Coming Up

Refusal
Also, while much of his program involves spending cuts, he has effectively raised taxes on low-income workers and homeowners by slashing tax credits. But he vetoed a temporary surcharge on millionaires while refusing to raise the state’s gasoline tax, which is the third-lowest in America and far below tax rates in neighboring states. Only some people, it seems, are expected to make sacrifices. (Paul Krugman, NYT, 8/26/2012)

Krugman has obviously been asked by Obama '12 to knock Christie down a peg or two given the New Jersey governor's role in the Republican convention. We won't go through all of Krugman's hit piece (where to start?), but we will briefly focus on this one point. Krugman castigates Christie for not raising the gasoline tax (God forbid! It's the third lowest in the U.S.). But right before that he excoriates Christie for raising taxes on low income workers....who would be disadvantaged by higher gasoline taxes! Does Krugman read his own column?

Imposition
But he also tells the story of what he has managed to get done despite having a Legislature controlled by the opposite party: he has overhauled teacher tenure laws, and pensions and benefits for state employees, and has imposed a property tax cap. (He may not mention that some of these were Democrats’ ideas.) (NYT, 8/27/2012)

Continuing the assault on Christie, the Times now accuses him of stealing ideas from Dems! Yes, because Dems are at the forefront of scaling back public sector employee benefits and reigning in teachers. Just kidding!

Considerable
Consider the record. His failed personal effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. His failed personal effort to negotiate a climate-change deal at Copenhagen in 2009. His failed efforts to strike a nuclear deal with Iran that year and this year. His failed effort to improve America's public standing in the Muslim world with the now-forgotten Cairo speech. His failed reset with Russia. His failed effort to strong-arm Israel into a permanent settlement freeze. His failed (if half-hearted) effort to maintain a residual U.S. military force in Iraq. His failed efforts to cut deals with the Taliban and reach out to North Korea. His failed effort to win over China and Russia for even a symbolic U.N. condemnation of Syria's Bashar Assad. His failed efforts to intercede in Europe's economic crisis. (Bret Stephens, WSJ, 8/27/2012)

Notwithstanding, the Liberal media gives Obama the edge in foreign policy over Mitt Romney.