“I’m truly appalled,” said a visibly-shaken Obama. “I’ve been reading your crap non-stop for the last month. Is there one single person in this entire country who knows what a comma splice is?”

Obama said that while he’d initially been reading our emails in search of terror plots, he’s now far more concerned about our inability to distinguish between “its” and “it’s.”

Asked by the Associated Press if he had discovered any terror plots while reading every last word we’ve written,” Obama said, “Nada, amigo” in a thick Mexican accent and walked away from the podium.

A few minutes later, Obama returned to the podium and apologized, explaining that the stress of reading our error-filled emails has been causing him to do strange things of late.

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“Trust me when I tell you this was not an easy decision for me,” Bachmann said. “But, at the end of the day, I only have so much time in this life to do and say things that are just completely batshit crazy. It’s not fair for me to ignore my family.”

According to reports, Bachmann’s husband, Marcus, has pleaded with her to remain in Congress to no avail. “I just think the American people could, um, use a little more time with her,” said Marcus, who appeared to be making a knot around his neck with a long strip of rope. “Trust me, it’s not that our family won’t be thrilled to have her back at home spewing insane bullshit all day,” added Marcus, who, having finished his knot, appeared to be tying the other end of the rope to a rafter.

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Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has once again topped the rap charts with his latest release, “Keynes Thug 4 Life.”

Coming on the heels of Krugman’s last round of hits, “Show Me Da Inflation,” “It Ain’t About the Debt, Ho,” and “Trillion Dolla’ Groin,” the new single firmly establishes Krugman as the unlikely new “king of rap.”

“I’m delighted so long as my dope rhymes are causing people to spend more and thus helping to lift the economy out of this recessionary spiral,” Krugman said. Krugman then slammed his right fist into his own chest, shouted, “Keynes thugs don’t quit,” and walked away.

In “Keynes Thug 4 Life” Krugman returns to his usual themes, lashing out at the “punk-ass austerian bitches” who fail to grasp that cutting back spending in the face of a slowing economy will only depress the economy further.

“What can I say?” Jay-Z said, when asked about Krugman’s rapid rise to the top of the rap world. “Sometimes a new king comes to sit on the throne.” Added Jay-Z, “I have to admit that I never thought I would be displaced by a 60-year old Nobel Prize-winning economist, but then, I also never thought you could make so many words rhyme with Bernanke.”

Some of Krugman’s popularity can no doubt be attributed to his electrifying live performances, during which he often takes breaks to show slides of Japan’s economic performance in the ’90s.

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“What the hell did he just tell us that for? ” a furious Attorney General Eric Holder is screaming as I type.

Ha ha. Gotcha, Holder.

But since you are violating my privacy, Mr. Holder, I don’t feel guilty. No, you probably don’t want to know that eating dried fruit makes my hemorrhoids bleed, but now you do. You probably aren’t interested in the fact that I once blew a bouncer to get backstage at an Air Supply concert before blowing the entire band and the drummer from the opening act. You should have considered that before you started snooping around.

“I really wish I had thought this through more, ” Holder is probably saying right this moment.

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According to reports, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has remained “fully erect” through the duration of the IRS scandal.

The American Heart Association put out an emergency alert this afternoon, warning Republicans in Congress to seek “immediate medical attention” if their IRS scandal erections do not go down after four consecutive hours.

“A lot of them don’t realize the danger they’re in,” said Riley Donovan, Chief Cardiologist at the AHA. “I’m hearing reports of erections lasting 24-hours and longer.”

Continued Donovan, “I’m told that Mitch McConnell has been continuously erect since the news first broke several weeks ago.”

Following the AHA’s statement, Speaker of the House John Boehner came out to the steps of the Capitol to address reporters. Boehner, attempting to shield his own pants tent behind a large document, said that there was no reason for the American people to be concerned.

“We are aware of the medical situation, and we are taking all necessary precautions,” Boehner said, noting that he has brought in a number of health professionals to monitor the blood pressure of his fellow Republicans. “Have no fear,” Boehner said, “Republicans don’t ever give up. One way or another, we’re going to get these erections down.”

According to several different reports, some desperate Republicans who have had no luck with medication are now taking emergency measures. Said one Republican Senator who asked to remain anonymous, “Let’s just say I spend a lot of time thinking about Dennis Kucinich ejaculating onto my face while Al Sharpton tickles my balls.”

