Whatever You Say, Newt

Unbelievable:

Newt Gingrich's walk back tour reached its zenith Tuesday night, as Gingrich personally apologized to Paul Ryan for dismissing his Medicare plan as "right wing social engineering." In an added twist, Gingrich claims that the merest mention of his extensive condemnation of Ryan's budget from Sunday's Meet The Press by Democrats is now out of bounds as a result.

"Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood, because I have said publicly those words were inaccurate and unfortunate," he told FOX's Greta Van Susteren. ""When I make a mistake, and I'm going to on occasion, I'm going to share with the American people that was a mistake because that way we can have an honest conversation."

Democrats have been giddy -- and Republicans terrified -- at the prospect of new ads and messaging featuring Gingrich's attacks on the Ryan budget as "radical change from the right" and "too big a jump" for America. Newt's comments to FOX suggest that he's well aware of what's coming.

The "Ryan Plan" is causing big problems for the GOP. Just last week, 42 House Republicans signed a letter to Obama asking him to tell the Democrats to stop their attacks on GOP members who voted for the Ryan budget, which included a plan to privatize Medicare and cap spending on it. Newt probably thought he had political cover to say what he said on Meet The Press last Sunday given how fast House Republicans were running away from the Ryan Plan. He must not have gotten the memo stating that the GOP now intends to fully support Ryan and his goal to eliminate Medicare. I guess that letter to Obama didn't work.

What I find most amazing is that it was Newt Gingrich himself -- over two decades ago -- who told his fellow Republicans that they must be more nasty when it comes to dealing with Democrats. This is from a 1990 New York Times opinion piece:

"Sick." "Traitors." "Bizarre." "Self-serving." "Shallow." "Corrupt." "Pathetic." "Shame." The group that urged political candidates to use these epithets has since regretted suggesting the word ''traitors,'' in response to inquiries from the press. But the others were allowed to stand; they appear in a glossary that a conservative Republican group recently mailed to Republican state legislative candidates.

The group is Gopac, the G.O.P. Political Action Committee. Its general chairman is Representative Newt Gingrich. With the pamphlet, ''Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,'' comes a letter from Mr. Gingrich himself. Its message to candidates: Step up invective. Use words like these to describe opponents. These words work.

Mr. Gingrich's injunction represents the worst of American political discourse, which reached a low during the dispiriting Presidential campaign of 1988. Then, more than ever before, negative argument displaced reasoned discussion about how a nation might best be governed. ***

In other words, the guy who pretty much invented the modern-day negative campaign is now asking his political opponents to tone things down and to not attack him for statements that he himself made on National TV.

Good luck with that, Newt.

Well, So Much For Doing The Honorable Thing

What an asshole:

Newt Gingrich is condemning individual health insurance mandates today, finally ditching the policy after more than a decade of vocal support that he reiterated as recently as Sunday morning.

"I am for the repeal of Obamacare and I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional," he said in a video posted on his website on Monday and apparently shot this morning outside a Washington, D.C., hotel where Gingrich was addressing an Alzheimer's convention.

In the early 1990s, Gingrich joined many Republican in backing a health care law featuring an individual mandate as an alternative to President Clinton's proposal. He supported a similar policy throughout the 2000s in several of his books, echoing President Obama and Mitt Romney in backing an individual mandate buttressed by financial support for those who can't afford health insurance.

He repeated his support for such a plan yet again on Meet The Press this Sunday after David Gregory played a clip of Newt calling for an individual mandate in 1993.

Fastest flip-flop in history? Perhaps. Newt's flip-flop on Libya was fast, but not this fast.

My Apologies To The Corporate Media

The other day I was critical of the Mainstream Press for not pointing out that conservatives who were once for the individual mandate are now opposed to ObamaCare, even though its central feature is an individual mandate. Well, David Gregory, on this morning's Meet The Press, pointed out to guest Newt Gingrich that Gingrich himself has a history of supporting the individual mandate. This exchange followed:

GINGRICH: Well, I agree that all of us have a responsibility to help pay for health care. And I think there are ways to do it that make most libertarians relatively happy. I have said consistently we ought to have some requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond, or in some way, you indicate you’re going to be held accountable.

GREGORY: But that is the individual mandate, is it not?

GINGRICH: It’s a variation on it.

GREGORY: So you won’t use that issue against Mitt Romney?

GINGRICH: No.

I've had my problems with Gingrich over the years, but I'll give him credit for not trying to run away from his record like so many other Republicans are doing with regard to Health Care Reform. You did the honorable thing this morning, Newt, and I applaud you for it.

Needless to say, members of the radical right aren't all that happy with Gingrich right now. This is from RedState.com:

Newt Gingrich appeared on Meet the Press this morning and said two things that won’t exactly endear him to the Tea Party crowd or the reform minded movement sweeping the GOP.

First, he endorsed the individual mandate and said he would not bash Mitt Romney over the individual mandate.

Second, he went after Paul Ryan’s proposal to reform Medicare. Your mileage may vary on Ryan’s plan, but he is both offering up one and using the free market, individual choice approach favored by conservatives.

Newt was not happy with the approach.

Gingrich is already going to have to overcome the apprehensiveness of evangelicals and women in the primary. To also have to overcome the free marketers’ concerns may prove problematic.

Gingrich's opposition to Ryan's proposal to gut Medicare should not be a problem for him, given the number of Republicans who are running away from Ryan like they'd run away from the plague.

But Newt's support for the individual mandate is another story because it now appears that there will be a debate amongst the 2012 GOP presidential candidates as to whether the individual mandate is the right approach. Doesn't the mere existence of such a debate seriously undercut the GOP argument that Obama is a socialist for signing a HCR bill which featured the individual mandate? The folks at Roaring Republican seem to think so:

Republican’s have major problems in 2012, not the least of which are our candidates. With Huckabee out, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich seem that much closer to headlining and that isn’t good for conservatives of any variety, especially on health care.

Romney made a name for himself with a signature Massachusetts health care reform that forced taxpayers to purchase care, known as an individual mandate. The measure is a centerpiece of the Obama federal plan and may prove to be the downfall of the entire legislation if the Supreme Court finds it unconstitutional. Not great for Romney, even worse for Newt Gingrich. Why?

In the past Gingrich has repeatedly supported an individual mandate, a point he reconfirmed this morning on Meet The Press. *** Essentially then, Gingrich and Romney have removed the lynchpin of the conservative argument. It is OK for the federal government to force individuals to purchase a private product. So then what is next? Carbon offsets? Forced higher education spending? Electric cars? Housing? Insulation? Where do we go from here?

Good question. One of the GOP strengths in the last two years has been its universal opposition to health care reform generally and its universal rejection of the the individual mandate specifically. It got so bad for Romney, in fact, that he actually had to argue the other day that the RomneyCare mandate was somehow different from the ObamaCare mandate. But Gingrich's re-embrace of the individual mandate this morning makes Romney look a lot less like a radical leftist than he did yesterday.

My conclusion? Today was a very good day for both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Romney Crashes And Burns On HCR Speech

I hope Mitt has good health care coverage because he's getting the shit kicked out of him today, from both the right and the left. And I'm enjoying every minute of it.

