The Commentariat -- June 19, 2012

Tecumseh killed by William Henry Harrison's forces at the Battle of the Thames, 1813.... Ishaan Tharoor in Time: why Canada is celebrating the bicentennial of "Mr. Madison's War" and the U.S. is not.

Michael Cooper of the New York Times: "Throughout the Great Recession and the not-so-great recovery, the most commonly discussed measure of misery has been unemployment. But many middle-class and working-class people who are fortunate enough to have work are struggling as well...."

How to Win at Monopoly. Christian Berthelsen & Alan Zibel of the Wall Street Journal: "A government program that helps struggling homeowners take advantage of low interest rates to cut monthly mortgage payments is providing an unexpected revenue boost to large banks such as Wells Fargo Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase.... Banks that collect those payments ... could get as much as $12 billion in revenue this year refinancing mortgages under the federal Home Affordable Refinance Program, or HARP.... That is because the new HARP rules make it easier for borrowers to refinance their loans with existing lenders.... 'There's essentially a monopoly on refinancing,' Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said at a Senate hearing last month.... A senior administration official said the administration tried to get the FHFA to change the policy last year but was unable to do so. The FHFA, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which finance the lion's share of home mortgages, defends the program's structure." ...

... Andrew Leonard of Salon highlights the sentence from the WSJ story I italicized in bold, and has some appropriately unkind words to say about Eddie DeMarco, who runs the FHFA. ...

... According to Peter Goodman, the HuffPost's business editor, a former New York Times reporter & an excellent analyst, there is no reason Obama can't fire DeMarco's ass inasmuch as he is "an acting director who was never confirmed by the Senate." In fact, Obama did try to replace DeMarco last year, but when the Senate refused to confirm his replacement, Obama left DeMarco on the job. Goodman calls DeMarco "the single largest obstacle to meaningful economic recovery."

Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon on why "the expected GOP backlash to Obama's immigration decision has failed to materialize." ...

... Lisa Lerer of Bloomberg News: "Sixty-four percent of likely voters surveyed after Obama’s June 15 announcement [re: deportation waivers] said they agreed with the policy, while 30 percent said they disagreed. Independents backed the decision by better than a two-to-one margin."

Hedge Fund Managers Shouldn't Call the Shots at Universities. Prof. Siva Vaidhyanathan in Salon on the University of Virginia's ouster of its president Theresa Sullivan: "The biggest challenge facing higher education is market-based myopia. Wealthy board members, echoing the politicians who appointed them (after massive campaign donations) too often believe that universities should be run like businesses, despite the poor record of most actual businesses in human history.Universities do not have 'business models.' They have complementary missions of teaching, research, and public service...." Vaidhyanathan fingers a hedge-fund operator named Peter Kiernan who boasted that he engineered Sullivan's ouster. ...

... BUT Kiernan did not act alone. Alec MacGillis of The New Republic: "Paul Tudor Jones, a highly successful Greenwich fund manager who was an early Obama backer last time around but has already given more than $200,000 to Romney's SuperPAC, Restore Our Future.... Tudor Jones ... is at the center of the mysterious and controversial coup d'etat at the University of Virginia." In 1998, Tudor Jones & his wife bought a venerable Greenwich mansion which they tore down and replaced with an "aggressive" mansion which "dominates the landscape. With its enormous center dome and columned portico, it may have been influenced by Thomas Jefferson's Monticello or by Jones's alma mater, the University of Virginia," according to a Vanity Fair article MacGillis cites. ...

... AND as MacGillis points out, the fact that Sullivan co-authored a book with Wall Street scold Elizabeth Warren (and Jay Westbrook), titled The Fragile Middle Class, probably did not make her particularly popular with her hedge-fund overlords at UVA.

Kirk Semple of the New York Times: "Asians have surpassed Hispanics as the largest wave of new immigrants to the United States, pushing the population of Asian descent to a record 18.2 million and helping to make Asians the fastest-growing racial group in the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center."

