The Commentariat -- May 15

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square for Sunday, & I've added a couple of my own comments.

** Nicholas Kristof reveals what Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, who died last December, really thought about American policy in Pakistan & Afghanistan. It's a must-read, especially for the slew of lefties who held low opinions of Holbrooke, a few of whom demanded or asked that I link to anti-Holbrooke essays while his body was still warm. (I didn't.)

Maureen Dowd: "Some of the new fall TV shows will take you back to a time when the only threat women posed was ruining your martini."

Paul Krugman has a longish article in the New York Times Magazine about the two-tiered international economy. "... The biggest danger for the United States ... is ... that we’ll get confused by all the crisscrossing signals in the global economy and end up focusing on the problems we don’t have while ignoring the problems we do... I’m worried that Ben Bernanke may end up being bullied into raising interest rates when he should do no such thing. There will eventually come a day when the Federal Reserve Board should tighten — but that day is years away.... Our economic policy should be concerned with jobs, jobs and jobs."

"For He's an Unpleasant Fellow." Andrew Goldman interviews Larry Summers for the New York Times Magazine. Here's the takeaway. Summers may have made mistakes in the Clinton years but they weren't his fault & Bush would have fucked up anyway. He's probably right about that last part.

John Hightower in the Colorado Springs Independent: Hedge fund billionaire John "Paulson could've worked one single hour in 2010 and hauled off a paycheck equal to what a typical household gets for a lifetime of work. Now guess who gets the lower tax rate.... Thanks to a loophole..., billionaire hedge fund dealers like Paulson escape the usual 35 percent tax rate, instead paying (at most) 15 percent. That's ... immoral. In Washington, Wall Street-backed Congress critters are working fervently to kill Medicare and defund everything from education to environmental protection — all on the grounds that the only way to cope with the growing federal deficit is to bulldoze programs that Americans count on. But ... if just the 25 [biggest hedge fund deals] were taxed at the 35-percent rate, Congress would have an additional $4 billion this year to use for filling the deficit hole, rather than gleefully throwing sick seniors into it."

HUD, Where Your Tax Dollars Go Directly down the Rabbit Hole. Debbie Cenziper & Jonathan Mummolo of the Washington Post: The federal government’s largest housing construction program for the poor has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on stalled or abandoned projects and routinely failed to crack down on derelict developers or the local housing agencies that funded them. Nationwide, nearly 700 projects awarded $400 million have been idling for years, a Washington Post investigation found. Some have languished for a decade or longer.... The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees the nation’s housing fund, has largely looked the other way: It does not track the pace of construction and often fails to spot defunct deals...." There's a slideshow & link to an interactive map here.

Karen DeYoung & Karin Brulliard of the Washington Post: "Two weeks after the death of Osama bin Laden, the Obama administration remains uncertain and divided over the future of its relationship with Pakistan, according to senior U.S. officials.... Some officials, particularly in the White House, have advocated strong reprisals [against Pakistan], especially if Pakistan continues to refuse access to materials left behind by U.S. commandos who scooped up all the paper and computer drives they could carry during their deadly 40-minute raid on bin Laden’s compound."

Mark Mazzetti & Emily Hager of the New York Times: "... a secret American-led mercenary army [is] being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the" United Arab Emirate. "The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year."

Edward Cody of the Washington Post: "Whatever its outcome in the courts, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest seemed likely to change the political landscape in France. The longtime Socialist Party figure and former finance minister has been cited in opinion polls for months as the strongest potential challenger to President Nicolas Sarkozy in presidential elections scheduled a year from now." ...

... This story by Colleen Long of the AP, which includes details of the alleged assault, makes the same point as Cody's story. ...

... NEW. Katrin Bennhold & Liz Alderman of the New York Times: "For months, France has been buzzing with speculation that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the popular chief of the International Monetary Fund, would quit his job in Washington to take on President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections. But on Sunday, French politicians and media met news of his arrest in New York for alleged sexual aggression with stunned disbelief and expressions of national humiliation."