I'm not enjoying it because I dislike Romney. I actually think he wouldn't make a bad president. Sure, he's turned flip-flopping into an art form, but the bottom line for me is that he's not fucking insane like most of the rest of the GOP presidential field is. He's a moderate voice within the party.

Romney's problem, however, is that the GOP -- in response to the Obama presidency -- decided to go even further to the right than it was before the 2008 election, meaning that moderates like Romney are now viewed as the enemy. And that is what I find hysterically funny.

When Mitt passed RomneyCare in Massachusetts a few years back, he thought he had all sorts of GOP political cover. After all, the whole thing was originally a Republican idea:

*** [T]he last time Congress debated a health overhaul, when Bill Clinton was president, [Orrin] Hatch and several other senators who now oppose the so-called individual mandate actually supported a bill that would have required it.

In fact, says Len Nichols of the New America Foundation, the individual mandate was originally a Republican idea. "It was invented by Mark Pauly to give to George Bush Sr. back in the day, as a competition to the employer mandate focus of the Democrats at the time." ***

But we're not just talking ancient history here. As earlier reported on this blog, Jim Freaking DeMint supported individual mandates as recently as 2007, and so did Newt Gingrich. And, as noted here, a lot of other Republicans supported mandates at one time or another, including Robert Bennett, Christopher Bond, Robert Dole, Charles Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, Arlen Specter, Daniel Coats, Judd Gregg, and Kay Hutchison.

Why have all these people suddenly flip-flopped on the individual mandate? Simple -- because Obama supported it, and the GOP made a group decision to aggressively oppose everything that Obama supported, even if it meant turning their backs on their own ideas.

I used to be critical of Obama for pushing a health care reform bill that was made up almost entirely of Republican ideas, but now I see the genius of it. I can't wait until the so-called liberal media finally gets off its ass and reports that folks like Jim DeMint and Newt Gingrich supported the individual mandate before they were against it.

By the way, this is pretty funny:

The Obama administration, on Friday, continued to apply a veritable death hug to likely Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, praising the health care law he passed as Massachusetts’ governor despite Romney’s insistence that there were major distinctions between his and the president’s approach.

“We have said before that health care reform that then Governor Romney signed into law in Massachusetts is in many ways similar to the legislation that resulted in the Affordable Care Act,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in an off-camera briefing at the White House. “And as to the issue of flexibility, as you know, earlier this year we made quite a big deal out of the fact that the president wanted to move up to 2014 … the starting point at which states can ask for waivers to opt out of the Affordable Care Act as long as they, of course, demonstrate their capacity with their own ideas to achieve the same objectives.”

“We wholly endorse flexibility and we obviously feel that Massachusetts took a smart approach towards health care reform,” the press secretary added. “Its provenance was so mainstream, there are great similarities between Massachusetts' law, the Affordable Care Act and legislation proposed by then Rhode Island Republican [Senator] John Chaffee in 1993.”

Wonderful.

It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than This

It turns out that even Newt Gingrich was for the individual health insurance mandate before he was against it:

In his post-congressional life, Gingrich has been a vocal champion for mandated insurance coverage -- the very provision of President Obama's health care legislation that the Republican Party now decries as fundamentally unconstitutional. ***

In a June 2007 op-ed in the Des Moines Register, Gingrich wrote, "Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it." An "individual mandate," he added, should be applied "when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed."

And in several of his many policy and politics-focused books, Gingrich offered much the same.

In 2008's "Real Change," he wrote, "Finally, we should insist that everyone above a certain level buy coverage (or, if they are opposed to insurance, post a bond). Meanwhile, we should provide tax credits or subsidize private insurance for the poor."

In 2005's "Winning the Future," he expanded on the idea in more detail: "You have the right to be part of the lowest-cost insurance pool and you have a responsibility to buy insurance. ... We need some significant changes to ensure that every American is insured, but we should make it clear that a 21st Century Intelligent System requires everyone to participate in the insurance system." ***

I think it speaks volumes that two of the most radical right-wingers in our country -- Newt Gingrich and Jim DeMint -- actually supported mandated insurance coverage for the United States. As noted last Sunday, DeMint even went so far as to state that RomneyCare is "something that I think we should do for the whole country."

If I was Obama, I wouldn't hesitate to mention this fact every time he discusses health care reform. After all, these guys are trying to paint ObamaCare as the most radical law ever passed in this country, which I find hilarious given that DeMint and Gringrich both supported mandated insurance coverage as recently as 2007!

I wonder what happened in 2008 to make these two extremists so radically flip-flop on this issue?

You've Got To Be Kidding

From TMP:

House Republican freshmen admit that their so-called "MediScare" attacks on Democrats helped them win a big majority in 2010. Democrats had voted for the health care law, which included $500 billion in "cuts" to Medicare -- primarily slashing overpayments to private insurers -- and Republican challengers never let them forget it.

Now, they say, it's time to let bygones be bygones.

Nearly a dozen House Republican freshmen held a press conference outside the Capitol Tuesday morning to "wipe the slate clean," and "hit the reset button."

"Yeah, I mean there's been -- again, this is a both-sides issue," said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) when asked if GOP candidates and the NRCC had engaged in 'MediScare' tactics last year. "To say that one side is blameless in trying to use issues to win votes is just dishonest."

On Tuesday, Kinzinger and 41 of his colleagues sent a letter to President Obama, asking him to rein in Democratic attacks on GOP members who voted for the House budget, which includes a plan to privatize Medicare and cap spending on the program.

"We ask that you stand above partisanship, condemn the disingenuous attacks and work with this Congress to reform spending on entitlement programs," the letter reads.

To preempt the press conference, the DCCC responded to the letter with a long list of NRCC and candidate attack ads and statements from the 2010 election -- all of them targeting Democrats for cutting Medicare, all on behalf of GOP candidates who are now hoping for a truce on Medicare attacks.

Wow -- talk about political cowardice.

Look folks: you all made a political decision to vote for the extreme right-wing policies set out in the Ryan budget, which called for -- among other things -- the end of Medicare, and you want Obama to bail you out just because the chickens have come home to roost? Let me get this straight: You want the very same president you have labeled a socialist and a fascist to come to your rescue? Good luck with that.

Change We Can Believe In

It was revealed today that it was President Obama who insisted that the assault force going into Pakistan last week to capture or kill bin Laden be large enough to fight its way out if confronted by hostile Pakistani police officers or troops (via the New York Times):

*** Mr. Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.

Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”

The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.

About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were taking along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and tried to interfere with the operation.

That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.

Well, so much for Cheney and others being able to continue criticism of Obama for being too weak when it comes to security issues. In fact, I have no doubt that Cheney, his bat-shit crazy daughter Liz, and the rest of the right-wing establishment will soon be criticizing Obama for being too heavy-handed when it comes to national security generally and Pakistan in particular.

So be it. All I can say is that Obama's stance with regard to Pakistan is a refreshing change from what Bush and Cheney did when they ran the show.

This Should Be Fun (Plus "Hunt for Bin Laden" Time-Line)

Good luck on this, Mitt -- you're gonna need it:

Call it the first must watch moment of the 2012 presidential cycle. On Thursday, Mitt Romney, Republican frontrunner and one-time health care mandate advocate, will take on the issue dogging his campaign in a speech in Michigan.