Presidential Race

We have our own places that we do that. -- Ann Romney, explaining why the Presidents Romney won't be vacationing abroad as often as the Obamas do ...

President Obama, however, has not taken any foreign vacations during his presidency. -- Justin Sink of The Hill ...

... One of the places "that they do that" is in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where the Romneys have a compound "on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee. Over the years, they have combined 6 properties to create the compound, which consists of a main home, a converted /stable and other land that have been combined." ...

The main house at the Romney compound in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.

... Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog lists some of the Romneys' vacation options. Don't miss the tweet from Gotta Laff. ...

... Zillow has more photos of a few of their favorite places.

CW: Madame Dressage is supposed to be a great asset to the Romney campaign on account of her ability to "humanize" Willard. I'm having a hard time seeing that.

MSNBC, the Fox "News of the Left. This is a pretty funny video:

     ... The trouble is, the clip takes Romney's remark out of context -- the same way the Romney campaign took an Obama remark out of context to totally change his meaning. Dylan Byers of Politico reports that what "amazed" Romney referred not to the WaWa's scanner but to the preceding anecdote he told about an optometrist who he claimed was snowed under by government paperwork.

Philip Rucker & Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "President Obama has tapped Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, to play Republican Mitt Romney in mock debate rehearsals, Obama campaign officials and the senator's office confirmed Monday. Kerry will help Obama prepare for among the most consequential events of his reelection campaign -- the three fall debates against Romney. As the senior senator from Massachusetts, Kerry has studied Romney's career and campaign style for nearly two decades and has first-hand knowledge of his record as governor.

Local News

Vagina Monologues. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Last week, a Michigan state legislator was barred from speaking on the House floor because she used the word vagina in a statement about proposed abortion regulations in what is arguably the most restrictive bill yet proposed to curb reproductive freedom. State Republicans who rescinded her speaking privileges for a day variously expressed offense at Rep. Lisa Brown's use of the word vagina or the context in which she used the word vagina or her use of the phrase no means no in describing a 50-page proposed bill that contains the word vagina three times." Lithwick proposes a legislative antidote. ...

Dawson Bell & Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: "At least a few thousand women and at most a few hundred men thronged the state Capitol lawn Monday evening.... The two female legislators who were the spark for the gathering after they were barred from speaking on the state House floor Thursday as punishment for their remarks during an emotional debate over abortion were among the evening's star performers as the crowd on blankets and lawn chairs enjoyed a reading of the play, 'The Vagina Monologues.'"

News Ledes

New York Times: "The lawyer for President Obama demanded on Tuesday that Crossroads GPS disclose its donors, saying in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission that the group is plainly a 'political committee' subject to federal reporting requirements. In the complaint..., Robert F. Bauer, the campaign's chief counsel, writes that the group -- founded by Karl Rove, among others -- can no longer shield the identity of its donors by defining itself as a 'social welfare' organization."

New York Times: "Former President Hosni Mubarak, who led Egypt for three decades until he was toppled last year in a popular uprising, was on life support at a military hospital late Tuesday after he was declared 'clinically dead' by doctors, according to Egyptian officials and state news media." ...

     ... Washington Post: "Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out across Egypt late Tuesday to protest recent moves by the country's ruling generals, as conflicting reports about the health of former president Hosni Mubarak injected new uncertainty into a tumultuous political moment."

Guardian: "The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has sought political asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, sparking a new crisis in the tortured history of his extradition to Sweden."

Washington Post: "Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. failed to convince the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee late Tuesday to drop plans to hold him in contempt of Congress, meaning the panel is likely to vote Wednesday unless the Justice Department hands over documents related to the so-called 'Fast and Furious' gunwalking scandal."

New York Times: "Jerry Sandusky's wife [Dottie] ... took the witness stand on Tuesday to defend him against charges he sexually abused boys in their home and on Penn State's campus, and jurors also heard police investigators contradict themselves and psychological experts duel over evaluations of the defendant."

