IT'S ALWAYS THE ECONOMY, STUPID
BY DANIEL HENNINGER
WALL STREET JOURNAL
What Mr. Obama won't say is that the financial crisis resulted from the implosion of a housing market transformed into a toxic landfill by Congress, regulators, Fannie, Freddie and mortgage packagers. The Bush presidency was a bystander. Also left unsaid by Mr. Obama but free for the telling by Mr. Romney is that as the U.S. unemployment rate hit 9.5% in June 2009 and a shocked public was looking for a response, the new president introduced the Affordable Care Act. ...For the next nine months, as unemployment ran between 9.5% and 10%, Congress at Mr. Obama's insistence worked on his health-care legislation. When Mr. Obama signed the bill into law in March 2010, the unemployment rate was 9.8%. If an opponent wanted to describe this in partisan terms, he might say that the president legislated an entitlement dream while the economy burned.
KNOWNS, UNKNOWNS AND UNKNOWABLES
BY CHARLES M. BLOW
NEW YORK TIMES
Mitt Romney is running out of time. His path to victory is growing narrow and dark. There are only 40 days until Election Day. Early voting has begun or is about to begin in several states and new polls show Romney at or near double-digit deficits in the all-important swing states of Ohio and Florida. The Romney campaign is buckling under the weight of some big mistakes: A strategy that assumed that an empty suit could make empty promises and that an electorate full of voters consumed by anger at the president wouldn’t notice. A candidate who keeps his foot so deep in his mouth that his toes can tickle his cerebellum. A nominating convention that fell flat. Romney picking a vice presidential candidate from the far right as he callously sought to siphon far-right enthusiasm without embracing far-right dogma. The fat lady is waiting in the wings and she’s gargling with honey and lemon juice.