The media is casting this as a tepid endorsement -- see, for example, this, or anti-Santorum Drudge's headline, "Bitter Santorum Backs Romney in Tepid Late-Night Endorsement..." -- but I don't see anything "tepid" in the endorsement, myself.

Read it all. It's an argument being made on behalf of Romney to anti-Romney voters, and a fine one.

Here's Yahoo's gloss on it:

"Above all else, we both agree that President Obama must be defeated," Santorum says before finally offering up his support in the 13th paragraph of the 16-paragraph missive.

"It will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious. Governor Romney will be that nominee and he has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime."

Again, the endorsement is in the 13th paragraph because it's an argument in which the suggested conclusion builds from the previous premises.

What does suggest this is "tepid," though, is the time and manner in which it was released -- 11 PM eastern time last night, almost guaranteeing it would not make any news, because, by the time the news day gets started, this is already "old news," and yet no one's actually really covered it fresh as "new news."

He also didn't tweet the endorsement:

However, the former Pennsylvania senator, who posted his endorsement of Nebraska Senate candidate Jon Bruning on Twitter on Saturday, did not tweet the contents of the Romney endorsement. Instead, he posted a link to an interview he did with CNN's Piers Morgan last month.

That does suggest he's "tepid" about it, actually.

Posted by: Ace at 08:10 AM | Comments (141)
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This isn't about the Birth Certificate, but rather Obama -- He Of Several Worlds, as he likes to think of himself -- deciding to construct a more American identity for himself.

The son of a Kenyan father and an American expatriate mother, Obama emerges as a man questioning whether he viewed himself, or wanted to be viewed by others, as an American....

Obama had a lot of Pakistani friends; Maraniss writes that if Obama and his girlfriend socialized as a couple, "it was almost always with the Pakistanis." Obama appeared to identify with his friends as fellow non-Americans. "For years when Barack was around them, he seemed to share their attitudes as sophisticated outsiders who looked at politics from an international perspective," Maraniss writes. "He was one of them, in that sense."

But Obama was ambitious. Appalled by the "dirty deeds" of "Reagan and his minions" (as he wrote in "Dreams from My Father"), Obama became increasingly interested in, as Maraniss writes, "gaining power in order to change things." He couldn't do that as an international guy hanging around with his Pakistani friends; he needed to become an American.

So he did...

Mahmood, Maraniss writes, "could see Obama slowly but carefully distancing himself as a necessary step in establishing his political identity as an American."

More at the link, including Hillary consultant Mark Penn's memo noting that Obama's "roots as an American" and attachment to American culture were at best "limited."

Posted by: Ace at 07:38 AM | Comments (142)
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Ann Althouse has a good post about the impeccable pedigree of the word "treason" as a political barb, and why Romney should resist the media's entreaties that he be more like John McCain.

Recalling McCain's pushback against a woman who called Obama "an Arab" -- a pushback that ended with McCain vouching for Obama's character -- Althouse writes:

That was awfully nice of McCain, but let's remember he lost. And I think I remember him having a rather exaggerated fear of criticizing Obama. Now, I think McCain had some reason to worry that people in the audience would say something racist or arguably racist or somewhat racial and that anything like that would be exploited by the Obama campaign. But at this point in American history, 4 years later, we are free to criticize Obama. Romney doesn't need to go all beta when an audience member states her antagonism to Obama in a strong way. He doesn't need to scold and discipline Obama's antagonists. Romney's approach to answering the question asked was just fine, though it perfectly understandable why the Obama campaign would like Romney to get sidetracked into defending Obama.

Posted by: Ace at 07:17 AM | Comments (134)
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Liberals are forever yammering on about the corrosive influence of money in politics and the ever present "appearance of corruption".

However some of them aren't adverse to demanding a little return on investment for their pet causes.

Some leading gay and progressive donors are so angry over President ObamaÂ’s refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex discrimination by federal contractors that they are refusing to give any more money to the pro-Obama super PAC, a top gay fundraiserÂ’s office tells me. In some cases, IÂ’m told, big donations are being withheld.