According to his campaign, Romney will lay out "his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that lower costs and empower states to craft their own health care solutions" at the the Thursday speech, which he'll give at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center in Ann Arbor.

The speech will give Romney a chance to change the narrative on a central storyline of his candidacy -- namely that the health care law he signed while governor of Massachusetts in 2006 is a potentially insurmountable political liability. For the man who's been running for the 2012 Republican nomination virtually since he dropped out of the 2008 nomination fight, the stakes really could not be much higher.

On a related note, it looks like Romney isn't going to skip Iowa after all.

And by the way, here is an excellent piece from the Cato Institute explaining why the Bush Administration was unable to capture or kill bin Laden. A lot of the points made in the Cato article are also set out in this hunt for bin Laden timeline. Some highlights:

JANUARY 20, 2001: George W. Bush inaugurated.

JANUARY 29, 2001: Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil reports that 9 days after Bush was inaugurated “going after Saddam Huissein” was “Topic A.”

JANUARY 2001: Condoleezza Rice demotes terrorism czar Richard Clarke out of Cabinet access. [The 9/11 Commission Report. 7/22/04]

JANUARY 2001: During Bush’s first week in office, Richard Clarke requests cabinet level meeting on al Qaeda and Bin Laden. His request was denied.

JUNE 2001: Bush give speech to NATO allies on top five defense issues, and the “only reference to extremists was in Macedonia.” [Washington Post, 4/1/04]

AUGUST 6, 2001: Bush receives Presidential Daiy Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S.”

SEPTEMBER 11 2001: Rice has speech scheduled on “the threats and problems of today and the day after.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address “the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday” — but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.

The speech provides telling insight into the administration’s thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.

SEPTEMBER 11 2001: Five hours after attacks, Rumsfeld asks aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2001: Bush to Richard Clarke “Go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this.”

OCTOBER 7 2001: U.S. and Great Britian start Operation Enduring Freedom, invading Afghanistan after Taliban refuses to give up Bin Laden.

NOVEMBER 21 2001: 72 days after 9/11, Bush directed Rumsfeld to begin planning for war with Iraq.

DECEMBER 16, 2001: Bin Laden’s voice heard on radio in Tora Bora.

EARLY DECEMBER 2001: Bin Laden escapes at Tora Bora.

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda.

JANUARY 27 2002: Cheney: Bin Laden “isn’t that big a threat.”

FEBRUARY 2002: Military and intelligence resources diverted to Iraq.

MARCH 13 2002: Bush on Bin Laden “I really don’t spent that much time on him.”

LATE MARCH 2002: Covert commando team assigned to Bin Laden loses 2/3 of its strength as resources are diverted to Iraq. [Washington Post, 10/22/04]

APRIL 6 2002: General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, says “the goal has never been to get bin Laden.” [CNN, 4/6/02]

MARCH 19 2003: Invasion of Iraq begins.

LATE 2005: CIA closes unit focused on capture of bin Laden [un-fucking-believable].

2006: CIA officers with experience in Islamic world drained from al Qaeda hunt to Iraq.

SEPTEMBER 2006: Fred Barnes told by President Bush that the hunt for Bin Laden was “not a top priority use of American resources.”

JANUARY 24 2008: Bush says Bin Laden will be “gotten by a president,” but probably not him. [Fox, 1/24/08]

MARCH 19, 2008: Then-candidate Obama pledges aggressive effort to find Bin Laden in Pakistan.

OCTOBER 7, 2008: Obama: “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.”

NOVEMBER 2, 2008: Obama: “I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al Qaeda.”

January 23, 2009: Days after inauguration, Obama fires at al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan.

2009: Obama authorizes more drone strikes against terrorist targets than during previous 5 years combined.

MARCH 28 2009: Obama says Bin Laden is in Pakistan, presses for action.

DECEMBER 7, 2009: Obama National Security Advisor James Jones stresses the urgency of finding Bin Laden and speaks “of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him.” [AP, 12/7/09]

AUGUST 1 2010: American intelligence locates unusual compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

MARCH 14-28, 2011: Obama hold series of National Security Council meetings to develop options for capturing or killing Bin Laden. [New York Times, 5/3/11]

APRIL 29 2011 Mr. Obama authorizes the operation against Bin Laden. [New York Times, 5/3/11]

MAY 1, 2011, 4-4:30PM ET: United States forces raid Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad around 1 a.m. Pakistan time. Bin Laden is killed. [New York Times, 5/3/11]

MAY 1, 2011, 11:35PM ET: Obama announces Bin Laden’s death.

Definitely read the entire timeline.

An Oldie But A Goodie

Here's a re-post of a blog post I did back on August 11, 2007:

Everyone who has talked politics with me over the last couple of weeks knows how pissed off I've been over the fact that Hillary, Dodd, Biden, Romney, and others have been attacking Obama for saying this:

As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

Obama's statement made a lot of sense to me, particularly given that BushCo has, over the last several years, attempted to minimize Pakistan's involvement in 9/11 while at the same time falsely claiming that Saddam was somehow involved in those attacks. But Obama was instantly attacked by Hillary and others as "naive" for saying those things about Pakistan. Mitt Romney even compared Obama to "Dr. Strangelove."

So let me see if I've got this straight: Someone finally attempts to introduce some common sense into America's counter-terrorism policy, and he gets attacked for it by both Democrats and Republicans. Why?

Well, Josh Marshall figured it out:

All Obama said was that if we have actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan won't act, we will act.

Clearly, no Republican can quibble with this. They're on the record for invading countries because they might become dangers to us at some point in the future. They're hardly in a position to disagree with Obama if he says we'll hunt down people who committed mass casualty terror attacks within our borders. And I'm not sure Democrats are in much of a position to do so either.

The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it.

I am certainly glad to see that Obama isn't backing down from his statements. I liked what he said at the debate the other night about how Hillary and some of the other candidates who are attacking him on this had actually voted to give Bush the authority to launch "the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation."

That was a good start, but he needs to stay on the offensive on this. Hillary's vote to authorize the Iraq War was, in my opinion, one of the greatest acts of political cowardice in recent memory, and voters need to be constantly reminded of this.

Jim "Waterloo" DeMint Has A RomneyCare Problem

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) famously said in 2009 that "[i]f we're able to stop Obama on [health care reform], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him. . . ."

I have long been intrigued by the GOP opposition to Health Care Reform, particularly given that the bill finally enacted into law was full of Republican ideas and was essentially patterned after RomneyCare. But it never occurred to me that Senator Jim Freaking DeMint -- an Obama-hating radical right-winger who openly called for the "breaking" of the President over health care reform -- would have ever expressed support for anything like RomneyCare.

Well -- incredibly --he did (via TPM):

Flashback to January 2007. RomneyCare is such a well known achievement that Romney wins DeMint's endorsement because of the law's success.

"[Romney] has demonstrated, when he stepped into government in a very difficult state, that he could work in a difficult partisan environment, take some good conservative ideas, like private health insurance, and apply them to the need to have everyone insured," DeMint said. "Those kind of ideas show an ability to bring people together that we haven't seen in national politics for a while. We don't need the nation to be more polarized."

Then in February of that year DeMint explained on Fox News that Romney should do for America what he had done for Massachusetts with health care: "Well, that's something that I think we should do for the whole country."

Hilarious.

