The Commentariat -- January 15, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Frank Bruni's latest escape from fact-based commentary. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute to NYTX here.

Nicholas Kristof: GOP presidential candidates warn that President Obama wants to turn the U.S. into a European socialist nation. "... it is worth acknowledging Europe’s labor rigidities and its lethargy in resolving the current economic crisis.... But embracing a caricature of Europe as a failure reveals our own ignorance — and chauvinism." Despite problems, Western Europe is doing better economically and socially than the U.S.

I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way. -- Former Penn State Coach Joe Paterno, on why he didn't confront Jerry Sandusky, accused of 50 counts of child sexual abuse ...

... Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post interviewed Paterno on the Sandusky scandal. Her story is here. Video of Jenkins discussing the interview is here, and includes brief audio clips of the interview. The Post's page on the scandal is here.

Paul Krugman: Angela Merkel, "Still barreling down the road to nowhere."

CW: Here's a Friday afternoon White House document dump I missed (and of course that's the idea). Carol Leonnig & Joe Stephens of the Washington Post: "Senior White House officials were warned that solar-panel-maker Solyndra planned to announce layoffs just before the hotly contested November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show. The White House also got advance notice that the company had agreed to postpone delivering the politically damaging news, according to the e-mails provided Friday by a government source. Energy Department officials persuaded the company to delay the announcement until after Election Day."

Jonathan Alter in the Washington Monthly: President "Obama was reportedly stunned that [White House Chief-of-Staff Bill] Daley quit after only a year in the post, but he shouldn’t have been. The affable Chicago banker had already experienced Washington’s classic death of a thousand cuts."

For a project I'm working on, I just read Jimmy Carter's 1976 Democratic convention nomination acceptance speech. We have not come a long way, baby. But the goals President Carter expressed in the bicentennial year are still worthy -- and most are still just goals more than 35 years later. Hope springs eternal, even if progress is much too elusive.

Right Wing World

** Mitt Romney Was Always a Liar. William Cohan, in a Washington Post op-ed: When Mitt Romney was running Bain Capital, Cohan has first-hand knowledge that Bain didn't play fair; it so often played bait-and-switch, to the unfair detriment of companies for sale, that Cohan refused to deal with Bain. Bain's "word [was] not worth the paper it [was] printed on.... This win-at-any-cost approach makes me wonder how a President Romney would negotiate with Congress, or with China, or with anyone else — and what a promise, pledge or endorsement from him would actually mean.... When he was running Bain Capital, his word was not his bond." ...

... 'Corporations are people'? In this little figure of speech, wouldn’t that make Mitt Romney a metaphorical serial killer? ... Steve Benen, August 11, 2011 ...

... "Mitt the Ripper," courtesy of the Stephen Colbert Jon Stewart superPAC (sorry, this thing may just start on you uninvited; just click it off):

... For a slightly less bombastic take, here's a brief clip of Paul Krugman on Fareed Zakaria's GPS:

... Mitt Romney Is White! He's Really White! Lee Siegel in a New York Times op-ed: "Mr. Romney’s Mormonism may end up being a critical advantage. Evangelicals might wring their hands over the prospect of a Mormon president, but there is no stronger bastion of pre-civil-rights-America whiteness than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.... Mr. Romney meticulously cultivates [his] whiteness.... He is implacably polite, tossing off phrases like 'oh gosh' with Stepford bonhomie.... He has ... a practiced insincerity, an instant sunniness that, though evidently inauthentic, provides a bland note that keeps everyone calm. This is the bygone world of Babbitt, of small-town Rotarians. Mr. Romney does not merely use the past as an inspirational reference point.... He conjures it as a total social, cultural and political experience that must be resurrected and reinhabited." ...

... Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: But many white evangelical Christians consider Mormonism apostasy. ...

... Maureen Dowd begins, then drops an attempt to compare & contrast Romney & Obama, but some of the details she provides about Romney are mildly interesting. ...

... Your Sickening Romney Story of the Day -- A Come-to-Willard Moment. Emily Friedman of ABC News. "God" tells a desperate unemployed South Carolina woman to seek out Mitt Romney and Romney reaches into his wallet and pulls out "about $50 or $60," and gives it to the woman. Noblesse oblige. The woman is now voluntarily cleaning Romney's Columbia, South Carolina campaign office -- I guess Romney got his money's worth. A jobs program worthy of Newt Gingrich's schoolkids-to-janitors plan. Who needs big government when the needy can beg political candidates for alms?