New York Times: "President Obamaand his Russian counterpart, Vladimir V. Putin, finally had their face-to-face meeting on Monday, as Mr. Obama pressed Mr. Putin to work with him to ease President Bashar al-Assad of Syria out of power, a move increasingly viewed by the West as the only way to end the bloodshed that has been under way there for more than a year. But after two full hours together, Mr. Putin was still balking...." ...

... Guardian: "The opening day of the G20 summit was threatening to deteriorate into a fractious row between eurozone countries and other non-European members of the G20, notably the US, as EU commission president José Manuel Barroso insisted the origins of the eurozone crisis lay in the unorthodox policies of American capitalism." ...

     ... Update: "Angela Merkel is poised to allow the eurozone's €750bn (£605bn) bailout fund to buy up the bonds of crisis-hit governments in a desperate effort to drive down borrowing costs for Spain and Italy and prevent the single currency from imploding. Germany has long opposed allowing the eurozone's rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to lend directly to troubled eurozone countries, fearing that Berlin would end up paying the bill, and the beneficiaries would escape the strict conditions imposed on Greece, Portugal and Ireland."

... Reuters: "Under pressure from financial markets and anxious world leaders, Europe agreed on Monday to move towards a more integrated banking system to stem a debt crisis that threatens the survival of the euro."

Washington Post: "The Senate reached a deal late Monday that likely guarantees final passage of a new farm bill, likely to be one of the only significant spending bills passed by Congress before the November elections. The new five-year measure would cost $969 billion over the next decade and includes $23.6 billion in proposed cuts, making it a slimmed-down version of legislation that historically served as one of the main opportunities for members of Congress to deliver pork-barrel spending to their constituents."

New York Times: "Talks between Iran and six world powers went into a second day on Tuesday morning, as negotiators sought a compromise that would head off the danger of military confrontation over Tehran's nuclear ambitions."

Reuters: "Greek political parties meeting on Tuesday said they expected to form a coalition government soon and then seek concessions to the painful austerity measures tied to the international bailout deal keeping the country from bankruptcy."

Al Jazeera: "The United States has urged Egypt's military to move swiftly on plans to transfer full power to an elected civilian government and suggested failure to do so would prompt a review of US ties, which includes billions of dollars in military and civilian aid. Both the US State Department and the Pentagon -- which oversees the close military links between the two countries -- voiced concerns on Monday over moves by Egypt's generals to tighten their grip on power...."

Al Jazeera: "The Supreme Court of Pakistan has disqualified Yusuf Raza Gilani from his post as the prime minister of the nation. Tuesday's disqualification comes after an April 26 declaration convicting Gilani, the nation's longest-running prime minister, for contempt for refusing to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, state TV has reported. The high court ordered Zardari to take steps to elect a new prime minister, state media reported." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "Pakistan's combative top judge made his most audacious foray into judicial activism yet on Tuesday, firing Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, emptying the cabinet and forcing President Asif Ali Zardari to reset his fragile governing coalition. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry's order was the culmination of a three-year transformation that has injected the once supine Supreme Court into the heart of Pakistan's power equation."

Washington Post: "A week of chaos and uncertainty set off by the removal of University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan ended early Tuesday when the university's Board of Visitors appointed an interim leader after almost 12 hours of debate. Carl P. Zeithaml, dean of the university's top-ranked McIntire School of Commerce, will start Aug. 16."

Washington Post: "Brett McGurk, the Obama administration's pick to be the ambassador to Iraq, withdrew his nomination on Monday in the face of mounting opposition in the Senate. Senate Republicans last week expressed doubts about McGurk after a racy e-mail exchange surfaced between McGurk and a Wall Street Journal reporter covering him. The e-mails between McGurk and reporter Gina Chon -- whom he later married -- date from when McGurk was working in Iraq for the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and Chon was stationed in Baghdad."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "Friends and former colleagues described Jerry Sandusky as a 'local hero' and an exemplary role model as his lawyers began presenting his defense against child sex-abuse charges Monday."