Wrong -- But Thanks For Playing Anyway

"Obama taking (or being given) any credit for the death of Bin Laden is akin to giving credit to Nixon for putting men on the moon. True, it happened while Nixon was President, but as everyone knows..."

-- A comment fom a reader.

Really?

“The administration clearly deserves credit for the success of the operation.”

-- Dick Cheney.

"There are going to be political benefits to the president from this. He deserves it. If this had gone wrong, he would have been hurt very bad politically. It goes right, he should get the benefit of it. We can debate other issues, but no one in our country, in our party should debate or question what the president did here. He did the right thing. He did it brilliantly and he deserves all the credit for it."

-- Rep. Peter King (R-New York)

“I admire the courage of the president.”

-- Rudolph Giuliani

"President Obama's decision to order the strike on bin Laden also required courage; not the bravery of the battlefield but the courage to live with the consequences of a risky decision. Since the mission went well, he is being justly praised, and his political standing has risen. But there can never be a guarantee that a mission of this kind will not go tragically wrong. We are all the beneficiaries of Obama's decision, but in the end the buck stops at one man's desk."

-- Paul Wolfowitz, Bush/Cheney's deputy secretary of defense

"Ladies and gentleman, we need to open the program today by congratulating President Obama. President Obama has done something extremely effective, and when he does, this needs to be pointed out."

-- Rush Fucking Limbaugh (who still couldn't resist putting in a note of sarcasm because . . . well, he's an asshole).

"[The operation was] a gutsy call because so much could have gone wrong. The fact that Obama approved this mission instead of the safer option of bombing the compound was the right call militarily, but also a real roll of the dice politically because of how quickly it could have unraveled.”

-- John Ullyot, a former Marine intelligence officer who served as a Republican spokesman on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Failed Senator Rick Santorum: Asshole of the Week

"9/11 families and everybody else in America should be furious at this president that he’s walking around taking credit for, you know, getting Osama bin Laden. He didn’t get Osama bin Laden!"

-- Santorum, on Hate Radio today.

When I first heard the early reports that bin Laden had been killed, I thought it would end up being from something akin to a drone attack and that Obama had little-or-no involvement in the operation. Don't get me wrong -- this still would have been a huge victory for the President even if his actual involvement was minimal.

But that wasn't the case. This victory stemmed directly from a policy he put into place, namely, a reversal of George Bush's "We Don't Think About bin Laden Much" Policy to a policy that made the capture/killing of Osama our top priority. Bush's policy was based at least in part on the notion that bin Laden had been maginalized in a cave somewhere and wasn't involved much in al Qaeda's operations. But the intelligence obtained from the raid is showing that he was still very involved in al Qaeda's operations. It is merely icing on the cake for me that Obama kept close tabs on this operation from the beginning and gave the final order to proceed.

This was a huge political risk for the President on several levels. Had this mission failed, folks like the Asshole Santorum would have been calling not only for Obama's impeachment, but also for his execution and deportation. Had this mission failed, there would have been a huge backlash from the Pakistanis instead of the huge embarrassment now being experienced by these so-called "allies." The President's advisors were telling him that the operation only had about a 68% chance of success, but Obama decided to pull the trigger anyway.

I don't think our Commander-in-Chief is taking enough personal credit for the killing of bin Laden, given that a failed operation would have turned Obama into the new millenium's version of President Jimmy Carter. Obama did in less than two-and-a-half years what Bush and Cheney couldn't do in eight. And don't forget: the 9/11 attacks happened on Bush and Cheney's watch -- even though the outgoing Clinton people told the incoming Bush people eight months prior to September 11, 2001 that Al Qaeda would be their top national security priority -- and that Bush himself was warned a month before 9/11 that bin Laden was "determined to strike within the U.S."

The GOP is clearly weak when it comes to national defense. To hell with the notion that the killing of Osama transcends party politics. I openly question the Republican Party's ability to keep this country safe.

Well, So Much For Trump's Chances of Getting The Republican Nomination (With Update)

Donald Trump wrote this in 2000 (from his book, The America We Deserve):

“We must have universal healthcare. I’m a conservative on most issues but a liberal on this one. We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by healthcare expenses. Doctors might be paid less than they are now, as is the case in Canada, but they would be able to treat more patients because of the reduction in their paperwork."

You're fired, Mother-Fucker.

UPDATE: Karl Rove said this on FoxNews last Friday:

[Trump's] full embrace of the birther issue means that he’s off there in the nutty right and is now an inconsequential candidate. I’m shocked. The guy’s smarter than this. And you know, the idea that President Obama was not born in Hawaii, being — you know, making that the centerpiece of his campaign, means that he’s just a joke candidate. Let him go ahead and announce for election on “The Apprentice.” The American people aren’t going to be hiring him, and certainly, the Republicans are not going to be hiring him in the Republican primary.

Rove also referred to Trump's idea that Obama's parents would arrange birth notices to ensure his presidential eligibility as “full-throated . . . nuttiness.”

I agree with Rove that Trump is now an inconsequential candidate, but it isn't his embrace of the Birthers that made him so -- it's because he was for health care reform before he was against it. Trump's cozying up to the Birthers was actually a good move politically, given that 51% of GOP primary voters believe that Obama was born outside of the United States (21% said they were "not sure" on this issue).

It's one thing to ignore a bunch of lunatics when they only make up a small percentage of the group you are trying to get to vote for you. But when the lunatics actually make up a majority of the electorate you are targeting, you ignore such people at your peril. Mike Huckabee recognizes this as well -- that's why he recently said that Obama grew up in Kenya, then clumsily tried to convince people that he merely misspoke. Huckabee knew that Obama did not grow up in Kenya, but he also knows that such comments play well with the Birther crowd.

And although I believe that Rove also knows the importance of playing to your base, it is clear that he sees the danger of embracing lunacy when it comes to the General Election. Republicans are apparently more than willing to go along with the whole Birtherism thing, partly because it gives them an opportunity to indirectly express their continuing outrage over the fact that a Black man was elected President of the United States. But independents are not interested in such things, and Rove knows that independents will be turned off by this issue during the run-up to the General Election.

Quote of the Month (With Update)

"When Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant ... This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for. So it's not on the level."

-- President Obama.

Yes, that's right -- Obama actually said this (along with a bunch of other things that were very critical of the GOP). My only problem with the comment is that he said it during what he thought was a private chat. He needs to be saying this stuff openly. He needs to repeat this in every speech that he makes on the budget.

The GOP caused the mess that we're in and the country should be constantly reminded of this. As Bill Maher once said, the Republicans are just like some guy who throws shit on you and then tries to sell you relief from the flies.

UPDATE: It been suggested that Obama knew the microphone was on when he made his comments, which makes me feel a little better. For example, Jed Lewison at Daily Kos stated:

[I]f this was indeed a classic open mic incident, it sure was a convenient one. I'll put it this way: I don't know if the audio was left on intentionally or not, but there's not a chance in hell Fox News is going to do much reporting on what President Obama said, because what he said about Republicans was tough as nails.

I still think he should be saying this stuff openly instead to pretending that he didn't know the microphone was on. But it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Quote Of The Week

"I think the biggest problem is revenues. It is simply unrealistic to say that raising revenue isn't part of the solution. It's a measure of how far off the deep end Republicans have gone with this religious catechism about taxes."

