This newspaper endorsed Mitt Romney for president on Oct. 21. And the events since then have only reinforced the reasons for our having done so originally.

Topping the list was Friday’s dismal news about the economy, which shows it at a virtual standstill with unemployment going back up to 7.9 percent — exactly where it was when Barack Obama took office in January 2009. He and his supporters like to talk about what a great job they’ve done putting people back to work. Yet if he had campaigned four years ago on the slogan “Vote for Me and I Promise to Have the Unemployment Rate Exactly Where It Is Today Four Years from Now,” he would have been laughed out of town.

Meanwhile, Obama’s credibility has been further eroded by the gut-wrenching revelations and continuing deceptions about the mishandling of the Benghazi attacks that killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, including two former Navy SEALS.

Team Obama, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, were quick to describe the incident as a “spontaneous” attack prompted by an obscure YouTube video no one had ever heard of. And they stuck to that preposterous story for more than a month until it inexorably began to unravel, thanks to the tenacity of CBS and Fox News. Now it’s known that al-Qaida — which Obama had argued had been decimated by his efforts — was behind the attack. His efforts to blame the attacks on the video were nothing but an attempt to shift attention away from facts that would undermine his boasts.

There now are highly credible allegations that key administration figures were aware of the attacks on the consulate as they were happening — yet failed to summon help for the embattled Americans, even though there was a Joint Special Operations Command team nearby. No air cover was sent, not even an armed drone, during the seven-hour battle. That’s not a profile in courage. In fact, it doesn’t even qualify as “leading from behind,” which is Obama’s preference. Now four brave Americans are dead.

What was Obama’s response? Why, he jetted off to party with fat-cat fundraisers in Las Vegas.

Too bad he couldn’t have shown as much concern for our dead ambassador and the others that he did for those without power in the Northeast following last week’s storm. That storm was a godsend for Obama, a perfect way to distract the public from his ineptitude and a final chance to look “presidential.”

You can be sure Mitt Romney will never have any trouble “looking” presidential. And unlike the present occupant of the Oval Office, he won’t have any trouble acting like one either.

If the country were once again perched on the verge of a major war, it would make no sense to elect a president with a pacifistic background. And with the economy continuing to be the overriding issue in this election, it makes no sense to re-elect a president who has shown utter ineptitude on economic matters. Rather, the logical approach would be to elect a president who has shown time after time after time that he understands what makes the economy tick and won’t need on-the-job training.

That man, needless to say, is Mitt Romney.