The Commentariat -- February 29, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Tom Friedman's latest. My column won't take you long to read and is meant to suggest, implicitly, that you can spend even less time on Friedman. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone: "As Occupy Wall Street spread across the nation last fall..., the Department of Homeland Security began keeping tabs on the movement.... The five-page report --  contained in 5 million newly leaked documents examined by Rolling Stone in an investigative partnership with WikiLeaks -- goes on to sum up the history of Occupy Wall Street and assess its 'impact' on everything from financial services to government facilities."

President Obama spoke to U.A.W. members yesterday. And good luck, GOP candidates. You ain't gonna beat this guy:

     ... Greg Sargent on the President's speech. ...

     ... Jamelle Bouie of American Prospect: "Obama Smash!" Yep.

CW: This bears repeating. New York Times Editors: "A wave of mergers between Roman Catholic and secular hospitals is threatening to deprive women in many areas of the country of ready access to important reproductive services." ...

... CW: So does this. New York Times Editors: "The state [of New Hampshire] extended the right to marry to all its citizens in 2009, but right-wingers vowed to overturn the law and now stand a good chance of doing so. Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, has said he would veto such a bill, but the Republicans in both houses of the Legislature have veto-proof majorities.... Iintolerance, fear and an attempt to impose religious beliefs through the law [are the] motivations, and they have been evident in abundance. Representative David Bates, the Republican who filed the repeal bill, argues that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice...."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) launched a pre-emptive strike against the GOP’s forthcoming budget during a committee hearing Tuesday morning, arguing that the Republicans’ plan to transform Medicare through 'premium support' would increase costs for seniors. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) is expected to release the party’s budget sometime next month, which will call for lowering federal health spending by providing seniors with a 'premium support' voucher to purchase insurance from an exchange of private health care plans." With a good video of Van Hollen questioning Medicare's chief actuary during a Congressional hearing.

Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "Western spy agencies for years have kept watch on a craggy peak in northwest Iran that houses of one the world’s most unusual nuclear sites. Known as Fordow, the facility is built into mountain bunkers designed to withstand aerial attack. Iran’s civil-defense chief has declared the site 'impregnable.' But impregnable it is not, say U.S. military planners who are increasingly confident of their ability to deliver a serious blow against Fordow, should the president ever order an attack." CW: Maybe this article should be headlined "Washington Post Assists Obama Administration."

John Sides & Lynn Vavrek in Model Politics: "Mitt Romney’s most recent offhand remarks — about his wife’s 'couple of Cadillacs' and his friendships with NASCAR team owners — once again illuminated his privilege.  Meanwhile, Rick Santorum’s challenge to Romney is built on his possible appeal to blue-collar voters — an appeal that could even help Santorum against Obama in November." Below are the results of a mid-February poll, in graphic form. CW: I'm not sure who the poll respondents are: voters, likely voters, adults???

Steve Kornacki of Salon: "... even if she wasn’t particularly helpful to them these past few years, [Sen Olympia] Snowe [R-Maine] is doing Democrats a huge favor now [by deciding not to run for re-election]. With Snowe in it, Democrats had virtually no chance of winning the Maine Senate race this year. Now they are likely to do so, given the state’s partisan bent. Two Democrats, Chellie Pingree and Michael Michaud, represent the state in the U.S. House now and are potential candidates. So is John Baldacci, who was governor from 2003 to 2011, and Tom Allen, who gave up his House seat after six terms in 2008 to run unsuccessfully against Sen. Susan Collins. The race is not a gimme for Democrats.... But it’s very, very winnable for them."

Right Wing World

NEW. Interesting post by Charles Pierce on Kelo v. Keystone XL pipeline. What's a winger to do?

Jon Stewart provides an update on GOP primary results & explains how to cover the news in Right Wing World. (Don't be surprised if this video doesn't load for you; the Comedy Central site is down for maintenance, & I had to go elsewhere for the vid; this one is problematic.)

Amy Gardner of the Washington Post writes an overview of what happens next in the GOP primary march. ...

... Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics employs his homemade delegate counter to conclude that "Assuming that none of the four candidates drops out of the race, it looks increasingly as if no one will be able to claim a majority of the delegates. The candidate with the best chance is Mitt Romney, but he probably wouldn't be able to wrap up the nomination until May or even June. The other candidates will probably have to hope for a brokered convention." ...

