Is 'incomplete' the new 'you didn't build that?'

He may have just put a foot in it.

When asked by a Colorado TV reporter how he would grade himself on dealing with the economy, President Barack Obama replied:

"You know, I would say 'incomplete.'"

 

Though there was a second half to the quote (there's always a second half), Republicans have seized on "incomplete" as a sign of the president's economic incompetence.

"After four years of declining incomes, fewer jobs, skyrocketing prices, and chronic unemployment, it's clear that Americans aren't better off. If President Obama can't even give himself a passing grade, why would the American people give him another four years?" Romney campaign spokesperson Amanda Henneberg said in a statement to Fox News.

Obama is on Reddit

UPDATE: Obama is online

 

Obama is answering any and all questions on Reddit, the popular online community famous for spreading memes, and, more recently, reporting news stories.

"Hey everybody - this is barack. Just finished a great rally in Charlottesville, and am looking forward to your questions. At the top, I do want to say that our thoughts and prayers are with folks who are dealing with Hurricane Isaac in the Gulf, and to let them know that we are going to be coordinating with state and local officials to make sure that we give families everything they need to recover."

Some questions and answers:

 

 

How white — and male — is the RNC?

Folks over at The New York Times, Salon, and The Atlantic observe the growing role of race in the Republican campaign.

Elspeth Reeve, writing for The Atlantic, points out that Romney needs 61 per cent of the white vote to win, suggesting his criticism of Obama for allowing welfare work requirement waivers is an attempt to rally that white vote.

Similarly, The New York Times writes:

"The Republican ticket is flooding the airwaves with commercials that develop two themes designed to turn the presidential contest into a racially freighted resource competition pitting middle class white voters against the minority poor."

Thomas F. Schaller, professor of political science at the University of Maryland writing for Slate, says that though Republicans have increased their roster of women, their policies suggest they are focussing on male voters, presenting a bit of an ideological problem:

"But the sudden uptick in minority and female Republicans is especially noteworthy because it creates a rather curious paradox: The rising diversity among Republican elites comes at the same time the party seems to be retrenching —willingly and strategically, it sometimes seems—toward a more base-oriented, white-male dominated coalition of voters."

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Former Saturday Night Live actress interrogates a man in tights

I was walking near the convention's security perimeter when I spotted a man in a superhero costume. This was strange. Then Victoria Jackson - flighty Saturday Night Live actress turned conspiratorial and flighty Tea Party activist - stumbled into our conversation, and things somehow got stranger. At the 45-second mark of this video, Jackson begins interrogating the costumed man, who is much more normal than her, about "communist" Barack Obama:

 

Here, Jackson explains to me why she thinks Obama is a communist - and why his father may not be his father:

 

The man's real name is Dale Pople, but he goes by Old Superhero. He's 44, a former pro wrestler now in broadcasting, and he just likes dressing up in tights and helping people. (Click here for an article about him.) Bonus: he is half-Canadian.

"My mom's from Whitby," he says. "It's a suburb of Toronto. In Ontario providence? Is that what it's called?"

Pople says he helped raise money to send a little boy to the Mayo Clinic and "kept a roof over a battered woman's head up in Seattle." He also helped replace the "armour" of a California "superhero."

"Other than that," he says, "I just go out, patrol around, and look for people to help." What kind of people? "Somebody in trouble, somebody fell down, somebody needs a hand, somebody's lost. Anything."

He likes Mitt Romney, though he preferred Rick Santorum in the Republican primary.

'Prosecuting' Obama and other Republican sayings

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Mitt Romney is adopting a "harder" message for his final stretch.

“We still have an opportunity to tell the story of the last four years of how President Obama has failed the country," said Russ Schriefer, a senior campaign adviser.

And Republicans have come out swinging. 

This morning party chairman Reince Priebus said on a morning talk show that the GOP needs to "prosecute" the president.

“Prosecute?” interjected host Charlie Rose.

“We need to prosecute the president who seems to be in love with the sound of his own voice,” said the chairman.

Karl Rove, an influential Republican strategist, is also on the offensive, saying today Obama has failed to produce a new vision for the country, instead campaigning on the myth that Romney is a "vampire capitalist."