Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.

That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit.

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.

Many other reports have noted that there seems to be an enthusiasm gap: Democrats can’t get as many wealthy Democrats to give their all financially for their 2012 campaign efforts. Not on the GOP side:

“The intensity on the right is white-hot,” said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “We just can’t leave anything in the locker room. And there is a greater willingness to cooperate and share information among outside groups on the center-right.”

In targeted states, the groups’ activities will include TV, radio and digital advertising; voter-turnout work; mail and phone appeals; and absentee- and early-ballot drives.

The $1 billion in outside money is in addition to the traditional party apparatus – the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee – which together intend to raise at least $800 million.

The Republican financial plans are unlike anything seen before in American politics. If the GOP groups hit their targets, they likely could outspend their liberal adversaries by at least two-to-one, according to officials involved in the budgeting for outside groups on the right and left.

By contrast, Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting President Barack Obama’s reelection, has struggled to raise money, and now hopes to spend about $100 million. Obama’s initial reluctance to embrace such groups constrained fundraising on the Democratic side, which is now trying to make up for lost time.

And First Read notes that the campaign is currently being fought largely on Republican turf:

What do this week’s 10 hottest advertising markets (from May 28 to June 4) in the presidential contest tell us? The race is still being fought on GOP turf — all states that George W. Bush carried in 2004 (and three that John Kerry never contested). Six of the top 10 advertising markets are in North Carolina and Virginia, according to NBC/SMG Delta. (Still don’t think that North Carolina is a true battleground?) The other four markets are in Colorado, Ohio, and Iowa. The New York Times confirms that Team Romney has placed “a priority on winning Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia,” plus one more. Come October, if the major battlegrounds are only those first four states, then that will be very good news for Team Obama. But if you start seeing Pennsylvania or Michigan added to this list, then you know the worm has turned. Here are the top 10 advertising markets (in advertising points):

1. Norfolk-Portsmouth (Obama/1500, Romney/1400, Crossroads/730, Priorities/450)
2. Roanoke-Lynchburg (Obama/1500, Romney/1500, Crossroads/750)
3. Greensboro-High Point (Romney/1400, Obama/1100, Crossroads/780)
4. Columbus, OH (Romney/1400, Obama/1000, Crossroads/525, Priorities/365)
5. Raleigh-Durham (Obama/1200, Romney/1100, Crossroads/840)
6. Richmond-Petersburg (Obama/1100, Romney/1100, Crossroads/340, Priorities/315)
7. Cedar Rapids (Obama/1300, Romney/1100, Crossroads/340)
8. Charlotte (Romney/1200, Obama/1000, Crossroads/515)
9. Cincinnati (Romney/1200, Obama/1000, Crossroads/460)
10. Colorado Springs (Obama/1400, Crossroads/630, Priorities/420)

If huge campaign coffers and the performance of the economy are major factors in who’ll become President, then what does it say about the Democrats’ challenges this campaign season?

:

Why is it that people in the United States, the land where ‘all men are created equal,’ the land where ‘constitutional patriotism’ was born, have been pulling their hair out over an issue that appears nowhere in the Constitution or the Federalist Papers? For Spain’s Diario Exterior, columnist Carlos Alberto Montaner examines one of the most vexing issues in the U.S. today, and why America’s ‘ethnic neurosis’ is destined to dissipate if people simply wait.

For the Diario Exterior, Carlos Alberto Montaner starts off this way:

The New York Times front page has announced that in the previous year, more than half the children born in the United States (50.4%) were non-White. Of that percentage, 26 percent were Hispanic (mostly Mexican), 15 percent were Black and 4 percent were Asian.

Why was it on the front page? Pure ethnic neurosis. Fear of the other. The same thing happened a few years ago when Samuel Huntington caused such a stir with the publication of his The Hispanic Challenge. This type of information causes a certain anxiety among “Whites.” They think they are losing control over and the direction of America. They fear becoming a minority.

The first bit of nonsense is classification. Hispanics are defined by the language they speak, or by what language they are supposed to speak, regardless of skin color. A Chilean of Basque origin or a Cachiquel Guatemalan are Hispanics, even if the language of the latter isn’t Spanish. Blacks, evidently, are classified by race. Asians, by geography, be they Chinese or Indian.

I have no idea, for example, if an Israeli-American of Sephardic origin is Asian, White or Hispanic. Nor do I know if that brilliant engineer called Rafael Reif, a Venezuelan son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who was recently named President of MIT, is Hispanic, White, or if by chance the census allows it, simply Maracucho. [Maracucho is the Zulian dialect in northwest Venezuela].

Thoughtful, civil comments are welcome at TMV. Please read the Commenters Rules at the top of the masthead. Thank you. Eds.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

I was in one of those custom-made 1970s Pontiac convertibles, outfitted for Elvis and other rock stars with bull’s horns on the front bumper, rifles and handguns pasted everywhere inside and out, encrusted with silver dollars and bullets—-a NRA fever dream of a bygone America that had been fashioned by a Russian immigrant named Nudie Cohn, who started by tailoring outlandish suits and went on to outfit bizarre cars for American idols with no taste and too much money.

In that improbable vehicle, I was separated by a saddle from old friend in uniform, a Democratic activist, but we must have both looked like the dinosaurs who are now furnishing Romney with his lead over Obama.

Sitting there brought back memories of Elvis and Nixon and their strange 1970 White House meeting at which they agreed that the Beatles and drugs had endangered America. Elvis gave Nixon a Colt .45, and he reciprocated with a Bureau of Narcotics badge.

Seven years later, Elvis was dead on a bathroom floor of a drug overdose, and Nixon had resigned in the face of impeachment for White House crimes.

In this election year, ideological strife is back in new forms and the challenge for Barack Obama will be to win back older white men who long for an imagined America.

MORE.

Contrary to the narrative in the West, in Beijing’s alternate reality, Russia and China are the real heroes of the Syria story. According to this editorial from China’s state-controlled Global Times, only Russia and China stand in the way of an even more horrific conflict brought on by selfish Western determination to remake the Middle East in its own image.

The Global Times editorial says in part:

China and Russia have called for a resolution by peaceful means, as this is obviously the least painful path toward transition. Western powers, however, insist that unless Assad leaves, there can be no solution. What this in fact amounts to is calling for bloodshed rather than peace. It will force the Syrian parties to decide their fate through war.

But the regime is not without roots. Half the Syrian population remains loyal to Assad, and if this support is to be eradicated, it will cost Syrians dearly. The West’s strategy is built on Syrian flesh and blood. It is a political kidnapping of the destinies of over 20 million people.

If one country is permitted to intervene in another’s domestic affairs at will, our world would be plagued by a long series of wars driven by the subversion of regimes. However history judges such events, they would be a nightmare for the people of our age.

The West should not expect cooperation from China and Russia if it insists on dictating its values and mindsets to the world by all means possible. For it if does, it will find China and Russia standing in its way.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

The 2012 campaign season is shaping up as a possible “transformational” election, but not the kind that Barack Obama and many Democrats had in mind. It’s a year when, if Democrats don’t get their act together ASAP, they could suffer a trifecta of losses that will trigger further erosion of threatened New Deal and Great Society legacies and fulfill many conservatives’ longtime dreams.

Many Democrats still seem smugly assured that, in the end, voters would never, EVER give GOPers control of all three branches of government given the rhetorical overkill of the party’s talk show political culture, Congressional Republicans’ political obstructionism, the continued enabling of Twilight Zone-like birtherism, plus Republicans’ alienation of Latinos, many women voters, gays — and seeming disdain for moderates and America’s “sensible center.”

Democratic political maven James Carville almost seemed pleading on CNN when he told Democrats to wake up:

“You think that Democrats around the country are going to win — as I hear time and time again from people on the street. …I ask: What are you smoking? What are you drinking? What are you snorting or just what…are you thinking? Look around the world — do you see any governments or incumbents winning any elections out there?”

