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Angelo Cordvilla posts on how democracy is destroyed by lies.

Democracy has no cure for a corrupt demos. Politicians’ misdeeds taint them alone, so long as their supporters do not embrace them. But when substantial constituencies continue to support their leaders despite their having broken faith, they turn democracy’s process of mutual persuasion into partisan war.

Consider: In 1974 President Richard Nixon lied publicly and officially to cover up his subordinates’ misdeeds. His own party forced him to resign. In 1998 President Bill Clinton lied under oath in an unsuccessful attempt to cover up his own. But his party rallied around him and accused his accusers. In 2013 President Barack Obama lied publicly and officially to secure passage of his most signature legislation. But when the lies became undeniable, his party joined him in maintaining that they had not been lies at all.

The point is that Nixon’s misdeeds harmed no one but himself because no one excused them. But Clinton’s and Obama’s misdeeds contributed to the corruption of American democracy because a substantial part of the American people chose to be partners in them.

The difference between the mentalities of Republicans circa 1974 and of Democrats twenty-five and forty years later is the difference between a society before and after democratic corruption. …

Nobody protects the lies of the administration better than the NY Times. Michael Goodwin calls them out. 

Poor Barack Obama. Ending his fifth year as the world’s most powerful man, he is running out of scapegoats and fairy tales. Blaming George W. Bush has lost its punch, and the ObamaCare debacle is shredding the myths he is competent and honest.

Still, before he rides off into that sunset of self-pity and low poll ratings, he ought to invite his remaining friends over for a heart-to-heart. That way he can tell The New York Times that its fanatical support does him no favors.

Instead, it feeds his arrogance and reinforces his belief that he can solve any problem with another speech. The unflattering truth doesn’t stand a chance — ­until it is too late.

Not that the president would admit any of that, of course, but the Obama Protection Racket, led by the Times, cuts both ways. It is a key reason he has defied political gravity for so long, and also why he is now in deep trouble. As watchdogs became lapdogs, the presidential bubble grew impenetrable, isolating him from ordinary Americans and the trickle-down pain of his policies.

From the broadcast networks to MSNBC and most large papers, Obama got the benefit of every doubt. The double standards were a daily disgrace so routine, they mostly provoked a shrug instead of outrage.

The ObamaCare debacle is the exception that proves the rule. Wall-to-wall complaints are forcing the media to report that the law’s Web site is a lemon and that its rules are causing millions of people to lose insurance plans they liked. …

Craig Pirrong says the only the French and the Russians will save us from more obama foolishness in the Middle East.

There are few things more dangerous than a president in search of a legacy.  Especially those who are in political straits.

A besieged Obama is in search of a legacy in foreign policy by achieving a rapprochement with Iran.  No doubt he is being egged on in this by his Rasputin, Valerie Jarrett, who, you know, is an expert about Iran because she lived there until she was four.

Never mind that even the French think this is insane.  (This being the second time in the past 3 months that the French have made Obama look like the surrender monkey.  Quite an accomplishment.) …

… The Russians, in other words, want turmoil in the Middle East.  An American rapprochement with Iran that would reduce tensions in the Gulf-at least in the short run-and bring Iranian oil back onto market is the last thing that Russia needs right now.  Which could well lead the Russians to throw a spanner in any deal.

So this is what we’ve been reduced to.  To relying on French realism and stalwartness and Russian cynicism and cupidity to prevent Obama from making a blunder of historical proportions in his narcissistic search for a legacy.

If it works out this way I will never doubt Bismarck again.

In fact, the LA Times said it was France that killed the preliminary deal. The Iranians were hot and delivered a world class insult to the One by saying “For us there are red lines that cannot be crossed.”

A marathon round of international talks in Geneva fell short of a widely anticipated deal early Sunday after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius objected, saying the terms of a preliminary accord were too easy on Tehran. Many nations fear Iran has been secretly seeking a nuclear weapons capability, despite its claims to want nuclear power only for energy and medical purposes.

Fabius broke an informal rule of the six-nation diplomatic group that has been negotiating with the Iranians by going public with his criticism of the preliminary deal, which was aimed at opening the way for comprehensive negotiations over the nuclear program.

