The Week's Best Longreads: The Daily Beast Picks for November 5, 2011

<p>From President Obama’s dwindling chances of re-election to the last days of Muammar Gaddafi, The Daily Beast picks the best journalism from around the Web this week.</p> <p></p>

Is Obama Toast?Nate Silver, The New York Times Magazine

The killer calculus of the president’s re-election chances.

King of Kings Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker

The last days of Muammar Gaddafi.

Murder by TextDavid Kushner, Vanity Fair

Kim Proctor was no different than your ordinary teenage girl. Easily hurt by insults and just as easily swayed by compliments, she dwelled in an angsty purgatory familiar to most adolescents. But when Kim went from average kid to missing girl, her storyline took a tragic turn.

Inside GrouponNicholas Carlson, Business Insider

Groupon was one of the fastest-growing companies in history, spurning $6 billion takeout offers from Google, preparing to go public at a valuation fo $25+ billion. Then suddenly, everyone was talking about it running out of cash.

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve JobsMona Simpson, The New York Times

Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.

John Edwards’s Last Desperate GambleDavid Margolick, Newsweek

How do you defend an indefensible man? Start by enumerating his sins. Inside the upcoming trial, and why the disgraced former candidate decided to go for broke.

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