Stephen Colbert appears on ABC News's "This Week with Whoever." The interview might have gone better if "Whoever" had not been George Stephanopoulos. Colbert discusses, among other things, the superPAC ad "Mitt the Ripper," seen -- sometimes without your prompting -- above:

News Ledes

No SOPA. AP: "The Obama administration raised concerns Saturday about efforts in Congress that it said would undermine 'the dynamic, innovative global Internet,' urging lawmakers to approve measures this year that balance the need to fight piracy and counterfeiting against an open Internet. White House officials said in a blog post that it would not support pending legislation that 'reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk' or undermines the global Internet, cautioning the measure could discourage innovation and startup businesses." ...

... Update: here's the White House's response to two anti-SOPA ("Stop Online Piracy Act") petitions it received. ...

... Update 2: The Hill: "House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said early Saturday morning that Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) promised him the House will not vote on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) unless there is consensus on the bill."

The Hill: "The Obama administration has signaled to allies that it will take a more aggressive role this year in protecting homeowners from foreclosure, a posture that fits with Obama’s populist campaign stance."

Reuters: "Iran said [in a letter directed to U.S. officials] on Saturday it had evidence Washington was behind the latest killing of one of its nuclear scientists, state television reported, at a time when tensions over the country's nuclear program have escalated to their highest level ever.

Reuters: "A South Korean honeymoon couple and an injured crewmember were plucked from a capsized Italian liner on Sunday, more than a day after it was wrecked, as rescue workers struggled to find any others still trapped on board. Teams were painstakingly checking thousands of cabins on the Costa Concordia for people still unaccounted for after the huge vessel foundered and keeled over with more than 4,000 on board, killing at least three people and injuring 70."

Reuters: "Influential evangelical Christian leaders endorsed Rick Santorum on Saturday for the Republican presidential nomination, in an attempt to strengthen him as the more conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney."

Reuters: "European leaders promised on Saturday to speed up plans to strengthen spending rules and get a permanent bailout fund up and running as soon as possible, a day after U.S.agency S&P cut the ratings of several euro zone countries' creditworthiness."

The Commentariat -- January 14, 2012

The Commentariat is open for comments.

President Obama's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here. Mark Landler & Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "President Obama on Friday announced an aggressive campaign to shrink the size of the federal government, a proposal less notable for its goal — the fight against bloat has been embraced by every modern-day president — than for the political challenge it poses to a hostile Congress. Mr. Obama called on lawmakers to grant him broad new powers to propose mergers of agencies, which Congress would then have to approve or reject in an up-or-down vote."

Bill Moyers Is Back! You can catch his entire show online at BillMoyers.com. Many PBS stations are also carrying the show, though it doesn't appear to be on their regular primetime schedule. I tried the Moyers program schedule finder and it didn't work, so alternatively, you can go to the PBS station program finder. (The PBS page automatically went to my local station; it might do the same for you.) The segment below -- which leads Moyers' first show -- is truly compelling:

Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Josh Lederman of The Hill: "Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) sent Democrat Elizabeth Warren a letter on Friday challenging her to join him in denouncing outside groups, who have already spent millions on attack ads in the race. Rather than ignore the challenge, Warren called Brown on his cell phone — and sent him a letter proposing a meeting between the two campaigns to reach an 'enforceable agreement' to rein in the outside groups. Now the Brown campaign says it will dispatch its campaign manager to meet with his counterpart in Warren's campaign."

Jason Zinoman of the New York Times: Stephen "Colbert is a serious performer playing a silly character, while the media and political world are deeply silly but pretending to be serious. That was never more clearly illustrated than in the most triumphant part of his show on Thursday, when the respected [???] Politico writer Mike Allen offered a (mock?) serious analysis of his prospects, citing polls and strategy.... You’ve heard of fantasy baseball? This is fantasy politics. And it’s perfectly suited to a cycle in which journalists spent weeks obsessing over the political future of the host of 'The Apprentice.'”