“One wants a deal … but not a sucker’s deal,” Fabius said.

When the negotiations ground to a temporary halt, Iran was quick to point a finger.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the National Assembly that Tehran would not be intimidated by any country’s “sanctions, threats, contempt and discrimination,” according to Iran’s student news service. “For us there are red lines that cannot be crossed.”

Selena Zito writes on the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. Someone will be absent from the ceremonies.

… Lincoln brought the country to a revival at an unlikely time with his address. He gave new meaning to the definition of sacrifice in service to the country, for the purpose of preserving the country.

Lincoln was asked to speak here only as an afterthought. The request for Obama to speak has been sought for more than a year.

It would be an occasion for him to honor a crucial time in our past, to create a historical bridge to today.

His dismissal of the request shows a man so detached from the duty of history, from the men who served in the White House before him, that it is unspeakable in its audacity.

Ask almost any person in this historic town; even his most ardent supporters here are stunned.

Obama long ago veered away from any affinity he may have believed he had with Lincoln, which gives credibility to the criticism that his connection to Lincoln was always a political calculation rather than a true bond.

Late night from Andrew Malcolm. 

Leno: The Obama White House website still says if you like your health plan, you can keep it. That’s false, of course. The president says they’re trying to correct it, but his website people can’t seem to log-on.

Conan: President Obama met the Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks. Obama was excited to tell the hockey players that ObamaCare includes dental.

Conan: The ObamaCare website won’t be accessible at night due to maintenance. And it won’t be accessible during the day due to “it sucking.”

Leno: As you may know, Thanksgiving began in 1621 when Pilgrims feasted with Indians and told them, “If you like your land, you can keep your land.”

Conan: Marvel Comics is introducing its first superhero who’s a female Muslim. She can even fly, which comes in handy because she’s not allowed to drive.

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Charles Krauthammer writes on rhetoric trumped by reality.

The Obamacare Web site doesn’t work. Hundreds of thousands of insured Americans are seeing their plans summarily terminated. Millions more face the same prospect next year. Confronted with a crisis of governance, how does President Obama respond?

He campaigns.

“I’ve got one more campaign in me,” he told grass-roots supporters Monday — a series of speeches and rallies, explains the New York Times, “to make sure his signature health care law works.”

Campaigning to make something work? How does that work? Presidential sweet-talk persuades the nonfunctional Web portal to function?

This odd belief that rhetoric trumps reality leads to strange scenes. Like the ShamWow pitch, Obama’s nationally televised address trying to resell Obamacare. Don’t worry about the Web site, he said. I’ll get it fixed. And besides, there are alternatives, such as an 800 number he promptly gave out. Twice. …

… This rather bizarre belief in the unlimited power of the speech arises from Obama’s biography. Isn’t that how he rose? Words. It’s not as if he built a company, an enterprise, an institution. He built one thing — his own persona. By persuasion. One great speech in 2004 propels him to the presidential level. More great speeches and he wins the White House.

But then comes governance. A speech in Cairo, utterly crushed by the Arab Spring. Talk of a Russian reset, repeatedly thrown back at him by a contemptuous Russian dictator. Fifty-four speeches to get health care enacted — only to see it now imperiled by the reality of its ruinous rollout and broken promises.

I’m not surprised that Obama tells untruths. He’s surely not the only politician to do so. I’m just surprised that he chooses to tell such obvious ones — ones that will inevitably be found out.

Who will tell Obama that lies so transparent render rhetoric not just useless but ridiculous?

Joel Kotkin explains how healthcare reform makes life more difficult for the self-employed.

Obamacare’s first set of victims was predictable: the self-employed and owners of small businesses. Since the bungled launch of the health insurance enrollment system, hundreds of thousands of self-insured people have either had their policies revoked or may find themselves in that situation in the coming months. More than 10 million self-insured people, many of them self-employed, could meet a similar fate.

Unlike large companies or labor unions, which have sought to delay or duck implementing the Affordable Care Act, what could be called the yeoman class lacks the political might to make much of a dent in Washington policies. Indeed, in the Obama era, with its emphasis on top-down solutions and Chicago-style brokering, Americans who work for themselves probably are more marginalized today than at any time in recent memory.