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1) SAM ADAMS 2. TETRA FISH FOOD 3. AIR JORDANS 4. GI JOE 5) CHICK-FIL-A

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While some are mourning the loss of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, others are grieving the loss to their balance sheet. One charity in particular has been left “reeling” by the unveiling of the late Baroness’ will.

Allies of Alzheimer’s, a fledgling charity headquartered in Toms River, New Jersey, apparently entered into discussions with Thatcher in 2005, the same year her dementia was revealed to the public. Committed to their cause, Thatcher agreed to offer up to $2 million in posthumous donations.

“We met in her home in Chester Square to discuss being a key beneficiary in her will,” Caroline Klumperton, President of Allies of Alzheimer’s recalls. “And the outcome at the time couldn’t have been better, or clearer. She was enthusiastic about supporting our cause, writing everything we discussed on an embossed pad of paper, alongside a list of food items beginning with D that she thought Dick Cheney should incorporate into his diet. Doritos was top of the list, which seemed rather odd to us.”

But instead, the vast majority of the Iron Lady’s accrued wealth has been left to her two children, Mark and Carol Thatcher, as well as to her alma mater, Somerville College, Oxford.

“Yeah I vaguely remember hearing about a charity meeting,” Mark told us at his country home. “I guess she got busy with other stuff. You know she was planning a female-only triathlon: “The IronLady”, so that was consuming most of her time, along with her long-awaited Twerkin’ with Margaret Thatcher fitness DVD of course.”

So where does that leave Allies of Alzheimer’s?

“We’re deeply upset because we’re a small charity and every dime counts. I wish this happened less often, but we see it all the time,” Ms. Klumperton said. “Fortunately we’ve an affiliate business, Enemies of Alzheimer’s, and we’re using the best lawyers this side of Newark to investigate the whereabouts of that embossed pad. It’s our best hope. She also listed some sex positions that Cheney should try that start with the letter S, and we imagine he’d be quite interested in obtaining that.”

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Ryan’s best line was his rebuttal to Biden’s discussion of Romney’s “47 percent remark,” when he noted that Biden has had his own foot-in-mouth moments. Biden’s best moment during the debate was when he informed the audience that the Congressman had sent him two letters asking for federal aid to stimulate job growth in Wisconsin. Ouch on both counts.

But this debate did not change the dynamics of the race. Independents care more about the top of the ticket, so Obama will still have to come back swinging in the next presidential debate if he wants to regain the lead he had two weeks ago.

The Romney bump from the first debate comes from one thing more than any other: it was the first time since the primaries that he had the freedom to come back to the political center. Before, he was hemmed in and awkward because he was trying to out-flank his competitors on the right. Now, by moving back to the center, Romney was able to tap into the reserve of undecided voters, while his critics on the right have no choice but to bite their tongue when they watch him take new positions, such as accepting parts of Obamacare, because they would rather Romney wins than Obama.

Knowing this, the best way forward for Obama on Tuesday is to draw out the Romney from the primaries. He will try to remind Americans of the Romney who was polling so poorly most of summer while the Obama team was bombarding the airwaves trying to define Romney as the guy with the offshore bank accounts who doesn’t quite get middle America. To remind voters of himself back in 2008, Obama needs to recall the language of community, mutual obligations, and the promise of “a more perfect Union.”

Obama should also be prepared to answer questions about the security situation at Benghazi. The best defense is an offense for him. Even if the administration had beefed up security in Benghazi — and most of the requests were for extending the tours of security guards in Tripoli, 400 miles away — there is no evidence to think that the embassy assault on Sep 11 could have been prevented or repelled.

Polls seem to indicate that the Romney bump from the last debate has tapered out. Both candidates will have to fight harder every day, as the number of persuadable voters decline as we approach November 6. After the second presidential debate, the ground game (as opposed to the air war) is going to become increasingly important — and here is where Romney could be at a disadvantage, which is why he needs to ace this debate more than Obama.

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Like a legislator used to addressing the president of the chamber and not the audience, Obama was too formal last night. Obama was looking down on his notes too often when Romney was speaking. Silent moments matter too — because candidates can still connect with the audience with their eyes. Even when he was not looking down, Obama was looking at Jim Lehrer rather than at the camera most of the time.

