The Commentariat -- March 13, 2012

And doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

             'Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the
                      United States'
             'Whaling Voyage by One Ishmael'
             'Bloody Battle in Affghanistan'

-- Ishmael, Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on "Stanley Fish's Strange Double Standard." Thanks to contributor Carlyle for the inspiration. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

President Barack Obama & Prime Minister David Cameron in a Washington Post op-ed: "The alliance between the United States and Great Britain is a partnership of the heart, bound by the history, traditions and values we share."

"What If Bush Had Done That? Josh Gerstein of Politico: "President Barack Obama has forged a surprising consensus on opposite ends of the political spectrum: They wonder how on earth he gets away with it. A series of recent moves — from aggressively filling his reelection war chest to green-lighting shoot-to-kill orders against an American terror suspect overseas — would have triggered a massive backlash if George W. Bush had tried them, say former Bush administration officials and a few on the political left."

New York Times Editors: the Justice Department and a Wisconsin judge block restrictive voter ID laws enacted by Republican legislatures trying to suppress the vote (the Texas law would have disenfranchised as many as 800,000 Hispanic voters).

Steve Mufson of the Washington Post: "How much does the president have to do with the price of gasoline? A lot, say American voters. According to oil experts and economists, not so much — at least in the short term. Today’s oil prices are the product of years and decades of exploration, automobile design and ingrained consumer habits combined with political events in places such as Sudan and Libya, anxiety about possible conflict with Iran, and the energy aftershocks of last year’s earthquake in Japan."

Steve Israel (D-NY) in a Politico op-ed: "Tone-deaf House Republicans are preparing a budget that will — again — protect millionaires over Medicare."

Right Wing World

Greg Sargent wonders if there is any limit to Romney's dishonesty: "The Romney campaign is accusing Obama of slashing Medicare, and hence 'ending Medicare as we know it,' while simultaneously accusing him of failing to curb entitlement spending in ways that pose grave danger to the nation’s finances. This, even as Romney has endorsed a plan that would quasi-voucherize Medicare and end the program as we know it." ...

... Brian Beutler has a more detailed take, but draws the same conclusion: the Romney camp charges are totally fake. (I'm looking to see if the MSM will cover this, & if so, how.) ...

... Multimillionaire Romney, who turned 65 yesterday, won't be enrolling in Medicare. ...

... AND Steve Benen makes a point I made in a NYTX column a few days ago: "... when we're dealing with one of the year's most important policy disputes, and the leading Republican contender gets caught lying blatantly, media professionals are making a mistake when they do little more than shrug their shoulders. When reporters get so inured to Romney's dishonesty that it no longer seems interesting or noteworthy, it sends a signal to the political world that facts and honesty simply don't matter anymore, and campaigns should come down to which candidate can tell better lies."

Forget the facts; it's all about what you believe. A funny post by Joshua Keating of Foreign Policy on Rick Santorum's strange claim than one in 20 Dutch people are euthanized against their will: "Dutch medical statistics are ultimately unknowable -- just another of the unresolvable mysteries that have confronted us since the dawn of mankind. Who are we? Why are we here? What are the laws in the Netherlands concerning doctor-assisted suicide? We all have our own beliefs."

News Ledes

Alabama & Mississippi GOP voters go to the polls today. Politico: "In a topsy-turvy GOP primary, where the unexpected has been the norm, such a final plot twist may be altogether fitting: The Mormon Yankee who thinks cheese grits are a revelation effectively seals the nomination in Alabama and Mississippi. Mitt Romney has a shot to win both states — polls show him leading or effectively tied in each. But even if the former Massachusetts governor doesn’t take them outright, the apparent resurgence of Newt Gingrich in the Deep South has once again muddled the primary-within-a-primary so that Rick Santorum is going to be denied his wish to get a clean shot at the front-runner." ...

     ... Update: Here's the New York Times election results page. ...

     ... Update 2: at about 8:55 pm ET, NBC News projected Rick Santorum as the winner in Alabama. Mississippi still too close to call. ...

     ... Update 3: at about 10:50 pm ET, NBC New projected Santorum as the winner in Mississippi.

New York Times: "Stocks climbed to new heights in part on rosy retail sales data on Tuesday, pushing the broad market to levels last seen in June 2008 and the Nasdaq composite index to close above the 3,000 milestone for the first time since 2000."

