Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Super Tuesday
Edition

post from Daily Kos on 06 March 2012 07:30:56 AM. © Daily Kos

Visual source: Newseum

Beth Fouhy at the Associated Press:

The uproar over Rush Limbaugh's derisive comments about a young woman's sex life is serving as a vivid reminder of the outsize role conservative media stars play in Republican politics.
With a Democratic president in the White House and no leading GOP elected official setting the party's agenda, Limbaugh and other media personalities like the late Andrew Breitbart and even Donald Trump have filled a vacuum for many conservatives seeking a full-throated political advocate. The popularity of such figures among Republican core voters has made party leaders reluctant to cross them, even when their comments or tactics steer well out of bounds.

CNN's Peter Hamby:

Since 1988, when Michael Dukakis beat his main Democratic rivals in a slew of March primary states, "Super Tuesday" has usually played a pivotal role in determining presidential nominees in both parties.
This year, it will not.
That's because the mechanics of the 2012 Republican race are beginning to resemble those of the 2008 Democratic nomination fight, a grind-it-out battle for delegates that could last through well into the spring.

The Anniston Star Editorial Board points out a key difference between the 2012 and 2008 primary campaigns:

Pointing to recent history, Republicans can note that a prolonged fight among Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Obama in 2008 didn?t harm that party in the general election. The difference might be that Democrats wrestled over the choice between frontrunners respected by the party faithful. That?s not quite the case for Romney, whom the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds is viewed negatively by 40 percent of Americans.

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Now it's the turn of voters in Super Tuesday's primaries to see how dangerously close the powerful super-PACs are to owning the political process.
In January, the super-PACs hit a milestone by outspending the candidates in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The supers are not allowed to coordinate with candidate campaigns, but that is a sham rule. The big PACs don't have to worry about coordination because they are controlled, founded, or funded by friends or former consultants to the candidates.

Steve Benen runs down Mitt Romney's lack of courage, using Romney's refusal to renounce Limbaugh's statements as a springboard:

Is Romney comfortable with Limbaugh's smears? He'd rather talk about something else.
There's going to come a point later this year when the Obama campaign is likely to say, "Mitt Romney lacks the courage to be a leader." And the criticism will sting because it's based in fact.
Either Romney has the guts to lead or he doesn't. He had an opportunity on Friday to step up and he blew it.

Ed Rogers on the GOP's inability to look past social issues (or to properly handle them) in the 2012 race:

We can whine about it, or we can deal with the world the way it is. For Republicans, social issues are like a fire. Too close and you get burned; too far away and you are out in the cold. Our 2012 candidate has got to be good enough to keep the balance, without losing independent voters who are desperate for renewed economic growth. Whether or not the GOP gets it and how badly we want to win in 2012 will be clearer on Wednesday morning after the votes are counted.

Matthew Dowd at ABC News emphasizes that whatever the outcome, the GOP's nominee will finish the primary staggering across the finish line and that he'll enter the general election as one of the weakest nominees in recent memory:

All of the above, from the weak response to Limbaugh?s crazy remarks to a possible ?damage-the-front-runner? game plan will only serve to make the likely Republican nominee very weak going into a tough battle against President Obama. And as of today, the polling shows that that has begun to happen. Romney looks to be the weakest Republican nominee coming out of this process in more than a generation. He needs to unite the Republican Party quickly but the ?facts on the ground,? as they say in the military, certainly aren?t allowing him to do so.

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undup-Super-Tuesday-Edition

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Tuesday Open Thread

post from My Left Wing - Front Page on 06 March 2012 07:00:00 AM. © My Left Wing - Front Page

I saw the angel in the marble
and carved until I set him free.

Michelangelo

Born March 6, 1475

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Quote of the Day

post from They gave us a republic... - Front Page on 06 March 2012 07:00:00 AM. © They gave us a republic... - Front Page

By @KYYellowDog

To the extent that the repug War on Women has become a War on Sex for Pleasure, it is also a war on men. But this does not seem to have sunk in for even the most enlightened males.

Sexual freedom is a two-way street.

