SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:55 P.M. ET:

THE PAIN IN SPAIN WILL NO LONGER REMAIN – The Spanish legislature has just ended its session, signaling the runup to the November 20th national elections.  Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, no great friend of the United States, will not be running for reelection, and there's a very good chance his socialist party will lose in November.  That would be good news for us.  Spain was a firm ally in the war on terror until Zapatero, sometimes called "Bambi" for some reason, won in 2004.  We hope that a conservative victory will put Spain on a more rational international footing. 

DISGRACEFUL – The White House is making a big issue of the tasteless behavior of some audience members at several Republican debates.  In one case some applause seemed to suggest that the members favored letting people without health insurance die.  In another case there were boos for a citizen questioner – a gay soldier who'd served in Iraq.  But Jake Tapper, who plays it straight at ABC News, points out that "the boos and applause came from what sounded like less than a handful of individuals, it should be noted."  And that's the point.  These were huge audiences and a few people clearly engaged in vulgar behavior.  The overwhelming majority did not.  But this is standard fare for the left – proclaiming its own moral superiority, while suggesting that anyone on the other side is 1) cruel, 2) bigoted, and 3) ignorant.  Who needs successful policies when you can paint a picture like that?

OH, THANKS A LOT, GUYS – The interim government in Libya, known as the National Transitional Council, has declared the Lockerbie bombing case closed, and will not release any evidence that could lead to anyone else in Libya being charged.  Scottish prosecutors – Lockerbie is in Scotland – had asked for papers and access to witnesses so they could explore other suspects in the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people, the majority of them American.  The prosecutors were clearly looking for evidence linking Muammar Gaddafi to the crime.  Weren't these new Libyan leaders supposed to be our allies?  So much for the Arab spring.

HER AGAIN? – There is some renewed talk, especially in the New York media, about the possibility of Hillary Clinton rising again politically, possibly even replacing Barack Obama as the 2012 Democratic candidate.  The talk has been generated by some very unkind remarks that former President Bill Clinton made about Obama's economic plans.  (Obama immediaely invited Clinton to play golf with him, possibly to put out the fires.)  But Hillary has apparently made clear to friends that she would never run against Obama in the primaries because she would lose the black vote immediately, and it wouldn't return on election day.  Her only hope for 2012 rests on Obama's dropping out, and I can't see that, barring an economic collapse.  The man is too great an egotist, and he couldn't stand being replaced by the woman he defeated in 2008. 

September 26, 2011