Among the many questions posed about the 2013 there are these three:

Two are a) whether the center is still “sensible” (centrists, moderates and some independents will ask) or b) whether the center was ever sensible (liberals and conservatives who consider the center mushy, unrealistic, lacking principles, and uninformed will ask). Polls vary, but most find that in terms of party identification the electorate is largely tied between Democrats and Republicans who need swing “undecided” voters to win.

The election takes place in a political landscape where political news now often seems to parallel TV show titles. For instance: “Mad Men” (Mitt Romney best political bud, birther Donald Trump; and Arizona birther Sheriff Joe Arpaio), “Missing” (George W. Bush’s absence from the Romney campaign trial), “Criminal Minds” (writers of demonizing and falsity-crammed Super PAC campaign ads), “House of Lies” (Congress), “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (Republicans endorsing Romney) and “The Big Bang Theory” (the John Edwards Trial).

A third question is whether 2008 will prove to be a fluke, merely a single Democratic Party volume wedged between two Republican Party bookends, a victory largely due to multiple-level Bush administration failures and the financial meltdown. If so, it means GOPers are destined for complete political control of the Supreme Court and that the mostly Republican dominance of Presidential elections since LBJ’s exit continues.

The National Journal’s Naureen Khan writes: “Part of the Obama campaign’s success in 2008 can be attributed to effectively recognizing those [demographic] shifts and wooing new constituencies. The question in 2012 remains whether the president can stitch together those constituencies again or whether those blocs will defect to Romney in the wake of protracted post-recession misery.”

The conventional wisdom has been zigzagging and now seems to have settled on middle ground.

As Investor’s Business Daily’s Andrew Malcolm puts it: “No one knows, of course, but conventional wisdom today holds the Nov. 6 outcome will be close. Unless it isn’t. And then we’ll hear all about why it wasn’t.”

Right now some analysts say Obama could become another Truman. Some Republicans say he’s another Jimmy Carter. But Obama may generate a — “another Obama” — that pundits and historians will use in the future. Exactly what “another Obama” means will emerge on Election Day.

So will the Democrats win despite themselves? Will some liberals really stay home because there was no public option in Obamacare? Will they forget about the Supreme Court (again)? Which party will swing voters hate the least and hold their noses and vote for? Will Republican Party unity combined with Super PAC bankrolling support make America’s first African-American President just one more, fired one —term President?

If so, it will another instance of life again seemingly imitating TV art as the Democrats on election day would wake up to see the New Deal and Great Society more on the way out than ever, and find themselves epitomizing the name of another TV show: “The Biggest Loser.”

Copyright 2012 Joe Gandelman. This weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Speaking at the University of Wyoming fieldhouse

I heard him speak at the University of Wyoming when I was in second grade. Here is that speech, from 1963. He was assassinated fifty-eight days later in Dallas, Texas. I had met Senator Gale McGee on a few occasions, by that time. Here is what I heard:

John F. Kennedy
Address at the University of Wyoming.
September 25, 1963

Senator McGee–my old colleague in the Senate, Gale McGee–Governor, Mr. President, Senator Mansfield, Senator Metcalf, Secretary Udall, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my appreciation to you for your warm welcome, to you, Governor, to the President of the University, to Senator McGee, and others. I am particularly glad to come on this conservation trip and have an opportunity to speak at this distinguished university, because what we are attempting to do is to develop the talents in our country which require, of course, education which will permit us in our time, when the conservation of our resources requires entirely different techniques than were required 50 years ago, when the great conservation movement began under Theodore Roosevelt–and these talents, scientific and social talents, must be developed at our universities.

I hope that all of you who are students here will recognize the great opportunity that lies before you in this decade, and in the decades to come, to be of service to our country. The Greeks once defined happiness as full use of your powers along lines of excellence, and I can assure you that there is no area of life where you will have an opportunity to use whatever powers you have, and to use them along more excellent lines, bringing ultimately, I think, happiness to you and those whom you serve.

What I think we must realize is that the problems which now face us and their solution are far more complex, far more difficult, far more subtle, require a far greater skill and discretion of judgment, than any of the problems that this country has faced in its comparatively short history, or any, really, that the world has faced in its long history. The fact is that almost in the last 30 years the world of knowledge has exploded. You remember that Robert Oppenheimer said that 8 or 9 out of 10 of all the scientists who ever lived, live today. This last generation has produced nearly all of the scientific breakthroughs, at least relatively, that this world of ours has ever experienced. We are alive, all of us, while this tremendous explosion of knowledge, which has expanded the horizon of our experience, so far has all taken ‘place in the last 30 years.

If you realize that when Queen Victoria sent for Robert Peel to be Prime Minister-he was in Rome–the journey which he took from Rome to London took him the same amount of time, to the day, that it had taken the Emperor Hadrian to go from Rome to England nearly 1900 years before. There had been comparatively little progress made in almost 1900 years in the field of knowledge. Now, suddenly, in the last 100 years, but most particularly in the last 30 years, all that is changed, and all of this knowledge is brought to bear, and can be brought to bear, in improving our lives and making the life of our people more happy, or destroying them. And that problem is the one, of course, which this generation of Americans and the next must face: how to use that knowledge, how to make a social discipline out of it.

There is really not much use in having science and its knowledge confined to the laboratory unless it comes out into the mainstream of American and world life, and only those who are trained and educated to handle knowledge and the disciplines of knowledge can be expected to play a significant part in the life of their country. So, quite obviously, this university is not maintained by the people of Wyoming merely to help all of the graduates enjoy a prosperous life. That may come, that may be a byproduct, but the people of Wyoming contribute their taxes to the maintenance of this school in order that the graduates of this school may, themselves, return to the society which helped develop them some of the talents which that society has made available, and what is true in this State is true across the United States.

The reason why, at the height of the Civil War, when the preservation of the Union was in doubt, Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, which has built up the most extraordinary educational system in the world, was because he knew that a nation could not exist and be ignorant and free; and what was true 100 years ago is more true today. So what we have to decide is how we are going to manage the complicated social and economic and world problems which come across our desks-my desk, as President of the United States; the desk of the Senators, as representatives of the States; the Members of the House, as representatives of the people.

But most importantly, as the final power is held by a majority of the people, how the majority of the people are going to make their judgment on the wise use of our resources, on the correct monetary and fiscal policy, what steps we should take in space, what steps we should take to develop the resources of the ocean, what steps we should take to manage our balance of payments, what we should do in the Congo or Viet-Nam, or in Latin America, all these areas which come to rest upon the United States as the leading great power of the world, with the determination and the understanding to recognize what is at stake in the world–all these are problems far more complicated than any group of citizens ever had to deal with in the history of the world, or any group of Members of Congress had to deal with.

“Peace”

If you feel that the Members of Congress were more talented 100 years ago, and certainly the Senators in the years before the Civil War included the brightest figures, probably, that ever sat in the Senate–Benton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and all the rest-they talked, and at least three of them stayed in the Congress 40 years–they talked for 40 years about four or five things: tariffs and the development of the West, land, the rights of the States and slavery, Mexico. Now we talk about problems in one summer which dwarf in complexity all of those matters, and we must deal with them or we will perish.

So I think the chance for an educated graduate of this school to serve his State and country is bright. I can assure you that you are needed.

This trip that I have taken is now about 24 hours old, but it is a rewarding 24 hours because there is nothing more encouraging than for those of us to leave the rather artificial city of Washington and come and travel across the United States and realize what is here, the beauty, the diversity, the wealth, and the vigor of the people.