... Nonetheless, Dana Milbank writes Mitt Romney's nomination acceptance speech. Pretty much in Romney's own words, and pretty funny. The speech begins: "Fellow Republicans, as I stand here tonight to accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States, I feel like a million bucks. Actually, I feel as if I am worth between 150 and about 200 some-odd million dollars. It is difficult to say with certainty because some of it is in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Luxembourg and a Swiss bank account."

The Hypocrite of the Week Award comes early, thanks to Jed Lewison of Daily Kos, who produced this video:

... BUT ALL the GOP Presidential Candidates Are Hypocrites. Paul Krugman: "... as Republicans yell about Obama’s deficits and cry that we’re turning into Greece..., all of them, all of them, propose making the deficit bigger [than Obama's proposed budget]. And for what? For reverse Robin-Hoodism, taking from the poor and the middle class to lavish huge tax cuts on the rich. And I believe that all of them know this, too. It’s pure hypocrisy – and it’s all in the service of class warfare waged on behalf of the top 0.1 or 0.01 percent of the income distribution."

Michael Barbaro & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "After a bruising week in which he drew unwanted attention to his wealth, by declaring that his wife owned two Cadillacs and that he was friends with Nascar team owners, Mr. Romney said he had made 'some mistakes,' acknowledging that those off-the-cuff comments had damaged his campaign.... As Republicans across Michigan headed to the polls, the race here took a volatile new turn with the admission from Rick Santorum’s campaign that it had begun urging Democratic voters to turn out at the polls on Tuesday and vote against Mr. Romney."

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post: "While Mitt Romney is merely guilty of saying things that make him seem disconnected from the lives of most Americans, Rick Santorum makes ideological statements that make him appear to be disconnected from the present tense."

Local News

Richard Fausset of the Los Angeles Times: "... a new bill picking up steam in the statehouse in Atlanta would allow human history's most famous Top 10 List [-- the Ten Commandments --] to be displayed in all Georgia government buildings, including schools.... The bill ... is well-positioned to pass the state Senate. Rather predictably, the group Americans United For Separation of Church and State is raising red flags about the bill, and sending a pretty clear message to Georgia lawmakers: Thou shalt not feign surprise when thou art served with a lawsuit." CW: One of the funnier straight news reports you will read. Apparently the Georgia state legislators have nothing better to do than defy the U.S. Constitution & the intents of the Founding Fathers they so revere. Thanks to Dave S. for the link.

The Commentariat -- February 28, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is titled "Flaming Faucets! Fracking Joe Is Back!" Thsi one really irritated me. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. Okay, I'm vain:

... Also, do read Joan Walsh's post on the New York Times' repetition, without context, of Rick Santorum's fact-free claims about President Kennedy's position on separation of church & state.

News to Make Your Head Explode. Andrew Sorkin of the New York Times: "Last week, the American International Group reported a whopping $19.8 billion profit for its fourth quarter. It was quite a feat for a company that was on its death bed just a little over three years ago, so sick that it needed a huge taxpayer bailout. But ... $17.7 billion of that profit was pure fantasy — a tax benefit, er, gift, from the United States government. The company made only $1.6 billion during the quarter from actual operations. Yet A.I.G. not only received a tax benefit, it is unlikely to pay a cent of taxes this year, nor by some estimates, for at least a decade. The tax benefit ... is the result of a rule that the Treasury unilaterally bent for A.I.G. and several other hobbled companies in 2008 that has largely been overlooked." GM, Citigroup, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac got the same deal. CW: it is unclear to me if the AIG deal is wholly the work of Henry Paulson or if Tim Geithner keeps renewing a tax break that's coming out of your pocket. Geithner obviously is the guy who wrote the GM deal.

This New York Times piece by Michael Powell is billed as news, as far as I can tell, but it doesn't speak well of the New York Police Department's monitoring of Arab Americans from New Jersey to beyond the city limits on Long Island. The 9/11 attack, Powell writes, "may not confer immunity against tough questions, not the least of which is what sort of 'leads' justify monitoring hundreds of thousands of people."