David Neiwert of Crooks & Liars weighs in on Mike Obama-Is-an-Indonesian Huckabee's announcement that he won't be running for president & his chat with Donald Obama-Is-a-Kenyan Trump. Wth video I couldn't bring myself to watch. ...

... Ben Smith of Politico: "Mike Huckabee's announcement this evening that he wouldn't run for president -- along with forcing much of the nation's political class to watch his show through for the first time, a kind of mass hostage-taking -- kicks off Republican candidates' efforts to ingratiate themselves to him."

Bill Maher: "You're Not a Christian if ...."

Lawrence O'Donnell talks to Michael Isikoff about "those" bin Laden videos. My favoite bit -- Isikoff says finding pornographic videos among the effects of terrorists is not unusual, and the CIA has been "studying them to find out if the vids contained any hidden message." Yeah, I'll bet the guys (and it's the official position of this Website that they were guys) who were "investigating" the porn videos hated that job:

CW: I missed Adam Nagourney's profile of California Gov. Jerry Brown that appeared in the New York Times Magazine last week, but it's a pretty interesting, easy read.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Israel’s borders erupted in deadly clashes on Sunday as thousands of Palestinians — marching from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank — confronted Israeli troops to mark the anniversary of Israel’s creation. More than a dozen people were reported killed and scores injured."

Atlanta Journal Constitution: "First Lady Michelle Obama spoke about community service, helping others and overcoming obstacles when she addressed 550 Spelman College graduates Sunday in College Park." AP story here.

Times-Picayune: "In a historic action designed to minimize the risk of catastrophic flooding in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers has begun opening the Morganza Floodway to divert water from the rain-swollen Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya basin." Washington Post story here.

New York Times: "Pakistan stepped up its condemnations of the United States as Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime emissary to Pakistan in times of crisis, was preparing to land in Islamabad. He was arriving with a list of actions — and some offers from Washington to ease tensions — that he finalized in meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and other top American security officials."

The Commentariat -- May 14

This whole page is turning into links to stories about the denizens of Right Wing World, where facts never intrude, although I'll admit in a number of the stories linked, outside forces have imposed facts upon the wingers' little universe; for example, that persistent Senate Ethics Committee sure blew John Ensign's cover, and they didn't do much to bolster Sen. Tom Coburn's apparent prevarications, either. -- CW

Gail Collins continues her Presidential Primary Book Club tour with a look at some family values advice from newly-minted presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. She also takes a gander at another of Newt's many tomes from his publishing empire: "The tone of 'To Save America' is a lot like that of the anti-Communist screeds of the 1950s. ('The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.') In fact, Gingrich refers to the cold war so often you begin to suspect he’s nostalgic for Stalinism." ...

... I've opened an Off Times Square page for Collins or what-have-you. Karen Garcia and I have posted our comments on Collins, and -- speaking of literature, as we are -- Garcia's is a blockbuster. Update: more great comments here, including an of Garcia, Kate Madison and me, which in the interests of objectivity and semi-free speech (half a First Amendment right is better than none), I have elected not to jettison. ...

... Justin Elliott of Salon: "Jackie Gingrich Cushman has decided to resurface the most damaging anecdote of her father's political career: that Newt Gingrich demanded his first wife hash over details of their divorce while she was stricken with cancer in a hospital bed. Cushman suggests in a new column that the story is false. But Cushman's column, titled 'Setting the Record Straight,' is directly at odds with the testimony of her mother from just a few years after the 1980 incident." ...

... Still, Newt Gingrich Is Not Cool:

... NEW. It appears that Driftglass has found the original draft of a letter from 43 Republican Tea Party Congressmen to President Obama asking Obama to get his troops to stop picking on them. Since Driftglass is a modest fellow, he buries this scoop in a paean to his favorite presidential candidate. You'll want to read the whole post, but here's the text of the draft letter:

Deer Preznit Kenyun ,
Please make the Dum-o-craps to stop saying how we voted for to gut Medicare!
The past is the past!
Yors in Christ,
the Party of God

My Money's on the Kid. Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent: "A high school sophomore from New Jersey is challenging Rep. Michele Bachmann to a debate on civics and the U.S. Constitution. In an open letter to to Bachmann, Amy Myers of Cherry Hill, N.J., said, 'I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted.'”

