James Carville, a Democratic former advisor to President Carter, said the President was "flat and passionless. He was not prepared."

For example, to everyone's surprise, Obama did not bring up the fact that Romney dismissed 47% of the public who "believe they are victims" entitled to extensive government support.

The President also exaggerated his victories. CNN's Tom Foreman said that Obama's claim he created 5 million private sector jobs was "false."

So Tocqueville lived in a kind of privileged moment. He could look back to the aristocracy and aristocrats with all their virtues and vices, and he could look forward to the progress of democracy and democrats with all its virtues and vices. His greatness as a writer was being an aristocratic critic of democracy and a democratic critic of aristocracy.

Vaughan: The fact that a pastor struggles with image, lust, guilt, doubt, pride and keeping spiritually fresh is not exactly a revelation to anyone who knows their own heart and understands that Christian leaders are weak and sinful too; and the admission of an occasional struggle with depression causes no surprise these days.

The threat to freedom posed by this radical sexual experiment on our military is real: It is grave and it is growing. Activists inside and outside our government who pushed the repeal have deployed a smoke screen around the fact that once the military was forced to exalt homosexuality in the ranks, the all-too-foreseen consequence reared its ugly head.