UP-FRONT POLITICAL NUGGETS!!
1. Mitt Romney’s Character Flaw (Jonathan Capehart) from the Washington Post
"Mitt Romney can’t translate his carefully manufactured aura of inevitability into reality because no one believes he is who he says he is. We all know this. But after his triple loss last night, I’m convinced that Romney’s problems with the Republican primary electorate and voters in general go deeper. They sense a lack of character in someone for a job that requires bedrock principles and core beliefs. And as far as I can tell, Romney has none."
2. The "Frontrunner" (Erick Erickson) from Redstate.com
"The other night I was having dinner and Pat Cadell, Jimmy Carter’s pollster and a very honest liberal, came up to me. He said bluntly that if his side’s front runner had lost 3 of the first 8 elections and been swept out last Tuesday, by Wednesday the Democrats would have a new candidate in the race. He is right. Yet the Republican Party has decided instead of finding a new guy to do what it can to get Romney across the finish line no matter how bad the limp."
A short, devastating comment on the Romney candidacy. Read the whole thing.
Israel Teams with Terror Group to Kill Iran's Nuclear Scientists, U.S. Officials Tell NBC News from MSNBC
"Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders."
Why Russia Supports Assad (Dmitri Trenin) from the New York Times
" Russians suspect that the real reason for the West’s pressure on Damascus is to rob Tehran of its only ally in the region. ... What the Russians are most worried about, however, is that Israel may strike at Iran, dragging in the United States and thus precipitating a major war with Iran sometime this year."
God Bless George F. Will (Jacob Heilbrunn) from the National Interest
"Will's column amounts to a vivisection of Mitt Romney, who has made a number of ostentatious claims about how he would restore the American preeminence that has allegedly been squandered by the Obama administration ... The real problem with the GOP approach is that it maintains the illusion of omnipotence. It leaves behind great-power status for the "I am the greatest" approach. The GOP worships unilateralism."
American Consumers’ Confidence Gains With Improvement in Job Data: Economy from Bloomberg News Service
"Fewer Americans than forecast filed claims for jobless benefits last week and consumer confidence rose to the highest level in a year, pointing to gains in spending as job prospects brighten."
Student Loans Could Be America's Next 'Debt Bomb,' Report Finds from the Huffington Post
"Slightly more than 80 percent of bankruptcy attorneys say the number of their potential clients with student loan debt have increased "significantly" or "somewhat" in the past three to four years, according to a survey by the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. And there's little hope those debtors will get out of their obligations; 95 percent of bankruptcy attorneys surveyed said that very few student loan debtors will be discharged from their loan as a result of undue hardship."
Employment Rate For Young Adults Lowest In 60 Years, Study Says (Alexander Eichler) from the Huffington Post
"Are you young and looking for work? You're in good company. Just 54 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24 currently have jobs, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. That's the lowest employment rate for this age group since the government began keeping track in 1948."
Obama, Explained (James Fallows) from the Atlantic
"Whether things seem to be going very well or very badly around him—whether he is announcing the death of Osama bin Laden or his latest compromise in the face of Republican opposition in Congress—Obama always presents the same dispassionate face. Has he been so calm because he has understood so much about the path ahead of him, and has been so clever in the traps he has set for his rivals? Or has he been so calm because, like the high-school kid on the plane, he has been so innocently unaware of how dire the situation has truly been? This is the central mystery of his performance as a candidate and a president."
An interesting (and very long) long-form look at Obama's presidency so far.
For Komen, No Going Back to Charity as Usual (Joy-Ann Reid) from the Miami Herald
"Now, Komen for the Cure can go back to doing what it does best: putting on pink-clad, heavily corporate sponsored foot races in major cities to raise awareness — and lots of money — for the fight against breast cancer. Except that they can’t go back. There are some things you just can’t take back.."
Why Doesn't Anybody Ever Argue Over Men's Bodies? (Karen Heller) from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Maybe the trick is for Planned Parenthood to focus more on men's reproductive health and start performing vasectomies. Women's bodies are battlefields, but we never seem to argue about men."
Rubio Bill Lets ANY Employer Deny Birth Control Coverage from Talking Points Memo
"Legislation introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to reverse the Obama administration’s birth control rule would effectively permit any employer to deny contraception coverage in their employee health plans, critics note."