...

Now these and other donors are beginning to withold money from Priorities USA, the main pro-Obama super PAC, out of dismay over the president’s decision. (Some of these donors have already maxed out to the Obama campaign, I’m told.) It’s the first indication that areas in which Obama is at odds with gay advocates — and in fairness, his record on gay rights has been very good — could dampen overall fundraising.

Wait, you mean to tell me people use donations to politicians to influence policy? That they are more apt to give contributions to office holders who institute policies that they support and withhold those same contributions when they don't get policies they like?

Why last I heard, when the Koch Brothers (aka Evil Incarnate) support institutions that reflect their political preferences the very life of the republic itself is endangered.

Yet when progressive donors try and get Obama to the left, left wing stenographer Greg Sargent can't even muster a single word of condemnation of such behavior.

It's almost as is if Democrats, liberals, progressives or whatever you want to call them, aren't actually worried about the "corrosive effect" of money in politics but simply about conservatives competing in the market place of ideas.

Posted by: DrewM at 05:24 AM | Comments (133)
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Happy Tuesday.

While you were sleeping, Santorum officially endorsed Romney in a very late-night email to supporters. In case you missed it, the endorsement is in paragraph 13.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:51 AM | Comments (246)
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Tonight's ONT will be of the "Oh shit, Maet's out and nobody had this covered!" variety.

I'm just going to go ahead and lead with this, courtesy of Rosetta at the Hostages. Looks like there really are no exceptions to Rule 34.

This ONT can only go downhill from this point. Don't say you weren't warned. more...

Posted by: andy at 06:33 PM | Comments (738)
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I can't really append enough ?'s and !'s to this statement, so I won't.

My gripe against Fox is not that it is conservative. The channelÂ’s pulpit-pounding pundits, with the exception of the avuncular Mike Huckabee, are too shrill for my taste, but they are not masquerading as impartial newsmen. Nor am I indignant that Fox News is the cultural home of the Republican Party and a nonstop Obama roast. Partisan journalism, while not my thing, has a long tradition. Though I do wonder if the folks at Fox appreciate that this genre is more European than American.

My complaint is that Fox pretends very hard to be something it is not, and in the process contributes to the corrosive cynicism that has polarized our public discourse.

I doubt that people at Fox News really believe their programming is “fair and balanced” -- that’s just a slogan for the suckers -- but they probably are convinced that what they have created is the conservative counterweight to a media elite long marinated in liberal bias. They believe that they are doing exactly what other serious news organizations do; they just do it for an audience that had been left out before Fox came along.

He then goes on to claim that he and his fellow leftists in the media -- all the media, apparently, save Fox -- live by a "code" of ethics that prevents them from being biased, so they're different, see.

A few days ago Glenn Reynolds discussed the "code" of journalistic ethics on display on the NYT's front pages.

Readers of last Sunday’s front page, for example, were informed that “In Hopeful Sign, Health Spending Is Flattening Out.”

Hopeful? Well, maybe. The article is full of caveats and to-be-sures like this: “The growth rate mostly slowed as millions of Americans lost insurance coverage along with their jobs. Worried about job security, others may have feared taking time off work for doctor’s visits or surgical procedures, or skipped nonurgent care when money was tight.” Or this: “Some experts caution that there remains too little data to determine whether the current slowdown will become permanent, or whether it is merely a blip caused by the economy’s weakness.”

But, we’re told, “[M]any other health experts say that there is just enough data to start detecting trends — even if the numbers remain murky, and the vast complexity of the national health care market puts definitive answers out of reach.”

At this point, an editor might have spiked the story, commenting that all we’ve got are dueling experts who admit that they don’t really know what’s going on amid their “murky” numbers.

While that might have been good use of editorial discretion, it wouldn’t have advanced the narrative about cost declines, which is this: “If so, it was happening just as the new health care law was coming into force, and before the Supreme Court could weigh in on it or the voters could pronounce their own verdict at the polls.”