Right Wing World

Mitt Romney -- American Populist, a/k/a Lie of the Day. I'm concerned about the poor in this country. We have to make sure the safety net is strong and able to help those who can't help themselves. I'm not terribly worried about the very wealthiest in our society; they're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the vast middle class of our nation, the 90 percent of Americans, the 95 percent of Americans who are having tough times. -- Mitt Romney

In a barely audible caveat, Romney added, "That's why I plan to drastically lower taxes on rich people like me and raise them on the poor and middle class." CW: Well, that's what I heard anyway. Brian Beutler of TPM has the lowdown on Romney's tax plan from hell. (I also linked this a couple of weeks ago.) ...

... ** "Untruths, Wholly Untrue and Nothing but Untruths." Paul Krugman: "... is there anything at all in Romney’s stump speech that’s true? It’s all based on attacking Obama for apologizing for America, which he didn’t, on making deep cuts in defense, which he also didn’t, and on being a radical redistributionist who wants equality of outcomes, which he isn’t. When the issue turns to jobs, Romney makes false assertions both about Obama’s record and about his own. I can’t find a single true assertion anywhere."

... Steve Benen: "Last week, I launched a new Friday afternoon feature, highlighting the Republican frontrunner’s most offensive falsehoods from the previous week. Last week was a Top 5 list, but thanks to two debates and a victory speech, we had enough examples to fill a Top 10 list." CW: Benen's list is worth a read. And Benen doesn't even mention Romney's claim he cares more about the poor than the rich. ...

... Here's one Romney lie Benen cites: "Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney asserted that federal low-income programs are administered so inefficiently that 'very little of the money that’s actually needed by those that really need help, those that can’t care for themselves, actually reaches them." But Jared Bernstein posts this bar graph from the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities that disproves Romney's claim:

... Matea Gold, et al., of the Los Angeles Times: "As Mitt Romney defends his record running a private equity firm, he frequently points to a fast-growing Indiana steel company, financed in part by Bain Capital, that now employs 6,000 workers. What Romney doesn't mention is that Steel Dynamics also received generous tax breaks and other subsidies provided by the state of Indiana and the residents of DeKalb County, where the company's first mill was built. The story of Bain and Steel Dynamics illustrates how Romney, during his business career, made avid use of public-private partnerships, something that many conservatives consider to be 'corporate welfare.' It is a commitment that carried over into his term as governor of Massachusetts, when he offered similar incentives to lure businesses to his state. Yet as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination, he emphasizes government's adverse effects on economic growth.... Another steel company in which Bain invested, GS Industries, went bankrupt in 2001, causing more than 700 workers to lose their jobs, health insurance and a part of their pensions. Before going under, the company paid large dividends to Bain partners and expanded its Kansas City plant with the help of tax subsidies. It also sought a $50-million federal loan guarantee." Thanks to Dave S. for the link. ...

... Dana Milbank compares Willard to Al Gore & John Kerry, all millionaires who would be president. ...

... Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "Romney asserts that President Obama wants to 'fundamentally transform America,' turning the country 'into a European-style entitlement society.' In fact, Romney and his Republican presidential rivals have a far more radical transformation in mind. They envision a dramatically shrunken federal government and a dangerously unraveled social safety net.

Scott Powers of the Orlando Sentinel: "Saying he does not want false claims made on his behalf, Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Friday morning called on a 'super PAC' that supports him to withdraw commercials it ran in South Carolina criticizing Mitt Romney and his old company Bain Capital. Gingrich made the call to a crowd of supporters at his new Orlando campaign headquarters, saying there is no way he can legally contact Winning Our Future to make the request directly."

Si vous êtes un républicain, il est important d'être ignorant. CW: Newt Gingrich runs an ad against Mitt Romney with a French accordian music soundtrack the ad claims Romney is just like John Kerry because they both speak French. (Romney was a Mormon missionary in France for two years.) The funniest part is that in the ad clips, Romney speaks first-year -week high school French with an American accent, and Kerry says "Laissez les bons temps rouler," a Cajun construction familiar even to Americans who haven't struggled through that difficult first week of French class:

Horse Race. Richard Stevenson of the New York Times: neither Obama nor Romney is very appealing to white working-class voters, but they are critical to the 2012 race. If you're interested in the horse race, this is a pretty good analysis of this demographic. ...

