Year: 2012

Apologies for posting yesterday’s column late — I forgot to click “publish.”  (Duh!)   If you missed Fantasy Politics and are already a fantasy football or baseball pro, go check it out.

Following up on the marriage equality piece, I commend this prescient January 2009 post by my friend Don George comparing Obama’s leadership style with Lincoln’s:

OK, so I went out and bought Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Team of Rivals” after it became clear that Barack Obama was trying to emulate Abraham Lincoln in this respect. I’m about 3/4 of the way through this 800 page tome and highly recommend it for new insights into Lincoln as well as possible insights into Obama’s modus operandi.

Lincoln was one of the greatest leaders this country has ever seen, but one trait from the book that struck me was that Lincoln was not usually on the cutting edge of the great progressive causes of his day — until the timing was right.

He is remembered as the great emancipator and terminator of slavery in the U.S., but he was not a strong proponent of either movement as they were building strength and volume. He joined and then acted when the timing was right.

As with any progressive movement there are activists who are agitated and want immediate change. They scream loudly but with little effect. When these big movements eventually do succeed, these people are not usually the ones remembered as much as the leader who actually jumped on the wagon at the right moment and escorted the sought-for change.

Take same sex marriage for instance. Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry is associated with this cause since his early efforts in Hawaii in the 1990’s and has been a mover and shaker ever since. However, when gay marriage finally becomes a reality on the national level, it will be the Supreme Court justice or the president who makes it happen who will be remembered best. And most likely that person will not will have been an active gay marriage advocate all along. As they say, timing is everything.

Barack Obama is not a strong supporter of gay marriage. It appears that he was a stronger advocate in the past —before he ran for U.S. Senate or for president. Lincoln did the same thing on the most controversial issues of his day. He was a more vocal opponent of slavery years before his run for the presidency, but became more cautious in his rhetoric the closer he got to the presidency and even in his first two years as president. When the time was right, and he knew he could win that battle, he took a very strong position however, against slavery and the rest is history.

During this period of being publicly cautious and not revealing their stronger internal positions, both Lincoln and Obama, at least leaned more toward the morally correct position.

A good leader cannot get too far out in front of the public. Lincoln himself said that he could not have successfully issued his emancipation proclamation even six months earlier than he did. The public wasn’t ready yet and it would have failed.

A good leader while simultaneously not getting too far ahead of the public, uses his office to bring the public closer to his position by educating them and leading them there. Lincoln was great at this with his speeches and letters to the nation.

If a leader is too far ahead of the nation, he cannot make that change and fails…. no matter how moral that position is. Think Bill Clinton and “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Two of Lincoln’s contemporaries observed his leadership style. Leonard Swett wanted Lincoln to immediately propose a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. Lincoln refused and replied that he could see a “time coming” for a constitutional amendment and whoever “stands in its way, will be run over by it” but that the country was not ready just yet. Swett later wrote that the secret to Lincoln’s leadership was “by ignoring men, and ignoring all small causes, but by closely calculating the tendencies of events and the great forces which were producing logical results.”

John Forney, a news reporter at the time, put it another way. Lincoln was “the most truly progressive man of the age, because he always moves in conjunction with propitious circumstances, not waiting to be dragged by the force of events or wasting strength in premature struggles with them.”

I believe this is the way that it is with Obama and same sex marriage at the moment. Now is not quite the right moment for Obama to take up same sex marriage. It would be a premature struggle that would end as badly as Clinton’s trying to lift the ban on gays  in the military.

However, I bet that when the timing is right, Obama will jump on recognizing same sex marriage at the federal level and it will be historic. The timing isn’t quite right yet. I don’t know when it will be right, but I bet it’s coming soon.

WHEELTUG

I don’t know why I hadn’t seen this article before, but it is a comprehensive look at WheelTug and its prospective competitors.  For those of us who own it (indirectly, via BOREF), it’s interesting stuff — including their estimate of the overall size of the market (26,000 planes by 2020) and their notion of leasing the WheelTug systems at no cost to airlines, but half the realized savings (which WheelTug believes may average $500,000 per plane per year).  There is still the significant chance some insurmountable problem will arise (e.g., the prototype won’t work).  But if WheelTug systems were one day in the nose wheels of 5,000 aircraft and netting WheelTug (say) $100,000 a year each, that would be a net of $500 million a year.  Borealis, at $5 a share with no debt, is valued at $25 million.  And thus remains, I think, a remarkable lottery ticket: perhaps a 50% chance it all fizzles somehow and you lose your money.  (So only those who can afford to speculate should buy this lottery ticket.  And they should use “limit orders,” lest even a small purchase drive up the price they pay.)  But if it does work?  And there actually were the prospect of $500 million annual earnings from this subsidiary?  Or even a small fraction of that?  Borealis would presumably be worth a lot more than $25 million.

