was Crowley the journalist, unlike the pro-Obama advocate who moderated Tuesday's debate between Obama and Mitt Romney and interjected herself into an argument between Obama and Romney on the exact same issue -- and took Obama's side....

As Eliana Johnson points out over at NRO, this morning, David Axelrod continued to throw Hillary Clinton and the State Department under the bus.......So expect more details damaging to Obama and Biden slowly to trickle out.

WASHINGTON — Early in the Obama administration, a lobbyist for the Illinois-based energy producer Exelon Corporation proudly called it “the president’s utility.” And it was not just because it delivers power to Barack Obama’s Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago. ..... David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime political strategist, once worked as an Exelon consultant, and Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayor and Mr. Obama’s former chief of staff, helped create the company through a corporate merger in 2000 while working as an investment banker. With energy an increasingly pivotal issue for the Obama White House, a review of Exelon’s relationship with the...

WASHINGTON -- It has been a very rough patch for Our President, and I do believe it is going to get rougher still. Do not be surprised, as the month goes on and August runs into September, that his campaign budget becomes tighter. President Barack Obama is spending more money than he is raising. It will get worse. A president who mismanages the federal budget the way Obama does cannot be expected to manage his campaign budget much better. Lavish spending, it turns out, is a way of life for the community organizer who became our 44th president. Lavish spending...

In a swipe at the GOP presidential ticket, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod on Tuesday defended President Barack Obama’s handling of Medicare. “The president … took away subsidies, unwarranted subsidies, to insurance companies, and he used that money to help lengthen the life of Medicare by nearly a decade,” Axelrod said on CNN’s Starting Point, referencing a provision of the new health care law. “So when Gov. Romney says he doesn’t support that, obviously … that’s problematical.” …

Chris Wallace, "FOX News Sunday" host: Didn't this White House badly misjudge this recovery? I remember in 2010, two summers ago, you and Vice President Biden were running around talking about 'Recovery Summer.' That was the summer of 2010 and the fact is the White House said if you got the stimulus, the $800 billion that unemployment would stay under 8%. In fact, with the stimulus, unemployment has stayed over 8% for the last 42 months. That's three and a half years. David Axelrod: Chris, first of all, I wasn't running around saying anything other than that we were going...

Based on the most embarrassing moments and inexcusable scandals of the Obama Administration, these two "Top Ten Democrat Lists" should be pretty accurate. Take a look at them and express your opinions of accuracy. There is likely a few more that can be added to the lists,so please feel free to add if you feel some Democrats are missing. TOP TEN WORLDS DUMBEST DEMOCRATS: 1)Debbie Wasserman, 2)Maxine Waters, 3)Nancy Pelosi, 4)Elizabeth Warren, 5)Sheila Jackson, 6)Hank Johnson, 7)Chuck Schumer, 8)Barney Frank, 9)Frederica Wilson, 10)Dick Durbin Top Ten Most Hated Democrats: 1)Eric Holder, 2)Van Jones, 3)David Axelrod, 4)O'Bozo, 5)Harry Reid, 6)Baba Boxer,...

War in the White House: attorney general Eric Holder and top Obama adviser David Axelrod 'had to be separated' Eric Holder, Barack Obama's attorney general and David Axelrod, his top political adviser had to be separated after squaring up during a furious row over attempts to impose White House operatives in the justice department. By Jon Swaine, Washington 6:22PM BST 03 Jun 2012 Eric Holder, who heads Mr Obama's justice department, is said to have become "incensed" after being accused by David Axelrod of complaining publicly about political interference in his office. "That's bull****," Mr Holder said in a confrontation...

The communications director of President Obama’s reelection campaign today denied a report in the New York Times that he had sat in on weekly White House meetings on terrorism. On Tuesday the paper said that after the failed 2009 Christmas Day “underwear bombing,” David Axelrod started attending the discussions with Obama and top national security advisers. The article reads: ”David Axelrod, the president’s closest political adviser, began showing up at the ‘Terror Tuesday’ meetings, his unspeaking presence a visible reminder of what everyone understood: a successful attack would overwhelm the president’s other aspirations and achievements.”

it intends to fight the guerilla warfare of a presidential campaign with a new aggressiveness and combativeness. The first signal came in Boston, where top Obama adviser David Axelrod organized an anti-Romney event on the steps of the Massachusetts state house. The event, which Team Obama wanted to keep under wraps until shortly before it happened, was to feature remarks from Axelrod and Democratic state officeholders who would attack Romney's record as governor from 2003 to 2007. But it didn't work out as planned. First, word of the event leaked last night, and the Romney campaign quickly scheduled an event...

The leader of the government regularly sits down with his senior generals and spies and advisers and reviews a list of the people they want him to authorize their agents to kill. They do this every Tuesday morning when the leader is in town. The leader once condemned any practice even close to this, but now relishes the killing because he has convinced himself that it is a sane and sterile way to keep his country safe and himself in power. The leader, who is running for re-election, even invited his campaign manager to join the group that decides whom...

David Axelrod privately calls Barack Obama “Black Jesus,” according to Edward Klein’s fantastic new book, The Amateur (p. 59). “[Barack Obama] is the living, breathing apotheosis of the American melting pot,” Klein quotes Axelrod as saying. Axelrod, as we know, isn’t alone. According to Klein, Micah Tillman, lecturer in philosophy at the Catholic University of America, called Obama “the Platonic philosopher king we’ve been looking for the past 2,400 years.” And no less an authority than Oprah has called him “The One.”

Both David Axelrod and Jim Messina put out the bait and unfortunately Mitt Romney took it. Joe Ricketts, formerly of TD Ameritrade and whose family owns the Chicago Cubs, proposed putting together a series of Super PAC ads highlighting President Obama's relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Both Axelrod and Messina said that Romney should take a page out of John McCain's book and not focus on Wright. Well, of course, Axelrod and Messina would like that because, gee, McCain lost to Obama. Romney responded it would be "the wrong course for a PAC or a campaign." [Snip] What Romney...