Donald Rumsfeld once famously said:
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know."
And never has that been
more true than with regard to Mitt Romney.
Here's what we know we know about the presumptive GOP nominee:
And here's what we know we don't know:
I'm not exactly sure what we don't know we don't know, but I think maybe that was Rumsfeld's whole point.
Perhaps you people can help me out with that one.
Morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R); Obama Campaign Senior Adviser David Axlerod; Democraric Strategist Bob Shrum; Republican Strategist Steve Schmidt; Roundtable: David Brooks (NY Times), Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina; Former Chancellor of DC Schools Michelle Rhee and Mayor of San Antonio,TX Julian Castro (D).
Face the Nation: Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D); Aurora, CO Mayor Steve Hogan (R); Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO); NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I); Former TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky.
This Week: Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D); Aurora, CO Mayor Steve Hogan (R); Philadelphia, PA Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey; Roundtable: George Will (Washington Post), Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), Cokie Roberts (ABC News), Joe Klein (TIME) and Jennifer Rubin (Washington Post).
Fox News Sunday: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R); Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI); Roundtable: Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard), Former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Sociopath Mary Cheney and Kirsten Powers (Daily Beast).
State of the Union: Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D); Former Sen. George Allen (R-VA); Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Reliable Sources: Ramesh Ponnuru (National Review); Ana Marie Cox (GQ); Bob Cusack (The Hill); Kara Swisher (All Things Digital); Lauren Ashburn (Daily-Download.com); Marisa Guthrie (Hollywood Reporter); Adam Buckman (Xfinity).
The Chris Matthews Show: Dan Rather (HDNet); Kathleen Parker (Washington Post), David Ignatius (Washington Post) and Gloria Borger (CNN) .
Fareed Zakaraia GPS: Former "Car Czar" Steve Rattner; Author Niall Ferguson; Former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed; Author V.S. Ramachandran.
Up with Chris Hayes: Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Gary Gensler; Bryn Bird (Rural Coalition); Retired Brigadier General in the Syrian Army Akil Hashem; Col. Jack Jacobs (Council on Foreign Relations); CUNY Graduate School of Journalism Professor Stacy-Marie Ishmael; Josh Barro (Forbes.com); Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!); Sarab Al-Jijakli (National Alliance for Syria).
Evening lineup:
60 Minutes will feature: a report on the case of Michael Morton, who was exonerated by a DNA test after spending nearly 25 years in prison (preview); a report on the importance of gold to Indian culture and tradition (preview); and, an interview with Olympics swimmer Michael Phelps (preview).
On Comedy Central...
Back from their weeks-long vacation, Jon Stewart took on Rep. Michele Bachmann's demagoguery.
The Daily Show
Monday: Fareed Zakaria (CNN)
Tuesday: Actor Matthew McConaughey
Wednesday: TBA
Thursday: Actors Zach Galifianakas & Will Ferrell
And Stephen Colbert examined Mitt Romney's "retroactive retirement" from Bain Capital.
The Colbert Report
Monday: Former Boxer Mike Tyson
Tuesday: Author James Fallows
Wednesday: Director Vikram Gandhi
Thursday: British Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Westmacott
Elsewhere...
Fashionista John Boehner offered some sartorial advice to NBC News reporter Luke Russert.
As NBC's Luke Russert began asking about the Midwest drought during Boehner's weekly press conference, the speaker stopped him dead in his tracks. The sight of Russert's sockless feet, tucked into loafers, elicited commentary.
"Nice socks you have on, by the way," Boehner sarcastically said, who then gave a serious eye roll to Russert's apology and explanation that "it's laundry day."
Russert asserted that Boehner appeared, sans socks, on a local Washington State television years ago, but Boehner firmly replied that "I didn't have a tie on. It's a really simple rule: if you're wearing a tie, you should be wearing socks."
Who are you gonna believe: John Boehner or
your lying eyes.
Meanwhile...
A reporter for Tucker Carlson's "Daily Caller" made a shocking discovery—President Obama's nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics sent her kids to Jewish summer camp.
A forthcoming report from the conservative organization Americans for Limited Government (ALG) details how President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) sent her children to a politically left-wing Jewish summer camp with Communist roots. [...]
The U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee and New York state investigated the camp for its communist ties in the 1950s - something the camp's website calls "red baiting witch hunts." The investigation prompted Camp Kinderland to make a "legal determination" that it was not a part of the IWO. [...]
"Though campers no longer salute the flag of the Soviet Union on their way to breakfast, much remains the same at Kinderland," the ALG report reads. "The hardwired rituals of summer camp life, where tradition is religion and the outside world is a fantasy, have proved themselves to be perfectly suited to the preservation of a certain brand of unabashed Jewish leftism that has few contemporary analogies."
And, in related news...
A conservative blogger who graduated from the James O'Keefe school of journalism caught Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz in a compromising position. Or so he thought.
The blogger emailed Schultz on July 9 to say, smugly: "Dear Ms. Shultz, We are doing an expose on journalists in the elite media who socialize with elected officials they are assigned to cover. We have found numerous photos of you with Sen. Sherrod Brown. In one of them, you appear to be hugging him. Care to comment?"
Schultz, of course, is married to Brown. She wrote back a day later: "Dear Mr. [Name Deleted]: I am surprised you did not find a photo of me kissing U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown so hard he passes out from lack of oxygen. He's really cute. He's also my husband. You know that, right?"
A week has passed, but Schultz says she's received no response from the blogger. "Waiting, I'm waiting...." the columnist wrote on her Facebook page Tuesday.
And that's one to grow on.
- Trix