The Commentariat -- March 24

** Nicholas Kristof: "This is ... one of the few times in history when outside forces have intervened militarily to save the lives of citizens from their government.... In 2005, the United Nations approved a new doctrine called the 'responsibility to protect,' nicknamed R2P, declaring that world powers have the right and obligation to intervene when a dictator devours his people. The Libyan intervention is putting teeth into that fledgling concept, and here’s one definition of progress: The world took three-and-a-half years to respond forcefully to the slaughter in Bosnia, and about three-and-a-half weeks to respond in Libya." ...

... Glenn Thrush & Abby Phillip of Politico highlight four unanswered questions about the Libya mission "whose answers will likely determine whether Libya is a foreign policy success or failure for Obama." ...

... Fareed Zakaria has the Time cover story on the Libyan campaign: "Call it the Goldilocks military plan: Not too much, not too little, not too unilateral, not too American. The operation against Muammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya mirrors the moderate temperament of its architect, Barack Obama."

Sen. Barack Obama in 2007 on genocide in Darfur and elsewhere:

... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post has a terrific mini-history of the "Darfur issue," which has not gone away.

Christina Romer, out from under the thumbs of Larry & Timmy, says what she really thinks:

I frankly don’t understand why policy makers aren’t more worried about the suffering of real families. I think there are tools we have tools we have that we can use, and I think it’s shameful that we’re not using them. If I have a complaint about policy these days, it’s that we’re not doing enough. And that goes all the way up to the Federal Reserve, [which] could be taking more aggressive action. It goes to the Congress and the Administration – there are fiscal policy actions they could be taking.... We need to realize that there is still a lot of devastation out there. The 8.9% unemployment rate is an absolute crisis. -- Christina Romer, former Chair, Council of Economic Advisors

Libertarian Dave Weigel of Slate rewrites CNN's headline on the Affordable Health Act. Weigel's version: "Most favor healthcare law or wish it was more liberal." Weigel notes that "... 50 percent of voters are either fine with the law or want a more liberal bill, to 46 percent who want it gone because it's too socialistic." ...

I don’t represent the hide-under-the-desk wing of the Democratic Party. I believe we’ve got to lean into this fight. -- Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)

... Dana Milbank: Anthony Weiner takes on Republicans for "overtly lying" about the Affordable Care Act. While he's at it, Weiner bludgeons Democrats for not standing up for the reform bill. And the Supreme Court (“a corporate-dominated wing of the Republican Party”). And the CBO ("propeller-heads").

PolitiFact looks at the rogues' gallery of liars about the Affordable Care Act & reprises the ten top lies. They come from both sides of the aisle, but by far the most come from ACA critics.

Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: a group of House Republicans is sponsoring a bill that will "cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer."

Prof. Robert Darnton of Harvard University Library in a New York Times op-ed: "We should build a digital public library, which would provide these digital copies free of charge to readers. Yes, many problems — legal, financial, technological, political — stand in the way. All can be solved."

Speaking of CREW, as I do in Right Wing World below, the AP reports that "Members of [Wisconsin] Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald’s staff bounced ideas off one another and the Legislature’s attorneys for days about how to penalize the Senate Democrats for leaving and pressure them to return, according to records released Wednesday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [CREW].... Everything from taking away computers to denying a year of service in the state retirement system was considered to punish the 14 Wisconsin Democrats who fled to Illinois for three weeks to block passage of a bill taking away union bargaining rights, [the] newly released emails show."

Liz Goodwin of Yahoo News: "Ninety-five-year-old Leeland Davidson discovered recently that he's not considered a U.S. citizen, despite living nearly 100 years in the country and serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII.... Davidson was born in British Columbia in 1916, but his parents didn't register the birth with the U.S. government to ensure they knew he was a citizen." CW: surely we can find a Republican coalition of the willing to kick this brazen illegal alien out of the country.

