The Commentariat -- Sept. 25, 2012

Profs. Suzanne Mettler & John Sides in a New York Times op-ed: "... nearly all Americans -- 96 percent -- have relied on the federal government to assist them. Young adults, who are not yet eligible for many policies, account for most of the remaining 4 percent.... Conservatives were less likely than liberals to respond affirmatively when asked if they had ever used a 'government social program,' even when both subsequently acknowledged using the same number of specific policies.... When Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey noted that his father, who 'grew up in poverty,' had used the G.I. Bill..., it was in the context of a speech criticizing our 'need to be coddled by big government.' ... Instead of dividing us, our experiences as both makers and takers ought to bind us in a community of shared sacrifice and mutual support."

Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times: "To say that the choice of [Tim] Pawlenty, [the former Republican governor of Minnesota,] to represent the banking industry is odd would be an understatement, but his appointment is the clearest sign yet of the flexible ethic that makes the revolving door in Washington spin faster."

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York on Monday rebuffed demands from Congressional Republicans to refrain from requesting tax returns and other information from tax-exempt groups that have spent heavily on campaign ads."

Presidential Race

David Lauter of the Los Angeles Times (in the Chicago Tribune): "... Mitt Romney faces a fundamental problem as the presidential campaign moves into its final phase: Voter attitudes about the state of the economy have begun to improve, and enthusiasm about voting has risen among key blocs of Democratic-leaning voters, particularly Latinos. Since the beginning of the campaign, one assumption has served as the foundation for Romney's campaign: that voters deeply upset over the state of the economy would want to fire the incumbent enough to push aside any concerns about his challenger."

Paul Waldman of American Prospect on the GOP's foreign policy problem: "Not Obama" + "America Strong!" is not much of a platform.

60 Minutes Man. Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times: "... now I know for sure why Mr. Romney avoids getting into specifics.... When he does get specific, he doesn't make much sense.... One particularly hilarious moment came when he criticized Mr. Obama for failing to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.... Mr. Romney does not actually favor closing the camp.... [When asked] 'What's your big idea? he responded: 'Freedom. I want to restore the kind of freedom that has always driven America's economy. And that's allowed us to be the shining city on the hill.' His Big Idea is freedom. And quoting Ronald Reagan." CW: okay, maybe Jim Fallows is wrong [see video & link below] about Romney's great debating skills.

Jim Fallows of the Atlantic writes an excellent piece on Romney as a debater. It should worry Obama supporters. And the President himself, along with his debate prep team, should read Fallows' analysis.

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "... conservative 'super PACs' and other outside entities working to defeat President Obama ... operate largely from the same playbook, sharing polling data and focus group research to develop many of the same lines of attack. And they are being careful to keep their efforts consistent with the themes being emphasized by Mitt Romney's campaign." AND it's all perfectly legal! ...

... You may remember this. Attorney Trevor Potter explains how it works:

Alec McGillis of The New Republic: "Romney's arrival [in Ohio] coincides with a new ad hitting Obama for being too soft in pushing back against China's trade violations. Romney says Obama should impose tariffs on products made in China. But way back in 2009, when Obama did impose a tariff on tires made in China, Romney said just the opposite -- that in the long run tariffs are never a good idea." ...

... "Let Them Go to the Emergency Room" -- the New RomneyCare & a stunning flip-flop:

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic: emergency rooms "will not provide basic, ongoing care.... Romney doesn't simply want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, effectively taking health insurance away from 30 million people who, starting in 2014, are likely to get it from the law. He also wants to end Medicaid, making cuts that would leave between 14 and 27 million additional people without insurance. And he wants to change the tax treatment of employer health benefits, in ways that could make coverage more expensive or harder to get." CW: and who pays for that ER care for the uninsured? Those of us who are insured. This was stupid when George W. Bush said it. It is even more stupid coming from Romney.

Paul Krugman Expresses "Sympathy for the Doofus: ... Yes, [Mitt Romney is] a pretty bad candidate -- but the core problem is with his party, not with him."...

... Even though Romney has no sympathy for most of us. David Corn says the most damning remark Romney made in Boca tapes was this: "I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." Corn recounts a poignant encounter with a 47-percenter a/k/a moocher.

Why Won't the Windows Open on this Gosh-Darn Plane?