President Obama spoke to the nation's governors yesterday morning:

... Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "President Obama did not mention Rick Santorum by name Monday morning, but it was pretty clear whom he had in mind. Three days after Mr. Santorum ... accused Mr. Obama of being a 'snob' and of trying to 'indoctrinate' young people by encouraging them to go to college, Mr. Obama responded. 'I have to make a point here,' Mr. Obama said during remarks to the nation’s governors at the White House. 'When I speak about higher education, we are not just talking about a four-year degree.'”

CW: I missed this news last week but it bears mention. Chris Geidner of Poliglot: "Today, [Judge Jeffrey White of] the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued its order finding that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act -- the federal definition of marriage -- is unconstitutional in Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management, Karen Golinski's challenge to the denial of her request for equal health insurance benefits for her wife." ...

... "Blatantly Unconstitutional Law Ruled Unconstitutional." Andy Rosenthal of the New York Times: "When the Republican candidates stop blathering about contraceptives, I’m sure they’ll brush off Judge White as an 'activist' who 'rules from the bench.' Before doing so they should consider that 1) George W. Bush appointed Judge White and 2) In his ruling, Judge White invoked the right-wing sacred cow, state rights. He chided that the law represents 'a stark departure from tradition and a blatant disregard of the well-accepted concept of federalism in the area of domestic relations.'"

Arun Gupta in Salon on how the Occupy movement is struggling with self-governance. "In a leaderless movement, who – if anyone – gets to call the shots, initiate actions, represent the group, and perhaps most important, hold people accountable by enforcing authority, order and discipline? Exactly how democratic must a people’s movement be? ... Democracy is not 'everyone does what everyone wants to....'”

Cecelia Kang of the Washington Post: "From videos watched on YouTube to the terms typed in a Google search, tracking [user] behaviors will enable [Google] to sell ads better suited to its customers’ tastes." CW: Great! They'll probably be trying to sell me golf shirts with little pictures of David Brooks embroidered on the pockets.

... Bad News. Michael Shear of the New York Times: David Boren, a former Democratic senator and governor & is now president of the University of Oklahoma, is supporting the third-party effort of Americans Elect. Boren backed Barack Obama in 2008. Boren says he won't necessarily support the eventual Americans Elect ticket, CW: Americans Elect is hedge-fund-funded & a fave of Tom Friedman. For unfathomable reasons, Boren thinks a third party would improve the two-party system. ...

... Better News. Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Bob Kerrey, who just weeks ago insisted he would maintain his life in New York City rather than run for his old Senate seat from Nebraska, has done an about-face. Mr. Kerrey has told several Senate Democrats that he’s in the race, a senior Democratic official said on Monday." CW: as Kerrey's flip-flop suggests, he's not that great a decider. I think of him as "Last Minute Bob." But his last-minute decisions are often good ones.

Right Wing World

News Flash! Daniel Strauss of The Hill: Saint Rick regrets his emesistic reaction to John F. Kennedy's pledge to respect the First Amendment.

Thanks for being so nice & fixing us a fancy dinner, Mr. President. P.S. You're an incompetent, liberal extremist. -- Republican Governors

Willard, We Hardly Knew Ya. Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed finds something quite good to say about Mitt Romney. You should read it.

M. J. Lee of Politico: "Mitt Romney blasted Rick Santorum’s campaign Tuesday for robocalls encouraging Democrats in Michigan to vote in the Republican primary, blasting the tactic as outrageous and disgusting. 'It’s a dirty trick. It’s outrageous to see Rick Santorum team up with the Obama people and go out after the union labor in Detroit to try to get them to vote against me,' Romney said on 'Fox & Friends' on the day of the Michigan and Arizona primaries. 'Look, we don’t want Democrats deciding who our nominee’s going to be, we want Republicans deciding who our nominees are going to be.'”

Sandhya Somashekhar & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Rick Santorum calls it snobbery to suggest that students ought to go to college. On Monday, several of his fellow Republicans — and President Obama — begged to differ. Some GOP governors in Washington for the National Governors Association took issue with Santorum’s remark, which he made Saturday as he mounted a last-minute sprint for votes before Tuesday’s primary in Michigan."

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Santorum clearly mischaracterized Obama’s comments on college, which actually mirror Santorum’s own views. Obama did not say he wanted 'everybody in America to go to college.' Santorum also completely misstated the results of research on the impact of college attendance on religious behavior. The relevant studies suggest that going to college actually increases religious attendance (albeit with perhaps a bit more skeptical mind)."

