Paul Moreno, writing in the Wall Street Journal, recently said that Obama will follow Franklin D. Roosevelt's reelection strategy of 1936, during the Great Depression. "Roosevelt and his advisers blamed the recession on a 'capital strike,' trying to deflect public alarm about the United Auto Workers' sit-down strikes—really illegal occupations of assembly plants—onto the shoulders of corporations. They even claimed that big business was deliberately refusing to invest and increase payrolls as part of a political gambit to destroy the New Deal." 

Dr. Hurd: I've read your previous commentary on Ron Paul and I agree with your criticism of his foreign policy. However, I have so far been supporting him anyway because, in my judgment, the government's financial behavior seems to be a much greater immediate threat to my well-being than any foreign enemy, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who understands the problem and champions the principle of individual rights in the realm of economics. Furthermore, it seems that a financial collapse brought about by a big-spending President would do even more to weaken America militarily than Ron Paul's mistaken foreign policy, so if he gives us the best chance of avoiding such an outcome, he might actually do the most to preserve our military strength. Do you believe that I can rationally continue to support Ron Paul on this basis?

Dr. Hurd replies: I respect your reasons for supporting Ron Paul, and I agree those are good reasons. Just yesterday, he came out in favor of phasing out the government student loan program, on the premise that government should not be involved in the college loan or subsidy business. Where else will you ever find a candidate who takes this rational and principled position?

Steve Jobs reportedly warned President Barack Obama that he would not be back in the White House for a second term unless he adopted more business-friendly policies, according to a new biography of the Apple Computer co-founder. "You're headed for a one-term presidency," Jobs bluntly told Obama during a meeting in San Francisco in the fall of 2010.

Actually, it's not a president's job to be business-friendly. It's a president's job to be market-friendly. There's a difference. 

There are two types of dictatorship. One is rule by a dictator; the other is rule by one’s fellow man.

The death of Libya’s Qaddafi is a reminder of the first. Qaddafi, like so many other one-man dictators, ruled his people with an iron fist. It’s widely known and widely accepted that dictatorships exist, and that they’re very bad things.