New York Times Editors: "The Senate Ethics Committee acted responsibly in referring the sordid case of former Senator John Ensign to federal authorities for possible criminal violations. Rather than let the matter fade with the Nevada Republican’s hurried resignation before his scheduled deposition, the panel stressed that there was 'substantial credible evidence' he violated the law.... The committee has now asked Justice and the F.E.C. to investigate further. Both had previously declined to take action in their inquiries of the senator. The election commission, which is particularly dysfunctional, rebuffed its own staff’s findings that the $96,000 payment violated election law." ...

... Eric Lichtblau & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "... the Senate’s harsh report [on John Ensign] — contrasted with the Justice Department’s inaction — provided further evidence for those who complain that the agency has seemed skittish about taking on public officials following the fiasco that resulted from the 2008 corruption case against the late Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, which was ultimately dropped amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct." The only person Justice is prosecuting is the cuckolded husband, Doug Hampton, tho lawyers the reporters cite say the Senate committee report demonstrates that a case against Ensign would be an easy one to make. ...

... Might as well pile on:

... Ryan Reilly of TPM: "Sen. Tom ... Coburn (R-OK)'s role as an intermediary between his friend and former roommate [Sen. John] Ensign and Doug Hampton, the husband of the woman Ensign was having an affair with, has been pretty well established [in the Senate Ethics Committee report]. Coburn has denied playing the role of negotiator over the amount of money Ensign should pay the Hamptons. But other people involved told investigators ... Coburn, whose name is mentioned 46 times in the Ethics Committee's report, played a pretty crucial role. And the report indicates that Coburn might not have given investigators the whole story.... Coburn's cooperation with the investigation did not come after a grant of immunity from prosecution." ...

... Here's more from Maddow on Ensign's parents & on Sen. Coburn:

Alex Pareene of Salon: Five Signs Your Republican Governor Wants to Be President (the whole post is pretty funny, but sadly, true):

(1) Develops doubts about evolution
(2) Is suddenly agnostic on or openly hostile to climate science
(3) Suddenly has opinions about foreign policy
(4) No longer thinks the government has the right to
        collect revenue on anyone by any means
(5) No longer likes transportation projects

Steve Kornacki of Salon writes a little history lesson on how the Republican party became the party of unreality in which the underlying philosophy is that "deficits are one of the chief threats to America -- but they can never be tackled by raising taxes; in fact, taxes must be lowered." With videos.

Republican Presidential Candidate Firing Square Gazette: Condaleezza Rice wants you to have an abortion and Mitch Daniels would pick that radical leftist degenerate to be Vice President. Ben Smith of Politico: Jon Huntsman backer Rob Wasinger sends out an e-mail under the title "Mitch Daniels Would Pick Pro-Abortion Vice President."

Trump in Name Only. I've brought this story forward from yesterday's Commentariat, where I linked it fairly late in the day. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Over the last few years, according to interviews and hundreds of pages of court documents, the real estate mogul [Donald Trump] has aggressively marketed several luxury high-rises as 'Trump properties' or 'signature Trump' buildings, with names like Trump Tower and Trump International — even making appearances at the properties to woo buyers. The strong indication of his involvement as a developer generated waves of media attention and commanded premium prices. But when three of the planned buildings encountered financial trouble, it became clear that Mr. Trump had essentially rented his name to the developments and had no responsibility for their outcomes, according to buyers. In each case, he yanked his name off the projects, which were never completed."

How can we be sure Obama is serious about fighting terrorism if he's not willing to place the tarred severed heads of terrorists on pikes outside the White House? -- Adam Serwer ...

