President Obama currently holds a sizable, 2-to-1 according to Fox News, lead over Mitt Romney among Latino voters. With a lead that big, you’d think Obama would be comfortable enough to be honest with Latinos about his failures on issues that matter to them. But he hasn’t been.
For example, two weeks ago at the Univision forum, Jorge Ramos asked Obama to defend his administration’s Fast and Furious gun walking program, which allowed 1,961 guns to flow to Mexican drug cartels. Obama replied, “I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration.”
Problem is, this is a flat out lie. As multiple fact–checkers have confirmed, the ATF started Fast and Furious in October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency.
Does anyone care if Obama continues to lie about arming Mexican drug cartels? They might start. Last night, Univision aired a hard hitting news segment detailing the damage Fast and Furious has done to Mexico, noting that “the operation coincided with an upsurge of violence in the war among the country’s strongest cartels.”
Yesterday, Paul Ryan joined Romney in calling for Obama to fire Attorney General Eric Holder over Fast and Furious. With Univision elevating the issue, it is hard to imagine that Fast and Furious will not be mentioned in at least one of the three presidential debates.
Will Obama fault Holder for not having control over his department? Or will he continue to lie about when Fast and Furious started?
From The Washington Examiner
Examiner Editorial: Looming public pension crisis undercuts optimism on economy
Michael Barone: When it comes to polls, readers beware
Byron York: Yes, Dems likely have 2-4 point advantage in November
Tim Carney: Economic patriotism is corporatism dressed as populism
Charlie Spiering: Actress Maggie Gyllenhall explains why she made a movie critical of teachers unions
Campaign 2012
Polls: A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Obama beating Romney 49 percent to 47 percent among likely voters.
Obama: Obama is cramming for Wednesday’s debate in Las Vegas today.
Romney: Romney has a Wall Street Journal op-ed today on “A New Course for the Middle East” and will spend the day campaigning in Colorado.
In Other News
The Wall Street Journal, Trade Slows Around World: The World Trade Organization just projected the global volume of trade in goods would expand only 2.5% this year, down from 5% last year and nearly 14% growth in 2010.
The Washington Post, In Libya, security was lax before attack that killed U.S. ambassador, officials say: The two U.S. compounds where Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a sustained, brutal attack the night of Sept. 11, proved to be strikingly vulnerable targets in an era of barricaded embassies and multibillion-dollar security contracts for U.S. diplomatic facilities in conflict zones, according to interviews with U.S. and Libyan officials and eyewitnesses in recent days.
The New York Times, U.S. May Have Put Mistaken Faith in Libya Site’s Security: An effective response by newly trained Libyan security guards to a small bombing outside the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi in June may have led United States officials to underestimate the security threat to personnel there, according to counterterrorism and State Department officials, even as threat warnings grew in the weeks before the recent attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
ABC News, Fast and Furious Scandal: New Details Emerge on How the U.S. Government Armed Mexican Drug Cartels: Univision News identified a total of 57 more previously unreported firearms that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious, and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings, and at least one other massacre.
The New York Times, Payroll Tax Cut Is Unlikely to Survive Into Next Year: Regardless of who wins the presidential election in November or what compromises Congress strikes in the lame-duck session to keep the economy from automatic tax increases and spending cuts, 160 million American wage earners will probably see their tax bills jump after Jan. 1.
The Los Angeles Times, Brown acts on driver’s license: Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new law that will allow hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. The driver’s license measure will make illegal immigrants eligible to drive legally in California if they qualify for a new federal work permit program.
Righty Playbook
Keith Hennessey dissects The Washington Post’s hatchet job on Paul Ryan
Yuval Levin says 2012 is about Citizenship vs Entitlement
The Weekly Standard‘s Daniel Halper catches David Plouffe and David Axelrod contradicting each other on what Obama knew about Libya and when.
Lefty Playbook
Talking Points Memo on How Democratic Ads Are Exploiting Romney’s ‘47 Percent’ Moment
Think Progress claims Obama never said he had defeated al Qaeda.
In The New York Times Obama’s car czar Steve Rattner writes, “We need death panels.”