The Fatwa Candidate. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post: "Santorum’s views on the place of religion and his quaint ideas about education are ... anachronistic." But they resonate "with Republican primary voters. On the other hand, when Rick Perry said it was fine to help the children of undocumented aliens go to college, he got pilloried for it. When Gingrich balked at deporting literally millions of people, he was excoriated. Every time some Republican says something sensible, the roof falls in on him.... For nutty ideas, Santorum is a one-man band."

** Kollege Makes Konservatives Dummer. Chris Mooney in AlterNet: "... , better-educated Republicans were more skeptical of modern climate science than their less educated brethren.... For Democrats and Independents, the opposite was the case. More education correlated with being more accepting of climate science — among Democrats, dramatically so.... Tea Party members appear to be the worst of all.... But it’s not just global warming where the 'smart idiot' effect occurs. It also emerges on nonscientific but factually contested issues, like the claim that President Obama is a Muslim.... The same effect has also been captured in relation to the myth that the healthcare reform bill empowered government 'death panels.'" ...

... Paul Krugman: "Highly educated political conservatives — and this includes conservative economists — are going to be less persuadable by empirical evidence than the man or woman in the street. The more holes you poke in doctrines like expansionary austerity or supply-side economics, the more committed they will get to those doctrines." ...

... We need to look at the situation of gas prices today. We went into a recession in 2008 because of gasoline prices. The bubble burst in housing because people couldn't pay their mortgages because we're looking at $4 a gallon gasoline. And look at what happened, economic decline. -- Economist Rick Santorum, yesterday, proving once again to be a case study for nearly everything that's wrong with the right

Why Right Wing World R Us. Robert Reich: "In parliamentary systems of government, small groups representing loony fringes can be absorbed relatively harmlessly into adult governing coalitions. But here, as we’re seeing, a loony fringe can take over an entire party — and that party will inevitably take over some part of our federal, state, and local governments.As such, the loony right is a clear and present danger."

Local News

** Mark LaMet of ABC 15, Phoenix, Arizona: "Arizona Senator Ron Gould, a Republican, is calling  for his opponent, Sheriff Paul Babeu to resign as Sheriff and drop out of the race for Congress after an ABC15 Investigation uncovered allegations of physical and sexual abuse at a boarding school where Babeu was once Headmaster and Executive Director. While Babeu was in charge, the Office of Child Care Services in Massachusetts found the DeSisto School was unlicensed. The state’s investigation also reveals students 'strip searched' each other and 'routinely took group showers ... leading to sexual abuse'":

Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: in "New Hampshire..., lawmakers may soon vote to repeal the state’s two-year-old law allowing gay couples to wed. A repeal bill appears to have a good chance of passing in the State House and Senate, which are both controlled by Republicans. The bigger question is whether they can muster enough votes to overcome a promised veto from Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat."

News Ledes

At 9:00 pm ET: Romney wins Arizona. Michigan way too close to call. The Washington Post coverage is more timely than the New York Times', which is here. ...

     ... Update: NBC News predicts Romney wins Michigan @ 10:15 pm ET.

** Maine's Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe will not seek re-election according to the Maine Press Herald. ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Citing excessive partisanship and a dispiriting political environment, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a three-term Republican from Maine, said Tuesday that she would not run for re-election in November. Her surprise decision delivered a potential blow to Republicans who need just a handful of seats to regain control of the Senate; Ms. Snowe was considered one of their safer incumbents." Washington Post story here.

AP (via NYT): "Twenty-five suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America, Interpol, the global police agency, said on Tuesday."

Michigan and Arizona Republicans vote in their presidential primaries today. Here's the New York Times story.

AP: "The Dow closed above 13,000 for the first time since May 19, 2008, almost four months before the fall of the Lehman Brothers investment bank triggered the worst of the financial crisis. It just cleared the mark — 13,005.12, up 23.61 points for the day."

New York Times: "Federal health officials on Tuesday added new safety alerts to statins, cholesterol-reducing medications that are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the world, citing the rare risks of memory loss, increased blood sugar levels and muscle pain. It is the first time that the Food and Drug Administration has officially linked statin use with cognitive problems like forgetfulness and confusion, although some patients have reported such problems for years. Among the drugs affected are such huge sellers as Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor and Vytorin."