... In response to this Washington Times editorial (via Media Matters), which expresses concern about

... President Obama's knee-jerk habit of kowtowing to Islam. By constantly emphasizing how bin Laden's sea burial was in 'conformance to Islamic requirements,' Obama officials communicated that the president is more concerned about placating the feelings of Muslim extremists than securing closure for the American people.

Citizens United Gone Wild -- Stephen Colbert gets serious about Colbert-PAC:

     ... Ken Vogel of Politico has more here, plus more video here.

Oh, whoopty-do. Evan McMorris Santoro of TPM: "Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) ... says he's considering making a run for the U.S. Senate [seat] being vacated by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI)." ...

... BUT. Eric Kleefeld of TPM: "Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate predicted that the party would have one or more strong candidates in the race to succeed Dem Sen. Herb Kohl, who announced his retirement earlier on Friday.... Chief among the names that Tate listed were former Sen. Russ Feingold, who lost re-election in the 2010 Republican wave after three terms in office, and seven-term Rep. Tammy Baldwin from Madison and the surrounding counties."

Presidential candidate Ron Paul, who is old enough to remember the civil rights movement, has forgotten all about it. He says segregation would have ended on its own, because, I guess, that's what magically happens when you ignore all-pervasive, hardcore racial discrimination:

... Although racial discrimination has been unlawful in the U.S. since the mid-1960s, if you think it's over in the hearts and minds of white Americans, listen to a few leading Republicans, like Sarah Palin with her "real America," Donald Trump with "the blacks," Peter King with the "Islamic extremism," and every single effort to delegitimize President Obama. Ron Paul's Republican party has done everything it can in wink-wink mode to foster white fear and hatred of non-white Americans. There's a reason Trump was only popular among the party faithful when he delivered his overriding message in bigot-code.

Okay, here are a few bones for our ConservaDem and Republican Light friends:

Karen Garcia on The Two Obama Campaigns, one for us little people and one for the $50K-a-plate crowd. See also Kate Madison's reply to Little People Manager Jim Messina here on Off Times Square and also on Garcia's blog. ...

... Ben Smith & Byron Tau of Politico: "President Barack Obama and his allies in two big industrial unions appear poised to make the auto bailout — begun under President George W. Bush in 2008 — a central issue of the 2012 campaign. With General Motors back on its feet — it announced $2 billion in new investments at 18 GM plants Tuesday — and losses from the government’s intervention shaping up to be minimal, Democrats hope to punish Republican presidential candidates for their early opposition.

Peter Wallsten of the Washington Post: behind closed doors, ConservaDems are arguing against taxing the put-upon rich. CW: one of those ConservaDems is my own Senator, Bill Nelson, who is up for re-election next year. Within the next five minutes, he will have a letter from me telling him he won't get my vote unless he backs a huge increase in taxes on the rich. Lily-livered loon.

NEW. Finally, a dash of realism. Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: Pitzer College in Southern California will inaugurate a Department of Secular Studies.

News Ledes

President Obama's Weekly Address:

Los Angeles Times: "President Obama will open Alaska's national petroleum reserve to new drilling, as part of a broad plan aimed at blunting criticism that he is not doing enough to address rising energy prices. The plan ... also would fast-track environmental assessment of petroleum exploration in some portions of the Atlantic and extend the leases of oil companies whose work in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean was interrupted by the drilling moratorium after last year's BP oil spill." AP story here.

        ... Update: the New York Times story is here.

Welcome to Obamaland, a declining empire in Right Wing World.

News Ledes

** New York Times: "The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport minutes before it was to take off for Paris on Saturday and arrested in connection with the sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the authorities said. Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, was apprehended by detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the first class section of the jetliner, and immediately turned over to detectives from the Midtown South Precinct...."

New York Times: "Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, said late Saturday that he would not seek the Republican nomination for president next year in an announcement that was eagerly anticipated in part because of contradictory hints he had given over the last few days."