When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly. And you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. -- Mitt Romney, explaining why his wife Ann's plane had to make an emergency landing

Can we finally accept that Willard is not too bright? -- Constant Weader

Update: Aw, shucks. Supposedly Romney was joking, which Ashley Parker (Maureen Dowd's acolyte) failed to mention in her pool report. The L.A. Times picked up the story & recounted the comments as if Romney were serious because there was nothing in Parker's report to indicate otherwise. ...

... Update Update. You be the judge:

Consolation Prize: Romney still believes in cold fusion & he thinks the University of Utah "solved" that as a way to generate power conduct electricity. CW: Must have been written up in The Journal of Magical Underwear. (I apologize -- don't bother to write to tell me I'm a blasphemous fool.)

Mitt Romney & Bill Clinton are really nice to each other. (Video here.)

Congressional Races

Jamie Novogrod of NBC News: "Today's final deadline for embattled Missouri Republican Senate nominee Todd Akin to withdraw from the race is just hours away, and he has scheduled a news conference at 3:00 pm ET. Is he potentially dropping out of the contest? Not a chance, his campaign says."

Greg Sargent: Sen. Sherrod "Brown's [D-Ohio] lead in the polls should not obscure the fact that in one key way, the contest remains the most important Senate race in the country. That's because the Ohio race is providing a clearer referendum than perhaps any other Senate race on the question of whether outside money can depose an incumbent ... largely irrespective of the candidates themselves.... No other race combining this level of spending with such a clear disparity in the quality of the contenders. Brown has been a popular figure in Ohio (though Dems say his numbers have eroded a bit under the ad onslaught), while [his RTP opponent, Josh] Mandel has committed a string of missteps." ...

... Katrina vanden Heuvel of the Nation, writing in the Washington Post, champions the Senate candidacy of Elizabeth Warren: "Warren will focus on the core issues, and ask Massachusetts' voters to decide who is on their side. And if she wins -- hopefully joined by Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio and perhaps Rep. Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin -- she'll not only lead a new generation of progressive reformers into the Senate, but also begin to teach Democrats how to fight for working people once more." ...

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "The most closely watched Senate race in the country has taken a sharp turn off the high road. As Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and challenger Elizabeth Warren (D) enter the final phase of their exceedingly tight race, each is seeking to undermine the other on the very traits that had been considered their greatest political strengths: his independence and her character." ...

... Warren takes on Brown's repeated attacks claiming "Professor Warren" is an Affimative Action hire who exploited her Amerindian heritage. CW: I think she finally got some good campaign advice:

Greg Sargent highlights the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's "first ad of the cycle that ties a vulnerable Republican member of Congress — Chris Gibson, in New York’s 19th district — to Romney."

Local News

Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: Stephen M. Saland of Poughkeepsie, "one of the four Republican state senators who voted for same-sex marriage, claimed victory Monday in a close primary against an opponent critical of his vote, while another of the four [-- Roy J. McDonald of Saratoga --] appeared increasingly certain to lose his party's nomination over the issue.... One of the four Republican senators who voted for the Marriage Equality Act, James S. Alesi of Monroe County, had decided not to seek re-election. Two, Mr. Saland and Mark J. Grisanti of Buffalo, have now won competitive primaries...."

News Ledes

AP: "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to address a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly via a videolink from his hideout at Ecuador's London embassy, seeking to draw new attention to his efforts to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations. Ecuador's mission to the United Nations said Tuesday that Assange was scheduled to speak Wednesday alongside foreign minister Ricardo Patino at a specially convened event to discuss his asylum case."

New York Times: "The housing market continues to gather strength, and the biggest gains in price now appear to be among the least expensive homes, whose values fell the most in the downturn and have weighed against any would-be recovery."

New York Times: "Libyan militia fighters assaulted a hotel in Tripoli housing members of the newly elected General National Congress on Tuesday, dramatizing the challenge the government faces in enforcing its ultimatum that all unauthorized brigades must submit to its authority or disband by the start of the day.The attack came as an American team arrived in Tripoli to investigate the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens in an assault this month on the American Mission in Benghazi." ...

... AP: "One of the young Libyan rebels credited with capturing Moammar Gadhafi in a drainage ditch nearly a year ago died Tuesday of injuries after being kidnapped, beaten and slashed by the late dictator's supporters -- the latest victim of persistent violence and instability in the North African country. The death of Omran Shaaban, who had been hospitalized in France, raised the prospect of even more violence and score-settling."

AP: "Israel's defense minister [Ehud Barak] on Monday called for a broad unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank if talks with the Palestinians remain stalled, saying in published comments that 'practical steps' are needed to breathe life into the stalemated peace process."