Virtually every major initiative of this administration – from taxation and regulation to monetary policy and Obamacare – has been promulgated with little concern for the self-employed. Many feel themselves subject to an apparent attempt to transfer middle class incomes to the poor just as ever more wealth concentrates in the “1 percent.” Not surprisingly, 60 percent of business owners surveyed by Gallup expressed opposition to the administration.

The divide between the yeoman and the political community marks a major departure from the norms of American history. After all, people came to America in large part to secure “a piece of the pie,” whether through owning a small business or a farm, goals often unattainable in Europe. Thomas Jefferson, notes historian Kenneth Jackson, “dreamed of the U.S. as a nation of small yeoman farmers who would own their own land and cultivate it.” …

George Will has more on the foolishness of cash for clunkers.

… Most of the 677,842 sales were simply taken from the near future. That many older vehicles were traded in — and, as required by law, destroyed. Gayer and Parker accept as reasonable an estimate that the cost per job created by the program was $1.4 million. Although the vouchers did not come close to covering the cost of the new cars, voucher recipients seem not to have reduced their other consumption. This, say Gayer and Parker, suggests that participants in the program “were not liquidity constrained,” which is a delicate way of saying “there was no change in other consumption patterns,” which is a polite way of saying that “cash for clunkers” merely caused people to purchase vehicles “slightly earlier than otherwise would have occurred.”

Because the program was not means-tested, it had only a slight distributional effect of the sort progressives favor: Voucher recipients had lower incomes than others who bought new cars in 2009. Against this, however, must be weighed the fact that the mandated destruction of so many used vehicles probably caused prices for such vehicles to be higher than they otherwise would have been, meaning a redistribution of wealth adverse to low-income consumers.

As for environmental benefits from Cash for Clunkers, the reduction of gasoline consumption was small and “the cost per ton of carbon dioxide reduced by [the program] far exceeds the estimated social cost of carbon.” But it was — herewith very faint praise — more cost-effective than the subsidy for electric vehicles or the tax credit for ethanol. …

Stop treating old people like they are babies says Robert Samuelson.

Two analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis have produced an important study that should (but probably won’t) alter the climate for Washington’s stalemated budget debate. The study demolishes the widespread notion that older Americans need exceptional protection against spending cuts because they’re poorer and more vulnerable than everyone else. Coupled with the elderly’s voting power, this perception has intimidated both parties and put Social Security and Medicare, which dominate federal spending, off-limits to any serious discussion or change.

It has long been obvious that the 65-and-over population doesn’t fit the Depression-era stereotype of being uniformly poor, sickly and helpless. Like under-65 Americans, those 65 and over are diverse. Some are poor, sickly and dependent. Many more are financially comfortable (or rich), in reasonably good health and more self-reliant than not. With life expectancy of 19 years at age 65, most face many years of government-subsidized retirement. The stereotype survives because it’s politically useful. It protects those subsidies. It discourages us from asking: Are they all desirable or deserved? For whom? At what age?

No one wants to be against Grandma, who — as portrayed in the media — is kindly, often suffering from some condition, usually financially precarious and somehow needy. But projecting this sympathetic portrait onto the entire 65-plus population is an exercise in make-believe and, frequently, political propaganda. The St. Louis Fed study refutes the stereotype. Examining different age groups, it found that since the financial crisis, incomes have risen for the elderly while they’ve dropped for the young and middle-aged. …

Andy Malcolm with late night humor.

Leno: President Obama didn’t know we spied on allies. He didn’t know about the ObamaCare problems. Now he says he doesn’t know how ‘Breaking Bad’ ended.

Letterman: Obama says the ObamaCare website has glitches. If a J. Crew pants order comes in the wrong color, that’s a glitch. ObamaCare is a Carnival Cruise.

Fallon: Syrian hackers targeted President Obama’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Weird because Obama then hired them to fix the ObamaCare site.

Leno: As every year, hospitals all over the U.S. are X-raying children’s Halloween candy. Unfortunately, thanks to ObamaCare, now there’s a $1,000 co-pay.