Bon the Geek at Zandar versus The Stupid:

What would happen if a female candidate called them on their stupidity? Can you imagine a woman saying she opposed Viagra, that if God wanted you to have a boner you would have a boner, and that it is offensive for us to see your trouser mouse jump every time there's a breeze? To have such dirty thoughts that led to an erection is an offense to our religious freedom, and we want you to explain to our satisfaction why you think you should have condoms, otherwise they triple in price. Any child you had a role in creating will be yours to raise, and how you plan to work full-time and raise a child is your problem, not ours. We have no plans to help you once you have the child, because you were a slut and brought this on yourself. Now go make me a sammich.

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-of-the-day

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Welcome to Super Tuesday

post from DemConWatch on 06 March 2012 06:15:19 AM. © DemConWatch

It's HERE! As Oreo reported, the MSM is getting the number of delegates per state wrong, again. No wonder they so often get the counts wrong. Yesterday in their First Look email, MSNBC even got the number of contests wrong. I saw it and kept wondering if there was an eleventh I didn't know about. No matter. Luckily, we all have Matt and Oreo, who have gotten it right, and will have an accurate count after today's contests are over, both real and projected. Remember as you watch that Virginia is all but done as only Mittens and Paul are on the ballot, with no write-ins. In addition, Spawn was unable to file a full delegate slate in Ohio, so even if he wins the votes, he cannot get the delegates.

The delegate count actually matters less then some other things today. There are 416 at stake, and if you assume a projected 194 for Romney and add the 416, you get 610. by my abacus, that's less than the 1144 needed to win. If this were a fair primary process, you would contend that with the big states of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas and California, and their combined delegate count of 563, left to vote that there was all sorts of time left...but the GOP hoi polloi wants a decisive enough win by Mittens today so they can move on to their other problems. This whole "who's gonna be the candidate" issue pales in comparison to the much bigger problems they have.

Kudos to John Boy McCain, a true Republican who yesterday said that the US should bomb Syria AND that Rush Limbaugh was unacceptable. (Batting 50% - wrong on the first, right on the second.) He spoke out about two of the four big issues. Before we can all slog to election day, there is Syria and there is Iran, and they are going to have to be dealt with. Thankfully, we have a commander in chief who is not any of the Republican nominees. The two more immediate Republican problems are Rush Limbaugh and the Federal budget. Those two thing promise to be a disaster for whichever guy becomes their nominee.

First, Rush. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that he spent 3 days libeling Sandra Fluke and the women of Georgetown University. His advertisers are fleeing, two stations dropped him, and it turns out he's been lying for years about the size of his audience. It's finally becoming obvious even to Republicans that he is in charge of the propaganda wing of the GOP, and it's a crap shoot as to whether he does more damage to their brand on the air or off it.

Second, the budget. The House has to come up with a budget within the confines of pandering to the 87 freshmen teabaggers, meeting the spending cap in the debt ceiling cap, and working around the triggered cuts. The 87 want something lower then the $1.047 debt ceiling cap, which they felt was too high, and a lot of other Republicans want to avoid more defense cuts, if not add back funds. (Especially in light of Syria and Iran.) The likely architect of the budget will again be Paul Ryan, and if Boehner allows his budget to go forward, it will fail, potentially facing a government shutdown in October, a month before the election. No doubt that will cost them in November. Therefore, it will be necessary to consider a budget that Democrats can sign on to, which will protect Medicare and Social Security, at least temporarily, be bipartisan as it will get some "moderate" GOP votes, but will anger the far right. The budget promises to harm not only their presidential candidate, but a lot of House members.

In addition, the GOP has to contend with the fact that in one South Carolina county, to get on the Republican ballot, you have to sign a paper saying you never had sex before you got married. Really. This is a problem for a party that wants to be a party and not a laughing stock. These are serious times, and this is ridiculous.

Remember, we, the readers, are not out of the woods yet. There are Senate seats to be concerned with, and there really is the budget which affects us all. We're all distracted by the jello wrestling that the Republican nomination process has become: hopefully, Mittens will get enough done today so we can move on to the real issues of the day. Serious problems require serious people to solve them, and the sooner they name him "candidate" the sooner we can move on, vote out the teabaggers and move forward. I leave you with this:

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Slavery by Another Name

post from Where's the Outrage? on 06 March 2012 06:14:57 AM. © Where's the Outrage?

