ELIZABETH WARREN, THE PEOPLE’S CHAMPIONKATRINA VANDEN HEUVELWASHINGTON POSTThroughout the campaign, Warren has delivered an unabashed populist message. She first made the common sense case that no one succeeds alone; that successful businesspeople depend on what we’ve built together — an educated workforce, roads and transport to deliver their products, a rule of law vital to working markets. This isn’t a radical notion, but when adopted and badly phrased by President Obama, it sparked the frenzied Republican “we built it” campaign. … Warren will focus on the core issues, and ask Massachusetts’ voters to decide who is on their side. And if she wins…she’ll not only lead a new generation of progressive reformers into the Senate, but also begin to teach Democrats how to fight for working people once more.
PRESIDENT OBAMA AT THE U.N.EDITORIALNEW YORK TIMESSix weeks before the election, the speech to an audience of world leaders in the United Nations General Assembly hall was as much a domestic political appeal as anything else. President Obama used the commanding venue of the General Assembly to offer a reasonable defense against Mitt Romney’s incoherent critique of his response to the revolutions in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen and to Iran’s nuclear program. There were two fairly big omissions in Mr. Obama’s visit to the General Assembly. He spoke only briefly on areas that need more debate in this campaign — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Syrian civil war, Afghanistan and Iraq. And while it’s reasonable for Mr. Obama to be in campaign mode, just like Mr. Romney, he is the president. He could have used some of his time in New York to meet privately with world leaders, as presidents usually do. It’s not like he doesn’t have a lot to talk to them about.
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WHY NOT DEBTORS’ PRISON?MAUREEN DOWDNEW YORK TIMESIn a world of dogs, diplomatically speaking, Obama is a cat. Just as he suffered from his standoffish approach with Congress, donors and his base, our feline president can be oblivious to the neediness of other less Zen leaders. As Helene Cooper and Robert Worth wrote in The Times on Tuesday, some Arab officials are critical of Obama’s impersonal, distant style. … At least the president has a foreign policy. Romney and Paul Ryan haven’t spent time thinking and speaking a lot about foreign policy. They have simply taken the path of least resistance and parroted the views of their neocon advisers. They talk all tough at Iran and Syria and label the president a weak apologist and buildup bogymen and rant about how America must dictate events in the Middle East. That’s not a doctrine; it’s a treacherous neocon echo. OBAMA’S FREE SPEECH DEFENSEEDITORIALWASHINGTON POST…It was heartening Tuesday to hear Mr. Obama, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly, deliver a vigorous defense of freedom of speech, including the right of individuals to “blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.” … It is important for the president and his administration to try to make clear to the majority of Muslims — who do not participate in demonstrations but follow the controversy — that the United States does not sponsor or endorse religious slander. That fact, while obvious to Americans, is not widely understood in the Middle East. But it is just as important to send the message that American free speech will not be curbed to suit religious sensibilities and that violence will not be tolerated.MITT’S MEDIA BLAME GAMEJASON L. RILEYWALL STREET JOURNALSince pulling even in the polls after the Paul Ryan pick and the GOP convention last month, the Romney campaign has stumbled repeatedly. …Yet Mr. Romney, who is losing by five or more points in Iowa, Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Virginia, sees blue skies ahead. Asked how he intended to turn his campaign around, Mr. Romney told “60 Minutes,” “Well, it doesn’t need a turnaround.” And Romney surrogates were out over the weekend blaming the liberal media for the campaign’s troubles. …The press didn’t treat Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush any less unfairly, and both men managed not only to win the presidency but get re-elected. Mr. Romney would do better to focus more on reducing his unforced errors and less on the Fourth Estate’s political bias. If whining about the liberal media was a winning strategy for Republicans, Newt Gingrich would be the nominee.
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