Right Wing World *

One fabulous takedown of presidential non-candidate Tim Pawlenty:

... OR, you can read the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party's assessment of Pawlenty's performance as governor. Not as fun as Colbert, but even more devastating: "Tim Pawlenty left our state facing the largest deficit in Minnesota's 152-year history, drove up property taxes and fees on middle-class families and small businesses alike, all while making draconian cuts to education that forced some schools into 4-day weeks."

David Corn of Mother Jones: Karl Rove's "dark-money group, Crossroads GPS, gets into the transparency game. Seriously?" Corn cites one of the group's touted "scoops": Elizabeth Warren dines with Corn. Only the dinner never happened, the Crossroads GPS site didn't show the "proof," the site spokesman couldn't find the "incriminating" document that was the basis for the "scoop," & when he did find it some while later, the "proof" of Warren's "dinner date" with Corn was a note on Warren's schedule that read, "Interview with David Corn." Shocking! ...

... Too be fair, libertarian Dave Weigel loves the Crossroads GPS concept even though he thinks it might be a mistake to introduce the project with a story that isn't remotely true. What Weigel does point out is that two of GPS Crossroads' critics -- CREW, which won't reveal its donors -- and Anonymous P. Democrat are stunning hypocrites themselves. CW: in the interest of full disclosure, my anonymous funding comes from my husband.

The Affordable Healthcare Law had its first anniversary yesterday. Teabagger & multimillionaire Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson writes what Steve Benen aptly calls "an ugly screed" in the Wall Street Journal in which Johnson claims that his adult daughter probably would have died if "Obamacare" had been in effect when the daughter's heart defect was discovered. Do read all of Benen's posts here and here to get a flavor of how low the right will go. They just lie, lie and lie again with the purpose of not just misinforming but also frightening vulnerable people. Speaking of Johnson's op-ed drivel, Benen writes, for instance,

I hesitate to even call this garbage an 'argument,' since it isn't even that. The dim-witted rookie senator isn't actually criticizing the law so much as he's imagining a fabricated nightmare based on nothing but his own ignorance.

... Igor Volsky of Think Progress explains why "The ACA wouldn’t have killed Johnson’s daughter, but thousands of other uninsured babies would have died without it." ...

... Jon Chait of The New Republic: "... asking someone like [Johnson] to actually take into consideration the actual needs of the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, as against the completely imaginary threat to his only family, is asking far too much of Johnson's intellect or moral reasoning." ...

... Brian Beutler of TPM calls Johnson's fearmongering bullshit "a new, retroactive twist on the 'death panels' hoax, which has been broadly debunked, but never seems to go away." ...

... Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, who signed "Romneycare" -- a state-level version of the ACA -- into law in Massachusetts, is trying to think of new ways to distance himself from his own record. To that end, he wrote an op-ed in the right-wing National Review -- a favored teabagger rag -- explaining how he'd let states opt out of Obamacare the first day he was in office. As Steve Benen points out, that's already in the law, you jerk. ...

... AND Does Obamacare Cover Forked Tongue Syndrome? Greg Sargent -- who remembers Mitt's history better than Mitt does -- reminds us that "The problem for Romney, however, is that he has explicitly suggested that Romneycare should serve as a model for efforts to reform our health system on the federal level...." In a 2009 CNN interview, Romney said,

I think there are a number of features in the Massachusetts plan that could inform Washington on ways to improve health care for all Americans. The fact that we were able to get people insured without a government option is a model I think they can learn from.

What about Forked Tongue Syndrome Complicated by ADD & Short-term Amnesia? George Zornick of Think Progress: Newt "Gingrich criticized Obama for not intervening in Libya, but now criticizes him for intervening in Libya." 

Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.... This is a moment to get rid of [Gaddafi]. Do it. Get it over with. -- Newt Gingrich, March 7, 2011

It is impossible to make sense of the standard for intervention in Libya except opportunism and news media publicity.... I would not have intervened. -- Newt Gingrich, March 22-23, 2011 

     ... Dave Weigel has the video of two interviews, taken 16 days apart, in which Gingrich expresses completely opposing views. Weigel calls Zornick's post a "direct hit," and says of Gingrich: "Anyone want to try and reconcile these two interviews? It's not just the flip-flop on intervention -- the flip-flip on whether humanitarian needs make the intervention justified or not is breathtaking." ...

