Column

Obama's first post-election press conference, if you could call it that, tells us a great deal about his attitude and the approach he intends to pursue in his second term, which is the same failed policy mix on steroids.

Obama's re-election, of course, gives him the right to pursue these policies, but it doesn't deny elected Republicans the right or relieve them of the duty to oppose them.

Liberals brag about having won the hearts and minds of America, as if, through logic and argument, they've persuaded people to accept their bankrupt European socialist ideas.

Democrats haven't changed anyone's mind. They changed the people.

The resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus over an extramarital affair has raised and will continue to raise a number of questions.

First among them (OK, maybe not first, national security being more important, but stay with me) is why should he have resigned? I am always amused when journalists use the words "sex scandal" when writing about such things. Having abandoned most standards for what used to be called "upright behavior," culture now "tsk-tsks" when someone is caught in a compromising position.

"The color of the world is changing day by day." -- "Les Miserables," the musical

A look at the electoral map indicates the Republican Party won in square miles. Unfortunately for them, electoral votes, not landmass, won President Obama a second term. Analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics estimated that total spending on federal elections would peak at nearly $6 billion, an all-time record. This spending included ads that carpet bombed swing states; yet we are still an almost equally divided nation. But America is rapidly changing.

We conservatives may never reach a consensus among ourselves as to the main factors that caused our election defeat, but surely we can agree that we must do a better job of selling our ideas.

Never mind, you say. The electorate has irreversibly become a taker class, and conservative ideas of self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual liberties will never appeal to a majority again, especially with demographics working against the GOP.

Great nations and proud empires have always collapsed from within before they were conquered from without.

President Obama's re-election mirrors the self-indulgent, greedy and envious nation we are rapidly becoming.

Pollsters Michael Barone and Dick Morris got it horribly wrong. Both predicted a 300 electoral-vote win for Romney. It was President Obama who reached that mark.

Jimmy Carter is redeemed! The grinning dunce of yesteryear, who grew into the anile doddering figure of today, lecturing the civilized on all manner of statecraft, has been replaced by the saturnine gaunt prophet, Barack Obama. His sorry performance these past four years he lays to the administration of George W. Bush. The next four years will be a replay of the last four years, and an even graver crisis will confront us then with the domestic economy in a funk and foreign potentates all laughing at us.

The Prophet Obama has demonstrated that you can preside over a wobbly economy and be re-elected. Apparently it is not "the economy, stupid," as James Carville told us. You can suffer a foreign policy disaster (even in the midst of a campaign) and it will be ignored. Jimmy could have been re-elected in 1980 if it were not for the miracle of Ronald Reagan. Had the Republicans nominated a perfectly nice man, say a successful businessman who earned a fortune as large as John F. Kennedy or Franklin D. Roosevelt inherited, Jimmy would have won re-election and the economy would have continued to founder in stagflation and he would have been sending helicopters out into the desert to be destroyed; possibly he would be sending the fleet to be destroyed.

President Obama promises to move the country forward with his recycled pledge of five million green jobs. But in the real world, small businesses are struggling to stay afloat as they deal with the fiscal wreckage of this administration's disastrous venture socialism. Here's the tale of just one Colorado company victimized by the Obama Department of Energy (DOE).

Colorado Distribution Group is a privately held storage and shipping company based in Denver. Thanks to hope-a-nomics, its warehouse is saddled with nearly 7,000 pallets of federally subsidized solar panels (one-third of which are completely spoiled and unsalable), along with related detritus such as broken glass and stray module parts.

One of the strangest aspects of Election 2012 is that voters are demanding change but didn't change politicians. They left Republicans in charge of the House, elected an even more Democratic Senate and re-elected President Obama. They're unhappy with the status quo in the country but left the political status quo in place.

That doesn't make much sense if you think of campaigns as a choice between competing political issues and ideologies. But campaigns are rarely about such things, and in 2012 a plurality of voters thought both the Obama and Romney campaigns were primarily negative. In fact, just 35 percent thought the president's campaign was generally positive, and only 31 percent thought that of the challenger's effort. The numbers among unaffiliated voters were even lower.

Here's one usage of the term gentleman: The gentleman helped the fallen lady to her feet. Here's another, one we might hear from a newscaster or a police spokesman: Tonight we report on the arrest of two gentlemen who raped, sodomized and murdered an 80-year-old woman.

During earlier times, to be called a gentleman meant one was honest, brave, courteous and loyal. Today "gentleman" is used interchangeably in reference to decent people and the scum of the earth.