CHECKBOOK IRA

Ever wish you could buy rental property with money from inside your IRA?  Or make a private loan?  Or start a business?  It could be a terrible idea, of course.  The only thing worse than losing money is losing tax-sheltered money.  And it makes no sense if you have $8,000 in your IRA, if only because the fees are so high to set it up.  (Much lower for a “standard” self-directed IRA, without the checkbook; but then you can’t pay the plumber when your rental property springs a leak.)

But if you have a large IRA and have chafed at the inability to make certain investments within its shelter — a 12% three-year first mortgage on some conservatively valued piece of real estate a friend with bad credit wants to buy, say — you might want to check out folks like Guidant Financial Group (for a checkbook IRA), and Pensco or the (much more reasonably priced) IRA Club.

Have a great weekend.

If you believe the stuff about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — and the other stuff about the wisdom of separating church and state — then you will defend to the death the right of religious institutions to discriminate against people like me, and predict our eternal damnation, even as you will also defend to the death our right to the same civil protections and responsibilities as anyone else.

Yesterday, as you doubtless saw, the President joined Laura Bush, Dick Cheney, Cindy McCain, Meghan McCain, and Steve Schmidt, among others (Steve Schmidt was McCain’s campaign manager, singularly focused on defeating Obama), in supporting marriage equality.

He did it respectfully and in wonderfully human terms — as I knew he would, once he decided to do it.

Each time we act to advance the rights of our citizens — be it freeing slaves, enfranchising women, allowing gays to visit their loved ones in the hospital, or anything else that moves us closer to equal rights — we perfect our union.

So yesterday was a good day.

We have much bigger challenges than marriage equality, but most of them require making someone unhappy — whether it’s the wealthy, because we raise their taxes, or the indigent, because we cut their safety net; whether it’s the coal companies, because we restrict their strip mining, or the environmentalists, because we don’t.   This gay marriage thing is not be as important as getting the economy back on track or our species on a sustainable path, but it has the virtue of being easy.  Letting two devoted people assume responsibility for each other, love each other, pursue their happiness, has no downside.

FANTASY POLITICS

Full disclosure:  I have never played fantasy baseball or fantasy football.  Further full disclosure: I am a small investor in the just-now-launching Fantasy Politics.  And already I’m confused, because at least for now (because it’s still in beta?) the site is a “.co/” instead of a “.com.”  Does this mean it’s a Colombian company?  Congolese?  Cote d’Ivoire?  It’s too late at night to call the CEO and ask; I’m sure all will be revealed with time.

Here‘s what USA Today had to say about the venture recently.

Your political beliefs aside, would you trade Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for Rick Santorum and Ron Paul? Millions of people play fantasy sports. So it was probably inevitable that a start-up would push fantasy politics, especially during the season in which the presidential primaries are in full swing. The start-up is appropriately called Fantasy Politics, and the company chose the Launch conference in San Francisco to unveil an online game for political junkies, coming in a week or two.

Like a fantasy sports site, you get to draft a team of real life national politicians and pundits (Jon Stewart, Rush Limbaugh, etc.), make trades, and add or drop pols that fall in or out of favor. Each member of your team has a card just like a baseball card. The people behind the company come from across the political spectrum. An adviser, Aaron McLear, was press secretary for former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

If you’re a Republican you might be reluctant to draft a team of left-leaning politicians; Democrats would feel the same about acquiring GOP politicians. But CEO Aaron Michel compares the game to a Washington Redskins fan playing fantasy football who despite his gridiron loyalties would still happily draft star New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

In fantasy football, you measure results by passing and rushing yards, touchdowns scored and other statistics. The metrics aren’t as clear-cut in politics, of course, an arena whereby the ultimate winners are chosen in the voting booth.

Fantasy Politics says it has developed a power score between 0 and 100 that measures “political momentum,” based on 30 different characteristics—polling numbers, campaign funding, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, predictions at Intrade, data from OpenSecrets.org and so on. Intrade, OpenSecrets and Rock The Vote are among the outfits partnering with Fantasy Politics.