     ... Ha ha. Newt tries to explain why contradictory statements are really consistent. He fails utterly. That schmuck doesn't care WTF he says, as long as it's against President Obama. People are going to vote for this clown for president. They really are.

... AND A Mural of Laborers in -- of All Places -- the Labor Department Has to Go. Maine's loony new governor, Paul LePage has ordered the removal of a mural in the state’s Department of Labor building. Why? The mural, which depicts "scenes of Maine workers, including colonial-era shoemaking apprentices, lumberjacks, a 'Rosie the Riveter' ... and a 1986 paper mill strike...," and LePage says the scenes are too pro-union. Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times reports. ...

     ... Bill Trotter of the Bangor Daily News: Meanwhile, LePage is planning to knee-cap the state's public workers. ...

     ... Digby becomes an art critic.

* The parallel world which Republicans and teabaggers reinvent daily. It bears little relation to the factual world.

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is likely to form a presidential exploratory committee, two advisers said Thursday. The committee could be formed as soon as May but no later than June."

Washington Post: "NATO moved toward assuming command of Western military intervention in Libya on Thursday after days of wrangling, and French warplanes destroyed a Libyan plane and bombed an air base on the sixth day of allied attacks on forces loyal to Moammar Gaddafi." ...

     ... Al Jazeera Update: "NATO countries have agreed to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya 'to protect civilians' against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters. He said the military alliance's mandate did not go beyond the no-fly zone but NATO could also act in self-defence." ...

... Al Jazeera: "Western warplanes have hit Libya for a fifth night, but have so far failed to stop Muammar Gaddafi's tanks from shelling opposition-held towns. A loud explosion was heard in Tripoli, the capital, early on Thursday, and smoke could be seen rising from an area where a military base is situated."

New York Times: "Japanese authorities are considering a plan to import bottled water from overseas, a government official said Thursday morning, a day after spreading contamination from a crippled nuclear plant led to a panicked rush to buy water in Tokyo."

AP: "A U.S. soldier who pleaded guilty Wednesday to the murders of three Afghan civilians was sentenced to 24 years in prison after saying 'the plan was to kill people' in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers. Military judge Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks said he initially intended to sentence Spc. Jeremy Morlock, of Wasilla, Alaska, to life in prison with possibility of parole but was bound by the plea deal."

Washington Post: "The control tower at Reagan National Airport went silent early Wednesday, forcing the pilots of two airliners carrying a total of 165 passengers and crew members to land on their own. The tower, which normally is staffed by one air-traffic controller from midnight to 6 a.m., did not respond to pilot requests for landing assistance or to phone calls from controllers elsewhere in the region, who also used a 'shout line,' which pipes into a loudspeaker in the tower, internal records show.... Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said late Wednesday he is instructing the agency to increase controller staffing at the airport during the late shift." You can listen to an audio transmission here. ...

     ... Update: "The air traffic control supervisor who apparently fell asleep on duty on the job at Reagan National Airport early Wednesday has been drug-tested by federal officials, a step usually reserved for controllers involved in plane crashes."

AP: "Buyers of new homes plunged in February to the fewest on records dating back nearly half a century, a dismal sign for an already-weak housing market.New-home sales fell 16.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 250,000 homes, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It’s the third straight monthly decline and far below the 700,000-a-year pace that economists view as healthy."

Washington Post: "A sizable majority of all Americans — and nearly half of Republicans — say the best way to slice the federal budget deficit is by cutting spending and increasing taxes, according to last week’s Washington Post-ABC News poll."

Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday is expected to detail how it plans to cut about 7,500 administrative positions — the first time it’s issued pink slips in at least a decade. The job cuts are expected to impact about 2,000 postmasters — the folks who manage individual post offices — and another 5,500 supervisors and administrative staffers. Cutting postmasters is especially noteworthy, because it will likely prompt USPS to close the post offices they operate."