Last Friday I spoke to delegates from all over the world at the United Nations. It is an unfortunate fact that nearly every delegate comes to the United States from all around the world and they make a judgment on the United States based on an experience in New York or Washington; and rarely do they come West beyond the Mississippi, and rarely do they go to California, or to Hawaii, or to Alaska. Therefore, they do not understand the United States, and those of us who stay only in Washington sometimes lose our comprehension of the national problems which require a national solution.

This country has become rich because nature was good to us, and because the people who came from Europe, predominantly, also were among the most vigorous. The basic resources were used skillfully and economically, and because of the wise work done by Theodore Roosevelt and others, significant progress was made in conserving these resources.

Theodore Roosevelt with John Muir at Yosemite

The problem, of course, now is that the whole concept of conservation must change in the 1960′s if we are going to pass on to the 350 million Americans who will live in this country in 40 years where 180 million Americans now live–if we are going to pass on a country which is even richer.

The fact of the matter is that the management of our natural resources instead of being primarily a problem of conserving them, of saving them, now requires the scientific application of knowledge to develop new resources. We have come to. realize to a large extent that resources are not passive. Resources are not merely something that was here, put by nature. Research tells us that previously valueless materials, which 10 years ago were useless, now can be among the most valuable natural resources of the United States. And that is the most significant fact in conservation now since the early 1900′s when Theodore Roosevelt started his work. A conservationist’s first reaction in those days was to preserve, to hoard, to protect every non-renewable resource. It was the fear of resource exhaustion which caused the great conservation movement of the 1900′s. And this fear was reflected in the speeches and attitudes of our political leaders and their writers.

This is not surprising in the light of the technology of that time, but today that approach is out of date, and I think this is an important fact for the State of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain States. It is both too pessimistic and too optimistic. We need no longer fear that our resources and energy supplies are a fixed quantity that can be exhausted in accordance with a particular rate of consumption. On the other hand, it is not enough to put barbed wire around a forest or a lake, or put in stockpiles of minerals, or restrictive laws and regulations on the exploitation of resources. That was the old way of doing it.

The old way of doing it

Our primary task now is to increase our understanding of our environment to a point where we can enjoy it without defacing it, use its bounty without detracting permanently from its value, and, above all, maintain a living balance between man’s actions and nature’s reactions, for this Nation’s great resources are as elastic and productive as our ingenuity can make them. For example, soda ash is a multimillion dollar industry in this State. A few years ago there was no use for it. It was wasted. People were unaware of it. And even if it had been sought, it could not be found–not because it wasn’t here, but because effective prospecting techniques had not been developed. Now soda ash is a necessary ingredient in the production of glass, steel, and other products. As a result of a series of experiments, of a harnessing of science to the use of man, this great new industry has opened up. In short, conservation is no longer protection and conserving and restricting. The balance between our needs and the availability of our resources, between our aspirations and our environment, is constantly changing.

Techtonic plate theory would have to wait for confirmation
until secret US navy maps of the undersea topography
were declassified in 1966

One of the great resources which we are going to find in the next 40 years is not going to be the land; it will be the ocean. We are going to find untold wealth in the oceans of the world which will be used to make a better life for our people. Science is changing all of our natural environment. It can change it for good; it can change it for bad. We are pursuing, for example, new opportunities in coal, which have been largely neglected–examining the feasibility of transporting coal by water through pipelines, of gasification at the mines, of liquefaction of coal into gasoline, and of transmitting electric power directly from the mouth of the mine. The economic feasibility of some of these techniques has not been determined, but it will be in the next decade. At the same time, we are engaged in active research on better means of using low grade coal, to meet the tremendous increase in the demand for coal we are going to find in the rest of this century. This is, in effect, using science to increase our supply of a resource of which the people of the United States were totally unaware 50 years ago.

Another research undertaking of special concern to this Nation and this State is the continuing effort to develop practical and feasible techniques of converting oil shale into usable petroleum fuels. The higher grade deposits in Wyoming alone are equivalent to 30 billion barrels of oil, and 200 billion barrels in the case of lower grade development. This could not be used, there was nothing to conserve, and now science is going to make it possible.

Investigation is going on to assure at the same time an adequate water supply so that when we develop this great new industry we will be able to use it and have sufficient water. Resource development, therefore, requires not only the coordination of all branches of science, it requires the joint effort of scientists, government–State, national, and local–and members of other professional disciplines. For example, we are now examining in the United States today the mixed economic-technical question of whether very large-scale nuclear reactors can produce unexpected savings in the simultaneous desalinization of water and the generation of electricity. We will have, before this decade is out or sooner, a tremendous nuclear reactor which makes electricity and at the same time gets fresh water from salt water at a competitive price. What a difference this can make to the Western United States. And, indeed, not only the United States, but all around the globe where there are so many deserts on the ocean’s edge.

It is in efforts, I think, such as this, where the National Government can play a significant role, where the scale of public investment or the nationwide scope of the problem, the national significance of the results are too great to ignore or which cannot always be carried out by private research. Federal funds and stimulation can help make the most imaginative and productive use of our manpower and facilities. The use of science and technology in these fields has gained understanding and support in the Congress. Senator Gale McGee has proposed an energetic study of the technology of electrometallurgy–the words are getting longer as the months go on, and more complicated-an area of considerable importance to the Rocky Mountains.

Progress marches on

All this, I think, is going to change the life of Wyoming and going to change the life of the United States. What we regard now as relative well-being, 30 years from now will be regarded as poverty. When you realize that 30 years ago r out of 10 farms had electricity, and yet some farmers thought that they were living reasonably well, now for a farm not to have electricity, we regard them as living in the depths of poverty. That is how great a change has come in 30 years. In the short space of 18 years, really, or almost 20 years, the wealth of this country has gone up 300 percent.

In 1970, 1980, 1990, this country will be, can be, must be–if we make the proper decisions, if we manage our resources, both human and material, wisely, if we make wise decisions in the Nation, in the State, in the community, and individually, if we maintain a vigorous and hopeful ‘pursuit of life and knowledge–the resources of this country are so unlimited and science is expanding them so greatly that all those people who thought 40 years ago that this country would be exhausted in the middle of the century have been proven wrong. It is going to be richer than ever, providing we make the wise decisions and we recognize that the future belongs to those who seize it.

Knowledge is power, a saying 500 years old, but knowledge is power today as never before, not only here in the United States, but the future of the free world depends in the final analysis upon the United States and upon our willingness to reach those decisions on these complicated matters which face us with courage and clarity. And the graduates of this school will, as they have in the past, play their proper role.

I express my thanks to you. This building which 15 years ago was just a matter of conversation is now a reality. So those things that we talk about today, which seem unreal, where so many people doubt that they can be done–the fact of the matter is, it has been true all through our history–they will be done, and Wyoming, in doing it, will play its proper role.

Thank you.

Note: The President spoke in the University field house at Laramie. In his opening words he referred to U.S. Senator Gale McGee and Governor Cliff Hansen of Wyoming; President George D. Humphrey of the University; U.S. Senators Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf of Montana; and Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

Citation: John F. Kennedy: “Address at the University of Wyoming.,” September 25, 1963. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9433.

Charles deGaulle at the funeral of John F. Kennedy

Happy 95th Birthday, Mr. President. We might have had you still with us.

Courage.

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

In his speech to the 1988 Democratic convention, Rev. Jesse Jackson declared “keep hope alive.” On CNN today, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s best political bud Donald Trump in essence argued keep birtherism alive.

In what will likely be shown for years as a classic interview on CNN, Trump refused to acknowledge facts as facts, inaccurately stated some things as facts, and went on the offensive against CNN’s Wolf Blitzer who did a non-Sean Hannity interview: Blitzer asked tough questions and follow up questions as trained journalists are supposed to do. Trump got in a few zingers about CNN’s low ratings along the way.

Watch it and judge for yourself:

Now watch the reaction of GOPer David Frum, who I often retweet on my Twitter page:

Most fascinating: Trump did this birther rant before and he fizzled out as a GOP candidate. He’s not now just “remaking the wheel” — he’s reconstructing the looney bin. Some fitting music here and here. And Romney?