New York Times: "The mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware disposed of some body parts of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by burning them and dumping the ashes in a landfill, an independent panel said in a report released on Tuesday."

Guardian: "Paul Conroy, the British Sunday Times photographer who was wounded in the besieged city of Homs, has been smuggled out of Syria to Lebanon in a dramatic rescue. According to those familiar with his escape a number of Syrian opposition activists died during the rescue effort after they came under artillery fire while leaving the city."

Guardian: "St Paul's Cathedral [in the City of London] has been accused of 'betraying' Occupy London activists after giving the City of London police permission to remove protesters from its steps and end the four-and-a-half month camp. The cathedral's decision, coupled with a previous high court decision obtained by the City of London, meant police successfully removed the entire Occupy London Stock Exchange camp from the square outside St Paul's. Police said 20 people had been arrested by 4.30am in the 'largely peaceful' operation."

The Commentariat -- February 27, 2012

** That's No Elephant; It's a Wooly Mammoth. Jonathan Chait writes a terrific feature for New York magazine: Republicans aren't paranoid; they're right -- they're becoming extinct. "Portents of this future were surely rendered all the more vivid by the startling reality that the man presiding over the new majority just happened to be, himself, young, urban, hip, and black. When jubilant supporters of Obama gathered in Grant Park on Election Night in 2008, Republicans saw a glimpse of their own political mortality. And a galvanizing picture of just what their new rulers would look like." ...

... Here's a clip of a speech that proves Chait's point. And, no, I would never accuse Rick Santorum of race-baiting:

James Hohmann of Politico: "A new Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll reveals the prolonged nominating battle is taking a toll on the GOP candidates and finds the president’s standing significantly improved from late last year. President Barack Obama’s approval rating is 53 percent, up 9 percentage points in four months. Matched up against his Republican opponents, he leads Mitt Romney by 10 points (53-43) and Rick Santorum by 11 (53-42). Even against a generic, unnamed Republican untarnished by attacks, Obama is up 5 percentage points. In November, he was tied."

** Thomas Edsall in the New York Times: "If enacted, the tax proposals Mitt Romney outlined last week to the Detroit Economic Club would provide multimillion-dollar benefits to a newly powerful constituency: the rich men and women who are bankrolling 'super PACs.' ... The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, and a series of related cases..., have undermined the democratic character of the presidential nomination process by empowering the rich to exert disproportionate control over it.... The putative independence of presidential super PACs from the candidates they support is a fiction." 

David Savage of McClatchy News: "Two years ago, the Supreme Court said corporations were like people and had the same free-speech rights to spend unlimited sums on campaigns ads. Now, in a major test of human rights law, the justices will decide whether corporations are like people when they are sued for aiding foreign regimes that kill or torture their own people.... On Tuesday, the justices will hear an appeal of a suit accusing Royal Dutch Petroleum and its Shell subsidiary in the United States of aiding a former Nigerian regime whose military police tortured, raped and executed minority residents in the oil-rich delta. The victims included famed Nigerian author and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa."

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/02/26/140047/supreme-court-to-weigh-torture.html#storylink=cpy

Robert Reich: "The Obama administration is proposing to lower corporate taxes from the current 35 percent to 28 percent for most companies and to 25 percent for manufacturers. The move is supposed to be 'revenue neutral' -- meaning the Administration is also proposing to close assorted corporate tax loopholes to offset the lost revenues.... Why isn’t the White House just proposing to close the loopholes without reducing overall corporate tax rates? ... It’s discouraging. The President gives a rousing speech, as he did on December 6 in Kansas. Then he misses an opportunity to put his campaign where his mouth is."

Eileen Sullivan of the AP: "Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance. The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA."

Matthew Rosenberg & Thom Shanker of the New York Times: "... American officials described a growing concern, even at the highest levels of the Obama administration and Pentagon, about the challenges of pulling off a troop withdrawal in Afghanistan that hinges on the close mentoring and training of army and police forces. Despite an American-led training effort that has spanned years and cost tens of billions of dollars, the Afghan security forces are still widely seen as riddled with dangerously unreliable soldiers and police officers." Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post tells the same story.