Yahoo News: "President Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed to defend U.S. workers from unfair competition and bluntly warned China to play by the rules of global trade as he announced that the United States, the European Union and Japan were joining forces to bring a commercial dispute with Beijing to the World Trade Organization (WTO)." ...

... New York Times: "President Obama pledged on Tuesday that a thorough investigation would be conducted into the bloody rampage by an American soldier in Afghanistan."

New York Times: "The Obama administration is discussing whether to reduce American forces in Afghanistan by at least an additional 20,000 troops by 2013, reflecting a growing belief within the White House that the mission there has now reached the point of diminishing returns. Accelerating the withdrawal of United States forces has been under consideration for weeks by senior White House officials, but those discussions are now taking place in the context of two major setbacks to American efforts in Afghanistan — the killings on Sunday of Afghan civilians attributed to a United States Army staff sergeant and the violence touched off by burning of Korans last month by American troops."

New York Times: "Britain will add its voice to President Obama’s in discouraging an Israeli military strike on Iran when Prime Minister David Cameron begins a three-day visit [to the U.S.] this week, a senior British diplomat said Monday."

Reuters: "The Obama administration on Monday blocked a new law in Texas requiring voters to show photo identification before they can cast a ballot, citing a concern that it could harm Hispanic voters who lacked such documents. The law, which was approved in May 2011, required voters to show government-issued photo identification, such as a driver's license, military identification card, birth certificate with a photo, current U.S. passport, or concealed handgun permit."

New York Times: "Rebekah Brooks, the formeToolsMeasureOptions [NYT typo??] Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was arrested early Tuesday on suspicion of obstruction of justice, according to a person with knowledge of the arrest. Her husband, Charlie, a decades-long friend of Prime Minister David Cameron from their days at Eton, was also arrested, the person said." Guardian story here.

Guardian: "Taliban militants opened fire on senior officials from the Afghan government and military at a memorial service for 16 civilians thought to have been shot dead in their homes by a US soldier.... Four members of the security forces were injured in the attack, but no one was killed, said Jawed Faisal, spokesman for the Kandahar provincial government."

AP: "Nitrate contamination of drinking water is a pervasive problem in California's agricultural heartland and is bound to intensify in the coming years, according to a University of California, Davis study released Tuesday. The study, ordered by the state Legislature, shows chemical fertilizers and livestock manure are the main source of nitrate contamination in groundwater for more than 1 million Californians in the Salinas Valley and parts of the Central Valley."

The Commentariat -- March 12, 2012

By popular request, here's my column on Brother Douthat's Sunday sermon in praise of -- wise Republican voters. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here. ...

... Jonathan Chait of New York magazine: "For Douthat’s argument to work, though, you have to assume that Romney won because ... he is intelligent and well-accomplished.... I see little evidence that this is the case."

** Adam Liptak's analysis in the New York Times of the Roberts Court, and the critical decision the Court will make on the Affordable Care Act, is something of a must-read.

Thomas Edsall in the New York Times: "Instead of serving as a springboard to social mobility as it did for the first decades after World War II, college education today is reinforcing class stratification, with a huge majority of the 24 percent of Americans aged 25 to 29 currently holding a bachelor’s degree coming from families with earnings above the median income." CW: read Edsall's post, with its shocking statistics that make his point; then remind yourself that Mitt Romney does not want to help poor & lower-middle class students get college degrees. He really is one mean prick.

** Ezra Klein in the New Yorker: the bully pulpit doesn't bully anybody; in fact, it's pretty ineffectual.

Colin Moynihan of the New York Times: In New York City, "For the last few months, [Occupy] protest organizers say, police officers or detectives have been posted outside buildings where private meetings were taking place, have visited the homes of organizers and have questioned protesters arrested on minor charges. 'The N.Y.P.D. surveillance does not appear to be limited to unlawful activity,' said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.... A police spokesman did not respond to a request for comment."

Gary Langer of ABC News: "More than half of Americans for the first time expect Barack Obama to be re-elected -- but that won't make it easy: Even as expectations have moved his way, rising gas prices have dented the president's rating on handling the economy, his overall job approval has slipped back under 50 percent and he's reverted to a dead heat in public preferences against Mitt Romney."

Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker: "All the signs are that the United States military and its NATO allies have not only outlived their welcome in Afghanistan but also passed the point at which their presence is anything other than toxic." ...