... Horse Race. Ron Brownstein of the National Journal: "... a series of recent Quinnipiac University surveys in key swing states shows that as Romney enters the general election, blue-collar whites are inclined to trust him to revive the economy more than President Obama -- whom they have resisted since his emergence as a national candidate in 2008."

Gail Collins on the billionaires' campaign of 2012.

News Ledes

Reuters: "A U.S. judge on Friday, in a victory for the Obama administration, upheld new federal rules requiring gun dealers in four states bordering Mexico to report the sales of multiple semi-automatic rifles, despite a challenge by the gun industry."

Reuters: "Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro-zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday the 13th for the troubled single currency area." ...

... Reuters: "Ratings downgrades in the euro zone by S&P underline why Europe must seal a pact to tighten fiscal rules quickly and get its permanent bailout fund up and running as soon as possible, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday."

New York Times: "President Ma Ying-jeou [of Taiwan] was re-elected by a comfortable margin on Saturday, fending off a fierce challenge from his main rival, Tsai Ing-wen, who criticized his handling of the economy but also sought to exploit fears among voters that his conciliatory approach toward China was eroding the island’s sovereignty."

AP (via the NYT): "Mohamed ElBaradei, a former top United Nations nuclear official and a Nobel Prize winner, said Saturday that he was pulling out of the presidential race in Egypt to protest the military’s failure to put the country on the path to democracy."

Reuters: "Small Iranian military motorboats approached U.S. vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz twice last week but the Pentagon said the interactions were not seen as hostile, even at a moment of heightened tensions between the two countries."

Politico: "Following a hearing in Richmond [Friday], U.S. district judge John Gibney ruled against Rick Perry's challenge to the Virginia ballot rules. In his opinion, Gibney says Perry, and the other candidates who joined the challenge, waited too long to bring the suit.... The decision means Perry, as well as Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman, will not appear on the ballot in the state's March 6 primary."

The Commentariat -- January 13, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on New York Times public editor Art Brisbane's post asking readers if they would like Times reporters to fact-check statements made by the subjects of (and others cited in) their reports. Enjoy! The NYTX front page is here and links to related articles. You can contribute to NYTX here.

The Commentariat is open for comments.

Your Cheery Friday the 13th Forecast. Economics Nobel Laureate Joe Stiglitz, perhaps the most influential economist in the world, says of the 2012 econimc outlook, "This year is set to be even worse" than 2011. Blame the deficit hawks & austerity aficionados. Thanks -- I think -- to Carlyle & Dave S. for the link. ...

... NEW. Calvin Lawrence of ABC News: ". Paraskevidekatriaphobia, as coined by psychotherapist Donald Dossey of the Stress Management Center-Phobia Institute in Ashville, N.C., bedevils 'people with blind, unreasoning fear of this day and date, as opposed to those who have a clear, reasonable fear of not being able to say that word,' according to the institute's website."

NEW. Paul Krugman: Sorry, Willard, "America is not, in fact, a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not, in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery.... Did I mention that the last businessman to live in the White House was a guy named Herbert Hoover? (Unless you count former President George W. Bush.)" CW: this is pretty fundamental, but the percentage of our government leaders -- much less the general public -- who understand it must in close to single digits.

CW: Republicans who were clamoring to know just what legal justification the President used to make his recess appointment have got what they wanted. Here it is, in pdf. I guess the complainers can read it when they get back from recess. Via Greg Sargent. Overview:

The convening of periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is to be conducted does not have the legal effect of interrupting an intrasession recess otherwise long enough to qualify as a 'Recess of the Senate' under the Recess Appointments Clause. In this context, the President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.

Adam Serwer of Mother Jones explains the background & rationale for the opinion, which was written by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. He says it was a "close call."

Right Wing World

Satire Becomes Reality. Mike Allen of Politico: "Stephen Colbert announced on 'The Colbert Report' that he is exploring a presidential run in South Carolina, and made it legal by handing control of his super PAC to Jon Stewart in the opening segment of Thursday night’s show." Update:

Aw, Shucks! Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "The 29-minute video 'King of Bain' is such an over-the-top assault on former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney that it is hard to know where to begin.... Romney may have opened the door to this kind of attack with his suspect job-creation claims, but that is no excuse for this highly misleading portrayal of Romney’s years at Bain Capital. Only one of the four case studies directly involves Romney and his decision-making, while at least two are completely off point. The manipulative way the interviews appeared to have been gathered for the UniMac segment alone discredits the entire film." ...

... PolitiFact is still working on their fact-check but they have a guide to the film -- absent analysis -- here.

Doctor Misogyny. Lori Stahl & Mary Curtis of the Washington Post: "When GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul, [an ob-gyn,] was asked today about Tuesday’s federal court ruling upholding an aggressive new sonogram law in his home state of Texas, the congressman said the requirement that women seeking an abortion first get a sonogram 'should always have been a Texas state position.' ... Paul, who opposes abortion rights, has consistently railed against intrusive Big Brother government when it comes to other issues.... But it’s hard to imagine anything more literally invasive than a required sonogram....’’

Michael Isikoff of NBC News: "Mitt Romney faces continued criticism over his refusal so far to release the names of his campaign 'bundlers' -- the big money fundraisers who have helped him rake in tens of million dollars.... But many of them come from big private equity firms. It's the same corporate buyout industry where Romney, as chief of Bain Capital, made his personal fortune...."

Paul Krugman Spies a Yellow-Bellied Mittster: "Mitt Romney’s new defense of his work at Bain: it was just like the auto bailout!... What the story of Romney and the auto bailout actually shows is something we already knew from health care: he’s a smart guy who is also a moral coward. His original proposal for the auto industry, like his health reform, bore considerable resemblance to what Obama actually did. But when the deed took place, Romney — rather than having the courage to say that the president was actually doing something reasonable — joined the rest of his party in whining and denouncing the plan."

Local News

Jay Newton-Small of Time: "After issuing just eight pardons in his first seven years, [outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley] Barbour (R) pardoned 208 convicts, 41 of them murderers, sex offenders or child molesters, during his last 48 hours in office. Barbour notes that 90% of the people he pardoned weren’t in prison, but four murderers have been released. And by expunging their records, they can now legally buy guns, just as the sex offenders he pardoned no longer need to give their names to the sex offender registry."

News Ledes

AP: "The French finance minister said Friday that Standard & Poor's had stripped the nation of its top-notch credit rating, again throwing Europe's ability to fight off its debt crisis into doubt. Speaking on France-2 television, Finance Minister Francois Baroin confirmed that France had been lowered by one notch. That would mean a rating of AA+, the same rating the United States has had since S&P downgraded it last August."

Politico: "John Edwards has a life-threatening heart condition that requires surgery and his trial has been delayed, according to reports Friday."

ABC News: "Joran van der Sloot, the only suspect in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, was sentenced today to 28 years in a Peruvian prison in the strangling death of Stephany Flores. And now that Peru has settled its case, Holloway's family hopes that van der Sloot will be brought to the U.S. for trial."

President Obama spoke this morning on government reform. Reuters: "President Barack Obama will ask Congress for authority to merge the agency that negotiates U.S. trade deals into the Commerce Department, a White House official said on Friday, in an effort to trim the government amid voter concerns about deficits." Washington Post story here. Update: A post-speech story by ABC News is here. A transcript of the President's remarks is here.

New York Times: "The Obama administration is relying on a secret channel of communication to warn Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a 'red line' that would provoke an American response, according to United States government officials."

Washington Post: "The Obama administration has decided to remove two of the four U.S. Army brigades remaining in Europe as part of a broader effort to cut $487 billion from the Pentagon’s budget over the next decade, said senior U.S. officials. The reductions in Army forces, which have not been formally announced, are likely to concern European officials, who worry that the smaller American presence reflects a waning of interest in the decades-long U.S.-NATO partnership in Europe."

Washington Post: "Beleaguered President Asif Ali Zardari landed in Pakistan early Friday after a short trip abroad, returning to face a simmering conflict between Pakistan’s civilian government and its armed forces."

Reuters: "Myanmar freed at least 200 political prisoners on Friday in an amnesty that could embolden the opposition and put pressure on the West to lift sanctions as one of the world's most reclusive states opens up after half a century of authoritarian rule."