AP: "A quiet day on Wall Street turned into the worst sell-off in three months after a Federal Reserve official said he doubted the bank's effort to boost economic growth would work. Charles Plosser, president of the Fed's Philadelphia branch, told an audience Tuesday that the Fed's effort to support the economy would likely fall short of its goals."

New York Times: "President Obama will tell the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that time for diplomacy to curb the looming Iranian nuclear crisis is running out, according to excerpts from Mr. Obama's planned speech provided by the White House." ...

     ... Update: here's the text of Obama's speech, as prepared for delivery. ...

     ... The Washington Post's report on the speech discusses its political implications.

The Commentariat -- Sept. 24, 2012

Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books: "... the current voting rights issue is ... a coordinated attempt by a political party to fix the result of a presidential election by restricting the opportunities of members of the opposition party's constituency -- most notably blacks -- to exercise a Constitutional right. This is the worst thing that has happened to our democratic election system since the late nineteenth century, when legislatures in southern states systematically negated the voting rights blacks had won in the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution." Thanks to contributor Akhilleus for the link.

Patricia Zengerle of Reuters: "New voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting, a new study said on Sunday, a number so large it could affect the outcome of the November 6 election.... The new laws include purges of people suspected of not being citizens in 16 states that unfairly target Latinos, the civil rights group Advancement Project said in the study to be formally released on Monday."

Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: "The attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans has dealt the Central Intelligence Agency a major setback in its intelligence-gathering efforts at a time of increasing instability in the North African nation. Among the more than two dozen American personnel evacuated from the city after the assault on the American mission and a nearby annex were about a dozen C.I.A. operatives and contractors, who played a crucial role in conducting surveillance and collecting information on an array of militant armed groups in and around the city."

Amy Goodnough of the New York Times: "Officials in a handful of ... Republican-led states say they are ... working to have a framework ready [for state-run health insurance exchanges] by Nov. 16, the deadline for states to commit to running an exchange [in compliance with the Affordable Care Act] or leave it to the federal government to run it for them."

Kathleen Geier of Washington Monthly: "An extremely disturbing new study published in the American Journal of Public Health finds that suicides have replaced car accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. This is partly because deaths from automobile accidents are down.... But ... the suicide rate has increased dramatically: between 2000 and 2009, according to data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, deaths by suicide went up by 15%, and deaths from poisoning increased by a whopping 128%." Geier notes that suicides are underreported; she attributes the cause of the increase to the bad economy.

Presidential Race

John Broder of the New York Times: In separate "60 Minutes" interviews which aired Sunday, "the two presidential contenders carried out a shadow debate that offered a likely preview of the tone and substance of the first of their three face-to-face debates, which will be held in Denver on Oct. 3." ...

Steve Kroft interviews President Obama. You can watch the Romney interview, by Scott Pelley, here. There are brief unaired segments for both candidates here (cursor through). The full transcript begins here:

David Morgan of Reuters: "New polling by Reuters/Ipsos indicates that during the past two weeks - since just after the Democratic National Convention - support for Romney among Americans age 60 and older has crumbled, from a 20-point lead over Democratic President Barack Obama to less than 4 points." ...

John Cassidy of the New Yorker lists seven theories about why Romney is a loser. He finally concludes that Romney is a lousy politician who hasn't mastered the not-so-fine art of politicking that "most city councilmen have mastered." CW: I'd say it's something like this: people like Obama & don't hold him responsible for not entirely fixing the Bush economy. (See Bill Kristol's & Joseph Cera's remarks below.) Romney & the Missus are basically arguing that Romney is a better, smarter person than Obama, and their manner suggests that the evidence of that is the pile of money Romney made while the lowly Obamas were paying off their college loans. But most people aren't particularly impressed with "their betters" & don't fully trust somebody who made millions -- often at the expense of people like them. In addition, nobody -- including Romney -- can name one thing Romney will do to help ordinary Americans. People end up thinking, Obama hasn't helped me enough, but Romney's for the rich, so he won't help me at all.

In PolySciSpeak, Prof. Joseph Cera writes that the "Are you better off?" comparison isn't working: "Evidence is mounting that Republican efforts to frame economic retrospections leading up to and during the RNC ('Are you better off than you were four years ago?') has backfired. In the aftermath, voters do seem to be embracing 2008 as a point of economic reference. However, voters are not looking at their own pocketbooks as much as they are considering the state of the larger economy four years ago, when George W. Bush was still president and the prospect of a second great depression was staring us in the face. This sociotropic comparison was embraced by the Democrats at the DNC and in subsequent advertising." Via Greg Sargent.

