We believe that Peter Zuckerman is a good man who did a poor job reporting the facts on an important story in 2005. The entire community was buzzing about Mr. Zuckerman's sexual orientation after a local radio talk show had talked about it for days. We came to Mr. Zuckerman's defense and chastised the talk show for bringing his sexual orientation into the debate. I apologize for any personal pain that he suffered because of our involvement. That was not our intent.
I am a strong supporter of the argument that gay and lesbian people should have the same rights as all other Americans. My argument against It's Elementary was not against the film itself but with its intended audience. I don't believe that sexual concepts – either homosexual or heterosexual - should be introduced in our schools to first, second and third graders. I would endorse It's Elementary for adults, but most Americans would agree it should not be shown to little kids.
Steve Schmidt, former senior strategist for the McCain-Palin campaign, and MSNBC political analyst
While watching tonight's video preview, take a listen to tonight's soundtrack. (Just be sure to allow the ad below to play out entirely before starting the song.)
Executive producer Bill Wolff shares a preview of tonight's show:
* They can still probably afford good lawyers: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining potential wrongdoing surrounding JPMorgan Chase's $2 billion trading loss, people briefed on the matter said Tuesday."
* Greece: "Greek political leaders said Tuesday that they had failed to find consensus to form a government, pushing the rudderless country to new elections amid political instability and volatility in financial markets that could push Greece to abandon the euro."
* Murdoch media scandal: "Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper empire and a close friend of Prime Minister David Cameron, was formally charged on Tuesday."
* Counter-proliferation: "Gen. James E. Cartwright, the retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former commander of the United States' nuclear forces, is adding his voice to those who are calling for a drastic reduction in the number of nuclear warheads below the levels set by agreements with Russia."
* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is reportedly planning to move forward with President Obama's nominees to the Federal Reserve Board. Whether Senate Republicans will allow the chamber to vote on them is far from clear.
* Colorado: "A bill that would have allowed civil unions for same-sex couples in Colorado was defeated on Monday night during a special legislative session called by Gov. John W. Hickenlooper to debate the issue."
* I have a hard time understanding why conservatives, who used to consider themselves the patriotism police, would celebrate someone renouncing their American citizenship to avoid paying taxes.
* In Virginia, Republican state lawmakers apparently believe gay people who believe in gay rights shouldn't be allowed to serve as judges. It's the 21st century; I just thought I'd mention that.
The Obama campaign unveiled its first salvo against Mitt Romney's controversial private-sector background yesterday, an offensive the Republican campaign surely knew was coming eventually. This morning, the former governor released a two-minute clip in response, which had almost certainly been prepped and was ready to go.
The point of the video is to show three unemployed Iowans who are clearly struggling, and whom Romney hopes to use as proof the "Obama economy" not working. (Presumably, by this logic, if the president's economic policies were worthwhile, unemployment would be zero percent, and Republicans wouldn't be able to find anyone who could appear on camera.)
There's nothing to connect the president to the plight of the individuals in the video -- unlike, say, the plight of those who got laid off because Romney's vulture capital firm threw them out of work -- but we're supposed to blame Obama anyway. What's more, there's nothing in the clip to explain why these struggling folks would be better off under a Romney administration that intends to cut taxes for the wealthy while slashing public investments that benefit working families, but we're probably not supposed to think too much about that, either.
What's more, as Jamelle Bouie explained, What stands out about this video is that the Romney campaign has moved away from acknowledging any roots to the crisis, which would require a nod to the previous, Republican president, and treating the Great Recession as a random event -- like a bad hurricane or tornado -- for which no one is responsible. In this narrative, the GOP didn't mismanage the economy into the deepest downturn since the Great Depression. Rather, the economic crisis simply happened, ex nihilo, and Obama did nothing to stop or mitigate it."
Romney's video, in other words, is powerful just so long as you have a very short memory, no understanding of current events, and no interest in the candidates' backgrounds, platforms, or ideas.
Romney's target demographic, in other words, is uninformed amnesiacs.
But there's another catch: the Republican's video highlights a closed Frigidaire plant. In 2012, Frigidaire is ... hiring.
In the New Hampshire legislature today, Republican State Representative Steve Vaillancourt was tossed from the chamber for shouting "Sieg Heil" and waving -- or not waving -- his hand in a Nazi salute. Vaillancourt was objecting to limitations on debate over a voter ID bill.
"As I was saying before, I cannot apologize for anything I did not do," Vaillancourt said. "But I do apologize for using two German words, which I understand has negative ramifications when three Latin words would have been better. I will never use a German word again."
As Vaillancourt received a smattering of applause and returned to his seat, the committee huddled with O'Brien and determined that the apology wasn't acceptable.