Romney is essentially enabling Trump, arguing that he can’t be responsible for what his followers say. The most likely explanation (which Howard Fineman also has, based on Fineman’s comments on MSNBC) is: Romney has noted that his goal is to get the 50.1 percent he needs to win so whoever Trump can get worked up and however Trump can do it, fine — as long as they vote against Obama and for him. It’s a classic case of the ends justify the means — any means. This would also would fit into the 2011-2012 incarnation of Mitt Romney who pulls out all stops to obliterate his opposition. He may not have decades long political positions, but he has the steel to do whatever it takes — no matter how it looks to pundits — to win. He has also been of saying things…at varience…with the truth.. to an extent not seen in American politics.

Will it play for independent voters? Some say indes won’t care. My prediction: he will lose a chunk of independent voters who yearn for a SERIOUS political discussion by SERIOUS candidates.

And how is this playing in the media? The Reuters article below is just one article that is not exactly the kind of image a candidate who wants to win over independent voters would want:

Controversy over the “birther” movement hung over a meeting in Las Vegas on Tuesday between Mitt Romney and high-profile supporter Donald Trump, whose comments about President Barack Obama have put the Republican presidential candidate in an awkward spot.

Trump has again raised doubts about whether Obama was born in the United States, an issue that is most passionately pursued by conspiracy theorists and which Romney has tried to avoid as he focuses on attacking the White House’s economy record.

“A lot of people are questioning his birth certificate,” Trump said on CNBC on Tuesday. “They’re questioning the authenticity of his birth certificate.

“I’ve been known as being a very smart guy for a long time. I don’t consider myself birther or not birther but there are some major questions here and the press doesn’t want to cover it,” he said.

Romney has said he believes Obama was born in the United States but he has drawn fire from Democrats for not distancing himself from Trump, who has alleged Obama was born in Kenya and is thus not eligible to be U.S. president.

Romney was to appear with Trump, who once had presidential ambitions of his own, at a fundraiser in Las Vegas. Romney also is likely to clinch the Republican nomination on Tuesday night at the Texas primary where he is expected to pick up scores of delegates and reach the target of 1,144 needed.

The LA Times’ headline is “Donald Trump rages in CNN meltdown over Obama ‘birther’ issue”:

Donald Trump is seething over the President Obama “birther” issue — and the latest target of his wrath is CNN.

In an interview Tuesday, the real estate magnate and “Celebrity Apprentice” overseer got into a war of words with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, castigating the network for what he dubbed “inaccurate” reporting and ridiculing its low ratings.

At one point, Blitzer said that Trump was beginning to sound ridiculous. “I think you sound ridiculous,” Trump shot back via telephone.

Trump has been a leading proponent of the theory that Obama either was not or may not have been born in the U.S. This view is a focal point of attacks on the administration from some critics, although the state of Hawaii has offered documents that say Obama was indeed born there. Most leading GOP politicians have shied away from the issue, but it persists, particularly at a grass-roots level. Trump is keeping the issue alive even as he brandishes his support for the presumed Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

Meanwhile, Romney inched into the birther waters a bit himself. The Huffington Post:

At an afternoon event at a furniture warehouse in Las Vegas, Romney did not mention Trump’s remarks, but also made a comment that touched on the topic of a president’s birth place.

He said that a local restaurant owner, in a conversation earlier in the day, told him that he’d like the change the Constitution.

“‘I’m not sure I could do it,’ he said. ‘I’d like to have a provision in the Constitution that in addition to the age of the president and the citizenship of the president, and the birth place of the president being set by the Constitution, I’d like it also to say that the president has to spend at least three years working in business before he can get the job of president,’” Romney said the man told him.

Romney’s campaign message is that he understands the economy and Obama doesn’t. But this comment appeared to be an attempt by the Romney campaign to signal that it is not worried by Trump’s remarks.

In other words: let the birther demonization begin or, rather, resume?

And, also, let me get this straight:

Future Presidential candidates should be required to spend three years working in business?

What would that have done to someone like….Ronald Reagan?

So while Romney wants to require future Presidents to have background in business, Trump is giving the President — and voters who want to see candidates talk about the issues and challenges facing our country rather than hear talk radio show talking points or regurgitated blog posts — the business.

Writes Andrew Sullivan:

All I can say is that Romney’s embrace of Trump and passive letting go of Grenell are signs of personal weakness, not strength.

And I’m betting many independent voters will conclude just that.

John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri

This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Every political campaign exaggerates and dissembles. This practice may not be admirable — it’s surely one reason so many Americans are disenchanted with politics — but it’s something we’ve all come to expect. Candidates claim the right to make any boast or accusation as long as there’s a kernel of veracity in there somewhere.

Even by this lax standard, Romney too often fails. Not to put too fine a point on it, he lies. Quite a bit.

“Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,” Romney claims on his campaign website. This is utterly false. The truth is that spending has slowed markedly under Obama.

An analysis published last week by MarketWatch, a financial news website owned by Dow Jones & Co., compared the yearly growth of federal spending under presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. Citing figures from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, MarketWatch concluded that “there has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.”

Quite the contrary: Spending has increased at a yearly rate of only 1.4 percent during Obama’s tenure, even if you include some stimulus spending (in the 2009 fiscal year) that technically should be attributed to George W. Bush. This is by far the smallest — I repeat, smallest — increase in spending of any recent president. (The Washington Post’s Fact Checker concluded the spending increase figure should have been 3.3 percent.)

In Bush’s first term, by contrast, federal spending increased at an annual rate of 7.3 percent; in his second term, the annual rise averaged 8.1 percent. Reagan comes next, in terms of profligacy, followed by George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and finally Obama, the thriftiest of them all.

The MarketWatch analysis was re-analyzed by the nonpartisan watchdogs at Politifact who found it “Mostly True” — adding the qualifier because some of the restraint in spending under Obama “was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans.” Duly noted, and if Romney wants to claim credit for the GOP, he’s free to do so. But he’s not free to say that “federal spending has accelerated” under Obama, because any way you look at it, that’s a lie.

Another example: “(Obama) went around the Middle East and apologized for America,” Romney said in March. “You know, instead of apologizing for America he should have stood up and said that as the president of the United States we all take credit for the greatness of this country.” That’s two lies for the price of one. Obama did not, in fact, go around the Middle East, or anywhere else, apologizing for America. And he did, on many occasions, trumpet American greatness and exceptionalism.

Romney offers few specifics, but the conservative Heritage Foundation published a list of “Barack Obama’s Top 10 Apologies” — not one of which is an apology at all.

One alleged instance is a speech Obama gave to the Turkish parliament in 2009, in which he said the United States “is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history … (and) still struggles with the legacies of slavery and segregation, the past treatment of Native Americans.” If the folks at Heritage and at the Romney campaign don’t know that this is a simple statement of fact, they really ought to get out more.

Romney does single out the following Obama statement from a 2009 interview: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Romney says this acknowledgement — that others might have as much national pride as we do — means Obama doesn’t really believe in American exceptionalism at all.

But in the same interview, Obama went on to say he was “enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world,” and to tout U.S. economic and military might as well as the nation’s “exceptional” democratic values. So he should be accused of chest-thumping, not groveling.

I could go on and on, from Romney’s laughable charge that Obama is guilty of “appeasement” (ask Osama bin Laden) to claims of his job-creating prowess at Bain Capital. He seems to believe voters are too dumb to discover what the facts really are — or too jaded to care.

On both counts, I disagree.