My sister asked me to watch the PBS special, Slavery by Another Name. I don?t know about you, I[...]

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Trial for former Iceland PM begins

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 06 March 2012 06:00:17 AM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Wouldn't it be interesting to see a member of the political class held accountable for the 2008 economic crisis? It's pathetic that not even a single banker in the US has been prosecuted. BBC News:

The trial of former Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde, on charges of negligence over the 2008 financial crisis, has begun in Reykjavik. Mr Haarde is thought to be the first world leader to face criminal charges over the crisis. He rejects the charges as "political persecution" and has said he will be vindicated during the trial. The country's three main banks collapsed during economic turmoil and the failure of Icesave hit thousands.

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Slo-Mo Iran Missile Crisis

post from Connecting.the.Dots on 06 March 2012 06:00:10 AM. © Connecting.the.Dots

Fifty years after the world teetered on the brink of war in 1962 when the Soviet Union put missiles into Cuba 90 miles from the U.S., we have a more slowly unfolding nuclear crisis with Israel and Iran as our partners in the diplomatic death dance.

In Washington this week, the President tries both to reassure the Israeli prime minister of our firm backing to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and to stay his hand from a preemptive strike to stop them.

?When he warns that an Israeli attack on Iran could backfire,? says a New York Times editorial, ?and that ?there is still a window? for diplomacy, he is speaking for American and Israeli interests.

?Iran?s nuclear appetites are undeniable, as is its malign intent toward Israel, toward America, toward its Arab neighbors and its own people. Israel?s threats of unilateral action have finally focused the world?s attention on the danger. Still, there must be no illusions about what it would take to seriously damage Iran?s nuclear complex, the high costs and the limited returns.

?This would not be a ?surgical? strike like the Israeli attack in 1981 that destroyed Iraq?s Osirak reactor, or the 2007 Israeli strike on an unfinished reactor in Syria. Iran has multiple facilities, and the crucial ones are buried or ?hardened.? Pentagon analysts estimate that even a sustained Israeli air campaign would set back the program by only a few years, drive it further underground and possibly unleash a wider war.

?It would also cast the Iranian government as the victim in the eyes of an otherwise alienated Iranian public. It would tear apart the international coalition and undermine an increasingly tough sanctions regime, making it even easier for Iran to rebuild its program.?

Nonetheless, the President is under intense pressure from both Prime Minister Netanyahu and his would-be November opponents (save Ron Paul) to cowboy into a confrontation. (As a warmup, John McCain wants him to bomb Syria.)

In his measured approach, Barack Obama is taking a leaf from John F. Kennedy half a century ago who said, ?Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to the choice of either a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war.?

Robert Kennedy was to write afterward, ?Miscalculation and misunderstanding and escalation on one side can bring a counterresponse. No action is taken against a powerful enemy in a vacuum. A government or a people will fail to understand this at their great peril. For that is how wars begin?-wars no one wants, no one intends, and no one wins.?

Messrs. Netanyahu, Romney, Santorum and Gingrich, are you listening?

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I know Irony is allegedly dead

But must it be repeatedly dug up and mutilated like poor Pope Formosus?[...]

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I Know Irony Is Allegedly Dead

But must it be repeatedly dug up and mutilated like poor Pope Formosus?[...]

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Is oil the new Greece

That's what the latest report from HSBC claims. Clearly the impact of high oil prices will be damaging, especially in the US. With the recovery still very fragile, high gas prices will pinch consumers not to mention drive up shipping expenses. While much of this issue is beyond Obama's control, Bernanke's easy money (quantitative easing) policy is not helping. That program is keeping the dollar weak against other currencies and that translates into high oil prices. CNBC:

Rising oil prices have displaced Greece as a source of investor anxiety, a new HSBC report says, warning that if the trend of rising oil prices persists, a fragile economic recovery in the developed world could quickly be derailed, and inflation could return to emerging markets. Oil prices have risen to all-time highs in euro and sterling terms in recent days and are edging close to the $147 per barrel high seen in 2008, mainly as a result of rising tensions over Iran. HSBC Chief Economist Stephen King said in the report that sanctions against Iran have already led to supply shortages which have doubtless lifted oil prices.