Editorial note: As always is the case but bears repeating, Miss Coulter's opinions do not necessarily reflect those of NewsBusters.

We spent billions of dollars and billions of words on an election to switch from President Obama, a Democratic Senate and a Republican House to President Obama, a Democratic Senate and a Republican House.

Every election predictor was wrong, except one: Incumbents usually win.

With the troubling devastation of Hurricane Sandy on our nation's doorstep — and so many people in need of food, shelter and emergency services after the storm — I encourage Americans to reach out to our neighbors and help them through this challenging time.

Sometimes it feels as if America is living through an Armageddon movie. We struggle with a destabilized economy, soaring national debt, an overburdened entitlement system, looming tax hikes, widespread unemployment, class warfare, ongoing wars, the threats of global terror and a nuclear Iran, and internal division and scandals, from "Fast and Furious" to the massacre in Benghazi, Libya. The list goes on and on.

Mitt Romney was very wise to pivot on Barack Obama's impromptu statement that "voting is the best revenge" and frame the campaign in the final days as a choice between that negative message and Romney's "love of country."

I wouldn't say that if I thought Obama's statement was merely a slip of the tongue. Rather, I believe that in another unscripted moment, he once again revealed who he really is and the essence of his mindset.

Presidential elections decide only who wins the White House and a congressional majority. They don't by themselves solve the nation's problems. George W. Bush had a majority Republican Congress and did little with it. President Obama had a majority Democrat Congress during his first two years in office, but appeared to let ideology trump solutions, causing additional harm to the economy.

What will happen if Mitt Romney wins the White House, but Democrats maintain a Senate majority? Even if Romney wins (likely) and Republicans capture the Senate (unlikely) and maintain their House majority (likely), will real change take place? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Mitt Romney's appeal for bipartisanship "laughable" and said he would block Romney's "severely conservative agenda." We can guess what Reid's agenda will be if Democrats maintain their Senate majority.

The official Obama 2012 campaign slogan is "Forward." The operational motto of the Obama administration is "Cheese." As in "say cheese." From hollow Greek columns to strategically released Situation Room candids, the Paparazzi President has put self-serving optics above all else.

What did we get after four long years of expertly staged Kabuki-theater-meets-Potemkin-village productions? Sixteen trillion dollars in debt, a pile of dead bodies, troops at increased risk and a gallery of tax-subsidized Kodachrome pictures creating the grand illusion of leadership.

Election 2012 has had few surprises. So it's somewhat surprising that heading into the final weekend of the election season, we are unable to confidently project who is likely to win the White House.

All year long, the economy has been the No. 1 issue of the campaign. That hasn't changed. While Mitt Romney has a slight advantage when it comes to handling the economy, neither candidate has really convinced voters that they know what the nation needs.

The single most important issue in this election is ending the national nightmare of Obamacare.

If Obamacare is not stopped, it will permanently change the political culture of this country. There will be no going back. America will become a less productive, less wealthy nation. What wealth remains will have to be plowed into Obamacare -- to the delight only of the tens of thousands of government bureaucrats administering it.

Two recent ads illustrate the great cultural divide in this nation and which parties and presidential candidates represent these competing worldviews.

In the handling of the economy and national security, President Obama has shown he's not capable of being the adult in the room. After four years of perpetual campaigning and cheerleading for his pet projects, he still isn't prepared to deal soberly with the consequences of his ideological indulgences.

The definition of spin is to apply a slant or particular emphasis to information, as to persuade or deceive.

President Barack Obama really has been pounding the pulpit the past few days, with the election right around the corner, with the help of his speechwriters. He sounds a lot like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. About the only thing Obama hasn't said is "God damn America," as Wright did.

On MSNBC's Ed Schultz program Friday night, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, said, of the Republican Party, "My party is full of racists ... and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander in chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin ... that's despicable."

Wilkerson's allegation followed his former boss's endorsement of President Obama for a second term. The history of racism has certainly stained both parties and there are racist Democrats and racist Republicans, but when the race card is played this close to the election, I suspect the pro-Obama forces are sensing trouble.

OK, President Obama, if you and your defenders insist on denying that you've repeatedly apologized for America, then let's quit mincing words and acknowledge you've done worse than apologize. That works for me.

Maybe it is technically inaccurate to attribute the word apology to you, because you would have to identify with America more before you could apology on its behalf. Besides, I suppose we should not be surprised in this Clinton-inspired age of word meaninglessness — an age in which the simple word "is" no longer feels comfortable in its own skin — that you would deny you have apologized because you didn't use the precise word "apology" in any of your shameful outings.