Eugene Robinson’s email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com. (c) 2012, Washington Post Writers Group. His column is licensed to run on TMV in full

MSNBC’s First Read poses these questions:

*** Playing the Trump card: Here’s a little thought exercise: What if a chief Obama surrogate/fundraiser happened to be the nation’s foremost critic of the Mormon faith, who argued that it was nothing more than a cult? Or what if the Obama campaign was holding a fundraising contest with a celebrity who believed that 9/11 was an inside job? Or even if Obama held a joint fundraiser with Bill Maher? It’s hard to differentiate those hypotheticals from Mitt Romney’s association with Donald Trump, who in recent days has said that hitting Obama with Jeremiah Wright is fair game and that there are still doubts about Obama’s place of birth. The Romney-Trump association tonight includes a fundraiser with “The Donald,” as well as an upcoming fundraising dinner contest with him. Why hang out with someone — multiple times — who could overshadow you, for all the wrong reasons? Could you imagine John McCain or George W. Bush doing something similar?

Actually, you can’t. It’s because they had backbone.

Increasingly, Romney most resembles this:

UPDATE: There is a lot of blog reaction to Romney refusing to distance himself from Trump HERE. I disagree with those who say it doesn’t matter. It’s going to chance off some independent voters who are turned off by the birther narrative — and not because of politics but because of the mentality it reflects and says about those who don’t repudiate it. Romney may raise some money by wooing Trump and in his choice of words basically legitimizing him; Trump will start grabbing some headlines since that’s what he does, Romney will be asked to respond and it’ll distract from Romney’s economic message.

She contends that Hillary Clinton faced a double edged, razor-sharp sword, and fell on it: the news media’s treatment of her was different as First Lady, Senator and as the country’s first viable female Presidential aspirant, not just because she was a woman, but because she was Hillary Clinton. She had some baggage to shed, started effectively shedding it, and Team Obama made it their mission to make sure they loaded her up with more of it.

Today, “The Hillary Effect” is more relevant than ever. There is increased speculation about whether Hillary Clinton will run for President one day. Conservative icon Rush Limbaugh’s near slanderous rants against law student Sandra Fluke? Sexism in the media — even from media types that Marsh would otherwise agree with (no one is spared whether they work at Fox News, Talk Radio or MSNBC like Chris Matthews) — is an underlying theme in “The Hillary Effect.” Mitt Romney’s allegations of “character assassination” by team Obama on the Bain Capital issue and the issue of GOP Super PACS trying to destroy Barack Obama by negatively defining him? A chapter in her book “Eating Your Own” puts the practice into context in factual and analytical detail. A small excerpt:

You certainly won’t get the view I saw of Obama versus Hillary from [Obama campaign manager] David Plouffe’s book….Because I assure you, the story Plouffe tells, while true for him, is only half complete…The Obama campaign was anything but a “new kind of politics,” but most of the media sucked it up like an intoxicating elixir though there were a very few exceptions who saw it…

She notes that Obama “was actually the establishment candidate, the media’s choice as well, with Hillary the outsider…” and later writes:

Barack Obama’s candidacy was obviously historic, but so was Hillary Clinton’s. They were both firsts — equal, except to the media covering the race. As with Plouffe’s rewriting of primary history, the Obama campaign’s negative campaigning got a pass. After all how else could he beat the bitch?

Marsh is also extremely tough on Republicans (which is precisely why on some book selling websites along with real reviews you’ll see some name-calling” reviews” partisans often put on to try and denigrate a book that they clearly have not even READ when written by someone on the other political side). And she’s also tough as nails on on Team Hillary for their catastrophic mistakes of judgment, hubris and campaign implementation which helped produce a President Barack Obama.

But the real meat of “The Hillary Effect” is Marsh’s analysis of the long range impact of what Hillary Clinton tried to do, failed to do due to her campaign’s mistakes and, in the end, actually did.

Marsh convincingly makes the case that The Hillary Effect’s impact was huge on America (much bigger than The O’Reilly Factor’s). Why?

If Hillary Clinton didn’t exactly break “the glass ceiling,” Marsh details how her primary wins broke the chandelier a few feet away from the ceiling — and how the shards of shattered chandelier produced opportunities for GOP conservative women such as the anti-Hillary Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Marsh takes no prisoners when pointing out the sexist statements, sexist assumptions and behavior of many male political and media figures from both parties.

When you read “The Hillary Effect” you’ll find yourself saying, “Hey! That’s right! I never realized that before” — and you’ll increasingly notice how this pattern of sexist perceptions and sexist throw-away comments persists to this day (a baloney ceiling remains).

Marsh is supremely armed with the qualifications and skills to write this book. By 2008 she had evolved — and not by branding design — into the highest profile, most respected pro-Hillary blogger on the Internet, culminating in a Washington Post profile. Today, she calls herself a “recovering partisan.” What has not changed is her take-no-prisoners style of blunt writing; her interest isn’t in making media or political best buds to advance her career (she certainly won’t with the honestly in this book), but to give readers her best take.

And “The Hillary Effect” is the best take on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, its significance and its impact on what was to follow and is unfolding.

PERSONAL NOTE: I started linking to Taylor Marsh a few years after the December 2003 start up of The Moderate Voice. I didn’t always agree with her, but she always made her case with solid analysis rather than name calling or the kind of lash out posts (lashing out at parties, other blogs and blog writers) that you see on so many weblogs. About a year ago I invited her to cross-post some posts on TMV as a Guest Voice Columnist. I was and remain a fan.

When her book came out, I offered her an ad on TMV for free since we had one more remaining spot that we could give away for free. And then I ordered the book myself to read on my Kindle. She didn’t even know I had it until a few weeks later. A few months later I told her I loved it and had told my sister about it. I asked Taylor if she had an old copy she could mail to my sister to read.

So here is a disclaimer:
NOTE: Taylor Marsh provided a free print copy of her book to my sister and it’s my understanding she extended a free copy to just about anyone in media who would consider reviewing it or mentioning her book in a column.

This review was on my to-review list many months before she sent the book to my sister (FYI, I have 12 more items on my backlogged list for review here on TMV, including Robert Caro’s new LBJ book and the latest Godfather spin off novel).

How much do I like “The Hillary Effect?” This much: I read it once and it’s still on the front page of my Kindle because I’m reading it again so I can soak in the analysis and enjoy the no-nonsense, blunt, yet-supported-by-facts Taylor Marsh style.

So on yours truly there may be: “The Taylor Marsh Effect.”

On a TMV scale of five stars “The Hillary Effect” gets five stars (required reading for political junkies and aspiring and practicing journalists and bloggers).

by "Texts From Hillary" on Tumblr

“I think that there will be an election that will elect a woman.” – Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton

WASHINGTON – George Washington didn’t exactly jump at the chance to lead our nation after being asked either. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that women like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as people like myself, aren’t taking Hillary’s no for an answer.

I’m not comparing America’s first president to Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the times and the need for a fearless leader are as dire.  The times also call for America to break the female president barrier, which is long overdue. Consider Hillary a baseline for the Democratic party to change the history of our country on that score.  We already know where Republicans don’t want to tread again, and I wrote where Republicans could start this year.  The rest of that conversation we can pick up another time.

Secretary Hillary Clinton’s remarks made a couple of weeks ago at a town hall at La Martiniere School for Girls in Kolkata, India were no different than previous preemptive withdrawal statements regarding a second presidential run come 2016.

No one should take them as definitive. We simply cannot afford to.

As the guest of honor in a conversation moderated by NDTV’s Group Editor Barkha Dutt, Secretary Hillary Clinton once again proved why, according to Gallup, she now enjoys the highest approval rating of her twenty year public career. The questions from the audience proves the Hillary Effect continues to resound.

Clinton was introduced by Barkha Dutt in a sterling tribute that mentioned her over 777,000 miles traveled, followed by a pictorial look back at Secretary Clinton’s travels to India that comes in a good-bye tour as she winds down her duties for President Obama. We are witnessing the final days of a partnership that has defied critics and delighted supporters on all sides of what was once a divide. It also proved President Obama’s strong commitment to women in leadership that has been seen through Hillary Clinton’s passion and purpose at the State Department.

