Visual source: Newseum
Alexander Petri:
“Hey, did I miss anything?” people often ask, dashing in late on a night when their favorite show is airing.
The answer, for the CNN National Security Debate, was, “No.”
Stephen Stromberg takes notes:
You’re not in jogging shorts, and Wolf Blitzer is not a coyote: Rick Perry greets Blitzer by making his fingers resemble a gun and “shooting” the moderator.
Someone remind him — he’s running for president: Blitzer asks Herman Cain whether America should continue to fund foreign AIDS and malaria relief programs. Cain responds: “It depends upon priorities.” Well, yes.
Michele Bachmann’s latest inanity: She claims that President Obama has outsourced the CIA to the ACLU. Apparently the ACLU is a lot better at plotting the death of Osama bin Laden than it has ever gotten credit for.
Ross Douthat dares to admit the emperor has no clothes:
But this [conservative] intellectual ferment coexists with a Republican primary season whose domestic policy debates have been intellectually vacant even by the low standards of presidential primaries. True, some of the candidates have shown decent instincts: Romney has halfway embraced a plausible blueprint for Medicare reform; Jon Huntsman’s proposal for shrinking too-big-too-fail banks deserves some notice; and Rick Santorum has at least been willing to acknowledge that America might have a social mobility problem.
But these ideas aren’t where the action is. Instead, the highest-profile proposals have consistently been the dumbest — Tim Pawlenty’s fantasy of 5 percent growth, Rick Perry’s bent flat tax, and above all Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. More heterodox ideas on domestic policy have been raised only to be repudiated (or else denounced as treason).
Chris Cillizza:
One potential trouble spot: Gingrich’s refusal to back away from his belief that we shouldn’t throw out all 11 million people here illegally could come back to bite him in a party that is vehemently opposed to anything that looks or sounds like amnesty.
NY Times editorial:
In reviewing the constitutionality of health care reform, the Supreme Court said it would consider the legality of the Medicaid expansion included in the reform law. The question seems narrow, but it could have significant implications for redefining Congress’s spending power.
The only appellate court that even addressed this question, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, rejected the constitutional challenge. Having taken up the question, the Supreme Court should affirm that ruling. It would be a serious mistake for the court to use this case to restrict Congress’s authority by placing any additional requirements for the commitment of federal money.
Monday's story about Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell trolling for Hillary as Presidential substitute was covered by
Laura Clawson, but the headline of the day goes to
Alex Pareene:
Fake Democratic pollsters have stupid idea
More from
James Downie:
Researchers at the Library of Congress have discovered a trove of Caddell and Schoen columns going right back to the founding of the United States. Yesterday, the library graciously allowed me to share some of the choicest excerpts (unedited aside from hyperlinks for context), which share some striking parallels with their Monday column.
...The second excerpt comes from the summer of 1864:
f President Lincoln were to withdraw, he would put great pressure on the Confederates to come to the table and negotiate… By going down the re-election road and into partisan mode, the president has effectively guaranteed that the remainder of his term will be marred by the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity, common purpose, and most of all, our economic strength.
...The final excerpt is from mid-August 1939:
Certainly, Mr. Roosevelt could still win re-election in 1940. Even with his all-time low job approval ratings, the president could eke out a victory next November. But the kind of campaign required for the president's political survival would make it almost impossible for him to govern — not only during the campaign, but throughout a third term.
Downie also cites
this gem from the WSJ citing Obama's racially divisive approach:
Barack Obama promised a new era of post-partisanship. In office, he's played racial politics and further split the country along class and party lines.
Troll is too kind a word for these people. Please stop calling them pollsters.