Vaillancourt did eventually offer up an apology that worked. It mentioned "inflammatory German words which can have offensive connotation," according to a report tweeted by Republican State Representative Jon Richardson.
In other New Hampshire news, House Republicans brought back legislation for a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking an abortion. Today, the chamber also revived a measure that would allow religious institutions not to offer insurance coverage for contraception. You can find that one here, attached to a bill about delegates for a constitutional convention -- search for "2012-2215h."
(Image: The apology committee meets with Representative Vaillancourt, in white shirt. Pic tweeted by Representative Richardson.)
The Occupational Safety & Health Administration launched an effort to prevent heat illnesses among outdoor workers, and at face value, this wouldn't be especially noteworthy. On the contrary, this is a basic part of OSHA's mission, in this case, the agency recommends, "Water. Rest. Shade. The work can't get done without them."
So why am I mentioning this? Because, as Steve M. noticed, Fox News' website put its own unique spin on what seems like a fairly mundane story.
Obviously, if the Obama administration is trying to prevent heat strokes, the relevant takeaway is that the president is attacking Americans who work outside, right?
Fox Nation has an amazing track record of putting silly spins on routine news stories, but going after the administration over heat strokes is breaking new ground.
I'm not sure whether to be annoyed by Fox's ridiculous standards or impressed with its creativity.
For Democrats, one of the principal goals of 2012 is to persuade American voters not to go backwards. Bush/Cheney left all kinds of crises for Obama/Biden to clean up, and Dems intend to urge the electorate not to return to the failures of the recent past.
With this in mind, I suspect Democrats are happier about today's news than Mitt Romney is.
Mitt Romney has the support of George W. Bush.
"I'm for Mitt Romney," Bush told ABC News this morning as the doors of an elevator closed on him, after he gave a speech on human rights a block from his old home -- the White House.
Bush's endorsement isn't a surprise, given that Romney is virtually the Republican Party's nominee. But the 43rd president has been absent from the 2012 campaign and hasn't made any public comments showing his support for Romney.
As endorsements go, it's hard to get much thinner than this -- no joint appearance, no press release, no celebratory passing of the torch. It's just a four-word expression of support as elevator doors were closing.
Nevertheless, Democrats will take it. Romney already had the support of Bush's brother and parents; he's already hired Bush's former team to lead his campaign; and he's already adopted most of the same policy priorities of the failed former president.
The Republican National Committee conceded recently that a Romney presidency would be the same as Bush's presidency, "just updated." Those hoping to characterize Romney as offering Bush's third term -- only more right-wing -- have it pretty easy, and given the scope of Bush's spectacular failures in office, and the fact that many Americans correctly still hold him responsible for national and international problems, that's not a good thing for the GOP in 2012.
I suspect the former Massachusetts governor won't have too much to say about today's endorsement, but I'd like to see Romney answer just one question: how would your presidency be different from Bush's?
It was, to my mind, the worst thing an American major party has done, at least in domestic politics, since the Civil War. Last summer, congressional Republicans held the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, threatening to impose a catastrophe on all of us, on purpose, to achieve a specific (and unnecessary) policy goal.
It was a move without parallel. The entirety of a party threatened to deliberately hurt the country unless their rivals paid a hefty ransom -- in this case, debt reduction. It didn't matter that Republicans were largely responsible for the debt in the first place, and it didn't matter that Republicans routinely raised the debt ceiling dozens of times over the last several decades.
This wasn't just another partisan dispute; it was a scandal for the ages. This one radical scheme helped lead to the first-ever downgrade of U.S. debt; it riled financial markets and generated widespread uncertainty about the stability of the American system; and it severely undermined American credibility on the global stage. Indeed, in many parts of the world, observers didn't just lose respect for us, they were actually laughing at us.
It's the kind of thing that should have scarred the Republican Party for a generation. Not only did that never happen, the Republican hostage takers are already vowing to create this identical crisis all over again, on purpose.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will threaten Tuesday that Congress will not raise the debt limit next year without spending cuts greater than the size of the debt ceiling increase.
According to excerpts of the remarks Boehner will deliver to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation fiscal summit on Tuesday afternoon, the Ohio lawmaker will "insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase." [...]
He will also tell the audience: "We shouldn't dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It's an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction."
It's not hyperbolic to characterize this as madness. Boehner is, in no uncertain terms, announcing that he and his party will deliberately hurt the country -- and he's calling his hostage-taking strategy an "action-forcing event."
At a certain level, it's true that holding a gun to someone's head forces "action," but it's also true that such aggression tears at the fabric of the body politic.
Today's installment of campaign-related news items that won't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* A New York Times/CBS News poll released last night shows President Obama's approval rating inching higher to 50%, but he still trails Mitt Romney by three, 46% to 43%. There are some serious concerns about the methodology.
* A new Public Policy Polling survey, meanwhile, shows Obama with a narrow lead over Romney, 48% to 46%.
* The Obama campaign isn't the only one targeting Romney's controversial private-sector background -- super PAC Priorities USA Action is investing $4 million in support of this ad.
* Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) will apparently "no longer actively campaign in states that have not yet held Republican presidential primaries."
* The Democratic National Committee is not investing heavily in Wisconsin's gubernatorial recall race, and to put it mildly, local Dems are not pleased.
* Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) isn't backing away from VP speculation. "You never rule out opportunities or options," he said.
* And in New York, a well-known, openly gay Romney supporter has not only given up on the Republican candidate over his far-right views on LGBT rights, he's also asking for his contribution back.
It sometimes seems as if Republicans haven't updated their talking points in a very long while.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has endorsed Mitt Romney and is sometimes mentioned as a potential running mate, attacked President Obama on Tuesday and defended Romney's record in business.
"President Obama hasn't run anything before he was elected President of the United States," Jindal said on Fox News's America's Newsroom. "Never ran a state, never a business, never ran a lemonade stand."
This is a pretty standard criticism for any presidential candidate whose background is legislative work. Recent major-party nominees like John McCain, John Kerry, and Bob Dole -- none of whom served as a governor or business leader -- faced similar critiques.
But what Jindal lacks is a calendar -- these criticisms of Obama's record were made four years ago. Since early 2009, he's been president of the United States during a time of foreign and domestic crises. Obama may not have led a state or a business before getting elected, but he led a nation after getting elected.
Like him or not, Obama's experience with lemonade stands isn't nearly as relevant in 2012 as his experience as Commander in Chief during a time of war. So what on earth is Jindal talking about?
Perhaps Republicans are feeling a little defensive about the fact that they're nominating the least-experienced major-party presidential nominee in more than 70 years, and if elected, Mitt Romney would be the least experienced president in 100 years.
But defensive or not, the GOP should try to remember it's running against a sitting president, not a sitting senator.
President Obama caused a minor stir last month in a speech at the Associated Press luncheon, when he argued, "Ronald Reagan ... could not get through a Republican primary today."
Getty Images
This sparked some worthwhile discussion, but I've been especially struck by the number of Republicans who agree with the argument.
The Republican Party has drifted so far to the right and become so partisan in recent years that President Ronald Reagan wouldn't even want to be a part of it, former Nebraska GOP senator Chuck Hagel told The Cable.
"Reagan would be stunned by the party today," Hagel said in a long interview in his office at Georgetown University, where he now teaches. He also serves as co-chair of President Barack Obama's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Reagan wanted to do away with nuclear weapons, raised taxes, made deals with congressional Democrats, sought compromises and consensus to fix problems, and surrounded himself with moderates as well as Republican hard-liners, Hagel noted. None of that is characterized by the current GOP leadership, he said.
Hagel added that there were similar divisions in the early 1950s between Eisenhower Republicans and GOP extremists like Joe McCarthy, but the difference is, in 2012, "the extremists are winning."
Remember, Hagel's voting record in the Senate wasn't exactly Olympia Snowe's -- this guy's a conservative from a reliably-"red" state. And yet, he believes Reagan "wouldn't identify with this party."
A few weeks ago, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) said the same thing. What's more, Mike Huckabee said a year ago, "Ronald Reagan would have a very difficult, if not impossible, time being nominated in this atmosphere of the Republican Party." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had a nearly identical take in 2010, arguing Reagan "would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today."
About a year ago, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) hosted a town-hall meeting with some constituents, one of whom said Bush-era policies are largely responsible for the current budget deficit. The Republican didn't take the news well.
"This year's deficit is due to George Bush? That's insanity!" Grimm said. He added, "That's insane."
I can appreciate why Grimm's pushback might resonate with some folks. George W. Bush left office more than three years ago, so it may seem as if today's problems no longer have anything to do with him. Why blame Bush for Obama-era deficits? Grimm, who routinely struggles to understand the basics of current events, was incredulous, and I suspect plenty of Republicans agree.
But reality isn't "insane," and the facts are incontrovertible. Sahil Kapur published this chart this morning.
TPM Media
If the image looks familiar, it's because the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published something very similar a while back (the wonks call it the "parfait chart").
This is important for a couple of reasons. First, there's the simple matter of basic accountability -- though some on the right prefer to think it's "insane" to hold Bush-era policies responsible for current problems, the truth is, sweeping policy agendas carry lasting consequences. In this case, Bush not only squandered a massive surplus, added $5 trillion to the debt, and left a $1.3 trillion deficit for Obama to deal with, he also approved policies that we're still struggling to pay for, years after his departure.
That's not opinion or spin; it's fact. When Republicans in 2012 cast blame for this year's budget shortfall, they're generally condemning the wrong president.