-- David Stockman, President Reagan's first budget director, on the House Republican budget plan.

There Will Be No Government Shutdown . . .

. . . because the GOP cannot afford it politically (via Slate):

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday found that 40 percent of voters would blame Republicans if the government shut down, 20 percent would blame Obama, and 20 percent would blame congressional Democrats. Compare that with the poll that was conducted in October 1995, the last time the government shut down. Sixteen years ago, 43 percent of voters said a shutdown would be Republicans' fault, and 32 percent said it would be Bill Clinton's fault. And that was the high watermark for Republicans. They lost ground once the shutdown started.

And with regard to the Government shutdown, here's one Republican who is finally telling the truth about it.

Here's A Great Quote For You

Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. Welfare has subsidized illegitimacy by offering financial rewards to women who have more children out of wedlock. We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

-- Bryan Fischer, a top official at the American Family Association (I was going to add that the AFA is a right-wing organization, but why point out the obvious).

Yes!

Via Political Wire:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) will form a presidential exploratory committee, CNN reports.

"The Minnesota Republican plans to file papers for the committee in early June, with an announcement likely around that same time. But a source close to the congresswoman said that Bachmann could form the exploratory committee even earlier than June so that she could participate in early Republican presidential debates."

Bachmann tells the Des Moines Register: "The Iowa Straw Poll I think will be a key for us. That will be a focal point. And so we'll have to make the decision so we can meaningfully participate in the Iowa Straw Poll."

BTW, this may be one of the funniest quotes ever:

"... No group in America has been more helped by the government than the American Indians."

-- John Stossel on FoxNews, who obviously defines the word "help" a lot differently than most folks.

Curveball Admits to Fabricating Iraqi WMD Story

[The following is a re-posting of a piece I published in November 2005. I thought it appropriate that I re-post this given the recent news that the Iraqi WMD source known as "Curveball" -- whom Colin Powell heavily relied on during his now-infamous speech to the U.N. Security Council during the run-up to the Iraq Debacle -- has now admitted that he made the whole thing up. In case you're interested, the Iraq War has so far cost American taxpayers $775,000,000,000, resulted to date in the deaths of 4,436 American military personnel, and caused 151,000 Iraqis to lose their lives just in the first three years of the war alone].

Why Does Dick Cheney Like Torture So Much? Because there is no need to "cherry-pick" intelligence when you can grow your own cherries. Atrios sums it up this way:

Bush administration needs evidence to support their war. They use torture techniques designed to extract false confessions to obtain that "evidence," which they then use to sell the war despite knowing full well of the lack of reliability of the information.

But sometimes you still need to cherry-pick, particularly when your goal is to dupe a country into going to war. That's why the Bush Administration had no problem accepting what a source named "Curveball" had to say despite the fact that his German handlers had told U.S. officials that Curveball's information was "not proven" (from The LA Times):

According to the Germans, President Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's accounts in his prewar presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said.

Curveball's German handlers for the last six years said his information was often vague, mostly secondhand and impossible to confirm. "This was not substantial evidence," said a senior German intelligence official. "We made clear we could not verify the things he said."

The German authorities, speaking about the case for the first time, also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. "He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy," said a BND official who supervised the case. "He is not a completely normal person," agreed a BND analyst.

But none of that mattered to members of the Bush Regime, and they certainly didn't care that torture produced unreliable results. All they needed to do was simply find some crazy person like Curveball to tell them exactly what they wanted to hear, then torture enough people to supplement what Curveball was telling them, and that would be sufficient to take the United States to war against a fourth-rate military power. It didn't matter whether the "intelligence" they used was complete crap -- all that mattered to BushCo was the quality of the propaganda.

The latest edition of Rolling Stone has this long but excellent article on how the Pentagon propaganda machine really works [link no longer active]:

By law, the Bush administration is expressly prohibited from disseminating government propaganda at home. But in an age of global communications, there is nothing to stop it from planting a phony pro-war story overseas -- knowing with certainty that it will reach American citizens almost instantly. A recent congressional report suggests that the Pentagon may be relying on "covert psychological operations affecting audiences within friendly nations." In a "secret amendment" to Pentagon policy, the report warns, "psyops funds might be used to publish stories favorable to American policies, or hire outside contractors without obvious ties to the Pentagon to organize rallies in support of administration policies."

The report also concludes that military planners are shifting away from the Cold War view that power comes from superior weapons systems. Instead, the Pentagon now believes that "combat power can be enhanced by communications networks and technologies that control access to, and directly manipulate, information. As a result, information itself is now both a tool and a target of warfare."

I guess that if you are going to lie and manipulate a country into a war, the least you could do is manage the war competently. And, needless to say, that is where BushCo really messed the whole thing up.

I mean, if the BushCo/PNAC coalition would have invaded Iraq with enough troops, secured the borders and the ammo dumps, not disbanded the Iraqi army, not tortured pretty much everyone they got their hands on and then took pictures of it, etc., then this country wouldn't have cared one bit if the dominant rationale for invasion was made up out of whole cloth. Success has a way of making people forget about stuff like that.

Unfortunately for BushCo, unparalleled expertise in prevarication, press manipulation, and discrediting of political enemies could not overcome simple idiocy.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall asks an important question:

This is one of those media questions for which there is no real way to provide a concrete answer. But it is at least worth asking: How many of the stories coming out now under the very broad heading of botched or manipulated intelligence could have been reported and written at more or less any time over the last two years? I suspect the answer is, the great majority of them.

They're getting written now because the president's poor poll numbers make him a readier target.

I know I'm not saying anything most of you don't know. And better late than never, of course. But all working reporters and editors should consider what that says about the profession.

Exactly (With Update)

This statement from One Wisconsin Now nicely sums up how I feel when Republicans like Paul Ryan -- who gave the GOP rebuttal to last night's SofU speech -- rant about runaway spending:

“I hope that Paul Ryan explains to us why we should trust him and his conservative allies with our finances after they nearly bankrupted the nation with reckless tax cuts for the rich and deregulation schemes to reward companies which put America’s working families last. Paul Ryan himself voted for eight straight Republican budgets that increased spending by a staggering 50 percent. Let’s not forget the so-called fiscal conservatives, like Ryan, who put trillions of dollars in war spending and the unfunded $8 trillion Medicare Part D boondoggle on the checkbooks of our children. Paul Ryan’s ‘Road Map’ would hand our government over to big business and Wall Street speculators, and silence the voices of working families. America needs jobs, not Paul Ryan’s budget-busting, recycled corporate special interest wish list.”

Oh, and by the way, why are all my top hopefuls for the GOP 2012 presidential nomination taking themselves out of the race? My first choice -- Sarah Palin -- recently ruined any chance she had for the nomination, but at least I thought I could rely on my second choice -- Michele Bachmann -- to continue making an effort for the nomination.

But Bachmann's chances are also in the toilet thanks to last night's disastrous attempt to respond to Obama's SotU address, which followed closely on the heels of an idiotic speech she gave a couple days ago when she said -- among other equally-moronic things -- that the Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States" and wherein she praised "[m]en like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country."

It seems to me that both Palin and Bachmann have given up on any plan they each had for the 2012 nomination in favor of trying to out-batshit-crazy each other, and that makes me sad.