... Michael Hirsh of the National Journal: "Recent events in Afghanistan, including Sunday’s horrific shooting of Afghan civilians by a U.S. soldier, are not just going to alter U.S. strategy there. They are very likely to upend it. Even before the latest tragedy, President Obama was trying to expedite his way out of that quagmire, which is already the longest war in American history, as he faced a tough fight at home for re-election. Now Obama is likely to only speed things up further." ...

... Gary Langer: "Sixty percent of Americans say the war in Afghanistan has not been not worth fighting and just 30 percent believe the Afghan public supports the U.S. mission there.... A majority in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, 54 percent, say the United States should withdraw its forces from Afghanistan without completing its current effort to train Afghan forces to become self-sufficient."

What Global Warming? MSNBC: "Great Lakes ice coverage declined an average of 71 percent over the past 40 years, according to a report from the American Meteorological Society." CW: No doubt part of God's plan to hold down home-heating bills in the Midwest.

Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker on the many ways attacking contraception coverage is a political loser. 

E. J. Dionne: "The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops will make an important decision this week: Do they want to defend the church’s legitimate interest in religious autonomy, or do they want to wage an election-year war against President Obama?"

David Dunlap of the New York Times: more than 100 years after expelling her, the Park Avenue Christian Church restores the membership of feminist reformer Elizabeth Bartlett Grannis.

Right Wing World

Quote of the Day. I told them they have ocular rectitis. That's when your eyes get confused with your butt, and it develops into a shitty outlook on life. -- John Boehner (R-Ohio), Speaker of the House, to the Republican caucus (CW: Peggy Noonan bleeped the word I have translated as shitty; the bowdlerization she used was "unnecessarily fecal"? Am I missing an adverb? Please advise.)

Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times: "With two key Southern primaries on the horizon this week, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich sharpened their attacks against Mitt Romney on Sunday, as Mr. Santorum bluntly declared that his leading rival 'can’t close the deal,' and Newt Gingrich called Mr. Romney the party’s weakest front-runner since 1920."

Molly Ball of The Atlantic: actually, Mitt Romney is pretty funny. People misunderstand his dry, self-deprecating humor. Here's Mitt in 2007, explaining his hunting prowess to a group of Texans:

... Ned Martel of the Washington Post: "Dressage demands agility and finesse — and money. Ann Romney’s involvement in the sport has allowed her access to the heady world of high-level competition, but it has also exposed her to horse dealing. Two years ago, it resulted in a lawsuit against her alleging fraud in the sale of one of her horses. And that lawsuit provided testimony in which she spoke in unusual detail about the benefits — and the costs — of riding." CW: there's an exponential factor of people who can't afford to field a stable of warmbloods but can afford to go windsurfing. See John Kerry, 2004.

Digby comments on the Ken Griffin interview, which is here. (Griffin is that billionaire Chicago hedge-fund operator & Romney supporter who thinks the mega-rich don't have enough influence over politics.) "He sounds as if his political views were shaped by reading a couple of chapters of Atlas Shrugged in high school and multiple viewings of Red Dawn. In that respect I suppose he does personify the idea that absolutely anyone can become a billionaire no matter how little they know."

Local News

CW: especially if you live in Florida, you will want to read Tim Padgett's excellent summary in Time of the state government's pivot toward culture wars and away from superfluous stuff like higher education. I am ashamed to live here on Knuckledragger Drive at Neanderthal Palms Villas.

Jackie Borchardt of the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News: "Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way. The Cleveland Democrat introduced Senate Bill 307 this week.... Turner said if state policymakers want to legislate women’s health choices through measures such as House Bill 125, known as the 'Heartbeat bill,' they should also be able to legislate men’s reproductive health." Via Jud Legum of Think Progress.

News Ledes

New York Times: "The outrage from the back-to-back episodes of the Koran burning and the killing on Sunday of at least 16 Afghan civilians imperils what the Obama administration once saw as an orderly plan for 2012: to speed the training of Afghan forces so that they can take the lead in combat missions, all while drawing the Taliban into negotiations to end more than a decade of constant war." ...

... Washington Post: "The Taliban vowed Monday to take revenge for the killing of at least 16 Afghan civilians by a rogue American soldier, and the nation’s parliament said people 'have run out of patience' with foreign forces. In protesting the killings, some Afghan lawmakers demanded that the U.S. soldier in custody be tried in an Afghan court, the latest sign that the incident could mark an adverse turning point in the deteriorating relationship between Kabul and Washington."

New York Times: "In another milestone in the banking industry’s recovery from the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve this week will release the results of its latest stress tests, which are expected to show broadly improved balance sheets at most institutions."