Still Watching. Tanzina Vega of the New York Times: "Last Thursday federal regulators, members of advertising trade groups and technology companies gathered in Washington to announce new initiatives to protect consumers’ privacy online.... The industry’s compromise on a 'Do Not Track' mechanism is one result of continuing negotiations among members of the Federal Trade Commission, which first called for such a mechanism in its initial privacy report; the Commerce Department; the White House; the Digital Advertising Alliance; and consumer privacy advocates.... Many publishers and search engines, like Google, Amazon or The New York Times, are considered 'first-party sites,' which means that the consumer goes to these Web pages directly. First-party sites can still collect data on visitors and serve them ads based on what is collected."

Jason Ullner, a career foreign service officer, in a Washington Post op-ed: "I am a federal bureaucrat. A professional government employee. And guess what? I’m damn proud of it. It seems that all I hear these days are the once and future leaders of our country tripping over themselves to denigrate the work we do.... Most of us do this job not because we want to make a lot of money but because, simply put, we want to serve our country."

Neal Ascherson in a New York Times op-ed: "If [Scottish First Minister Alex] Salmond has his way, [a referendum] vote will take place in 2014, just shy of 700 years after King Robert the Bruce defeated the English at Bannockburn. And he wants only one question on the ballot paper: 'Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?'”

Paul Krugman: on the Eurocrisis, there's a Republican story (welfare state!) and a German story (fiscal irresponsibility!), and they're both wrong.

Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "Patrick J. Kennedy lashed out at Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts on Sunday, asking him to stop invoking the name of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s father, in a radio advertisement about insurance coverage for contraceptives.... In a letter that the Brown campaign released on Sunday, Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat like his father, wrote: 'Providing health care to every American was the work of my father’s life. The Blunt Amendment you are supporting is an attack on that cause.'”

Right Wing World

The deficit hawks who are the Washington Post editorial board are fit to be tied: "At a time of record debts and deficits, the two leading Republican presidential candidates are proposing a path on taxes and spending likely to add trillions more. That’s the sobering conclusion of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), whose board includes six Republican former lawmakers with expertise in budget issues, three Republican former heads of the Congressional Budget Office, and two former Office of Management and Budget directors under Republican presidents." ... 

... "Primary Numbers." The CRFB estimated that Romney's plan would increase deficits by $250 billion through 2021, resulting in 2021 debt levels at about 86 percent of GDP. Santorum's plan would increase deficits by $4.5 trillion through 2021, with debt levels at about 104 percent of GDP. Gingrich's proposal would increase deficits by $7.0 trillion, for a debt level at about 114 percent of GDP. But wait. Ron Paul is totally fiscally responsible: Paul's plan would reduce deficits by $2.2 trillion, yielding a 2021 debt level of about 76 percent of GDP. “However a larger portion of this debt reduction is a result of Paul’s policy to cancel all federal debt held by the Federal Reserve System.” Say what?! You can read the CRFB's executive summary here, which may be as good a comparison of the GOP candidates' budget proposals as you'll find.

** Rick Hertzberg sums up the GOP primary race as only he can. For example, here's his description of the base to whom the candidates scrape & bow: "an excitable, overlapping assortment of Fox News friends, Limbaugh dittoheads, Tea Party animals, war whoopers, nativists, Christianist fundamentalists, à la carte Catholics (anti-abortion, yes; anti-torture, no), anti-Rooseveltians (Franklin and Theodore), global-warming denialists, post-Confederate white Southrons, creationists, birthers, market idolaters, Europe demonizers, and gun fetishists."

Quotes of the Day. I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks. -- Mitt Romney, to a group of NASCAR fans wearing plastic ponchos at Daytona Beach

     I have some great friends who are Nascar team owners. -- Mitt Romney, responding to someone asking if he was a NASCAR fan

Question of the Day. How can a guy who is so practiced at being a lying phony still be so bad at it?

Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "Two days before the Arizona and Michigan primaries, Rick Santorum on Sunday made a broad appeal to social conservatives, arguing that religion and conservative principles are at risk, both on college campuses and in the public square. On ABC’s 'This Week,' with George Stephanopoulos, Mr. Santorum repeated his belief that President Obama is wrong — is, indeed, a 'snob' — for encouraging all Americans to go to college. And he defended his view that John F. Kennedy, before he became president, was wrong to assert that the separation of church and state should be absolute." This guy is unbelievable:

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM discovers that Michigan Tea Partiers agree with Santorum: Obama's push to provide broader access to higher education is just wrong. Here are a few choice quotes from the Santorum intelligentsia: "Everybody can’t be equal. Somebody needs to do the manual labor.” “It starts down at the elementary school level with all this bullshit about diversity, pardon my French... Diversity and sensitivity and all that crap.” “They try and disguise it with, you know, ‘equal opportunity.’” “It’s communism.” “Where does the social engineering stop? Does it become the Soviet Union?” ...

... BUT Dave Weigel of Slate notes, "Obama hasn't told the lumpen proletariart to go to liberal arts schools and become indoctrinated in left-wing thought and a cappela. His universal college call, which took on form in 2009, was for some kind of higher education. Trade schools? Have at it. Politically, here, it hardly matters. As he does on many topics, Santorum skillfully cracks open a policy issue and finds the culture war walnut within." Facts are such a pain.

... AND Santorum wasn't always Uneducated Man. McMorris-Santoro publishes a screengrab from Santorum's 2006 Senate campaign site. It reads, in part, "In addition to Rick's support of ensuring that primary and secondary schools in Pennsylvania are equipped for success, he is equally committed to ensuring that every Pennsylvanian has access to higher education."

... John Cole of Balloon Juice: "Nowhere in the speech did [Kennedy] dictate that people of faith could have no role in public life. Nowhere. Santorum is lying or stupid or both, and I’m going to go with both and throw in a dash of evil. What Santorum wants is not religious freedom. What he wants is the freedom to force you to live by his religious beliefs." ...

Wherein Saint Ronald of Reagan Makes Rick Santorum Throw Up: We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. -- Ronald Reagan, October 1984 ...

Digby: "I don't think Ricky understands his history very well. Evidently, he was unaware that in 1960, conservatives thought of Catholics the same way think of Muslims today. He seems under the impression that America was a wonderful religiously tolerant nation until the horrible secularists came along and ruined everything. I guess he didn't know about this, perpetuated, by the way, not by the secularists who didn't give a damn, but by his favorite allies, the right wing protestants." ...

... A Unique Way to Stop Iran from Getting Nuclear Weaponry. In case you are the last person on the planet who thinks Santorum is not sex-obsessed --

News Ledes

New York Times Caucus: "Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona announced on Sunday, two days before the state’s Republican presidential primary, that she would endorse Mitt Romney...." That'll help.

New York Times: "The officer leading a police investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers said on Monday that reporters and editors at The Sun tabloid had over the years paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for information not only to police officers but also to a “network of corrupted officials” in the military and the government." The Guardian story, with video of testimony, is here.

Reuters: "The trial to decide who should pay for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been delayed by a week, to allow BP Plc to try to cut a deal with tens of thousands of businesses and individuals affected by the disaster. Less than 24 hours before the case was set to start in a New Orleans federal court, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier pushed back the date to March 5 from February 27."

Reuters: "A suicide car bomber killed at least nine people in an attack on a military airport in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, officials said, the latest incident of violence and protests since copies of the Koran were inadvertently burned at a NATO base last week."

New York Times: "Russian television reported early on Monday that a joint operation by Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services succeeded in averting an assassination attempt on Vladimir V. Putin, just days before he hopes to secure a six-year presidential term which would extend his rule as Russia‘s paramount leader to 18 years."

Al Jazeera: "Senegal's presidential vote appears set for a runoff, with results indicating that incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade has failed to win an outright majority. Tallies reported since the vote finished on Sunday night show Wade leading and former Prime Minister Macky Sall close behind, suggesting the two will face off in a second round."

Guardian: "Syrian government troops fired heavy barrages of artillery and rockets on Monday into districts across Homs, where rebels have been holding out through weeks of bombardment, opposition activists said."

AP: "Pakistani authorities have reduced the house where Osama bin Laden lived for years before he was killed by U.S. commandos to rubble, destroying a concrete symbol of the country's association with one of the world's most reviled men.Workers completed the demolition job in the garrison town of Abbottabad in northwest Pakistan on Monday."