Wednesday punditry, GOP wannabe edition. For ongoing coverage of the uprising in Egypt, see the mothership diary.
WaPo:
"We believe all [President Hosni Mubarak] needs is seven days maximum," to amend the constitution by setting term limits and relaxing eligibility requirements to run for president, said Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, the secretary general of the Al Wafd Party, a liberal opposition party involved in negotiations with the government.
"We are faced with two choices," Nour said. "Either to move forward with reform through constitutional legitimate channels, or we're opening the door to complete chaos or a military coup."
Pew:
Americans do not have a clear point of view on how the massive anti-government protests in Egypt will affect the United States. More than half (58%) say the protests will not have much of an effect (36%), or offer no response or are noncommittal (22%). Of the minority that thinks the protests will have an effect on the U.S., nearly twice as many say their impact will be negative rather than positive (28% vs. 15%).
This lack of agreement notwithstanding, a majority (57%) says the Obama administration is handling the situation in Egypt about right, while much smaller numbers say the administration has shown too much support (12%) or too little support (12%) for the protestors.
Poynter:
[Just-ousted NBC Universal president and chief executive Jeff] said that Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite news network, should be more available in the U.S. but that distributors would be attacked as "unpatriotic" for airing it.
NY Times:
The Conservative Political Action Committee, which begins meeting Thursday, effectively launches the Republican presidential nominating contest.
Some things just write themselves:
Sarah Palin’s request to trademark her name was denied after the former Alaska governor failed to properly complete her application.
Full story here:
But it emerged over the weekend that the application to register her name for "motivational speaking services" has been rejected.
According to official records the bid, filed by her lawyer, was rejected on the grounds that she failed to personally sign the application.
The records also show that two examples [Fox News mention, Facebook cites] she had given supporting her application were "not acceptable".
Competency is not one of her stronger points.
Mark Bittman:
Limited kudos go to the United States Department of Agriculture, whose Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 — yes, it’s 2011, but they’re published every five years — are the best to date. We’re told to eat "less food" and more fresh foods; wise advice. But aside from salt, the agency buries mostly vague recommendations about what we should be eating less of: we’re admonished to drink "few or no" sodas — hooray for that — and "refined grains," Solid Fats and Added Sugars. And there’s our fabulous acronym: SOFAS.
The problem, as usual, is that the agency’s nutrition experts are at odds with its other mission: to promote our bounty in whatever form its processors make it.
Jonathan Bernstein on the judicial nomination crisis:
It was a small but positive step toward solving the vacancy crisis in the federal judiciary system, the result, according to Democrats, of more than a year of Republican obstruction of President Obama’s nominations.
But that’s only half the story. Both the White House and Congressional Democrats have failed to make these nominations a priority — and until they do, the number of empty seats on the bench, and the ensuing courtroom backlog, will get only worse.
There's no question Republicans are mostly to blame, but Bernstein notes more judges need to be nominated.
[Added] Fact Checker:
The Pinocchio Test
Even if you grant the fact that the 1998 showdown with the inspectors was largely due to Saddam Hussein, there is no way one can claim, as Rumsfeld did, that Hussein threw the inspectors out in 2003 -- or that it was the "second or third and fourth time." Rumsfeld has either forgotten the circumstances under which he helped take the United States to war -- which is doubtful, since he just wrote a book about it -- or he is seriously misrepresenting the truth.
Four Pinocchios