And speaking of Bachmann, this exchange is hilarious.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin, now that you are finished as a viable presidential candidate, could you do us all a big favor and just go the fuck away. Your idiocy was hugely funny at first, but those of us in the Reality-Based Community have grown tired of it (and please don't tell us that you're one of those people who think that we really didn't land men on the moon).

Romney And The Tea-Baggers

From The Boston Globe:

New Hampshire Tea Party movement activist Andrew Hemingway is not lacking in contact with likely presidential candidates. He’s talked hockey with Tim Pawlenty. He sat down with former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum at the Concord Country Club. And plans are in the works for Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to appear before a group of Hemingway’s fellow conservatives.

A notable exception among the field of would-be GOP presidential contenders? Mitt Romney. “Romney for the most part is inaccessible,’’ said Hemingway, a Bristol resident who is chairman of the state’s Republican Liberty Caucus. “Pawlenty, I could call him right now and say, ‘Let’s have coffee.’ ’’

As the former Massachusetts governor lays the groundwork for a possible second presidential run, he has largely shunned Tea Party activists in key primary states, including the state he must win if he enters the race, New Hampshire. Thus far, Romney is on track to present himself as the establishment candidate — a responsible, mainstream Republican leader with the necessary financial resources and credentials to beat President Obama. ***

Romney has about as much of a chance of getting the 2012 GOP presidential nomination as does Sarah Palin, and the chances for both are slim-to-none. In fact, I find the whole situation to be nothing short of hilarious.

Palin shot herself in the foot the other day with her incredibly tone-deaf "Blood Libel" remarks, and is now more unpopular than she ever was (which is saying a lot). And Romney, of course, was the author of RomneyCare in Massachusetts, which is in many respects identical to the ObamaCare legislation that was passed last year. Given that the Tea-Baggers view ObamaCare as the worst thing to happen to our country since, well . . . the election of Obama, I have no doubt that they are going to crucify Romney in the coming months for being a socialist/fascist/marxist with regard to RomneyCare.

So it makes complete sense to me that Romney is staying away from the Tea-Bagging crowd. What's the point of trying to cozy up to them? The only chance Romney has to keep the Tea-Baggers at bay is to immediately come out with a statement condemning RomneyCare as the biggest mistake he ever made -- even though he once touted it as his "crowning achievement" -- and then begging the Tea-Baggers for forgiveness. He could tell them that he made an honest mistake, given that RomneyCare was based on ideas originally formulated by Republicans.

Such an apology could work, given that the Tea-Bagging horde just might be dumb enough to fall for it. But I don't see Romney going that route. He probably thinks his best chance is to attempt to argue -- as he has previously done -- that RomneyCare works on the state level while ObamaCare cannot work on the national level.

Good luck with that, Mitt. The Baggers are idiots, but they're not that stupid. Nobody is.

Sorry To Go Off On A Rant Here, But . . .

A friend of mine posted on Facebook today that the desire for "a return to civility" incorrectly suggests that there was some period of civility in American politics. I agree that it should probably be expressed as a need to return to more civility, given that American politics has definitely been uncivil to some extent since the founding. That's the nature of our system.

But you can't deny the last couple years have been profoundly uncivil (and that is a nice way to put it). I mean, you have a major-party candidate for the U.S. Senate openly calling for the use of "Second Amendment remedies" while in the same breath expressing a need to "take Harry Reid out." I couldn’t believe that one.

Or you have political operatives openly – and quite successfully – instructing people on how to disrupt town hall meetings, and then having right wing activists actually bringing guns to these gatherings.

Or, you have that guy who was arrested yesterday for threatening Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) by saying:

“And you let that fucking scum bag know, that if he ever fucks around with my money, ever the fuck again, I’ll fucking kill him, okay. I’ll round them up, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he fucking knows.”

Sure, this guy is clearly a nut-job -- as was the shooter in Arizona – but don't try to tell me that he was not influenced by all the inflammatory rhetoric from Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and the rest of the Radical Right.

I think Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) – who got a brick through her office window last year and a bullet through her head last Saturday – said it best a few months ago when she responded to Sarah Palin’s targeting of her district with gun site crosshairs: “When people do that, you got to realize there are consequences to that action.”

If Sarah Palin really thinks she is the actual victim in all this – as she suggested yesterday in her now-infamous “Blood Libel” speech – then why the hell did she take down from her website the gun site crosshairs display after Rep. Giffords was shot in the head?

Well, I guess I'm a fool for expecting some sort of consistency from Palin, who now -- thanks to her idiotic and profoundly ill-timed speech yesterday -- has as much of a chance of being the 2012 GOP presidential nominee as I do of being the first man to walk on the surface of the Sun.

Fucking-A

George Packer sets the record straight (via Political Wire):

[I]t won’t do to dig up stray comments by Obama, Allen Grayson, or any other Democrat who used metaphors of combat over the past few years, and then try to claim some balance of responsibility in the implied violence of current American politics. (Most of the Obama quotes that appear in the comments were lame attempts to reassure his base that he can get mad and fight back, i.e., signs that he’s practically incapable of personal aggression in politics.)

In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.

Anyone who's read this blog can probably figure out how I feel about the suggestion from America's Radical Right that both sides are guilty of using inflammatory rhetoric. In fact, my main complaint over the years has been that the American Left is weak in this regard and doesn't hit back hard enough when the Extreme Right pulls this crap. To argue that there is some sort of parity between the two sides is more than disingenuous -- it's laughable.

Quote Of The Day

"The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That's good enough for me."

John Boehner, reacting to an outburst from a birther during the reading of the Constitution in the House gallery.

And speaking of the Constitution, this is pretty funny:

Two House Republicans have cast votes as members of the 112th Congress, but were not sworn in on Wednesday, a violation of the Constitution on the same day that the GOP had the document read from the podium.

The Republicans, incumbent Pete Sessions of Texas and freshman Mike Fitzpatrick, missed the swearing in, but watched it on television from the Capitol Visitors Center.

"That wasn't planned. It just worked out that way," said Fitzpatrick at the time, according to local press on hand, which noted that he "happened to be introducing Texas Congressman Pete Sessions while glad-handing his supporters in the Capitol Visitor Center that he secured for them when the House swearing in began."

There is no provision in the Constitution for a remote swearing-in by television. On Thursday, Fitzpatrick was one of the members who read the Constitution from the dais.

Harry Reid Sets Record

This is quite an accomplishment:

Sen. Harry Reid set a record during the 111th Congress by becoming the chamber’s most successful Majority Leader in history at killing attempted filibusters.

Though the Nevada Democrat’s batting average took a nose dive in 2010, Reid won 69 percent of his total attempts to shut down threatened filibusters in the two years of the 111th Congress that began January 2009.

Two former Majority Leaders — Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) — share the next best record; both won 63 percent of the time in the 109th Congress and the 94th Congress, respectively. * * *

And by the way, I have a feeling this is going to backfire, particularly if Obama's approval numbers continue to rise:

The Republican congressman who is taking over responsibility for congressional oversight called President Obama's administration "one of the most corrupt administrations" on Sunday and predicted that the investigations he is planning over the next two years could result in about $200 billion in savings for U.S. taxpayers.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was bullish in laying out his agenda for the new Congress with Republicans in control of the House.