Obama’s advisors must have, rightly, warned Obama not to lose his presidential poise. But they forgot to add that in a two-person setup, a basic modicum of aggressiveness was required. Given that Obama’s countenance is naturally already cool, he would have benefitted from a reminder that he’s back on the campaign trail, president or not. Advisors should tailor-make advice for their candidate. Next round, they should tell Obama to forget that he is president. He should look into the camera at every moment, when his talking and when he is silent, pleading for the vote. Obama should also keep an internal clock, knowing that Jim Lehrer did him no favors last debate by allowing him to ramble longer than the pre-allotted two-minute segments.

Obama tried too hard to take Romney to task on the specific numbers of his tax plan. But there are no scorers in presidential debates. It doesn’t actually matter who won the logical argument; but it does matter who passed the plausibility threshold. Mitt Romney did last night. He kept repeating the $716 billion cut from Medicare and in American politics, saying it is so, makes it so. Nobody cares about what the fact-checkers are saying today. Or about Dodd-Frank or Simpson-Bowles. Or whether rebuttals come the day after. Over 10 million tweets were shared as the debate proceeded last night, many about Big Bird, and most declaring Romney victorious.

Obama’s biggest missed opportunity was on the discussion about the role of the federal government, when Obama normally would have excelled. Romney rightly reached to the sacred scripture of the Republican Party, the Declaration of Independence, referring to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Obama failed to counter. The sacred scripture of the Democratic Party is the Preamble of the Constitution. Life, liberty and happiness matter, but so do justice, a more perfect Union, and the general welfare. Bill Clinton knew this when he gave his spectacular speech at the DNC Convention. Obama forgot his roots last night.

In terms of the horse race, this was not a game-changer; it certainly would not change the ground game in the electoral map. There were no forced errors on Obama’s part, just missed opportunities. He should be advised, however, not to go overboard the other way in the next debate, as Al Gore had done in 2000. Obama was wise not to mention the 47 percent comment or offshore bank accounts. That information is already out there and there is no need for the President of the United States to do the dirty work that his surrogates can.

Obama is a quick rebounder. He will be back in the game in the next debate, and we will have a showdown.

The post Obama Out of Practice for First Debate appeared first on The Faster Times.

After President Obama’s moving UN General Assembly speech that started with a story of who US Ambassador Christopher Stevens had been in terms of his life’s passion for the Middle East and North Africa, the Romney camp issued a statementfrom former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky:

In his speech, President Obama listed the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process, Syria, and Iran as major challenges facing the international community. But those are three vital issues on which President Obama has unfortunately made no progress. The Peace Process is at a standstill, tens of thousands have been killed in Syria with Assad still in power, and Iran is hurtling toward nuclear weapons capability.

In his 2009 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama called for progress on the Peace Process and for an end to Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Three years later, he’s failed to deliver. As has too often been the case with President Obama, the rhetoric doesn’t match the policy.

The President and his national security team do deserve criticism for how some of these portfolios have been managed. After all, Israel/Palestine had been the first major national security agenda item the President put his power and credibility behind, appointing former Senator George Mitchell to be his Envoy in seeking to secure real Middle East peace.

In a compelling but bleak New York Times assessment titled “Seven Lean Years of Peacemaking” by my New America Foundation colleague Daniel Levy, the negative results scream out. Levy writes:

One thing is clear: The years from 2005 to 2012 have been seven decidedly lean ones for peacemaking and withdrawal and seven gluttonously fat ones for entrenching Israel’s occupation and settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In these areas, almost 94,000 new settlers have been added since 2005, some settler outposts have been legalized and thousands of Palestinians have been displaced.

Obama should only get the blame for the 2009-2012 part of this portfolio — but the failure to get Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on to a credible peace track with Palestinians has enormous strategic consequences for the country.

Dobriansky tells only part of the story as it was in both 2009 and 2010 that President Obama committed substantial portions of his UN General Assembly addresses to the problems of Palestine and Israel. In 2010, he pointedly criticized the unwillingness of the parties to come together and pushed George Mitchell and others on his team to double down and get a deal done. Obviously, with the resignations of both Senator Mitchell and Dennis Ross who had been Obama’s Middle East wrangler on his National Security Team (both of whom had often worked at cross-purposes), ended Obama’s efforts thus far on securing Middle East peace.

These results deserve both to be highlighted and criticized — so thanks to Ambassador Dobriansky.

That said, would her candidate Mitt Romney do any better?

