The Fireside Chat for October 22nd, 2011 (VIDEO)

Why I disagree with Jonathan Bernstein, and Marco Rubio is in for a looong year...

First off, Jonathan Bernstein, at his own blog A Plain Blog About Politics, made this point about the recent revelations about Marco Rubio's past:

The oddity of the Rubio situation is that I don't recall such an obvious VP frontrunner in any previous cycle. Now, preseason Veepstakes is notoriously silly; after all, guessing the pick even when there's just a few weeks to go and we know who is doing the picking rarely works out well. And the usual caveat applies: the bottom of the ticket doesn't really matter very much in November. So I'm not speculating about whether Rubio will actually get the nod. But it is, I think, worth pointing out that near as I can tell there's been a pretty solid consensus that Rubio is the obvious selection, and that such a consensus is unusual. My guess is that this story doesn't really shake the current consensus -- although whether everyone's expectations now have anything to do with who actually gets the pick is unknown and unknowable.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. Courtesy Chris Cilliza:

Say what you will about the birthers, but don’t call them partisan.

The people who brought you the Barack Obama birth-certificate hullabaloo now have a new target: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a man often speculated to be the next Republican vice presidential nominee. While they’re at it, they also have Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and perhaps a future presidential candidate, in their sights.

Each man, the birthers say, is ineligible to be president because he runs afoul of the constitutional requirement that a president must be a “natural born citizen” of the United States. Rubio’s parents were Cuban nationals at the time of his birth, and Jindal’s parents were citizens of India.

The good news for the birthers is that this suggests they were going after Obama, whose father was a Kenyan national, not because of the president’s political party. The bad news is that this supports the suspicion that they were going after Obama because of his race.

The quick video of Hillary learning of Gaddafi's capture (which eventually led to his death) (VIDEO)

I never though I'd say it, and it cannot be said enough: Hillary Clinton is going down as one of the great Secretaries of State in our history.

The President's statement on Gaddafi's death... (VIDEO)

The Democrats may now have a candidate to run against Scott Walker in a recall (maybe)...

And he's a good one, should he choose to do it:

Former longtime Congressman Dave Obey (D-WI) is joining the call among Democrats to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2012. He would also consider running as a candidate himself in such a recall -- but would prefer to see candidacies by either Sen. Herb Kohl, who is retiring in 2012, or Milwaukee Mayor and unsuccessful 2010 Democratic nominee Tom Barrett.

However, Obey also said that when he has talked to the other two men about running for governor, they politely told him to stop "pestering" them about it.

Obey told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board that "there is so much anger out there" against Walker, predicting that Democrats would successfully collect enough signatures for the effort. (The Dems need to collect over 540,000 signatures, plus a significant buffer that campaigns routinely collect in order to protect against signatures being disqualified over one imperfection or another.)

The Initial BBC Timeline of Gaddafi's death...

This is the kind of reporting I like: raw. It still hasn't been filtered or formed.. The Editors and Producers haven't gotten ahold of it to shape it and change it (usually for the worse).  It's basically as close to reporters notes as you can get.

Thus, I present to you this from the BBC:

In the last fortnight, National Transitional Council (NTC) forces mounted a major offensive against the city and succeeded in pushing Gaddafi loyalists back towards the sea.

The last significant pocket of resistance was reported to be in District 2, in the north-west of the city.

In the early hours of Thursday it appears that some pro-Gaddafi forces attempted to break out.

An armoured convoy of vehicles, which according to some reports contained key Gaddafi loyalists and his son, Mutassim Gaddafi, attempted to fight their way through NTC lines.

It is not clear whether Col Gaddafi himself was part of this convoy or whether the convoy itself formed part of a wider diversionary plan to allow him to slip away.

Air strike

At around 0630 GMT Nato aircraft are reported to have attacked the convoy, according to Daily Telegraph reporter Ben Farmer approximately 3-4 km west of the city.

There are some reports that Col Gaddafi was then initially captured, with serious injuries, at around noon on Thursday.

Pictures circulated by Agence France-Presse showed a large concrete pipe in which the deposed leader apparently took refuge.

Arabic graffiti above the pipe reads: "This is the place of Gaddafi, the rat... God is the greatest."

A fighter loyal to Libya's interim authorities told the BBC he found Gaddafi hiding in a hole and the former leader begged him not to shoot. The fighter brandished a golden pistol he said he took from Col Gaddafi.

A man claiming to be an eyewitness told the BBC that he saw Col Gaddafi being shot with a 9mm gun in the abdomen at around 1230 local time.

A fairly graphic video of Gaddafi being drug out of that sewer can be found here.

President and Mrs Obama on the American Jobs Act Bus Tour

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act in Jamestown, North Carolina (VIDEO)

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act in Emporia, Virginia (VIDEO)

President Obama's speech dedicating the MLK Memorial in Washington D.C. (VIDEO)

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act at Asheville NC Regional Airport (VIDEO)

The President's speech on the American Jobs Act in Millers Creek, North Carolina (VIDEO)