There is no one in American politics who is more prepared for the presidency than Hillary Rodham Clinton. That women here and across the globe need her to continue what she started in 1995, when she declared “women’s rights are human rights” in China as first lady, should go without saying, especially with the backdrop of the Republican war on women, which is very real.

Clinton has widened the diplomatic territory through her tenure, which began by galvanizing a demoralized foreign service after the Bush administration’s disrespect for what diplomacy can do, then through her historic expansion of women being central to U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century. The partnership of Obama and Clinton put into action what studies have shown, which is that a developing nation is only as strong as the role women play in it.

The collaborative partnership of President Obama and Secretary Clinton has changed the playing field for women here and around the world.

It’s just one reason whenever Secretary Clinton is taking questions in a relaxed forum, the topic of another run for the presidency invariably comes up. After watching her apolitical diplomatic leadership rise and her prestige and prowess expand, as we simultaneously take in the American political circus, the American public, especially women, would be derelict in our citizenry to simply accept Clinton’s premature pass on 2016 at face value.

Everyone from Buzzfeed to Politico to CBS News, as well as Irish Central, jumped on the the Associated Press report from India.

“I would like to come back to India and just wander around without the streets being closed,” she said. “I just want to get back to taking some deep breaths, feeling that there are other ways I can continue to serve.”

One of those ways is an international foundation focused on women modeled after her husband’s wildly successful Clinton Global Initiative. It’s a natural decision and extension of what Hillary’s already begun that would take her work beyond political constraints and offer a hedge against austerity budgeting that would curtail aid to places where women are most affected when the U.S. steps back, which certainly will happen under Republican leadership.

Finding other ways to serve is perfectly understandable, a natural choice for Clinton. However, as I see the political landscape looking forward, nothing is more important than what Hillary Rodham Clinton could do for America.

Our current economic challenges and the austerity craze in the elite political class begs for what I call “Fighting Hillary,” a central theme in my book, to step forward again. A fighter for the middle class, teachers and unions, women’s economic equality, which Republicans have fought against, seen through their opposition to the Lily Ledbetter Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act, she’s a politician who understands health care, but who also proved in the Senate that she can work with Republicans while steadfastly holding firm to her principles, without ceding territory to the right, which threatens the middle class.

I write this as someone who has researched and written extensively on Hillary Rodham Clinton, but who also disagrees with her on issues, as well as the need for women to reinvent the conversation on U.S. power and the language we use to discuss it. Our differences are as small as when the State Department responded to Iran’s Green Revolution with complete silence from Dipnote, State’s blog, to large issues like Secretary Clinton’s initial comments giving support to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s government out of loyalty to a friend.

“Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” – Secretary Hillary Clinton, January 25, 2011

These words are a result of U.S. foreign policy doctrine that has pervaded both political parties for close to a century, which Clinton certainly represents in this particular statement, but yet as she walks the bridge to the 21st century she’s also risen above these positions to face openly the challenges that confound our best leaders.

When you look at Clinton’s speech on January 13, 2011 in Doha, Qatar, it’s even more surprising that someone of Hillary’s knowledge and foreign policy stature would decide to bolster an old friend like Mubarak and the status quo, instead of adhering to what she warned about in these remarks just a little over one week earlier. An excerpt from her remarks:

… a growing majority of this region is under the age of 30. In fact, it is predicted that in just one country, Yemen, the population will double in 30 years. These young people have a hard time finding work. In many places, there are simply not enough jobs. Across the region, one in five young people is unemployed. And in some places, the percentage is far more. While some countries have made great strides in governance, in many others people have grown tired of corrupt institutions and a stagnant political order. They are demanding reform to make their governments more effective, more responsive, and more open. And all this is taking place against a backdrop of depleting resources: water tables are dropping, oil reserves are running out, and too few countries have adopted long-term plans for addressing these problems.

Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries’ problems for a little while, but not forever. If leaders don’t offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute, others will fill the vacuum. Extremist elements, terrorist groups, and others who would prey on desperation and poverty are already out there, appealing for allegiance and competing for influence. So this is a critical moment, and this is a test of leadership for all of us.

Secretary Clinton was instrumental in the U.S. backed NATO mission to bomb Libya, which I opposed, and was able to get the ear and gain the trust of the Arab League to convince them to back President Obama’s move, which led to a tactical victory. Her power to persuade the Arab League is part of a legacy that began by bolstering the State Department team that included dragging diplomacy into the social media age, no small task.

I am also opposed to Afghanistan support to 2024 without the world community giving requisite financing, with Clinton one of the strongest advocates for continued financial aid for the mission in Afghanistan.

Our differences don’t take away from the fact that she’s the only woman today who could handle the job and gather the world behind her, becoming the first female president, which would broaden the Hillary Effect to include women having a more significant higher profile in foreign policy and national security, especially where our military intervention is concerned. The language Clinton uses is broader than most politicians today, women taking a primary focus, but as we saw with even Samantha Power on Libya, as well as Ambassador Susan Rice, the language of women remains similar to that of the men who have been in power, which is that of war.

Secretary Clinton remains the symbol of smart power and diplomatic muscle, her ties to the defense industry and U.S. military tight, with these two aspects of political power the only route for a woman to break through to becoming a respected commander in chief. The respect she’s gained over years inside the defense industry, but also at the Pentagon, rivals that of any person who could challenge her, with a small, select few equaling her prowess. Power that sets Clinton up perfectly to be the one to continue the restructuring of the military to a more flexible and agile force.

Being the first female president, someone who is keenly in tune with the ravages of war on women and children, Clinton can’t help but bring a wider lens to conflicts than her male opponents.

We’ve elected many an imperfect man to the presidency, so disagreements aren’t a disqualifier for the first woman president, because it’s impossible to agree with any politician today across all issues. What’s important is getting a qualified woman running this country from the office of the presidency, something that is in all of our best interests, including making sure that female respects, supports and stands up for our demand for full freedoms and opportunities, economic and individual. Hillary’s voice on these subjects alone could change the dynamic in profound ways.

There is no one who understands the multifaceted and layered challenges we now face or how to navigate better them than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Politico’s Mackenzie Weinger highlighted one quote from Clinton’s India conversation. When the talk turned to her possible 2016 candidacy, Clinton stated, “I’m very flattered, but I feel like it’s time for me to kind of step off the high wire. I’ve been involved at the highest level of American politics for 20 years now.”

It’s sort of a cruel thing to be Hillary Clinton. She first had to endure the political and personal torture of the right’s fury over her feminism, then the world’s shock at her declaration that “women’s rights are human rights,” to finally having something she won on her own, the title of Senator Clinton of New York, which put her on the rise to the presidency, only to run smack into a change election that meant a brilliant newcomer was presented with the perfect moment he wasn’t about to waste. Now, after years of globetrotting in a position she never dreamed of taking when her national rise first began, it’s finally over and her life is about to be her own. But yet Democratic supporters of her Fighting Hillary persona, with all its ferociousness and passion for economic justice for the middle class, as well as women, are still not convinced Hillary should be allowed to leave the political stage.

Last year, in a comment Clinton made to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, she said “I am doing what I want to do right now, and I have no intention or any idea even of running again.”

Fair enough, so take those “deep breaths,” which have been well earned. Kick back, take the private trips as a celebrity civilian, have cocktails with your friends, while relaxing and enjoying yourself. Then prepare to take one last leap into the history, because your country needs you. Nothing less would allow us to prod you back into the presidential arena, because we all know what the last race cost.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has already volunteered to get the game on when the time is right. In March 2012, the Washington Post reported her remarks, Gillibrand volunteering for the important job saying “I’m going to be one of the first to ask Hillary to run in 2016… I think she would be incredibly well-poised to be our next Democratic president.”

America is indeed ready for our first female president.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is not just the most prepared female in the United States to run for president, she’s the most qualified person.

We’ll let her rest, relax and run around the globe on her own for a couple of years, then it’s time to revisit the question she’s been asked innumerable times over the months.

“Well, we hope you change your mind.” – NDTV’s Group Editor Barkha Dutt

Hillary Rodham Clinton has dedicated her life to public service, including stepping aside for her husband at a time when our country wasn’t ready for her. Now it is, so we simply can’t afford to take her preemptive no for an answer.

Taylor Marsh, a veteran political analyst and former Huffington Post contributor, is the author of The Hillary Effect, available at Barnes and Noble and on Amazon. Her new-media blog www.taylormarsh.com covers national politics, women and power.

This is significant because Syrian President Bashar Assad is a Russian protégé in the tussle for influence in the region between Washington and Saudi Arabia on one side and the new Vladimir Putin regime on the other. Despite his distrust of Washington, Putin is shocked at the weekend massacre of 108 people in the poor farming villages of the Houla municipality, including some 49 children and 34 women.

Syria is an important client state for Russia and a major buyer of arms and other exports. A large shipment of weapons was delivered just days ago and Moscow is concerned that pro-government fighters, not necessarily members of Assad’s army, may turn more of them against civilians. The Syrian government has flatly denied involvement in the Houla slaughter. But the villages are interspersed with army bases and killings might have been the work of pro-government militia hunting rebels hiding among the civilians. It is common during armed uprising for villagers to give shelter to rebel guerrillas because of coercion or sympathy.

Moscow is seeing Syria as a zero sum game. It thinks that Assad’s fall will lead either to chaotic tribal violence or put the country in the hands of Washington-backed elements or Saudi-backed radical Sunni Muslims. That would end Russia’s only toehold in the region. It would also make Russia’s Muslim territories more vulnerable to radical Islamists trained by Salafi preachers from Saudi religious centers.

Yet, setting aside misgivings, Moscow stepped forward today to strongly condemn the Houla massacre although it is not yet clear whether Assad was behind it. Following a meeting with his British counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia is not interested in propping up Assad. Instead it wants Assad to implement a plan brokered by UN special envoy Kofi Annan. He endorsed a UN report earlier this week that put most of the blame for the deaths, currently estimated at 12,000 over 15 months, on the Syrian government while noting that opposition, too, has caused many deaths.

This changed tone backed by a joint Russian-British-French effort to boost Annan might allow the UN Security Council to approve tougher words against Assad. In the past, it has been stymied by a Russian veto. China may also stop saying no and say yes or abstain.

However, nothing is likely to change inside Syria until the US and the NATO allies threaten military force to topple Assad, similarly to Libya when Muammar Gaddafi began killing his own people. That kind of credible threat seems unlikely at this time because of war-weariness in the US and President Barack Obama’s election season. Neither the US nor Europe has the money required to finance another relentless air campaign even if no boots are placed on the ground.

Still, withdrawal of Russian support from Assad, or even equivocation in that support, could severely weaken the Syrian President’s position in the eyes of his backers inside Syria. That might persuade him to follow the Annan plan, provided that he does not lose his head to bullets or a hangman’s rope, or end up serving life after a verdict of the World Court. In that case, he might prefer to die in the civil war. His British wife and children are already safely in the UK.

Annan arrived in Syria on Monday for more talks and to meet some of the over 250 UN peacekeepers who entered in May to monitor the violence. Before the Houla tragedy his peace plan, which calls for a cease-fire and dialogue, was floundering without hope. It might now become the starting point of a slow crawl away from full civil war and anarchy.

Our political Question of the Day comes from CBS’ Bob Schieffer, who, as I’ve said before, should have been the successor to Walter Cronkite. But it’s a question that has an answer I’m sure Mr. Schieffer knows and journalists know — and Democrats and Republicans know.

Once again on Sunday, he hit Ed Gillespie mid-talking point (as Robert Gibbs chuckled).

“You think we’re ever going to see [Mitt Romney] on one of these Sunday morning interview shows? I know he does Fox, but we’d love to have him some time, as would “Meet the Press” and the ABC folk, I would guess,” the CBS “Face the Nation” host asked Sunday.

Gillespie, an adviser to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, pointed out that Romney spoke “to schoolchildren last week.”

Then, he said he’d take Schieffer’s suggestion under careful consideration. “We’ll have to consider a number of options, and I’m sure the morning shows are [some] of them,” Gillespie said.

Schieffer, pointedly, politely replied: “I know schoolchildren are happy to see him.”

Even a carton of cottage cheese sitting on the shelf at Albertson’s grocery store in San Diego knows the real answer to that one.

Romney is following the path of many conservative Republicans in using Fox News as a way to avoid having to answer those pesky, non public relations, non softball questions and follow up questions that he’d get on CBS, NBC, ABC — or, for that matter, by holding the kind of press conference Barack Obama does and take questions from the press.

With the exception of an occasional question from Chris Wallace or Bill O’Reilly indicating they have strayed from the operative political program, Fox News is where Republicans running from office know they will get a)long segments and lots of air time almost any time they want to go on b)softball questions or leading questions where the candidate can regurgitate talking points, try out new attack lines c)a huge audience since Fox News is the ratings leader d)an audience of Republican partisan and independents who lean Republican but probably not liberals, centrists or independent voters who suspect Fox News’ “Fair and Balanced” actually refers to the New York State Fair and Roger Aisles checkbook.

Sean Hannity in particular (whose contract was just renewed by Fox) is a huge hit with partisans in his incarnation of political defense lawyer (for Republicans and conservatives) and political prosecutor (of Democrats, liberals, and moderates).

When he interviews Republicans, Hannity plays softball more often than we did when I was a kid living on Knollwood Drive in New Haven, Connecticut.

It’s all matter of P.R — and staying on script: now that the Republican primaries are over and the GOP is unifying around Romney, if Romney gets off script and makes a gaffe on Fox News, more likely than not his interviewer would gloss over the gaffe, try to discreetly explain it away and re-ask the question so he can answer it in a more advantageous way.

But, above all, on Fox News there won’t be tough follow up questions.

On Fox Romney won’t have to face serious “gotcha” questions because the “gotcha” questions are often tough questions or require answers that might not have been expected so there is no answer to vomit up just like the partisan, talking points reciting, talking head spinners and surrogates do all the time on cable news shows.

On the other hand, Fox News’ critics shouldn’t forget that the network has a huge staff and there are highly professional news gatherers there and some anchors who haven’t become as predictable as the political emails I get in the mail where you just see a name on it and you know exactly what it’ll say.

My prediction: Romney will do some kind of big non-Fox interview before the election and he’ll be equipped before hand with some zingers aimed at the press, emulating Newt Gingrich. Romney may get follow ups but he may choose not to answer them or to change the subject by going after the press — which will bring cheers from his supporters and generate lots of sound bites, news stories and blog posts that will overshadow the question he ignored.

Meet the Press? Maybe. Face the Nation? Maybe.

Lots of Fox News and Sean Hannity? And softball questions to GOPer Romney from Hannity?

Definitely.

And what’s true today would not have been true 10 years ago: Romney can get away with it.

It’s pretty clear to me, however, that money isn’t the only Big M explanation for Walker’s apparent current lead in the polls. Perhaps not even the most important one. The more important M Factor at work here is Mean-spiritedness.

Why have so many people in Wisconsin bought into the Walker way of political thinking? Why have public service unions proven such a popular target? Are members of the public service unions Walker has been bashing so successfully wallowing in luxury at the public’s expense?

Of course not. These union members have simply enjoyed, through the process of collective bargaining, a traditional American standard of living no longer accessible to so many others.