Washington Post: "A Gaithersburg, [Maryland,] Catholic priest who triggered national debate late last month when he denied Communion to a lesbian at her mother’s funeral Mass has been placed on administrative leave from ministry in the Washington archdiocese."

The Commentariat -- March 11, 2012

Daylight Saving Time (United States) begins Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 2:00 am local time, except Arizona and Hawaii. Move your clocks ahead 1 hour ("Spring forward; fall back").

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer takes a look at how the New York Times handles Mitt's Mendacity -- the candidate's propensity to telling somewhere around a lie a day. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

CW: sorry, I meant to link this a while back but forgot (I think I did link to a story on this last year). David Savage of the Los Angeles Times: "Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama's healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue.... But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills. Those bills could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address."

Susn Saulny of the New York Times: "In Iowa, one of the crucial battlegrounds in the coming presidential election, and in other states, dozens of interviews in recent weeks have found that moderate Republican and independent women — one of the most important electoral swing groups — are disenchanted by the Republican focus on social issues like contraception and abortion in an election that, until recently, had been mostly dominated by the economy. And in what appears to be an abrupt shift, some Republican-leaning women like Ms. Russell said they might switch sides and vote for Mr. Obama — if they turn out to vote at all." ...

... Jackie Calmes of the New York Times: "President Obama’s re-election campaign is beginning an intensified effort this week to build support among women, using the debate over the new health care law to amplify an appeal that already appears to be benefiting from partisan clashes over birth control and abortion."

David Catanese of Politico: "Washington Rep. Jay Inslee [D] is resigning his Hous seat to fully focus his attention on his gubernatorial campaign against GOP Attorney General Rob McKenna.... The move is a tacit acknowledgment that the Inslee campaign is not where Democrats would like it to be eight months from the open-seat election to replace Gov. Christine Gregoire."

Judd Legum of Think Progress fowards a story reported by RadioInfo.com: "When it comes to advertisers avoiding controversial shows, it’s not just Rush From today’s TRI Newsletter: Premiere Networks is circulating a list of 98 advertisers who want to avoid 'environments likely to stir negative sentiments.' The list includes carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm) and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway)." ...

... Arthur Goldwag has a good post in Salon on "The Right Wing's Pornography of Resentment." Goldwag puts Limbaugh's crude weirdness in historical perspective. "Prudery and prurience often go hand in glove. Prurience and paranoia are fellow travelers as well."

There's a new storyline floating around the the Supremes' Citizens United decision (along with follow-up rullings based on Citizens) are not responsible for all that SuperPAC spending. Richard Hasen, writing in Slate, runs the numbers to refute this defense of the Court.

Nicholas Kristof: A British businessman, Robert Bittlestone, thinks he has found ancient Ithaca, and some scholars agree. Includes an interesting video.

Right Wing World

Josh Dorner of Think Progress: a billionaire Romney backer says the super-rich don't have enough influence over politics. Hedge fund billionare Ken Griffth said "that the ultrawealthy 'have a duty' to step forward and save the U.S. from what he says is a drift toward Soviet-style state control of the economy."

News Ledes

The Hill: "U.S. officials worked quickly to calm tensions after an American service member in Kandahar province opened fire on Afghan civilians Sunday, killing at least sixteen. President Obama said he was 'deeply saddened' by news of the attack, in a released statement. He said the shooting was 'tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.'" ...

... New York Times: "A United States service member walked out of a military base in a rural district of southern Afghanistan on Sunday and opened fire on three nearby houses, killing at least 15 civilians, local villagers and provincial officials said." ...

     ... Story has been updated. New lede: "Stalking from home to home, a United States Army sergeant methodically killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Afghanistan early on Sunday, igniting fears of a new wave of anti-American hostility, Afghan and American officials said."

Washington Post: "In Wyoming, where some counties had held caucuses earlier in the week, Romney easily outpaced his rivals and won seven of the 12 delegates at stake. Santorum won three, Paul one. (One delegate went uncommitted.)"

Guardian: "A 12-year-old boy was among those reported to have been killed in Gaza on Sunday amid a spiralling round of militant rocket attacks and Israeli air strikes over the weekend that left at least 18 Palestinians dead and four people in Israel injured."

AP: "Across Japan, people paused at 2:46 p.m. — the moment the magnitude-9.0 quake struck a year ago — for moments of silence, prayer and reflection about the enormous losses suffered and monumental tasks ahead."