Paul Krugman: "... Mr. Romney's five-point 'economic plan' is very nearly substance-free.... In his Boca Raton meeting with donors, however, Mr. Romney revealed his real plan, which is to rely on magic. 'My own view is,' he declared, 'if we win on November 6, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We'll see capital come back, and we'll see -- without actually doing anything -- we'll actually get a boost in the economy.' Are you feeling reassured? ... Mr. Romney offered a testable proposition in his Boca remarks: 'If it looks like I'm going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president's going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy.' How's that going? ... Over the past month conventional wisdom has shifted from the view that the election could easily go either way to the view that Mr. Romney is very likely to lose; yet markets are up, not down...."

[During the debates,] the president will not be able to continue to mischaracterize my pathway. I'll continue to describe mine, he will describe his, and people will make a choice. That's the great thing about democracy. -- Mitt Romney, projecting again

"I'm not going to try to fool people into thinking he believes things he doesn't," Romney said. "He's trying to fool people into thinking that I think things that I don't. And that ends at the debates."

Here's a jaw-dropper. Conservative pundit Bill Kristol says "Bush was president during the financial meltdown & Obama has turned that around pretty well." Via Think Progress:

The Obama campaign uses video of Romney's "47 percent" remarks in this ad:

Seung Min Kim of Politico: A new 30-second ad by the Romney campaign "uses an anecdote from the new Bob Woodward book 'The Price of Politics' that shows [then House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi muting President Barack Obama while he was on a speaker phone during negotiations for the economic stimulus package in the early days of Obama's term. In a statement Sunday, Pelosi ... denied that she ever muted Obama. 'As speaker and as Democratic leader, any call from the president would be treated with great formality and respect,' Pelosi said. 'There was absolutely no situation in which either President Bush or President Obama were cut off from speaking. I respect the office of the President and the office of the Speaker, including the historic nature of any communication between these two offices.' ... Woodward has stood by his reporting...." Report includes the ad.

Muzzling Missus Mitt? Omaha.com: "Ann Romney ... made an appearance Friday at an Omaha-area fundraiser for her husband. She had scheduled interviews with The World-Herald and other reporters but canceled after controversy erupted this week over her comments to a public radio station in Iowa about her husband's Republican critics." ...

... Sarah Jones of Politicus USA: "Ann Romney was supposed to be Mitt's secret weapon, but apparently that isn't working out very well."

Teddy Patridge of Firedoglake has way too much fun cataloging Mitt's gaffes of last week -- and he doesn't even include the Missus Mitt Meltdown. Partridge reminds readers, "... this is not a list of Things That Happened to Mitt This Week. This is, instead, a list of Things Team Mitt Did."

Tom Edsall in the New York Times on why Romney has given up on Pennsylvania, which he thought would be a swing state he could win.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a long piece in New York magazine on Mitt Romney's 10-year stint as the Mormon Church bishop of Boston.

John Harkinson in Mother Jones: "Mitt Romney is richer than you think." Harkinson totals up some of the Romney assets that don't get reported in financial disclosure statements, & says the Romney are worth more like $378 million, or half again as much as is usually reported.

AND Bill Clinton hints of Hillary run in 2016.

Congressional Races

Mr. Nice Guy Goes Negative. David Catanese of Politico: "... after months of warm ads showcasing [Sen. Scott Brown {R-Mass.}] as a down-to-earth family man and consensus-seeking moderate, Brown debuted a more combative strategy during the debate [last week with Democrat Elizabeth Warren]. The senator's invective toward Warren only accelerated over the weekend during numerous campaign stops."

Local News

New York Times Editors: Republicans, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal & former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, are openly working with other right-wing groups to oust David Wiggens, an able Iowa state supreme court judge who joined in a gay marriage decision several years ago. "This is a battle over the future of a fair and independent judiciary.... On Friday, the Iowa State Bar Association announced its own pro-retention 'Yes Iowa Justice Tour' that will shadow the 'No Wiggins' tour as part of a larger bar effort 'to respond to, and correct, misinformation about Iowa's judicial system.'"

