The Commentariat -- January 12, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled, "Everybody Knows David Brooks Is Wrong." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Comments are open on the Commentariat. There were only two four comments yesterday. Both All were stellar.

Elections Have Consequences. Linda Greenhouse in the New York Times: "Progressive ... have something to cheer in the resurrection of the Justice Department’s previously moribund Civil Rights Division. The decision late last month by Thomas E. Perez, the division’s head, to block South Carolina’s new voter identification law is important both symbolically and practically." See also the Scott Keyes story about James O'Keefe in today's Right Wing World.

Rich Moran of the Pew Research Center: "The Occupy Wall Street movement no longer occupies Wall Street, but the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness. A new Pew Research Center survey of 2,048 adults finds that about two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are 'very strong' or 'strong' conflicts between the rich and the poor — an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009.... The survey results ... do not necessarily signal an increase in grievances toward the wealthy.... Nor do these data suggest growing support for government measures to reduce income inequality."

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "As arguments flare in Israel and the United States about a possible military strike to set back Iran’s nuclear program, an accelerating covert campaign of assassinations, bombings, cyberattacks and defections appears intended to make that debate irrelevant, according to current and former American officials and specialists on Iran. The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour."

Rana Foroohar of Time: "Warren Buffett is ready to call Republicans' tax bluff. Last fall, Senator Mitch McConnell said that if Buffett were feeling 'guilty' about paying too little in taxes, he should 'send in a check.' ... So Buffett has pledged to match 1 for 1 all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. 'And I'll even go 3 for 1 for McConnell,' he says. That could be quite a bill if McConnell takes the challenge; after all, the Senator is worth at least $10 million. As Buffett put it to me, 'I'm not worried.'" The article has been updated to include McConnell's chickenshit response, which shows Buffett was right not to worry.

Alex Pareene of Salon has a good piece dissecting & dissing Bill Keller's column proposing Secretary Clinton as President Obama's running mate. I thought Keller made a good case; Pareene & P. D. Pepe in a Commentariat comment prove me wrong.

Tom Laskawy: "... we have an industrial meat production system — encouraged by our larger economic policies — that immiserates virtually anyone it touches. From those who work in CAFOs [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] or slaughterhouses, to those who live near them or have seen their families torn apart by the industry in one way or another...." ...

... I Will Never Buy Another Smithfield Ham. David Bacon of The Nation on how NAFTA has impoverished Mexico, enriched Smithfield Foods, and created a host of other devastating problems.

Jordan Teicher of Business Insider: "Elizabeth Warren's campaign announced today that she has raised $5.7 million in the last quarter of 2011, far outweighing the $3.2 million raised by her opponent, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, the Boston Globe reports. Warren's website says that 23,000 Massachusetts donors gave an average of $64 to her campaign in the last three months."

Steven Biel of MoveOn.org: "A couple months ago, a MoveOn member named Robert Applebaum started up a petition for student loan forgiveness using our new website, SignOn.org. Robert's petition spread quickly, especially after we emailed it to our list. Then, something really amazing happened. President Obama actually responded — not with a form letter, but with an actual change in policy that will lower student loan payments for over 1.6 million people." (No link.) You can start your own petition on anything you want here.

Right Wing World

... CW: Maybe some of the yahoos who watch this film and vote Republican so they can "get their freedoms back" will realize that in Right Wing World, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." On the upside, how nice to have a Republican president who doesn't care about black people or white people. ...

... Ed Kilgore: "... this is one of the most devilishly effective attack communications I've personally ever seen -- a heat-seeking missile aimed directly at the white working class id. Mitt saying 'A bientot' at the end.... And aside from the xenophobic flourishes, the film is really just a well-wrought glimpse at the underside of contemporary finance capitalism, with Mitt Romney serving as the chief villain.... No wonder DeMint and Limbaugh have denounced this video: they should, because it's an assault on everything they believe in." ...

... They’re vultures sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick. And then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton. -- Gov. Rick Perry, on private equity firms like Bain Capital ...

... E. J. Dionne: "Thanks to Mitt Romney and such well-known socialist intellectuals as Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, the United States is about to have the big debate on the nature of modern capitalism that should have started back in 2008. The focus will be on whether some kinds of capitalism are bad for the system as a whole." Exit polls showed that in the New Hampshire primary, "Romney did best among voters earning more than $200,000 a year, next best with the $100,000-to-$200,000 category. He was weakest among those taking home less than $50,000 annually.... A privileged candidate sits atop a relatively privileged base."

Dan Amira of New York magazine: In an interview with Matt Lauer, Mitt Romney  "gripes about income inequality reflect nothing but envy, and that such topics should only be discussed in 'quiet rooms.' What Romney is saying is, maybe we can debate income inequality and the abuses of Wall Street, if you insist on it, but it's nothing to get upset about. This is not a gaffe, really, just a particularly stark reflection of Romney's true beliefs as he's repeatedly expressed them." Includes video. ...

... "Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet." Paul Krugman: "Trickle-down economics has now become shut-your-trap economics.... Because there’s no way anyone who isn’t motivated by envy could be interested in and possibly concerned about this":

Steve Benen on the evolution of Mitt Romney's jobs-creation story: "Bain Capital and its executives weren’t in the job-creating business — its purpose was to make money for its investors, not grow businesses and create jobs. What’s wrong with wealth creation? In theory, nothing. The problem, though, is when Romney decides to describe his firm in ways that are at odds with reality."

Reid Wilson of National Journal: "Friends and allies of Newt Gingrich, alarmed at his recent attacks that seem straight out of the Democratic playbook, worry that the former House speaker may be doing his party's eventual presidential nominee serious damage -- and that he won't listen to veteran Republican strategists urging he back off.... 'We have a real problem when we have Republicans talking like Democrats against the free market,' South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Wednesday.... The conservative Club for Growth has labeled Gingrich's attack on Bain Capital 'disgusting.' The National Review, the Weekly Standard, radio host Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative media outlets offered similarly disparaging takes." ...

... BUT. Jonathan Allen & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Newt Gingrich signaled Wednesday that he believes his criticism of Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is a mistake — and that he’s created an impression that he was echoing Democratic rhetoric." CW: Aw, shucks. BUT. "Rick Tyler, a top advisor to Winning Our Future, said Gingrich’s comments on Wednesday will not prompt the group to take down the documentary, 'When Mitt Romney Came to Town,' or otherwise alter its strategy." CW: Excellent.

Dan Levin of the Daily Beast has an interesting piece on how the Chinese view the GOP presidential race. "With alarm," bu it's more complex than that.

Recess Is Not Recess, and I'll Prove It When I Get Back from Recess. Jonathan Bernstein: Rep. Diane Baker (R-Tenn.) argues that "it's outrageous for the president to call what's happening now a recess, and the House intends to take it up as soon as they get back into town after recessing for the holiday."

Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "James O’Keefe’s latest video features surrogates appearing to commit voter fraud in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary election, all in an attempt to highlight voter fraud, a problem which is by-and-large nonexistent in the Granite State." CW: I sure hope O'Keefe & Friends are arrested, tried & convicted. Maybe President Obama could try out his new terrorist-nabbing, habeas-corpus-free powers on them. And, as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has pointed out, Guantanamo is like a resort, so why not send O'Keefe & the boys to Club Gitmo?

Lizz Winstead, a co-creator of the "Daily Show," assesses the Republican presidential field in a piece titled, "Shit Republican Candidates Say," first published in the Guardian. Despite its high-toned provenance, you may not want to share this column with your maiden auntie.

Local News

Ariane de Vogue (apparently her real name) of ABC News: "A federal appeals court today blocked a measure that would’ve made Oklahoma the first state in the nation to ban the Sharia law in its court system. The court ruled in favor of Muneer Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Oklahoma, who filed a lawsuit against the Oklahoma election board on the grounds that the voter-approved constitutional amendment violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution forbidding the government from favoring one religion over another." ...

... Charles Pierce comments on the "paranoid crackpots" of Oklahoma who voted in this law, said paranoid crackpots apparently constituting about 70 percent of the voting population.

News Ledes

New York Times: "... despite doubts in the [Obama] administration, misgivings on Capitol Hill and the erratic objections of the most important partner in any potential peace deal — President Hamid Karzai — the administration’s best hope for ending the war in Afghanistan has reached a critical juncture. Next week, [U.S. diplomat Marc] Grossman and his team are rushing back to the region to consult with several allies, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and if Mr. Karzai gives his blessing, will resume preliminary talks with the Taliban representative before another opportunity slips away."

New York Times: "With little left to lose, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and their allies sought to portray [Mitt] Romney as insufficiently steadfast in his conservatism in this very conservative state, threatening a scorched-earth approach to the primary to be held here on Jan. 21. But there were some signs that a pressure campaign from the party establishment — encouraged and to some degree organized by pro-Romney forces — was forcing his rivals to recalibrate if not rethink the attacks."

New York Times: "The government of Myanmar signed a cease-fire agreement on Thursday with ethnic Karen rebels who have been fighting for greater autonomy since the former Burma gained independence from Britain more than six decades ago, according to reports from Myanmar."

ABC News: "As victims' loved ones ask why killers and rapists got pardoned by former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour during his final hours in office, a Mississippi state judge has temporarily halted the release of 21 of the 200-plus pardoned inmates."

New York Times: "A video apparently showing four Marines urinating on three dead Taliban fighters was condemned by NATO authorities in Afghanistan and by the Afghan government on Thursday.." CW: Actually, NATO officials condemned the Marines' actions, not the video, as the Times writer would have you believe. Maybe if the reporter hadn't used the passive voice he could have written an accurate lede. Yeah, I know, bitch, bitch, bitch.

Reuters: "U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, together with the Democratic National Committee, raised more than $68 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina said on Thursday. Messina told supporters in a video message that 98 percent of the donations were made up of $250 or less, illustrating growing grassroots support for Obama...."

Ghoulish News. AP: "North Korea said Thursday it will enshrine 'eternal leader' Kim Jong Il's preserved body in the palace housing the body of his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, and labeled his Feb. 16 birthday the 'Day of the Shining Star,' deepening its veneration of the late leader as it links his son and successor to the family legacy."

The Commentariat -- January 11, 2012

Sorry, slow morning! Comments are open in this section. I haven't said much, but here's hoping you do.

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer: "Today, New York Times writer Mark Bittman titles in his op-ed blogpost, 'We’re eating less meat. Why?' You might think he would answer that question. He does not." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

Right Wing World

Rob Boston in AlterNet: "To hear the Religious Right tell it, men like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 18th-century versions of Jerry Falwell in powdered wigs and stockings. Nothing could be further from the truth.... There was a time when Americans voted for candidates who were skeptical of core concepts of Christianity like the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus and the virgin birth." Boston lists five founding fathers -- and outlines their religious views -- who could not get elected today.

New York Times Editors: "Where the Iowa caucuses illuminated the dark essence of social conservatism, the New Hampshire primary was a journey into the dingy, cramped quarters of the right wing’s economic policies.... In a flailing effort to address the pain of the middle class, the Republicans repeated familiar charges that Mr. Obama advocates a redistribution of wealth.... It was all exactly backward. Americans are angry about income redistribution — from the middle class to the tiny sliver at the top, not from the top down.... The Republican hopefuls are deluding themselves and trying to delude the voters."

Joshua Green of Bloomberg News takes in a screening of “When Mitt Romney Came to Town,” "the film produced by Jason Killian Meath, a former Republican National Committee aide, [which] is being funded by Winning Our Future, an organization run by longtime aides to Gingrich. Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), and a Gingrich supporter, has given Winning Our Future $5 million to help air the film in South Carolina."

John Dickerson of Slate: "The GOP critique of Romney ratifies the Democratic idea that the free market can breed excesses. None of Romney's rivals would admit they're saying that, but when you pile on this completely and in such blunt terms you are embracing the anti-corporate energy that has always been behind the Democratic attack. When Barack Obama talks about the excesses of Wall Street, conservatives say he is punishing success. If so, then Romney's rivals are doing the same thing." ...

... Steve Benen: "Romney has tried to argue that critics of his private-sector layoffs are borderline communists, trying to 'put free enterprise on trial.' And yet, when there is no difference whatsoever between the message Dems are pushing and the attacks from Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and Jon Huntsman, it suggests the Romney line is a bust. But more importantly, it also suggests the progressive line is what resonates with voters — even Republican voters." ...

... Maureen Dowd eviscerates the Willard doll.

Trip Gabriel of the New York Times: "Representative Ron Paul of Texas finished a strong second in the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday, which in many ways was the more telling outcome in a race where Mitt Romney’s dominance was never in doubt.... Even if political analysts continue to regard the libertarian-leaning Mr. Paul as a protest candidate, with no shot at the nomination, his success here — on top of a third-place finish last week in the Iowa caucuses — means he will probably continue his campaign for months and perhaps to the summer convention." ...

Rick the Red. Barbie Nadeau in the Daily Beast: "On the campaign trail, [Rick] Santorum often touts his grandfather’s flight from Italy 'to escape fascism,' but he has neglected to publicly mention their close ties with the Italian Communist Party. 'Rick’s grandfather Pietro was a liberal man and he understood right away what was happening in Italy,' [Malacarne] Santorum [a cousin of the candidate's] told Oggi. 'He was anti-fascist to the extreme, and the political climate in 1925 was stifling so he left for America. After a few years he returned to Italy with his wife and children, including Aldo, Rick’s father, who passed away late last year.....' She goes on to explain how the family then became pillars of the Communist Party in Italy."

The first part of this segment is a little boring, but beginnng at about 3:45 min. in, Maddow gets down to enumerating the positions of the GOP presidential candidates on contraception. If you believe American women & men should have the right to have sexual relations in a responsible way, you really cannot vote for any one of these medieval would-be kings. At the end of the segment, Maddow interviews Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. Listen to it.

News Ledes

New York Times: "At a time of growing tension over its nuclear program and mounting belligerence toward the West, Iran reported on Wednesday that an Iranian nuclear scientist died in what was termed a 'terrorist bomb blast' in northern Tehran when an unidentified motorcyclist attached a magnetic explosive device to his car.... Iranian officials indicated that they believed the United States and Israel were responsible."

AP: "Some Occupy Wall Street protesters spent the night at New York City's Zuccotti Park after metal barricades surrounding it came down. By 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, only about 10 of them remained. The barricades were removed late Tuesday. About 300 cheering protesters began filling the park."

The Commentariat -- January 10, 2012

My column in today New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' feigned surprise that liberals are MIA. I explain why that is and how Brooks himself fits into the picture. I think the "history lesson" is pretty interesting. The NYTX front page is here. You can donate to the online journal here.

Comments are open on today's Commentariat. Thanks to those of you who commented yesterday in this new format. It was such a pleasure reading comments in which people fundamentally disagreed, but did so in a way that was both substantive and respectful. Special thanks to Fred Drumlevitch for setting the tone. It is in this framework that we're all able to learn something and perhaps adjust our views. I know I did.

Susie Madrak of Crooks & Liars: why candidates who appeal to the center lose elections.

Nicholas Confessore & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: A $5 million check from billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson to a super-PAC that supports Newt Gingrich "underscores how last year’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election. Mr. Adelson’s contribution to the super PAC is 1,000 times the $5,000 he could legally give directly to Mr. Gingrich’s campaign this year." ...

... Washington Post Editorial Board: "The rationale for limits on campaign contributions is that huge contributions such as this run the risk of corruption or the appearance of corruption. The Supreme Court’s shaky rationale in Citizens United was that independent expenditures do not pose such a risk. Mr. Adelson’s check underscores the foolishness of that assessment." The editors also point out that Romney's casual dismissal of a debate question about a super-PAC comprised of his friends and former staffers "offered about as succinct an illustration as we’ve seen of the flimsiness of the fiction that separates these candidate-specific super PACs from the candidates and of the danger that this development poses to a campaign finance system premised on limited contributions and full disclosure."

Won't You Go Home, Bill Daley? Oh, good. You Will. Greg Sargent: "Bill Daley’s departure is not exactly heartbreaking news for Hill Democrats and liberals, because Daley is directly associated with many of the failings liberal Dems saw in the White House before Obama’s turn towards a more aggressive populism. Daley was brought in to repair relations with the business community.... Daley’s olive branch went unrewarded, confirming liberal suspicions about the folly of hoping for improved relations. Liberals also saw Daley as representative of a kind of hidebound Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama’s election was supposed to be a reaction against." ...

... Ben Geman of The Hill: "Don’t look for many environmentalists to mourn the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, who was scorned by some activists for presiding over the controversial decision last year to scuttle  tougher Environmental Protection Agency smog rules. Critics on the left say Daley, who will be replaced by Office of Management and Budget chief Jack Lew, was too close to business interests." ...

... Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post on the Bill Daley Lesson: “'What he learned was that business refused to make nice regardless of what he did,' said one former White House aide of Daley. 'Wall Street was just never going to be there.'” ...

... Glenn Greenwald on Jack Lew's profitable days working at a CitiGroup hedge fund. Oh, and Lew likes working with Republicans, and they like him. And he told Sen. Bernie Sanders during (his confirmation?) hearing that he didn't believe deregulation led to the financial crisis. (And it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.) ...

... On the other hand, Norm Scheiber of The New Republic, who wrote a book on the subject, writes that liberals shouldn't get too worked up over Lew's tenure at Citi: "Lew was basically the chief administrator at Citi Alternative Investments, which runs the company’s portfolio of hedge funds and private-equity funds. That is, he was the guy who kept watch over the books and the paperwork, not a guy going out and placing multimillion-dollar bets or making hundred-million dollar deals."

Right Wing World

This Just In. M. J. Lee of Politico: "This is not a joke, but it’s kind of funny: Stephen Colbert would edge out Jon Huntsman in the South Carolina Republican primary. That’s according to a Public Policy Polling poll out Tuesday that found the late-night comic picking up 5 percent of the vote, compared with Huntsman’s 4 percent." CW: I hope some of you read the article on Colbert, which is still linked under Infotainment. The PPP results are exactly on point.

I like being able to fire people. -- Mitt Romney ...

... Garrett Haake & Carrie Dann of NBC News: "Mitt Romney held a rare press avail this afternoon to say the remark had been taken out of context." CW: It had been. But let's remember that Romney's team boasted about taking a remark by then-Senator Obama, editing out the first half of the sentence to completely change its meaning, then using the edited half-sentence in an ad. After having been excoriated in the press for the distortion, the candidate himself went right ahead and again distorted another remark President Obama made during a "60 Minute" interview. Romney has zero credibility. So far, I haven't heard Democrats jumping on Romney for his boneheaded "I like firing people" remark, much less using it in an ad to show that, you know, Romney thinks firing people is fun! ...

... "Up in the Air" with Mitt. Jim Fallows of The Atlantic: "... people with any experience on either side of a firing know that, necessary as it might be, it is hard. Or it should be. It's wrenching, it's humiliating, it disrupts families, it creates shame and anger alike -- notwithstanding the fact that often it absolutely has to happen. Anyone not troubled by the process -- well, there is something wrong with that person.... We might value him or her as a takeover specialist or at a private equity firm. But as someone we trust, as a leader? No -- not any more than you can trust a military leader who is not deeply troubled when his troops are killed." Thanks to commenter Trish R. for the link.

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "An assault on Mitt Romney’s business career intensified Monday after the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination made an ­off-the-cuff comment that his opponents say shows he was a corporate predator who sought profits at the expense of workers." See also the New York Times story on New Hampshire primary voting in today's Ledes for more on Romney's self-inflicted wounds.

... Dana Milbank: "Mitt Romney is fast becoming the Scrooge McDuck of the 2012 presidential race. ...

... Matt Bai of the New York Times on "Why the Bain Attacks Could Stick to Romney: First, it takes Mr. Romney’s central rationale as a candidate and turns it into a bludgeoning tool.... Second, it casts doubt on Mr. Romney’s aura of electability.... And third, the Bain line of attack, more than anything else brandished against Mr. Romney to this point, might bring to the surface an instinctive concern that he’s emotively challenged." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: the real scandal of Romney's remark is what he really meant -- he was arguring for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, suggesting that healthcare coverage is best left to a a "free market economy" where employers would "fire" health insurance carriers they didn't like. (They can do that under the ACA, BTW.) But what Romney poses is a healthcare insurance system that works well for employees only if they never get sick. ...

... Derek Thompson of The Atlantic agrees with Cohn. ...

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress: And empirical evidence shows that Romney's "free-market" healthcare proposal isn't even economically-sound. It just doesn't work at any level. He's also arguing that people should pay more for their health care. What a plan! ...

... CW: AND I see Joan Walsh of Salon elaborates on the parenthetical point I made above: "Romney’s not being at all fair in the way he’s defended himself. He told reporters he was only talking about defending consumers from the supposed tyranny of the Affordable Care Act – and he lied about what it does. 'I don’t want to live in a world where we have Obamacare telling us which insurance we have to have, which doctor we can have, which hospital we go to,' Romney said at a press conference Monday. 'I believe in the setting as I described this morning where people are able to choose their own doctor, choose their own insurance company. If they don’t like their insurance company or their provider, they can get rid of it.'” Walsh of course also bolsters my point that Romney has no credibility. ...

... Here's Another Big Fat Romney Lie. Greg Sargent: "Mitt Romney declared over the weekend that there were times when he, too, worried about getting a 'pink slip.' Romney’s GOP rivals immediately pounced, with Rick Perry claiming: 'I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips, whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out.'" The truth is that young Willard's pink slip -- should he ever get one -- would be dipped in gold. His initial employment contract at Bain specified that if things didn't work out, he would get back his previous job & his old salary -- plus raises -- accompanied by a cover story that would insulate him from any implication he had been fired. CW: if you've ever lost a job, I'm just guessing these were not the terms etched into your pink slip.

... ** Occupy Wall Street Killed Gordon Gekko. Andrew Leonard of Salon: "What the Wall Street Journal euphemistically calls 'the rougher side of American capitalism,' in its Monday article examining the legacy of Bain Capital, is suddenly no longer in fashion. And there is no better proof of this than the spectacle of one of the great culture warriors of our time, Newt Gingrich, defecting to the other side.... In the 32 years since Ronald Reagan was elected president, there has never been more widely expressed antagonism and anger toward the practitioners of corporate-raider, leveraged-buyout, excessively compensated CEO, shareholder-value capitalism than there is now. And that’s Mitt Romney. That is who he is. He can flip-flop about everything else, but there’s no way to wriggle out of his essential nature. He’s the 1 percent." ...

... Ken Vogel of Politico: "Before Newt Gingrich’s super PAC paid $40,000 for the stinging anti-Mitt Romney documentary that’s roiling the GOP presidential campaign, Jon Huntsman’s allies expressed interest in it.... The board [of a pro-Huntsman PAC] 'decided not to move forward with it' because 'we simply saw it too late to seriously consider,' [Fred] Davis [who advises the PAC] told Politico. Still, he predicted the film’s portrayal of Romney as a cold-hearted 'corporate raider' could be used to devastating effect.... 'Think "Swift Boats,’” he said of the movie, calling the introduction 'very well made and powerful stuff' that seemed 'to be accurate portrayals of various individuals and situations.'” Gingrich has not released the full video, but he does have a trailer up on his Website (The trailer is in yesterday's Commentariat.) ...

... New York Times Editors: Mitt "Romney claims his background as a businessman provides him with an understanding of the economy and the ability to fix it. His opponents — particularly Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Rick Perry — say their political experience provides the same advantage. In truth, none have offered anything but tired or extremist economic prescriptions.... Mr. Romney ... was ... a buyer of flailing companies who squeezed out the inefficiencies (often known as employees) and then sold or merged them for a hefty profit. More than a fifth of them later went bankrupt.... This kind of leveraged capitalism ... is one of the reasons for the growth in the income gap.... For voters worried about the economy, neither a past record of buyouts nor lobbying should inspire any confidence."

... Republican strategist Matthew Dowd in an ABC News blogpost: Mitt Romney's Bain Capital years may yet prove to be a liability in Republican primaries. "While many still say the Republican party’s base is that of Wall Street and corporate America and big business, the real base of the Republican Party has become much more about working class (especially white males) in rural and small town areas of the country."

... AND here is Glenn Kessler's rating of Romney's job-creation claims. Kessler writes, "... if he is to continue to make claims about job creation, the Romney campaign needs to provide a real accounting of how many jobs were gained or lost through Bain Capital investments while the firm managed these companies — and while Romney was chief executive. Any jobs counted after either of those data points simply do not pass the laugh test."

Dan Primack of CNN Money: "Newt Gingrich has spent the past several days assailing Mitt Romney's business background, suggesting that the former private equity executive 'looted' companies and 'left people unemployed.' But here's an interesting note Gingrich doesn't mention: Upon leaving Congress in 1999, the former Speaker joined private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co. as a member of its advisory board."

News Ledes

President Obama spoke to staff at the EPA:

New York Times: "Mitt Romney swept to victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, turning back a ferocious assault from his Republican rivals who are working to slow his march to the Republican presidential nomination." The Washington Post story is here. The Post has county-by-county results here. ...

... New York Times: "As New Hampshire voters began casting ballots in the nation’s first primary, [Mitt] Romney found himself on the unfamiliar terrain of defending his business pedigree against fellow Republicans as his challengers tried to tap into a populist sentiment. He played into the criticism with a handful of missteps, with rivals jumping on him for having suggested that he, too, has feared getting 'a pink slip.'” ...

... AP: "Voters in the tiny New Hampshire village [of Dixville Notch] famed for casting the first ballots in the nation's first presidential primary found themselves in a tie Tuesday between Republicans Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. Nine ballots were cast in New Hampshire's Dixville Notch just after midnight. Romney and Huntsman received two votes each. Coming in second with one vote apiece were Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. For the Democrats, President Barack Obama received three votes."

New York Times: "In his first public address in months, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Tuesday lashed out at the Arab League for isolating Syria, taunted rebels as traitors and vowed to subdue what he cast as a foreign-backed plot against his country."

AP: New Jersey "Assembly Republican leader Alex DeCroce ... collapsed and died around 11 p.m. Monday in a men's room at the Statehouse.... The death threw into turmoil the Legislature's reorganization plans for Tuesday and caused Gov. Chris Christie to delay his annual state-of-the-state address. The Assembly and Senate greatly scaled back swearing-in ceremonies for new members. Christie planned to deliver remarks about DeCroce on the floor of the Assembly in lieu of his scheduled address." The New Jersey Star-Ledger story is here.

New York Times: a U.S. Coast Guard ice-breaker and a Russian tanker try to get emergency fuel to Nome, Alaska. It is not going well. And the question arises: how could Nome run out of fuel?