Also, see news reports linked under today's presidential weekly address.

New Orleans Times-Picayune: "Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh has instructed officials to open the Morganza Floodway within the next 24 hours to reduce the flow of the Mississippi River past Baton Rouge and New Orleans, a corps spokesman said." With maps. The paper's home page currently has links to several flood-related stories. AP story here.

Politico: "Shirley Sherrod, the U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who was forced out after a videotape misleadingly showed her making racially insensitive remarks, will start working for the USDA again.... Sherrod will be a contract employee leading one of three field programs designed to bolster relations between the USDA and minority farmers and ranchers. Support for the programs is among several recommendations contained in a sweeping, two-year study released Wednesday that examined decades of discrimination claims by African Americans, Latinos, women and Native Americans. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack commissioned the study shortly after taking office in 2009 — and well before he signed off on Sherrod’s dismissal in July 2010."

New York Times: "In an unusual, and apparently heated, closed-door session of Parliament, Pakistan’s spy chief issued a rousing denunciation of the United States on Friday for its raid that killed Osama bin Laden and denied that Pakistan maintained any links with militant groups, according to lawmakers." Washington Post: "Pakistan’s spy chief offered to resign Friday amid public outrage over the U.S. operation that killed Osama bin Laden, an incident that humiliated the nation’s army and cast doubt on the capabilities of an intelligence network long believed to be nearly mnipotent."

Al Jazeera: "More than 8,000 people are attending the funeral in Homs of one of three protesters killed by Syrian security forces in the restive city, an eyewitness told Al Jazeera. Mourners for Fouad al-Rajoub, who was killed on Friday, gathered near Bab al-Dreib and began making their way through the city chanting for an end to the siege on Homs, Baniyas and Deraa, the major flashpoints in the uprising."

The Commentariat -- May 13

I've posted an Open Thread on Off Times Square and have added my comments on Brooks & Krugman. Update: Karen Garcia & Kate Madison have posted their comments, too, and they are fabulous! I love the intros to their comments, too. None of us really expects to make the Times cut on Brooks. Update 2: Garcia & Madison did; I didn't. -- CW

Here's economist Dean Baker, writing in Business Insider, on Brooks: "Did David Brooks' mother tell him that the debt is 'ruinous' or does he just enjoy beating up the elderly?" Brooks tells "readers that he is excited over the possibility that there may be a deal to address the 'nation’s ruinous debt problem.' ... Since there is no evidence in the world that would justify calling the debt problem 'ruinous,' we can assume that this is just the sort of belief that was passed on to Brooks by his parents, in the same way that religious beliefs can be passed on." Thanks to Denis N. for the link.

Why should Carl Levin be the one who needs to do this? Where's the SEC? Where are any of the regulatory bodies? -- Elliot Spitzer ...

** ... Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. "Thanks to an extraordinary investigative effort by a Senate subcommittee [headed by Carl Levin {D-Mich.}] that unilaterally decided to take up the burden the criminal justice system has repeatedly refused to shoulder, we now know exactly what Goldman Sachs executives like Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks lied about. We know exactly how they and other top Goldman executives, including David Viniar and Thomas Montag, defrauded their clients. America has been waiting for a case to bring against Wall Street. Here it is, and the evidence has been gift-wrapped and left at the doorstep of federal prosecutors, evidence that doesn't leave much doubt: Goldman Sachs should stand trial." CW: Where, I'd like to know, is Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder? It seems obvious he has decided not to aggravate super-connected big campaign donors by charging them with multiple counts of fraud and perjury. The fix is in. Thanks to reader Karen S. for the link. ...

... Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: in fully half of the major federal agencies involved in regulatory overhaul, the seat at the top is (or will soon become) empty.

Paul Krugman explains why nothing could be worse than a cap on spending and why  Republican/Tea Party Members of Congress are charlatans at best and horrible human beings in all likelihood: "... when people like Mr. Boehner reject out of hand any increase in taxes, they are, in effect, declaring that they won’t preserve programs benefiting older Americans in anything like their current form. It’s just a matter of arithmetic."