Yesterday we were given what were perhaps some of the most thoughtful comments yet expressed by Governor Romney on the turmoil in the Middle East and what can be done in response. While his comments were not Palestine-specific and this may be the first time I have heard Romney address foreign policy and not make a single mention of Israel, his broad survey of the Middle East region and his assessment of the youth cover Palestine.

Romney makes the sensible point that jobs matter, that economics is a major driver of both hope and desperation.

Work has to be at the heart of our efforts to help people build economies that can create jobs, young and old alike. Work builds self-esteem. It transforms minds from fantasy and fanaticism to reality and grounding. Work does not long tolerate corruption nor will it quietly endure the brazen theft by government of the product of hard-working men and women. To foster work and enterprise in the Middle East and other developing countries I will initiate something I will call Prosperity Pacts, working with the private sector the program will identify the barriers to investment and trade and entrepreneurship and entrepreneurialism in developing nations. And, in exchange for removing those barriers and opening their markets to U.S. investment and trade, developing nations will receive U.S. assistance packages focused on developing the institutions of liberty, the rule of law, and property rights …. The aim of a much larger share of our aid must be the promotion of work, and the fostering of free enterprise. Nothing we can do as a nation will change lives and nations more effectively and permanently than sharing the insight that lies at the foundation of America’s own economy, and that is that free people pursuing happiness in their own ways, build a strong and prosperous nation.

Whether Romney is right or not, his jobs talk and the notion of “Prosperity Pacts” are a step ahead of the rhetoric that typecasts instability in the Middle East as a function of Islamic culture and fanaticism. And the fact is that the Obama administration’s policy towards places like Egypt and Palestine, Tunisia, and Libya is to try to lay groundwork for investment, aid, and jobs.

So, Romney and the Obama administration actually are on similar tracks. But the scale of what is needed in the region is staggering — and small US programs or bland talk about job creation by the GOP presidential challenger doesn’t come near to the level of economic course correction the region needs.

The more disconcerting gap between rhetoric and action is not on Obama’s docket, however, but on Romney’s.

What it not Mitt Romney who said at a fundraiser regarding Israel-Palestine peace, “this is going to remain an unresolved problem.”

As Bill Clinton said during his Democratic National Convention speech, “it takes some brass to criticize the President for something you have done yourself.” In this case, it’s out of place to take Obama down a notch on Israel-Palestine when your own candidate has no intention of trying to resolve the geostrategically significant ulcer.

And even more disconcerting were Romney’s comments in Jerusalem about “culture” being the dividing line between the economic performance of Israel vs. Palestine. As reported by Ashley Parker and Richard A. Oppel Jr., Romney said:

“Culture makes all the difference,” Mr. Romney said. “And as I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things.”

He added, “As you come here and you see the G.D.P. per capita, for instance, in Israel, which is about $21,000, and compare that with the G.D.P. per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality. And that is also between other countries that are near or next to each other. Chile and Ecuador, Mexico and the United States.”

Notwithstanding Romney’s significant errors on the GDP gap between Israel and Palestine, it’s outrageous to assess Palestine’s economic potential without considering that all they have done has been done under Occupation, with barriers to travel and commerce embedded throughout their territory which Israel occupies and dominates, often brutally.

It’s easy to talk about jobs and “Prosperity Pacts”, but tougher to put them into motion in addressing the economic needs of a growing MENA youth bulge that needed a massive number of jobs yesterday.

To make this interesting, I dare Mitt Romney to test his thesis personally in the way that former World Bank President James Wolfensohn did. Wolfensohn invested his own money in an effort to get Palestinian-grown strawberries to markets in Europe and worked out deals with the Israelis and established a greenhouse project and processing infrastructure at Israel’s Karni Crossing. To make a long and sad story short, even the great James Wolfensohn failed to overcome Israeli arbitrariness in what it allowed and didn’t in terms of earnest Palestine commerce with the rest of the world.

Let’s see if Mitt Romney can devote a small bit of his fortune to getting a business up and running in Palestine. Perhaps he could meet with his new employees and hear what they have to do to connect with their families and what humiliations they go through trying to get their kids to school or trying to take products to market.

Perhaps Romney would succeed in ways others in Palestine have not, but until then, it seems that, as Dobriansky framed it, the gap between rhetoric and results on the Romney vision for the region seems insurmountable.

– Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

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