WOW! This seems like quite an escalation on this issue. Maybe I'm missing something, but this also seems like a politically risky move! While all the talk seems to be about how worked up many Catholics are, this legislation should get the attention of women everywhere and virtually anyone concerned about women's health. The thing that gets me about this move (and others we've been seeing from other GOP lawmakers) is that, here we are eight months from a major general election, and Republican candidates and non-candidates alike seem to still be trying to shore up their support among the most conservative wing of their own party.
At CPAC, Republican Candidates Are Courting Their Base (Lloyd Grove) from the Daily Beast
"At the conservative conclave, everyone from Oliver North to Chuck Woolery says they're still shopping for their man. Which candidates are making a love connection with the base?"
White House Gives Romney a Social Issues Death Hug (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"At the press briefing just now, White House press secretary Jay Carney twice highlighted the fact that as Governor of Massachusetts, Romney supported a contraception policy that was very similar to the one Obama has now adpoted, to much criticism. Romney has been attacking Obama over the issue, and Carney was asked to respond."
'Anybody But Romney' Wins Everywhere, as GOP Turnout Tanks (John Nichols) from the Nation
"Santorum is a story. But he is not the story. The story is the fact that Mitt Romney lost so very miserably in three battleground states. Romney finished second in Colorado and Missouri and, remarkably, barely mustered a third-place finish (behind Santorum and Ron Paul, barely ahead of Newt Gingrich) in Minnesota. But the place on the list is less telling than than overwhelming levels of opposition to Romney."
The Anti-Romney Vote : The Republican electorate is saying, “We don’t want Romney!” (Thomas Sowell) from National Review
"If Romney turns his well-financed character-assassination machine on Rick Santorum, or Santorum resorts to character assassination against either Romney or Gingrich, the Republicans may forfeit whatever chance they have of defeating Barack Obama in November."
Romney's not getting much love these days:
The Wages of Pandering from the Editorial Board of the National Review
"Mitt Romney has done himself no favors in developing a reputation for political inconstancy, but a flip-flop on his recently reaffirmed support for automatic increases in the minimum wage would be welcome. Indexing the minimum wage to inflation is bad economics, bad public policy, and bad politics: the full trifecta of political incompetence."
Mitt Romney’s Presidential Campaign Stuck in Lukewarm (Amy Gardner and Rosalind S. Helderman) from the Washington Post
"Republicans are expressing fresh concerns that Mitt Romney is limping toward the presidential nomination, suffering new blows at the very moment he needs to grow stronger if he is to take on President Obama in November."
Where's the Rest of Them? Santorum's Rise, Romney's Weakness, and the GOP Coalition from the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal
"Mr. Romney admits the comment about the poor was "a mistake," but the concern isn't that he misspoke. It's what the episode reveals about Mr. Romney's inability, or unwillingness, to defend conservative principles. He seems to retreat at the first sound of a liberal moral argument. This means he'd play defense against President Obama, who is distilling his campaign to a moral defense of taxing the rich and government redistributive justice."
Low Turnout and the Big Tune-Out (Peggy Noonan) from the Wall Street Journal
"The Romney campaign is better at dismantling than mantling. ... Mitt Romney's aides are making the classic mistake of thinking the voters want maturity, serenity and a jolly spirit. What they want is a man who knows what time it is, who has a passion to reform our country, and who yet holds these qualities within a temperament that is mature, serene and jolly."
KENNEDY BOOK NUGGET [of a sort]!!
Sure, Mr. President, if You Really Want Me To: A Review of ‘Once Upon a Secret’: Mimi Alford on Her Affair With Kennedy (Janet Maslin) from the New York Times
"“Once Upon a Secret” can be better appreciated for what it really is: the strangest memoir about secrets and lies since “The Politician,” by Andrew Young, exposed the delusional arrogance behind John Edwards’s presidential campaign. Like Mr. Young, Ms. Alford seems to have little idea how badly her stories reflect on herself."
DISNEY MUSEUM NUGGET [of a sort]!!
Portrait of the 'Perfect American family': Walt Disney's Secret Apartment is Frozen in Time Above Disneyland's Fire Station from the Daily Mail [of the UK]
"He's the man who built the world where dreams come true. But tucked away from Cinderella's castle, fireworks and whirling theme park rides, Walt Disney treasured his own private hideaway in the Disneyland hills of Anaheim, California. On the second floor of the Main Street Firehouse, the film producer's little-known Victorian apartment remains almost exactly as it did nearly 60 years ago."
Over the firehouse!? It sounds like the low-rent district. Why not in Cinderella's Castle for heaven's sake ... or one of the better parts of the haunted mansion?
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