This election is not turning out the way President Barack Obama had expected. Perhaps that is why he has looked so uncomfortable in his three debates with the suddenly debonair Governor Mitt Romney. Possibly President Obama had expected something more from the former governor of Massachusetts, the former CEO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, the former head of Bain Capital — and, incidentally, is not Bain Capital assuming the same demonic role in this contest between Obama and Romney as Halliburton industries once played in the campaigns of Bush-Cheney? It is, I suppose, an asset that in all their years of adult life neither Obama nor Joe Biden have ever suffered any exposure to the dark doings of private-sector employment, none whatsoever. It is a dispensation that has kept them pure, almost virginal.

The president in his high-minded innocence aspired to something more in this presidential race, something higher. I think he wanted to experience the clash and bang of Great Ideas in these debates. First, he would propose his view of a healthy prosperous America with budgets balanced and deficits receding. Then the challenger would admit to his view of the world. Romney would manfully step forward and envision the endless breadlines that his economic policies would engender. There would be the Hoovervilles, the soup kitchens, the scenes of little children, their noses running, huddled waiting in Dickensian stupefaction for their parents to return from the pollution-belching factories, perhaps with a loaf of bread for their starving families, PERHAPS NOT. Meanwhile, zoom, zoom, the millionaires and billionaires motor by in their Bentleys and Rolls Royces, and Priuses.

In Election 2000, Florida was the decisive state in the Electoral College. In 2004, Ohio was the ultimate battleground that put George W. Bush over the top. This year, it might come down to Wisconsin.

That's a state President Obama won by 14 points four years ago. But Wisconsin has gone through an amazing two years of nonstop campaigning since Gov. Scott Walker was elected in 2010. After he took on the teachers unions, there were efforts to recall several Republican state senators and then Walker himself.

After watching the third presidential debate, are you clear on America's foreign policy? I thought not. That's because there appears to be no singular foreign policy, rather a series of foreign policies, which must be tailored to fit each nation.

I expected Mitt Romney to go after President Obama on his most recent foreign policy failure, the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed, including the U.S. ambassador. The president had no explanation as to why there was inadequate security in Benghazi, preferring instead to say only that we are "going after the killers." Romney refused to press him on it. Some may have viewed this as a missed opportunity, but I think it was designed to show Romney's restraint and to counter the "do you want to get us into another Middle East war?" charge.

New York can be a lonely and desolate city. My only date on this rainy Tuesday night is Chris Matthews -- the last liberal left who will still talk to me about race.

The rest of the Non-Fox Media are lying in wait, hoping I'll disappear so they can revive the old chestnuts about racist Republicans again.

President Obama, I'd like to follow up on my most recent column and ask you a few more questions, please.

I am assuming you don't dispute that our nation faces a very serious financial problem, with unfunded liabilities in excess of $100 trillion. I use the word "assuming" because I don't remember you ever spending much time talking about this problem, which is odd because the very subject haunts so many Americans and makes them fearful for the future of this country.

Talk about wearing your politics on your sleeve. An elitist clique of fashion designers has banded together to raise money for celebrity-in-chief Barack Obama and browbeat their customers into supporting him. Even worse, the Beautiful People who dress the Powerful People are putting increased pressure on conservatives to stay out of the business altogether.

Out: Haute couture. In: Hate couture.

Former South Dakota Democratic Senator George McGovern, who died Sunday, had all manner of evil said about him because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. He was called unpatriotic, disloyal, an appeaser and an enabler of communism. Those were the printable slanders.

Many conservatives at the time believed in the "domino theory," that if South Vietnam fell to the communists, all Asia would follow. That proved untrue. McGovern was eventually vindicated in many minds about America's involvement in Vietnam.

Editor's Note: This was intended for publication pre-debate on October 16. We apologize for the delay.

As he prepares for the second debate, Obama faces a major dilemma: how to be more aggressive without jeopardizing his alleged likability, the main thing he supposedly has going for him with voters.

The Barack Obama the public usually sees is not the real Barack Obama. The former is a carefully manufactured media image designed to appear eminently reasonable, highly engaged, ultra-caring, inordinately intelligent and as one who transcends the pettiness that plagues so many politicians. The real Obama is none of those things.

Does voter fraud actually exist?

If you ask members of the Obama administration, Democratic lawmakers or the left-leaning media, they often argue it's a myth concocted by Republicans to suppress Democratic turnout.