A growing number of these others in Wisconsin have lost many of the rights and perks that make up our traditional standard of living. The job security. Wages that grow faster than inflation every year. Benefits like health insurance paid for by employers.

The Walker mean-spirited pitch? These union people are getting something you don’t have. I won’t make your own lives better, but you’ll at least feel better if state employers can be brought down, that the unions protecting rights and perks you no longer have protected can be undermined.

Similar billionaire underwritten mean-spirited politics is at work in other realms like with food stamps and Medicaid. Why should others get free food when you work so hard to buy food for your your own family, just because these others are so poor? Why should others get free health care with Medicaid when your own health care costs are so high, just because these others are so poor?

You can govern in difficult times by bringing people together, by appealing to their better angels. Or you can take the 50-percent-plus-1 approach to governance, turn a tad more than half the voters into a nasty-minded mini-majority conned into identifying their own interests with those of their financial betters, while also turning them hostile towards anyone less well-off than themselves.

A line from a famous poem by W.H. Auden runs: “We must love one another or die.” The State of Wisconsin has died a little since Scott Walker took office. The cruel mean-spiritedness of many Republic Party nostrums these days is driving the whole country further and further away from communion with our better angels.

It’s that time of year again: The U.S. State Department has issued its annual report on human rights around the world. And, as has become the custom, states like North Korea and China, which disapprove of America’s rendering, issue denunciations of the report.

We have posted three articles, two from China and one from North Korea, that encompass the latest counter-criticisms of the United States by the two one-party states.

First, in an article headlined America ‘Disqualified’ as Global Human Rights Judge, China’s state-run Global Times, informs that Beijing has issued its own report on human rights in the United States that highlights America’s ‘dismal human rights record,’ which renders it ineligible to judge others:

“The cases highlighted in this report are tiny but illustrative reflection of America’s dismal record on human rights … America’s tarnished human rights record renders it a morally, politically and legally feeble judge of global human rights.”

Also from the Global Times, although this and most Chinese editorials and op-eds are published almost simultaneously in all of its media, in an editorial headlined Human Rights Criticism of China a Fig Leaf for Diminishing U.S. Influence, Beijing argues that given America’s loss of financial and military influence, the human rights issue is Washington’s last remaining ‘ace in the hole.’ :

“While China’s improving human rights situation brings no benefit to the United States, discrediting China by finding fault with its rights record pays important dividends. In an age when Washington is losing its economic advantage and cannot use its military might at will, America has no ace in the hole left other than the human rights issue.”

Finally, one of Pyongyang’s state-mouthpieces, the Rodong Sinmun, quotes a commentary from another state-run media outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, which cites U.S. abuses that the Kim Jong-un regime asserts disqualifies Washington from criticizing anyone else. Say what one will about young despot Kim Jong-un, the quality of commentary coming out of Pyongyang since he came to power at least sounds more sane that its former Stalinist drivel:

“The right to food, clothing and housing – the most elementary of all human rights, are mercilessly suppressed in a society where the law of the jungle reigns and money is everything. … Furthermore, the consequences of America’s deeply-rooted racial discrimination regularly manifest in the fabric of everyday life. … The unending violence against women fully betrays how a barbaric U.S. society is facing the end of an era.”

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

WASHINGTON — Progressives have yearned for President Obama to follow Harry Truman’s strategy from the 1948 campaign by giving his Republican opponents hell. Now that Obama is doing just that, his critics say he’s not looking presidential.

As a longtime advocate of the Truman approach (and a fan of Give ‘Em Hell Harry and his way of doing politics), I think Obama is doing the right thing. Critics of the battling style miss what Obama needs to get done in this campaign and also ignore the extent to which so many of his foes refuse to treat him in a presidential way. Far better for him to be a fully engaged fighter with passion for what he’s saying than a distant, regal figure pretending that the other side is playing by a dainty set of rules.

But if 1948 is to be the model, what can we learn from Truman’s experience, and how does that election relate the one we’re having in 2012?

The similarities are important. Truman in 1946, like Obama in 2010 (and, for that matter, Bill Clinton in 1994), suffered a severe setback in midterm elections that substantially strengthened the hands of his congressional adversaries. Truman’s opponent, Thomas E. Dewey, was a Northeastern Republican governor who, like Mitt Romney, was not a favorite of the most conservative wing of his party. But unlike Romney, Dewey was a genuine moderate trying hard not be ensnared in the agenda of the GOP Congress.

For Truman, tying the “do-nothing” Republican Congress around Dewey’s neck was essential to reminding the many New Dealers in the electorate of the identity of FDR’s true heir. Dewey spent the whole campaign in a box. If he danced away from congressional Republicans, he looked unprincipled. If he embraced them, he put himself right where Truman wanted him.

To the extent that Romney can be tied to an unpopular Republican House and an obstructionist minority in the Senate, their unpopularity will rub off on him. But unlike Dewey, Romney has largely endorsed his congressional colleagues’ agenda. Obama’s task is to argue that whatever moderate sounds Romney made during his career in Massachusetts politics, these are irrelevant to how he would govern with the GOP likely to be in the congressional saddle. Obama wants to paint Romney as someone who would be a pawn of a runaway right-wing Congress, thus challenging both Romney’s strength of conviction and his ideology. As Truman did with Dewey, Obama wants to offer Romney the unpalatable choice of offending his party or offending swing voters.

There is also an advantage in Obama directly taking on Romney’s background in private equity at Bain Capital. By raising these questions himself, Obama signaled that he would not let criticisms from such Democrats as Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker force him to back down from a challenge he knows he needs to lodge against Romney’s claims as a “job creator.” By the end of last week, Booker had eased off while the Bain issue was still alive, to the point that even Rush Limbaugh was forced to acknowledge that private equity was about profit-making, not job creation.

And if Republicans wish to argue that Obama’s vigorous anti-Romney campaigning is un-presidential, they have to answer for George W. Bush’s unashamed attacks against Democrat John Kerry in 2004. Sara Fagen, an adviser to Bush in that campaign, recently told Peter Baker of The New York Times that Bush “almost never mentioned” Kerry, “certainly not this early.”

The truth of this depends on what the meaning of the word “almost” is. In February 2004, for example, Bush mocked Kerry — he referred to him as “one senator from Massachusetts” – as being “‘for tax cuts and against them. For NAFTA and against NAFTA. For the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. In favor of liberating Iraq and opposed to it.” The next month, Bush accused Kerry by name of being “willing to gut the intelligence services” with a “deeply irresponsible” proposal to cut intelligence spending. There is no record of Republicans complaining that these political assaults were beneath a president.

Like Truman — and, for that matter, like Bush — Obama confronts a sharply divided country, the need to rally his own supporters, and the imperative of persuading undecided voters that electing his opponent would be a dangerous risk. What Truman taught is that Americans would rather see a president with the strength to fight than a politician with such sensitive sensibilities that he leaves all the tough stuff to others.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. (c) 2012, Washington Post Writers Group. This column is licensed to run on TMV in full.

“I do not understand the cost benefit here,” Will said on the “This Week” roundtable. “The costs are clear. The benefit — what voter is gonna vote for him (Romney) because he is seen with Donald Trump? The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious it seems to me.”

“Donald Trump is redundant evidence that if your net worth is high enough, your IQ can be very low and you can still intrude into American politics,” Will added. “Again, I don’t understand the benefit. What is Romney seeking?”

The problem for Romney is that as Trump continues to seek the public spotlight with more outrageous comments (or even forms a Super PAC), Romney will be asked to disavow him. And evasive half-disavowels will keep the spotlight on TRUMP and off Romney’s economic message.

Plus there’s this: many independent voters and those who are revolted by the whole birther narrative and would never vote for a candidate who embraces it or clearly enables it will conclude:

Birds of a feather.

(P.S. Trump isn’t an eagle. He’s a bald eagle — with a comb-over.)