Issa, who as chairman will have subpoena power, said he will seek to ferret out waste across the federal bureaucracy. While he used fiery rhetoric in describing the Obama administration in a series of television interviews Sunday, he said he will focus on wasteful spending, not the prosecution of White House officials.

Now I've had my problems with Obama's first two years in office, but calling his administration "one of the most corrupt" seems a bit over the top, even for a fucking asshole like Issa.

Quote Of The Century

From Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah):

U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) today applauded the decision by U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Virginia that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority in mandating that every American purchase health insurance or face a fine.

“Today is a great day for liberty,” said Hatch. “Congress must obey the Constitution rather than make it up as we go along. Liberty requires limits on government, and today those limits have been upheld.”

Two problems with this quote: (1) fourteen other judges have upheld this provision, and (2) Orrin Hatch (are you ready for this) actually supported a bill that would have required an individual mandate.

Isn't it great to be a Republican? You can pretty much say or do whatever you want, and nobody in the so-called liberal media will ever call you on it. If a Democrat pulled a flip-flop of this magnitude, you'd never hear the end of it from FoxNews.

Palin Even Sucks At Hunting

Geesus:

"Sarah Palin took shots at a caribou on her TLC reality show; now critics are taking aim at Palin's hunting skills," the Wall Street Journal reports.

"A piece on The Awl pointed out several rookie mistakes that Palin apparently made during a hunting trip with her father that she filmed for Sarah Palin's Alaska. Among them was Palin's failure to sight her rifle before shooting and not personally loading shells into the gun she used. PETA is predictably responding negatively to the hunting footage as well."

Of course, Palin's performance as a hunter "would likely not be an issue if she hadn't touted her hunting experience in previous interviews."

Look, how hard is it to find a hunting expert up in Alaska to tell you how to do it right. It would be one thing if this was the first hunting trip that she'd even been on, but Christ -- she's held herself out as being the greatest hunter evah.

4th Amendment Underclothes

I like it.

Throwing Cans Of Worms In Glass Houses

I love this:

In the wake of news that Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, recently contacted Anita Hill, the woman behind a sexual harassment scandal that almost derailed the Justice during his confirmation hearings, Thomas's ex-girlfriend is now seeking to enter the fray with serious new allegations about his demeanor in the years before the Hill controversy. In an interview with the Washington Post, Lillian McEwen says Hill's allegations fit a pattern:

"He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners," McEwen told the Post, adding that he was particularly "partial to women with large breasts" and even would ask woman about their bra size.

"He was obsessed with porn," McEwen also said of Thomas, a claim that is particularly relevant to Hill's allegations that the then-chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had repeatedly relayed scenes from pornographic movies to her. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting," McEwen continued.

I bet Virginia Thomas is beginning to regret her decision to ask Anita Hill for an apology. Oh yes.

God Help Us

From The AP:

Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion.

The exchange came in a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, as O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons' position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine. Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that "religious doctrine doesn't belong in our public schools." "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" O'Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O'Donnell asked: "You're telling me that's in the First Amendment?" Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience. "You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp," Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O'Donnell's grasp of the Constitution.

Erin Daly, a Widener professor who specializes in constitutional law, said that while there are questions about what counts as government promotion of religion, there is little debate over whether the First Amendment prohibits the federal government from making laws establishing religion. "She seemed genuinely surprised that the principle of separation of church and state derives from the First Amendment, and I think to many of us in the law school that was a surprise," Daly said. "It's one thing to not know the 17th Amendment or some of the others, but most Americans do know the basics of the First Amendment." * * *

Please God -- Let This Happen

From Political Wire:

In an interview on Fox News, Sarah Palin (R) said she'd "offer herself up" to run for president in 2012 -- if no other good candidate stepped forward.

Said Palin: "A reason to run is if nobody else were to step up with the solutions that are needed to get the economy back on the right track and to be so committed to our national security that they are going to do all that they can, including fighting those on the extreme left who seem to want to dismantle some of our national security tools that we have in place. If nobody else wanted to step up... I would offer myself up in the name of service to the public."

I Love This

From CQ Politics:

Senate Republicans on Wednesday were expected to name a temporary replacement for Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski as their party leader on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to punish her for launching a write-in campaign after losing the GOP primary election. * * *

Murkowski, of course, isn't really losing much given that she's out of the Senate anyway if her write-in candidacy fails. Her five-word response to the GOP Senate leadership for doing this to her should simply be: Go Piss Up A Rope.

What A Mess (With Updates)

Boehner really stuck his foot in it this time:

Democrats are calling it a game-changer that might just save their butts in November. Republicans are shouting loudly from the rooftops they want the Bush-era tax cuts to be made permanent and that they think that means they will win this fall.

Whichever happens on Nov. 2, it all started with Minority Leader John Boehner's surprise embrace for President Obama's tax-cut plan. Boehner said if it was the only option presented to his party, he'd support Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats in voting for an extension of the tax cuts for the middle class only.

Republicans are being very coy about blasting Boehner (R-OH) openly just as the Democrats are reminding the nation that he wants to be speaker of the House should the GOP win back control. But reading between the lines of their actions, it's pretty clear that few of his colleagues agree with Boehner. Could it spell trouble for the GOP?

Ironically, I think Boehner is on the right track here. After all, if the Dems propose a middle class tax cut, would the GOP really be stupid enough to oppose it simply because rich people don't get one as well? That would be political suicide.

The Democrats are in a great position on this because they don't have to raise taxes on anyone. The Bush tax cuts expire, so no Democrat would actually have to cast a vote raising anyone's taxes. Plus, recent polling is firmly on the Dems' side on this particular issue.

The time has come for the Democratic Party to really start pushing back hard. Pre-election gifts like this one don't come around very often.

UPDATE: And speaking of political suicide:

Conservative activist Christine O'Donnell has earned a stunning victory in Delaware's Republican Senate primary.

O'Donnell's shocking win over longtime Congressman Mike Castle gives new energy to the tea party movement, which targeted Castle after victories by Republican tea party candidates in the Alaska and Nevada Senate primaries.

With 78 percent of precincts reporting, O'Donnell had 54 percent to 46 percent for Castle, a former two-term governor and the longest serving congressman in Delaware history.

While attracting enough GOP conservatives to defeat Castle, a leader of Republican moderates in Congress, O'Donnell will have a hard time defeating Democrat Chris Coons in November for the Senate seat vacated by Joe Biden after he was elected vice president.

Republican officials said privately before Tuesday's primary that they intended to write off the seat if O'Donnell was victorious against Castle. * * *

UPDATE II: This tweet from Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling -- reflecting the result of a poll PPP will be releasing today -- shows why the Republican Party Establishment has given up on Tea-Bagger O'Donnell:

"Castle primary voters supports Coons over O'Donnell 44-28 in general election."

I watched Fox News this morning -- as I always do when things go horribly wrong for the Republicans -- and Karl Rove was furious that O'Donnell won in Delaware. It was freaking hilarious.

Look, I Know The Radical Christian Right Is Fucked Up And All . . .

. . . but Geesus:

Focus on the Family has a message for gay rights activists: stay off the playground.

Candi Cushman, an education analyst for the James Dobson-founded group, told The Denver Post this weekend that gay rights advocates have inserted their agenda into anti-bullying efforts, at the expense of Christian values.