ThereÂ’s your narrative: ObamaCare is working, and the Supreme Court should back off. Oh, and voters, donÂ’t be mean to the Democrats who rammed this down your throat.

They then went on to explain that an Israeli-Iranian war could be averted, if, and only if, the religiously-crazed, radicalized Israelis can make themselves more open to flexibility and reason like the Iranians, and yes, you read that right.

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (248)
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Tuesday is the first leg of the big recall launched against Governor Scott Walker.
On the Democratic side, Tom Barrett will win by 12-15 points over former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk. Falk is the weaker of the two Democrats when polled against the Governor, and for Republicans who would hope to make mischief, the perfect candidate to vote for since the primary is open to all voters.

I do not expect Falk to win in even a mayhem scenario, as it would require in excess of 175,000 Republicans voting in the Democratic primary to really affect the outcome. Walker has a nominal party challenger who is a fake Republican, so there is an incentive for GOP voters to stick (mostly) within their own party.

I expect a turnout of 900,000-950,000 voters in the Democratic primary, and about 250,000 to 350,000 voters in the Republican one. Besides the asterisk of opposition mentioned there is no competition on the Republican side so turnout will be lopsided.

Tom Barrett will enjoy a post-primary bounce in polling and will likely lead Walker in any releases by week's end. The challenge for Republicans, conservatives, Tea Party activists, and anybody else who gives a damn is getting Walker back on top again and keeping him there, narrowly.

There isn't an election as critical as this one until November, so if you haven't yet remember to donate to Scott Walker and if you live in Wisconsin volunteer your time.

I'll be tracking primary results on Tuesday for WI and IN here on AoSHQ. The Lugar-Mourdock battle in Indiana will be the more interesting, unless an unforseen wave of conservatives decide to pay back the Democrats for dragging Walker through all this mess and make Falk the D nominee. One can dream, I suppose.

Updated and bounced with word of a possible schism in the "unified" Democratic bloc. Don't take my word for it, of course. Just ask the folks over at Daily Kos:

I donÂ’t know why the rally was canceled, but there has been widespread, unsubstantiated speculation that the front runner in the primary, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, decided at the last minute not to attend. The rumor being spread is that Tom Barrett does not want to be seen in the company of union leaders and union members for fear of having images of his participation in the rally being used against him by the Walker campaign. Others are speculating that the whole thing is a last-minute dirty trick perpetrated by supporters of Kathleen Falk. Barrett has a wide lead over Falk in the most recent polls.

Already mentioned, but I will be watching the returns like a hawk for any clues of Democratic fervor or weakness. If you are a Republican and planning on doing anything other than voting tomorrow in the primary, beat yourself with a hammer. I'm not telling you which primary to vote in, though Walker could use a good show of support.

Posted by: CAC at 02:30 PM | Comments (103)
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She had a dream to sell high-quality hot dogs, and also, offer to perform manual stimulation on customers for $50.

You can kill the dreamer but not the dream.

I would link the picture but it's very disappointing.

Posted by: Ace at 01:13 PM | Comments (294)
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Reporting "Present" for duty.

MICHAEL MUKASEY, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: That memo was significant.

HANNITY: Explain this.

MUKASEY: There was a memo from Leon Panetta that described the authority that was given to McRaven and it was to proceed according to the risks, only according to the risks that had been outline to the president.

And if he encountered anything else, he had to check back. You better believe if anything else had been encountered and the mission had failed, then the blame would have fallen on McRaven. ThatÂ’s what that is about.

HANNITY: So in other words, here, the approximate presidentÂ’s now, everything worked out in this case. But he had put in place a CYA that if it went wrong, McRaven would have been the fall guy.

MUKASEY: That was a highly lawyered memo.

HANNITY: Wow. So you are saying this was designed to protect the president politically.

MUKASEY: I think there is going to be more that comes tumbling out about that escapade. But so far that, memo is enough.

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (215)
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