Focus

At the moment we share darkness with the East Coast.  It will be hours yet before the full impact of the storm on the New York area is known, if then.  But it looks like there's enough infrastructure damage to have serious lingering effects.  The Jersey coast was hit hard, and power outages are widespread at least into central Pennsylvania.  Yet to come is the impact on New England and the Great Lakes area, where there may be significant flooding.

By morning light, even as violent weather continues, the recovery efforts in many places will begin.  And the election campaign talk will resume.  As to where that stands, here's an observation about the storm coverage that may say something.  On the lamentable cable system we have here, the cable "news" stations are grouped thusly:  MSNBC (politics), CNBC (Wall Street), FOX (politics), CNN ("news"/politics), HLN (gossip, sensationalism.)  Of those five channels, four had almost continuous coverage of the storm on Monday. (Though CNBC paused once for what the reporter said was today's "real story," the departure of two top execs from Apple.)  The one exception was FOX, which hammered at the scandal that only that channel believes is real, accusing the Obama administration of a range of misdeeds concerning the violence in Benghazi.  

photo: flood water pours into a PATH train station in Hoboken, New Jersey, which as night fell was completely cut off and largely flooded.