Like many presidential hopefuls, Fantasy Politics would seem to face long odds. Though many political die-hards read partisan blogs and watch favorite cable channels, the Super Bowl of politics, a U.S. presidential election, only takes place once every four years. But even in off-year election cycles, Michel thinks Fantasy Politics will remain relevant as an educational tool and way to keep folks engaged in the political process. Says Michel, “More people voted in 2008 than watched this year’s Super Bowl yet there is no online gaming experience that matches the billion fantasy sports market played by over 30 million Americans.”

If you’re an early adopter, go take a look.  Suggestions welcome.

WORST. SOCIALIST. EVER.

“If President Obama is truly a socialist,” Ezra Klein writes, elaborating on Floyd Norris’s recent column, “then he’s not a very good one.”   For the first time in 40 years, the government sector of the American economy has shrunk during the first three years of a presidential administration.  Check it out.

VEEP

You haven’t started watching?  It’s a half hour Sundays on HBO — or anytime, anywhere on HBOGO (free to HBO subscribers) — and wicked, wicked funny.  Check it out.

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Thanks to Shelley Palmer for pointing to this story on AT&T’s plans to wire your home for remote control and your automobile to remind you if you’ve forgotten something before you drive off to work (your wallet? your cell phone? your keys? your charger? it will be looking to detect their RFIDs) . . . and to this one wherein Google has received a license to begin testing cars that drive themselves on Nevada roads.

And holy Toledo!  Look at Samsung’s new phone.

I’d like to point out that when my grandmother was born there were no phones . . . and photographers stuck their heads under a cloth and exploded something that might ultimately produce a very expensive, very stiff, black and white portrait.  Samsung’s contraption is a little different.  It fits in your shirt pocket; calls whomever you’re texting half a world away when it detects that you’ve lifted it to your ear; shoots 20 color photos in a single burst, then chooses the best one for you.  (Oh: and recognizes your friends IN those pictures and offers to send them copies.)

CAR TIPPING

You’ve probably seen Smart cars.  Tiny.   I’ve seen quite a few of them parked around the city, but I never saw one in motion before last night when it slowly rounded a curve in front of me as I was about to cross the street.  Small as they are — and strong as I am (like bull) — I don’t think I could tip one over when parked.  But rounding a curve, if I caught it just right, adding some oomph to its own centrifugal force?  I almost surely wouldn’t do this — I’ve never gone cow-tipping, either — but it’s oddly empowering to think that there’s a car on the road today to which I, as a pedestrian, might pose more hazard than it does me.

IF FELLINI WERE FRENCH AND HAD JUST ONE L

And were still alive, but why quibble.  A deeper two-minute cat YouTube than you might expect, mes amis.

JURY DUTY

I’m on jury duty.  Please use this time to get our national finances in order.

Robert Novick:  “Piece of cake.  Just pick and choose what you wish to do here.”

It’s an absorbing, informative (important) exercise.

THE MASSACHUSETTS MIRACLE: NOT SO MUCH

By now most know that when he was Governor, Mitt Romney took Massachusetts down from 37th in jobs creation to 50th.  Paul Abrams compares Governor Romney’s jobs record with that of others — including Jimmy Carter.  The results are telling.  And what’s fun about the Internet (well, what isn’t fun about the Internet?) is how it opens the world to so many interesting voices.  Who is this Paul Abrams?  I know a Bob Abrams, a Jason Abrams, a Roy Abrams, a Stefan Abrams, and a Wendy Abrams . . . but this Abrams?  He is identified on the Huffington Post simply as “Paul Abrams, last person on Earth not on Facebook.” Sensing immediately that he has organized his life better than I have organized mine, I clicked through to his bio.  And assuming it’s all true (can anyone be this smart, well rounded, and self-effacing?), he “received doctorate degrees in medicine and in law, and a B.A. summa cum laude in Political Science & Economics, all from Yale. He is a board-certified oncologist and was editor of the Yale Law Journal. A former intercollegiate swimmer, he enjoys scuba-diving, general exercise, film, theater and plays guitar but, for the benefit of mankind, sings only in the shower.”  Oh, and he was CEO of two bio-tech companies, holds 12 patents, and has published 35 peer-reviewed articles.  So take a minute to read his thoughts on Governor Romney’s jobs record.  (Hint: President Obama’s doing better.)

AMEX POINTS TO BA MILES: CAVEATS

Friday, I laid out this 50% bonus offer:  If you convert American Express points to British Airways miles, you not only add 50% to your total, you’ll be able to use them on any of the One World airlines, like American.