Steve Benen on the GOP debt-ceiling strategy: "McConnell and other Republicans are eager, practically desperate, to make major changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — changes that the public won’t like. What the GOP needs more than anything is bipartisan cover. They want Obama to make it so, to use McConnell’s word, this isn’t 'usable' in the next election, because if Republicans tried to do this on their own, the electoral consequences would be severe."

What's Driving the Deficit, from the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities. Oh, look, it isn't TARP or the Obama stimulus package. despite your claim. Why, it's George Double-U Bush & his big, fat tax cuts along with the deregulation that led to the recession:

The Washington Post has published the Senate Ethics Committee's full report on John Ensign. It's 75 pages long, but schadenfraude is a powerful incentive so I'll at least skim it. Yesterday's WashPo story -- that the Ethics Committee has asked the DOJ to get off its ass -- is here. ...

... Shorter Version. Manu Raju & John Bresnahan of Politico report on the "bombshells" in the Senate report -- AND they say there are "salacious" details. Sounds like a read that will be at least half as fun as Ken Starr's report on the Lewinsky affair. Tidbit: Rick Santorum is worse than santorum.

Wednesday President Obama conducted a townhall-style meeting on CBS. CBS News has lotsa video clips here, including portions that didn't air. AND here's the full transcript. The full event (minus the outtakes):

I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies. I excused myself and went home to take the call. Obama simply said 'Osama Bin Laden is dead.' ... I told Obama, 'Good call.'
-- George W. Bush, on how he learned of bin Laden's death. More here from ABC News. No mention of whether or not the souffle had fallen by the time he got back to the restaurant. Maybe he just left it for Obama to finish. -- CW

Following up his Washington Post op-ed I linked yesterday, John McCain gives a Senate floor speech against torture. Joan McCarter of the Daily Kos has some background:

     ... Marcy Wheeler examines the new information McCain presented in his op-ed and floor speech. While she acknowledges the public still doesn't know enough to draw a definitive conclusion, the McCain info provides a window into "why the torture apologists have been so vehement. Because one of their narratives, after all, is that they needed torture to get the key information." But if all the information gleaned to locate Osama bin Laden came from detainees who were not tortured or from detainees when they were not being tortured, the torture advocates lose their one quasi-viable excuse for torture -- they did it "to keep America safe." ...

     ... Andrew Sullivan: "... the lie that torture had anything to do with the killing of Osama bin Laden is accepted as a premise on the propaganda network [i.e., Fox "News"].

David Sanger & John Markoff of the New York Times: "Almost two years after outlining a broad strategy intended to strengthen the security of the nation’s computers and networks, the Obama administration said Thursday that it was sending proposed legislation to Congress that would strengthen penalties for any invasion of private computer systems. But the White House ... said it had elected not to seek authority for stringent top-down regulations that would require companies to erect specific barriers to computer intrusions — which corporations feared would be enormously costly and soon be outdated.

Mike Littwin of the Denver Post has a boffo column on the Republican presidential field, and specifically on why Newt Gingrich is, "in many ways..., just what so many Republicans insist they want.... In Gingrich-speak, nothing is out of bounds, nothing too far below the belt, nothing too unforgivable to say. If I were like Newt Gingrich, here's what I'd say about him: He's everything that is wrong with America today. Since I'm not, I'll just say this: Newt Gingrich? Seriously?"

Right Wing World *

Big Fat Liar Announces Presidential Run. Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker, reviews Newt Gingrich's remarks in his first appearance on Hannity's Fox "News" show since Gingrich announced his presidential candidacy. Kessler includes video of the interview. Newt is so mendacious that Kessler gives him the worst rating possible.

Ezra Klein paraphrases the Newest Mitt Romney: “The plan I passed in Massachusetts was great policy, but as president, I pledge to oppose it and enable the insurance industry to undermine any state that attempts to implement it. I believe in the rights of whichever state wants to give the insurance industry the most sweetheart deal first, and a functioning health-care market second." ...