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Israel is bullying the United States over the alleged threat of an Iranian nuclear weapon, using the prospect of an Israeli military attack on Iran to force the hand of its much larger ally, Iran's president [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] said Monday.... during an interview with American editors and reporters."

AP: "Scientists reported Sunday that they have completed a major analysis of the genetics of breast cancer, finding four major classes of the disease. They hope their work will lead to more effective treatments, perhaps with some drugs already in use."

AP: "The company that makes Apple's iPhones suspended production at a factory in China on Monday after a brawl by as many as 2,000 employees at a dormitory injured 40 people."

The Commentariat -- Sept. 23, 2012

Art by Evan Hughes for the New York Times.Economist Robert Frank in the New York Times: "The nation doesn't actually face difficult economic choices. Many problems will be expensive to solve, yet we can solve them without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone.... The debt is an important long-run problem, but deferring infrastructure repairs will only worsen it. Relative to current policy, then, such projects would address multiple pressing problems without distress.... By shifting taxes toward activities having harmful side effects, we can raise substantial revenue while expanding the economic pie." CW: good luck getting Congress to do the right thing.

Kathleen Geier, writing in the Washington Montly, comments on the New York Times report (which I also linked a couple of days ago) on a new study that shows "that the least educated white Americans are experiencing sharp declines in life expectancy." Geier writes -- as the Times reporters do not -- that "there is a compelling body of research that suggests that inequality itself -- quite apart from low incomes, or lack of health insurance -- is associated with more negative health outcomes for those at the bottom of the heap." Thanks to Trish R. for the link. ...

... Paul Krugman agrees: "... high inequality isn't just unfair, it kills."

Kevin Begos of the AP: "It sounds like a free-market success story: a natural gas boom created by drilling company innovation, delivering a vast new source of cheap energy without the government subsidies that solar and wind power demand. 'The free market has worked its magic,' the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, an industry group, claimed over the summer. The boom happened 'away from the greedy grasp of Washington,' the [conservative] American Enterprise Institute ... wrote in an essay this year. But ... over three decades, from the shale fields of Texas and Wyoming to the Marcellus in the Northeast, the federal government contributed more than $100 million in research to develop fracking, and billions more in tax breaks."

David Kirkpatrick & Steven Erlanger of the New York Times: "On the eve of his first trip to the United States as Egypt's new Islamist president Mohamed Morsi said the United States needed to fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to overcome decades of pent-up anger." The linked page has links to portions of the audio of Morsi's New York Times interview.

Gregory Wallace of CNN: Speaking at a Congressional Black Caucus gala, "Attorney General Eric Holder and first lady Michelle Obama weighed in Saturday on a battleground in the 2012 election: voting rights.... She did not specifically address voting laws, but stressed the importance of registering people to vote, calling it 'the movement of our era.'" ...

     ... Video of the First Lady's full speech is here.

Jeff McDonald of the San Diego Union Tribune: "Congressman Darrell Issa [R-Calif.] received a 'dishonorable mention' Wednesday on a list of the most corrupt lawmakers published Wednesday by ... Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington for placing information from a sealed wiretap into the congressional record earlier this year. Twenty members of Congress -- 12 Republicans and seven Democrats -- were singled out for what CREW said was unethical or illegal behavior over the past year. Eight of those, including Issa, received the dishonorablemention citations." Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link.

CW: Frank Bruni's column, in which he interviews McClatchy News CEO & former Pittsburgh Pirates CEO Kevin McClatchy, is getting a lot of buzz today because McClatchy comes out as gay. My reaction is "Yeah, so?" but I guess this is a big deal over there in SportsWorld where at least one player wears gay-slur make-up to work.

Presidential Race

Quote of the Day. It's our turn, you guys. -- Mitt Romney, at a big-ticket fundraiser in California

Michael Barbaro & Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "... a review of [Mitt Romney's] remarks at dozens of fund-raisers, in well-off neighborhoods from Los Angeles to Miami over the past year, highlights differences both subtle and significant in how he speaks to voters and donors.... The intimacy of the receptions (at homes and hotels), their transactional nature ($75,000 per couple is often pledged) and familiarity with that audience (usually filled with fellow businessmen and -women), appears to put Mr. Romney at ease. He uses looser language, divulges strategy, tells detailed personal stories and takes pointed questions." CW: Barbaro & Parker never suggest -- directly, anyway -- the obvious: that Romney is more comfortable when he's with "his people."