William Szczuka:  “Yes, BA miles can be used on AA but with a number of caveats:  (1) Forget travel outside North & South America. Way too high fuel surcharge.   (2) Redemption is based on a per segment basis. If you connect somewhere it will most likely cost more than 25k / Round Trip.  (3) Award tickets can only be booked for “Saver” not “Anytime” awards.   Now the good part:  BA awards are priced based on distance. I can fly round trip to Hawaii from the West Coast for 25k miles instead of 45k miles on American.”

John Seiffer: “You can use the BA miles domestically on American – the fees are low and the flights actually cost fewer miles than with American miles. But since AA filed for bankruptcy, there have been so few seats available we couldn’t book a ticket.  . . . We also wanted to use them for flights to Japan, but since BA flies there its own self, you can’t use BA miles on AA for that and the fees to use BA miles to Japan were $700 per person. Luckily we had enough AA miles.  Some of this $700 was taxes because BA would have routed us  through London (from JFK to Japan) and apparently there are more taxes going to Europe – even if that’s not your ultimate destination. But some of it also was fees that BA charged to convert the miles which are much higher than other airlines.  My wife and I don’t remember the details since we went on AA due to those costs. However she follows this stuff on two web sites: ThePointsGuy and FlyerTalk. ThePointsGuy has a long thread on how to best use BA miles specifically because they tend to be problematic.”

Tomorrow:  If Fellini had one L and were French.

MITT, MITT, HE’S THE MAN . . .

If he can’t raise Massachussetts’ job creation ranking, nobody can!  Except that as governor he led his state down — from ranking 37th out of 50 to a truly dismal 47th.  As Paul Begala notes in Newsweek, “While the country as a whole enjoyed 5 percent growth, Romney’s Massachusetts grew at 0.9 percent.” His cuts to higher education and job training, Begala continues, were especially severe.

He assumed public office promising to create jobs — and failed.  Now he’s promising to do it again.

And promising to keep us safe from our most serious enemy — Russia.  (Huh?)  And to snatch health insurance from people with preexisting conditions.  And to back a Constitutional amendment enshrining discrimination against gays and lesbians.

One assumes he doesn’t actually mean that last one — and it wouldn’t pass anyway — but as David Axelrod says, “I’m not so much worried about what he says and doesn’t believe as I am about what he says and does believe.”  For example: his belief in further cutting taxes for billionaires — to zero, in the case of the estate tax — and in slashing regulation.  (Because what could possibly go wrong when banks or mortgage lenders or oil drillers or coal miners or food producers are unregulated?)

I love the way Begala ends his column:

ROOTING OUT MEDICARE FRAUD

Here:

(AP) MIAMI — Federal authorities charged 107 doctors, nurses and social workers in seven cities with Medicare fraud Wednesday in a nationwide crackdown on unrelated scams that allegedly billed the taxpayer-funded program of $452 million — the highest dollar amount in a single Medicare bust in U.S. history.

It was the latest in a string of major arrests in the past two years as authorities have targeted fraud that’s believed to cost the government between $60 billion and $90 billion each year. [And that was presumably going on throughout the Bush years as well. — A.T.] Stopping Medicare’s budget from hemorrhaging that money will be key to paying for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Attorney General Eric Holder partnered in 2009 to increase enforcement by allocating more money and staff and creating strike forces in fraud hot spots. . . .

This enforcement ramp-up seems to have begun early in the Obama administration.  Arguably (or should I say argumentatively? too simplistically? but perhaps still with a grain of truth), Democrats try to cut down on fraud and abuse in worthy programs; Republicans would rather just end the programs altogether.

Romney’s cuts to education and job training were especially severe. Fees for university students shot up 63 percent as Romney hammered college funding. Robert Karam, former chair of the UMass Board of Trustees, was a Romney backer. But no more. “I think higher education really stood still” under Romney, he has said. Romney even annoyed the business community—his core constituency—by cutting job training, workforce development, and trade assistance.

50% BONUS FOR AMEX CARDHOLDERS

Last year, American Express was running a promotion that let you transfer Amex miles (or “points,” as they call them) into Delta Airlines miles with a 50% bonus.  Turn 100,000 Amex points into 150,000 Delta miles (say).  I did it and it worked fine.  Now — until May 31 — they are doing it with British Airways . . . which is significant, because you can use those miles with any of BA’s One World partners — such as American Airlines.  I may be missing something in the fine print (quick – tell me if I am!) but it seems to me as though this is a great deal.  The only downside — a fee that works out to $6 for each 10,000 points transferred but with a maximum $99 charge — so you could turn 200,000 Amex points into 300,000 BA miles for $99.  Click here to set up a British Airways frequent flier account; then to link it to your American Express rewards account; then to transfer points into it with that 50% bonus.  If you figure miles are worth a penny each (and in many situations they are worth more), then the $60 charge for converting 100,000 of them into 150,000 of them brings you 50,000 more miles valued at $500 for a net gain of $440.  Don’t say this web site isn’t worth its subscription fee. [UPDATE: BEFORE YOU PULL THE TRIGGER, MORE ON THIS MONDAY]

HOW TO BE SMARTER, RICHER, AND BETTER-LOOKING THAN YOUR PARENTS

Simple:  Watch less reality TV, says Zac Bissonnette here on the 700 Club. Have a great weekend.

Click here or below to watch.  It just builds and builds.

And if you have time, here’s a bit more in the ongoing saga of the Ryan/Romney budget:

Matt Ball:  “Paul ‘cut the deficit!’ Ryan refuses to consider even slowing the growth of the Department of Defense budget.  Which includes the F-35, as described here in ‘The Jet That Ate the Pentagon.'”

IF YOU DIDN’T HAVE TIME YESTERDAY

Watch today.  A 7-minute overview (skip the second half if pressed for time) that reminds us what a really fine job the President has done beginning to lift the country out of the Republican ditch.  (Those of you who viscerally disagree: please watch the video and THEN tell us why.)

IF YOU’RE MITT ROMNEY . . .

. . . then you do viscerally disagree, or at least have to pretend to.  Under your leadership the stock market would not just have doubled by now — it would have tripled.  Under your leadership, we would not only have saved Detroit, GM would once again lead the world in car sales (oops — it already does).  Under your leadership, we would not only have added private sector jobs for 25 consecutive months,  you would have worked the same jobs magic you did as governor of Massachusetts (where, oops, your state ranked 47th out of 50).  Under your leadership, you would not only have killed Osama Bin Laden and decimated Al Qaeda, you would have told everyone it was a no-brainer.

Which brings us to this by James Fallows of The Atlantic:

‘Even Jimmy Carter’
By James Fallows

Apr 30 2012, 5:42 PM ET Mitt Romney informs us that the raid that took out Osama bin Laden one year ago was no big deal, because “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.”

Grrrrr.

Necessary disclosure: I worked for Jimmy Carter and admire his intentions, his character, and many of his achievements, although I am not usually considered an uncritical booster of his record as president.

But let’s remember:

1) Jimmy Carter is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who spent ten years in the uniformed service of his country. As far as I can tell, this is ten years more than the cumulative service of all members of the Romney clan. Obviously you don’t have to be a veteran to have judgments about military policy or criticisms of others’ views. But when it comes to casual slurs about someone else’s strength or resolve, you want to be careful, as a guy on the sidelines, sounding this way about people who have served.

2) Jimmy Carter did indeed make a gutsy go/no-go call. It turned out to be a tactical, strategic, and political disaster. You can read the blow-by-blow in Mark Bowden’s retrospective of “The Desert One Debacle.” With another helicopter, the mission to rescue U.S. diplomats then captive in Teheran might well have succeeded — and Carter is known still to believe that if the raid had succeeded, he would probably have been re-elected. Full discussion another time, but I think he’s right. (Even with the fiasco, and a miserable “stagflation” economy, the 1980 presidential race was very close until the very end.)

But here’s the main point about Carter. Deciding to go ahead with that raid was a close call. Carter’s own Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, had opposed the raid and handed in his resignation even before the results were known. And it was a daring call — a choice in favor of a risky possible solution to a festering problem, knowing that if it went wrong there would be bad consequences all around, including for Carter himself. So if you say “even Jimmy Carter” to mean “even a wimp,” as Romney clearly did, you’re showing that you don’t know the first thing about the choice he really made.

3) Precisely because of the consequences of Carter’s failure, Obama was the more daring in making his go/no-go decision. That’s the case I argued last year, and nothing I’ve learned since then changes my view. As a college student, Obama had seen a marginally popular Democratic president come to ruin because he approved a helicopter-based secret mission into hostile Middle Eastern terrain. Obama went ahead with a helicopter-based secret mission into nominally “allied” territory, also with huge potential for trouble if things had gone wrong.

4)  And while the Osama killing reflected a decade’s worth of intelligence and effort from people of both parties, and of no party, it happened on Obama’s watch. Is there any doubt that if it had happened on Bush’s, or on a President John McCain’s, it would have been the centerpiece of every political speech and commercial? Was there a single speech in the Republicans’ 2004 convention — in New York — that did not begin and end with a reference to 9/11, or the removal of Saddam Hussein?

So: obviously the Administration will want to remind voters that Osama bin Laden is gone, and obviously the Republicans will want to minimize the political significance of that fact. All fine. But not “even Jimmy Carter.” I hope that the crack was a scripted attack line, rather than being yet another spontaneous glimpse of the way Mitt Romney feels and thinks. “Even” Jimmy Carter made a daring choice, and paid the price.

IF YOU KNOW FOLKS IN NORTH CAROLINA

Send them this Charlotte Observer editorial.  It makes a beautiful case for voting NO on Amendment One Tuesday.

. . . A few weeks ago, House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Cornelius) said something both sad and wise. He said he thought Amendment One will pass on May 8, but it’ll be overturned 20 years from now because the next generation will be more tolerant of gay marriage. Tillis wasn’t courageous enough to actually oppose the amendment – he voted to put it on the ballot – but he was brave enough to say out loud what seems obvious to me, and to anyone who looks at history.

We waste an awful lot of time fighting some of the freedoms we were founded on.

But freedom has a solid won-loss record. And no matter what happens on May 8, when our children and grandchildren look back on it all, this whole debate will make us look silly and small.

I suspect that, in God’s eyes, we already do.”

My thanks to Matt Ball for these links (and so many others over the years):

E.L. DOCTOROW

Herewith, the path to unexceptionalism.  It is distressing: we are already well down that path, as you’ll recognize (even if, like me, you’re not quite as dismissive as Doctorow about the need for some of our anti-terrorist measures).

PHASE ONE

If you’re a justice of the Supreme Court, ignore the first sacrament of a democracy and suspend the counting of ballots in a presidential election. Appoint the candidate of your choice as president.

If you’re the newly anointed president, react to a terrorist attack by invading a nonterrorist country. Despite the loss or disablement of untold numbers of lives, manage your war so that its results will be indeterminate. . . .

Suspend progressive taxation so that the wealthiest pay less proportionately than the middle class. See to it that the wealth of the country accumulates to a small fraction of the population so that the gap between rich and poor widens exponentially.By cutting taxes and raising wartime expenditures, deplete the national treasury so that Congress and state and municipal legislatures cut back on domestic services, ensuring that there will be less money for the education of the young, for government health programs, for the care of veterans, for the maintenance of roads and bridges, for free public libraries, and so forth.

Deregulate the banking industry so as to create a severe recession in which enormous numbers of people lose their homes and jobs.

Before you leave office add to the Supreme Court justices like the ones who awarded you the presidency.

PHASE TWO. . .

There are four phases. It doesn’t have to be this way.  Vote Democrat.

PAUL RYAN

. . . [H]e manages to maintain his fiscal-hawk street cred and his reputation for gravitas despite all the indications that he’d triple the deficit if necessary to cut taxes for the wealthy and remains in the grip of a philosophy that treats Medicaid beneficiaries as thieves who are morally debasing themselves.

Read it here.  And note that Romney is a Ryan man.

MUST-SEE VIDEO

It may not be fashionable to say when times are so tough, but we really have a ton to feel good about — starting with the quality of the guy steering the ship.  Watch!

ROLLING STONE INTERVIEWS BARACK OBAMA

Kathryn Lance:  “Re Friday’s post, you didn’t mention the best part — where he mentions that it’s not only important for little black kids to see him as a role model, it’s great for little white kids who will grow up thinking that a black President is normal. The way he put it brought tears to my eyes.”

LET’S JUST SAY IT

Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann note in this widely circulating Washington Post op-ed that if the Democrats have shifted left from the 40 yard line to the 25 (what with the departure of the conservative Southern Democrats), the Republicans have “gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post.”  So you can’t just split the difference.

We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.

Thirty-one senators voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act last week — all of them Republicans.  Yet that got less coverage than the suggestion by a lone Democratic CNN commentator that Ann Romney might not be able to fully grasp how hard it is for today’s working moms to make ends meet.*

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders moved quickly to disassociate themselves from her inartful statement, even though in context it was completely fair.  Contrast that with the way Republican leaders reacted to the assertion by one of their Members that scores of his Democratic colleagues are communists.  It is that reaction (well, non-reaction) that leads the Ornstein/Mann op-ed.

*Not least because women make less money for the same work.  Thirty-six senators voted to keep it that way when they voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — all of them Republicans.