Daily Kos

Visual source: Newseum

Have you seen this true story of heroism on 9/11 in lower Manhattan? The spontaneously organized boatlift evacuation rescued a half a million people in 9 hours - more than Dunkirk in WW II over 9 days. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

And then there are the clowns who purport to deserve our, and their, support:

The American Prospect:

Has Newt Gingrich floundered in Florida because he doesn’t understand his own appeal to GOP voters? In South Carolina, the former house speaker hit upon an anti-elite message that goes straight to the heart of the Tea Party—and the political moment. It was nothing new: the kind of silent-majority red meat that white conservatives have eagerly consumed since the days of Wallace and Nixon (not to mention Bush and Palin)... He stopped hitting Romney on his 1-percentism even as more damning evidence piled up. He failed to rouse the rabble in this week’s debates. And he may end up blowing it on Tuesday—and eventually losing the Republican nomination—because he didn’t grasp what gave him a chance to win it in the first place.

Rings true. Of course, it also reinforces everything we don't like about the GOP base, Nixon and Palin.

Gail Collins:

The far right seems to be particularly indifferent to bad-behavior issues. Maybe this is because their supporters know that sinning social conservatives operate at a disadvantage. It is way easier to avoid the hypocrisy label if you’re a straying civil libertarian whose family values speeches mainly involve encouraging kids to donate money to feed impoverished people in Africa. You’re not going to be charged with speaking out of both sides of your mouth when the first side is talking about supporting Doctors Without Borders.

Conservative voters also like expressions of remorse and promises to reform. When all else fails, they have even been known to argue that everybody does it. “I’m just saying, they all have stinky feet,” former Congressman J. C. Watts, a Baptist preacher, said while he was campaigning for Newt in South Carolina.

Although actually, when you’re talking about 1) Committing adultery, 2) Divorcing your wife while she’s sick to marry your mistress, 3) Committing adultery, 4) Allegedly asking your wife to let you keep the mistress on the side and 5) Divorcing your wife while she’s sick to marry your mistress ... it’s pretty clear everybody doesn’t do it.

Eugene Robinson:

“The issue I think that’s going to play out this election is that question of Warren Buffett’s secretary,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Wednesday on CNN. “We want her to make more money, we want her to have more hope for the future. . . . [But] this notion that somehow the income that Warren Buffett makes is the same as a wage income for his secretary, we know that’s not the same.”

In other words, it’s not just that the rich are better than the rest of us but also that their money is better than our money.

Is this really an argument the Republican presidential nominee is going to make? Not in so many words, surely. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum seem to understand that taking Cantor’s line would constitute political malpractice.

You mean the same political malpractice that had Romney releasing his taxes on SOTU day?

John Pitney Jr.:

It’s easy to dismiss Gingrich’s challenge as a gimmick, just some red meat to excite GOP primary voters, and not a challenge Obama would ever accept. But what if he did? What if the president and the former House speaker dueled in a series of open, nationally televised debates? An honest look at Gingrich’s record suggests that the results could differ markedly from the fantasies of Team Newt. Obama would not collapse in a heap, Gingrich would not emerge triumphant — and the whole thing would go down as the biggest campaign blunder since Richard Nixon figured he could out-debate John F. Kennedy on television.

Alas, we won't get the chance, it seems, not if the polls are correct.

Adam Clymer:

Those raucous Republicans thrilled by hearing Newt Gingrich denounce the “destructive, vicious, negative nature” of what he often calls the “elite media” during debates might be shocked to watch him on other occasions. He enjoys consorting with the enemy.

Stephen Dworkin on the Keystone XL pipeline and green messaging:

The problem is that supporters of Keystone XL and other polluting resource extraction initiatives have effectively framed the debate for voters and politicians alike around jobs and short-term economic gains instead of long-term damage to the planet and profiting off of technological stagnation or rampant consumerism. When Americans see a blueprint for an oil pipeline, they see energy and infrastructure progress. And when they see the president denying a permit for such a plan, no matter what the context, they often fall for the right-wing squawking (this time from GOP presidential hopefuls) about liberals being destructive to the economy and catering to extremist environmental groups.

So what can we environmentalists do to change the way this debate is unfolding within the chaotic presidential race? I propose that we would do well to stick to our guns on the most potent weapon in our arsenal: scientific and demonstrable truth. Not only are the details surrounding Obama’s decision important—he was legally bound to ensure the appropriate impact assessments were undergone and was pressured by Canadian officials to ignore environmental impacts they de facto acknowledged—but the details about the pipeline itself must be cleared up.