"We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled," Cushman told the Post.

In an email to TPM, Cushman expanded her argument. "Listing certain categories creates a system ripe for reverse discrimination, sending the message that certain characteristics are more worthy of protection than others," she said.

Cushman's argument has two levels: first, she says anti-bullying efforts wrongly put the focus on the "characteristics of the victim" instead of the "wrong actions of the bullies." Second, she thinks that gay rights activists are using the whole issue to sneak their agenda into the nation's schools. She denounced the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). * * *

The Partial Rehabilitation of George W. Bush (at least in my mind)

I found this Atlantic article on Iran interesting, particularly this part (via Think Progress):

[E]ven Bush balked at attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, and discouraged the Israelis from carrying out the attack on their own. (Bush would sometimes mock those aides and commentators who advocated an attack on Iran, even referring to the conservative columnists Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol as “the bomber boys,” according to two people I spoke with who overheard this.)

As noted in the above-linked Think Progress post, Dick Cheney "has admitted that he was in favor of a U.S. attack on Iran, but was vetoed by President Bush."

Don't get me wrong -- I still think that Bush was an awful president. But every so often I hear something about his presidency -- like his above-referenced refusal to attack Iran -- that makes me think he might not have been as big of a tool that he appeared to be. One example of this was when he openly questioned the need for a second tax cut for the rich -- he told Cheney something like, "didn't the rich already get one of these?"

Cheney ultimately convinced him that they in fact did need to further loot the treasury and hand out the tax cut; but what I found interesting about the aforementioned Iraq decision was that Cheney was unable to convince Bush to bomb Iran, something that Cheney really wanted him to do.

Quote Of The Week (With Update)

"We needed to have the press to be our friend. * * * We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it reported."

-- Sharron Angle, the teabagger running against Harry Reid, on FoxNews yesterday.

UPDATE: If you are still uncertain as to whether Sharron Angle is a batshit-crazy right-wing extremist Bible-beating tea-bagger, try this on for size:

It has become commonplace for Republicans to claim that Democratic policies violate this or that part of the Constitution. But Nevada's Senate Republican candidate Sharron Angle is taking that one step further, claiming that her opponent's legislative victories amount to a violation of the Bible's First Commandment.

"[T]hese programs that you mentioned -- that [President] Obama has going with [Harry] Reid and [Nancy] Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God," Angle said in a little noticed interview with Christian Radio this past spring. "And that's really what's happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We're supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government." * * *

Sen. David Vitter Is A Birther

In other words, Vitter is a racist:

Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana says he supports conservative organizations challenging President Barack Obama's citizenship in court.

Vitter, who is running for re-election, made the comments at a town hall-style event in Metairie, La., on Sunday when a constituent asked what he would do about what the questioner said was Obama's "refusal to produce a valid birth certificate."

Such claims about Obama's birth certificate have been discredited. But with the crowd applauding the question, Vitter responded that although he doesn't personally have legal standing to bring litigation, he supports "conservative legal organizations and others who would bring that to court," according to a video of the event. * * *

I doubt, however, that his racist position will hurt him in his home state.

Quote of the Day

“With Kagan’s confirmation hearings expected to last most of the week, Republicans may still have time to make cases against Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Gandhi.”

-- Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, commenting on the extent that Legendary Racist Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions (R-Ala) and other Republican senators have been attacking Thurgood Marshall during the Kagan confirmation hearings.

Quote Of The Week

"Actually, the oil is under a mile of sea water and another two-and-a-half miles under solid sediment earth, so I think God's done enough to prevent these spills."

-- Jon Stewart, responding to the Louisiana Senate's recent Designation of Statewide Prayer which stated, among other things, that mortals cannot solve the BP spill problem and that "it is clearly time for a miracle for us."

With regard to the whole Joe Barton BP apology fiasco, a recent poll shows that this is a very good issue for the Democrats (via Political Wire):

A new Public Policy Polling survey in Texas suggests Republicans are well advised to stay clear of Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) apology to oil giant BP for how they were treated by the Obama administration.

"The poll numbers indicate this is an issue where Democrats could find some resonance with independent voters. They see Barton negatively by a 35% to 14% margin, think he should lose his leadership post by a 45% to 29% spread, think Obama was right on this issue 59% to 29%, and oppose an apology to BP 75% to 12%. Given those numbers GOP leaders would probably like to see this issue disappear as soon as possible."

It appears, however, that Barton will keep his leadership post, which is great news for the Democrats.

Looks Like Republican Party Leaders Owe Rush Limbaugh An Apology (With Update)

From Political Wire:

Rush Limbaugh took aim at Republican leaders for rushing to demand Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) retract his controversial apology to oil giant BP during last week's congressional hearing, CNN reports.

Said Limbaugh: "It was a shakedown pure and simple. And somebody had the audacity to call it what it was and now everybody's running for the hills."

Limbaugh does have a point -- to a certain extent. All Barton was doing last week when he issued his "apology" to BP was echoing one set of GOP talking points on this issue. As Eugene Robinson pointed out this morning:

Joe Barton is not alone. The Texas congressman's lavish sympathy for BP -- which he sees not as perpetrator of a preventable disaster but as victim of a White House "shakedown" -- is actually what passes for mainstream opinion among conservative Republicans today. * * *

Had Barton made these comments on FoxNews or on Limbaugh's show, no controversy would have emerged. His mistake was that he made these comments during a televised Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, a committee on which he is the ranking Republican.

I, of course, think this whole thing is hilarious. The GOP basically has two sets of talking points on this issue. One set -- the anti-Obama talking points -- is for use only on radical right-wing talk radio and FoxNews, and is designed to keep the extremists of the party in line. The other set of talking points -- which features anti-BP rhetoric -- is designed for mainstream consumption with an eye toward the November Mid-Terms. The only time the GOP gets in trouble on this is when the radical set of talking points leaks into the mainstream coverage, which is what happened last week when Joe Barton opened his mouth in the wrong venue.

The amazing part of all this is that the Republicans feel comfortable having two completely different sets of talking points on this issue, and they are right to feel this way because (1) they know that most Republicans only get their news from Fox and the rest of the Extreme Right Wing Echo Chamber, and (2) they know that the Democrats will most likely give them a pass on this particular hypocrisy.

It's a nice place for the GOP to be, so long as folks like Barton simply remember that certain talking points should only be used for specific audiences. Needless to say, if the Democrats tried such a two-faced approach on an issue, the GOP would crucify them.

UPDATE: Jon Stewart gets it.

Quote Of The Week

"What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a 'tragedy', but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments."

-- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, responding to GOP Rep. Joe Barton's apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward wherein Barton said, among other things, that he's "ashamed" of the American response to BP’s oil spill and wherein he described the creation of the $20 billion claims fund as a "tragedy of the first proportion."

Quote of the Day

"It'd be a disaster for the Republican party."

-- GOP operative James Lacy, commenting on what the effect would be if Birther Queen Orly Taitz actually won the GOP primary for California Secretary of State.

After 40 Years?

Wow:

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper are separating after four decades of marriage. They just celebrated their 40th anniversary two weeks ago.

The Gores called the separation "a mutual and mutually supportive decision that we have made together." * * *