... Dana Milbank on the Romney Twins. ...

... Hey, newly-minted presidential candidate Newt Gingrich loves loved the individual mandate, too. ...

... Ezra Klein: "A lot of Republicans supported the individual mandate" because it was pretty close to Republican policy. Klein lists some prominent Republicans who signed onto federal bills that featured the mandate. ...

... Right Wing World Corollary: It's only bad/unconstitutional if Democrats do it. -- Constant Weader

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

AP: "Texas Rep. Ron Paul has officially announced that he’s running for president. Paul announced on ABC’s 'Good Morning America' that he will seek the GOP nomination for president in 2012":

Blogger is Back. Blogger Buzz explains why Google's Blogger was down for 20.5 hours.

AP: "People have no right to resist if police officers illegally enter their home, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled in a decision that overturns centuries of common law. The court issued its 3-2 ruling on Thursday, contending that allowing residents to resist officers who enter their homes without any right would increase the risk of violent confrontation. If police enter a home illegally, the courts are the proper place to protest it, Justice Steven David said."

AP: "Two U.S. officials say pornography was among the items seized when U.S. Navy SEALs raided the Pakistani hideout of Osama bin Laden almost two weeks ago. The officials say it was unclear who the material belonged to, or whether Bin Laden viewed it. Bin Laden's son and two other adult male couriers lived at the compound, the officials said...."

New York Times: "President Obama’s chief envoy to the Middle East, former Senator George J. Mitchell Jr., is leaving that post after two mostly futile years pressing Israelis and Palestinians to make peace, administration officials said on Friday.... The news comes ahead of a critical week in which the president is to deliver a much-anticipated speech on policy toward the Middle East in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden and revolutions in the Arab world, and then to meet with the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom the White House has had fraught relations."

Talking Points Memo: "Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has officially announced his retirement. Kohl's decision to not seek reelection in 2012 opens up a potential top-tier Senate race, in a swing state that has become the center of a polarizing political debate over labor unions in the wake of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's anti-public employee union legislation.... Kohl told reporters that he believed the divisions in the state, triggered by Walker's legislation, would make it easier for the Democrats to hold the seat. "I think whoever we nominate is going to have a very good chance of winning," said Kohl. "To some extent the Republicans have overreached, and people have recoiled, and the landscape will be more favorable."

President Obama will meet with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen at 10:00 am ET.

Washington Post: "Twin suicide bombings outside a paramilitary training center in Pakistan’s northwest killed least 80 people early Friday, in what appeared to be militants’ first major retaliatory attack since the death of Osama bin Laden." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Senior police officials said on Friday that a suicide attack that killed more than 80 cadets from a government paramilitary force was most likely retaliation for an army offensive in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and not for the death of Osama bin Laden, as the Pakistani Taliban claimed."

Reuters: "Libyan rebels will meet senior White House officials in Washington on Friday to seek cash and diplomatic legitimacy in their battle to topple Muammar Gaddafi. The United States, Britain and France say they will maintain their NATO-led air campaign until Gaddafi is forced from power but the rebels say they also need cash to hold their besieged positions on the ground." ...

     ... Update. Here's the White House's read-out: "National Security Advisor Tom Donilon met this afternoon with Dr. Mahmoud Gibril, the President of the Libyan Transitional National Council’s Executive Bureau."

CNN: "Three of Osama bin Laden's widows have been interviewed by U.S. intelligence officers under the supervision of Pakistani's intelligence service, according to sources in both governments. The women -- who were all interviewed together this week -- were 'hostile' toward the Americans, according to a senior Pakistani government official ... and two senior U.S. officials.... The eldest of the three widows spoke for the group."

Washington Post: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell "sought Thursday to clarify his party’s stance on Medicare heading into high-stakes talks with the White House, telling President Obama he wants 'significant' changes to the program in exchange for lifting the legal limit on government borrowing."