David Firestone of the New York Times: "Mr. Romney really doesn't see much difference between giving to charity and giving to the government.... In his mind, apparently, you can just add up the two figures into a new hybrid column, perhaps called, Total Obligation to Society, and make yourself look even more generous.... Taxes represent the obligations citizens have to each other and to society.... Charity is entirely voluntary, even for those who, like Mr. Romney, are asked by their religious authorities to tithe a fixed portion of their income.... One would think that someone running to be the government's chief executive would be proud to make tax payments, and would not try to reduce them through exotic foreign tax shelters and an outsized IRA, as Mr. Romney has done for years." CW: Firestone doesn't say so, but Romney has made this argument before: in mid-August, responding to Harry Reid's remark that he'd heard Romney hadn't paid taxes for 10 years, Romney himself said, in part, "... every year I've paid at least 13 percent and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent."

New York Times illustration.Jill Lepore in the New York Times: Mitt Romney has been characterizing himself as an "underdog" since the primaries. "Mitt Romney is no Downtrodden Man. In May, at a fund-raiser in Florida, Mr. Romney expressed contempt for the '47 percent.' ... This is not a man who loves underdogs.... Research ... demonstrates that telling a story about yourself in which you are an underdog builds brand loyalty...." CW: you might think a man famous for riding in his car literally "under the dog" could find another term to call himself. ...

... Here's how UnderShamus treated Univision, the Spanish-language network which sponsored forums last week with him and with President Obama: according to McKay Coppins of Buzzfeed, both camps agreed to groundrules that the audience for the forums would be comprised mostly of students. But when the Romney camp couldn't come up with enough students, they demanded they be allowed to bus in "rowdy activists from around South Florida" or else Romney might have to "reschedule." Obama stuck to the rules. Then, with cameras rolling, Romney refused to appear on stage because he didn't like his introduction. He demanded it be changed & retaped before he would show his special brownface. One of the show's anchor, Maria Elena Salinas, called Romney's high-handed snits "a little bit of disrespect." ...

... CW: hey, what did she expect? The place was crawling with 47-percenters. At least Romney didn't demand they all show their papers or ask them for tips on lawn maintenance, for Pete's sake. Univision should have called his bluff & let the anchors spend the hour talking to an empty chair, which is of course a favorite GOP routine anyway. ¿Cómo se dice "major douchebag" en español?

Robert Reich: "So much wealth and power have accumulated at the top of America that our economy and our democracy are seriously threatened. Romney not only represents this problem. He is the living embodiment of it."

Jonathan Bernstein, in Slate, blames Tea Party conservatives, Fox "News" & Rush Limbaugh for Mitt Romney's faltering campaign.

Maureen Dowd disses Stuart Stevens, Romney's campaign guru & self-conscious dilettante. The New Republic profile of Stevens by Noam Scheiber, which Dowd refers to a couple of times, is here. Scheiber, BTW, blames Romney. ...

... Dowd also refers to a comment Lady Romney made on Radio Iowa Thursday, which contributor Forrest M. mentions in the Comments section:

Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring. This is hard and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now and it's an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country. -- Ann Romney, addressing Republicans who have criticized her husband

... CW: I didn't see Lady Romney's little tantrum as anything more than another display of her customary petulance of privilege. But Jim Fallows of The Atlantic writes, "True as it might have been, Mrs. Romney's 'break' was also sad and damaging. Self-pity is doom for candidates.... Running for president is hard, but there is one thing harder. That's what happens if you win." One of the annoying downsides of our so-called democracy is that we tend to make our top royals sing & dance for the sorts of perks royals elsewhere simply inherit. Surely Republicans plan to fix that constitutional quirk soon.

Are Willard M. & Ann Romney "real Americans"? Not according to their just-released 2011 IRS 1040, where they claim their Belmont, Massachusetts, residence is in the "foreign country" USA.

CLICK RETURN TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.    ... Tax preparers say actual U.S. citizens would have left the "Foreign country name" space blank. As this couple did:

CLICK TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.

Jennifer Agiesta & Nancy Benac of the AP: "The challenge for President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is how to lay claim to [undecided voters,] this small but mightily important swath of the electorate. These people are truly up for grabs, claim they're intent on voting and yet aren't paying that much attention." ...

... Just who are these undecided voters? Here are a few of them:

CW: The following belongs in Infotainment, but -- ironically enough -- I can't shrink the video, so I'm posting it here:

Bone-ified. Rushbo blames shrinking penis size on feminazis: