;)
Wednesday
Mar212012
The Commentariat -- March 22, 2012
Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times: "The constitutional challenge to the [Affordable Care Act]’s requirement for people to buy health insurance — specifically, the argument that the mandate exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause — is rhetorically powerful but analytically so weak that it dissolves on close inspection." News Flash: "unprecedented" does not equal "unconstitutional."
War on Women -- Supreme Edition. Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars on the Supreme's 5-4 decision yesterday to negate part of the Family Leave Act (see yesterday's Ledes): "I'll be damned if the conservatives on the Supreme Court weren't getting jealous of all the congressional and state-level battles in the war on women and decide that they needed to take up arms themselves.... First, conservatives want to make sure you get pregnant by limiting access to birth control, then force you to have the baby by limiting access to abortions, then if you get fired for taking time off to have the baby, you have no right to recourse for being fired. Great. All these things that have been litigated decades ago and established as basic rights have been inverted."
Michael Scherer of Time: "The most recent filing by Restore Our Future, the technically independent group supporting the candidacy of Mitt Romney, revealed a number of firms — a for-profit school, several payday lenders, and a chemical company – whose bottom lines have been threatened or harmed by regulations supported by the Obama Administration.... The contributions represent a clear realization of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which permitted independent spending by corporations to directly influence the outcome of elections for the first time in decades: If politicians mess with a company’s bottom line, that company now has the power to directly retaliate...."
New York Times Editors: "Stand Your Ground laws are abominations that should be repealed."
Major Garrett of the National Journal: "The White House has chosen to own the energy debate on its terms, which is to say talk about alternative energy instead of gas prices. They know Republicans want to use high pump prices as a weapon against Obama's heavy investment in solar, wind and other forms of alternative energy (even algae)." ...
... Amy Gardner & Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "The White House has launched a concerted effort to turn political weakness into strength on two critical election-year issues that have become big vulnerabilities for President Obama: rising gas prices and the controversial health-care law." ...
Daily Kos: In Illinois' 10th District, progressive Congressional candidate Ilya Sheyman loses to a ConservaDem.
Right Wing World
It's Gaffe Day in Willard's World!
Gaffe No. 1. I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again. -- Eric Fehrnstrom, longtime aide to Mitt Romney, on Romney's general election strategy
You take whatever he said and you can shake it up and it will be gone and he’s going to draw a whole new picture for the general election. Well, that should be comforting to all of you who are voting in this primary. -- Rick Santorum
Etch a Sketch is a great toy, but a losing strategy. -- Newt Gingrich, tweet ...
... Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "Mitt Romney sought to use the coveted endorsement of Jeb Bush on Wednesday to amplify his call for Republicans to rally behind his candidacy and get on with the mission of ousting President Obama.... The comments from Mr. Fehrnstrom followed a Romney campaign pattern of committing unforced errors after major victories. ...
... Philip Elliott of the AP: "... Mitt Romney tried Wednesday to shake accusations that he's an inconsistent conservative after a top adviser compared the campaign's shift from primary fight to general election to an Etch A Sketch.... His Republican rivals and Democrats were positively giddy over the remark, which gave them an opening to resurrect a familiar story line that the former Massachusetts governor will take any position on an issue to get elected." ...
... CW: the other connection Romney has to Etch-a-Sketch is pretty interesting:
... Steve Benen: "The knock on Romney since Day One has been that he's a shallow, unprincipled politician, willing to say anything to anyone to win. 'Etch A Sketch' is so perfect a metaphor, it's extraordinary that it came from the candidate's own communications director." ...
... CW: Ha ha. Even the New York Times Home & Garden section weighs in with a little history of the Etch-a-Sketch. This portrait of Romney is not going away. ...
Gaffe No. 2. I keep hearing the president say he's responsible for keeping the country out of a Great Depression. No, no, no, that was President George W. Bush and [then-Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson. -- Mitt Romney ...
... Jon Chait of New York magazine: Oops! "Obama’s plan is to depict Romney as continuing the failed policies of the Bush administration. Praising Bush’s economic stewardship is probably not the wisest strategy.... the Wall Street bailout is actually a huge political liability for Obama because it’s incredibly unpopular and most Americans think Obama, not Bush, signed it. So having Romney run around reminding people that Bush bailed out Wall Street is actually Obama’s prayer answered."
CW: This long New Yorker article by Louis Menand is a pretty good analysis of how Willard looks at life. Menand is a fine writer, so reading it won't make you gag, & it will help you understand why Romney is such a cold fish.
Paul Krugman: "... are people finally willing to concede that [Paul] Ryan is not now and has never been remotely serious? And — I know this is probably far too much to ask — are they going to do a bit of soul-searching over how they got snookered by this obvious charlatan?"
Local News
Norma Love (apparently her real name) of the AP: "New Hampshire lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state legislature the first one to repeal a gay marriage law, handing gay-rights supporters a key victory in the Northeast, where same-sex marriage is prevalent. The state House voted 211-116 to kill the measure, ending a push by its new Republican majority to rescind New Hampshire's 2-year-old gay marriage law. Nevertheless, both sides are pledging to continue fighting into the fall elections."
News Ledes
Reuters (via the NYT): "JPMorgan Chase quietly paid $384 million to American Century Investment Management after losing an arbitration over accusations of breaches related to the bank’s purchase of a retirement plan services business." JPMorgan wanted to buy American Century so stacked the deck to lower the company's value -- needless to say, in violation of the contract.
New York Times: "The embattled Florida police chief overseeing the investigation into the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin temporarily stepped down Thursday, a day after the Sanford City Commission voted 3-to-2 that it no longer had confidence in him. The move comes as thousands gathered in Sanford Thursday night for a rally to protest the police department’s handling of the case that [was] live-streamed." ...
... Orlando Sentinel: "Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi today appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, removing the state attorney who had been considering the case, they announced tonight. Scott and Bondi appointed State Attorney Angela B. Corey, whose office handles cases in Duval, Clay and Nassau counties. Scott today also created a task force headed by Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll to review Florida's 'Stand Your Ground'" law...."
Los Angeles Times: "Singer Whitney Houston appears to have suffered a heart episode before accidentally drowning in the bathtub of a Beverly Hills hotel suite, according to coroner's officials who listed cocaine use as a contributing factor."
New York Times: "The Senate gave final approval on Thursday to an ethics bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress, clearing the measure for President Obama, who called for such legislation in his State of the Union address two months ago. The legislation was adopted by unanimous consent after the Senate voted, 96 to 3, to end debate on the bill, which was approved in the House last month by a vote of 417 to 2."
New York Times: "Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged on Friday with 17 counts of murder and various other charges, including attempted murder, in connection with the March 11 shooting deaths of Afghan civilians, a senior United States official said on Thursday."
New York Times: "A 23-year-old Frenchman who claimed responsibility for the killings of four men and three children died on Thursday after jumping from a balcony as security forces stormed the apartment where had been holed up for more than 30 hours, Claude Guéant, the French interior minister said."
New York Times: "A group of junior officers in the West African state of Mali, upset over the conduct of a sporadic guerilla war in the country’s north, has seized control of the country’s national television station and its presidential palace in an apparent coup attempt."
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Reader Comments (4)
The Etch-a-Sketch comment may be the coup de grace for Romney. In any other campaign season it would be but this year the Republican Party has fielded the worst collection of dolts, dunderheads, liars, bigots, and hypocrites in the history of that party, and that’s saying something.
Even if he doesn’t lose outright because of it, it may be cause for a brokered convention and who knows what happens then. But the metaphor, as many have noted, is so perfect for Willard that it is sure to rank up there with other less than stellar moments from presidential campaigns which were either seriously hurt or fatally wounded by the candidates themselves.
Here, for your morning edification, are just a few of the worst:
Gary Hart spending a night with a woman, Donna Rice--not his wife--on a yacht named “Monkey Business”. You couldn’t make that up. He could have had sworn statements from a thousand people that nothing happened and his candidacy would still have drowned in a torrent of snickers.
McCain/Palin. Palin wasn’t the only reason McCain lost. Remember that “fundamentals of our economy are strong” quote? Sounds like someone on the deck of the Titanic talking about what great weather we’re having with the iceberg in clear sight. But Palin’s Couric interview, if you can call it that, was the kiss of death.
“You’re No Jack Kennedy.” Quayle asked for it. And he got it. Right in the face. As if the retort wasn’t bad enough, remember the look on Quayle’s face after Bentsen KO’d him? So Bush won the election but Quayle’s career was done. He should have stuck to potatoes.
Al Gore being, well, Al Gore. Oh, that and folding a winning hand with all the chips just sitting there waiting for him to pick them up. His inaction cost him the election and opened the door for the single worst presidency in history and a lost decade for America. Love Story and hanging chads. The End.
Jesse Jackson’s obsession with Hymietown. C’mon Jesse, racial epithets from the Rainbow Coalition candidate? Seriously?
Dukakis was leading the polls by double digits in 1988 when he took that infamous tank ride looking like Goofy driving a Model T in a Disney cartoon. The debate question about what he would do if his wife were raped and murdered didn’t help either. Candidates can be rational but not bloodless.
Ross Perot’s choice of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” may have been too emblematic of the Perot candidacy but he was ahead in the polls when he disappeared from campaigning for several weeks. Bye now.
Herman Cain, Herman Cain, Herman Cain. I’d have typed that nine times but three was enough.
Ed Muskie’s tears. William Loeb, a precursor to Murdoch-style political hit pieces, said mean things about Muskie’s wife. Sorry Ed, there’s no crying in politics.
Pat Buchanan’s Culture War speech at the 1996 Republican convention, of which the sorely missed Molly Ivins opined “probably sounded better in the original German.” Bob Dole was the proud recipient of first runner-up in that presidential election, thanks, in part, to Buchanan’s very fine description of his goal of bigoted nationalism as his ideal for America.
Thomas Dewey misunderestimating Harry Truman. After polls indicated Dewey was far ahead, he quit campaigning and started ordering new silverware for the White House. Can you say “Chicago Tribune”?
Well, the current crop of Republicans has already demonstrated on numerous occasions their ability to point a gun at their foot and fire. Likely there’ll be more of that, but perhaps not quite as perfect as the reference to Willard, the Etch-a-Sketch candidate.
And you thought tying a dog to the roof of the car was the best he could do!
In his blog Krugman assumes (or pretends to) that there is or was once some reason behind the Right's Paul Ryan adulation. There was, but it has nothing to do with fundamental economics. Ryan is a designated spear carrier only, a patsy paid to keep the anti-government, anti-so-called-entitlement narrative perpetually before the public. He mouths propaganda only, designed in part to stake out positions so far to the Right that any compromise offered by the more "reasonable" Dems is a win for Right and a loss for the majority who depend on the services his budgets eviscerate.
Whether he takes the content of what he say seriously or not, I can't say, but I'm certain Ryan's handlers never have. They know he's a clown, to them, though, he's a useful one.
Kinda like someone hired to keep the party entertained downstairs while you steal the jewels...
See that the Times is going to cut the 20 free articles per month to 10 April 1. That seems to indicate the pay wall is not working all that well.
About that VSP (Very Serious Person) - Paul Ryan: I happened upon an interview with him that appeared on CNN the other night and was struck by this observation!
Put a bow tie on Ryan and you're looking at Pee Wee Herman! (...with apologies to Pee Wee).