The Commentariat -- February 14, 2012

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on David Brooks' scary advocacy of Bourgeois Paternalism -- worse than Michele Bachmann's dreaded "re-education camps." The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

The Senate may vote as early as today (Tuesday) to greenlight construction of the Keystone XL pipeline without any environmental or economic review, overriding President Obama's decision to table action. Here are links to petitions telling the Senate to reject the pipeline bill that will be delivered to the Senate by MoveOn.org, the Other 98 Percent, Oil Change International and Democracy for America. Thanks to contributor Dave S. for the links. AND here's one from CREDO. 

The New York Times has a fancy interactive graphic on the administration's FY 2012 proposed budget which is worth visiting just as an homage to the people who designed it & input the data. ...

... The budget itself is here; Jeff Zeints, the Acting OMB Director, provides an overview. ...

... New York Times Editors: "President Obama’s 2013 budget ... offers a clear and welcome contrast to the slashing austerity — and protect-the-wealthy priorities — favored by Republican Congressional leaders and the party’s presidential candidates. The president’s budget calls for long-term deficit reduction, but its immediate priority is to encourage the fledgling economic recovery. Instead of trying to stabilize the budget on the backs of the poor, it would raise taxes on the wealthy and on big banks and eliminate many corporate tax loopholes.... Republicans, on the other hand, would cut taxes for the rich and cut almost all of that spending, heedless of the pain that it would inflict on the economy and the millions of Americans still reeling from the downturn’s effects." ...

... Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic has a pretty good take on Obama's proposed budget. It is not all complimentary -- he thinks the proposal does not go far enough to raise revenues, but it sure beats the GOP-Grover Norquist let-'em-die plan.

Jonathan Bernstein, in the Washington Post: only the Democrats are serious about deficit reduction. As of Monday afternoon, GOP House leaders "are now supporting a payroll tax cut extension that isn’t paid for.... In other words, when push comes to shove, they’d much rather increase the federal budget deficit than to raise even a dime of taxes on wealthy Americans."

Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "While GOP senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pledged to fight the Obama administration’s modified regulation requiring health insurers and businesses to offer contraception coverage without additional cost sharing, the revised rule 'appears to have won over' two of the five Republican women senators. Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME) — both of whom have sponsored legislation requiring insurers to offer contraception benefits in all health plans — are in favor of the new compromise."

Joe Romm of Think Progress: Joe Nocera has joined the ranks of the climate ignorati. CW: an excellent takedown. Romm suggests Nocera talk to some actual climat scientists as opposed to, say, Exxon executives.

International lawyer Eric Lewis, in a New York Times op-ed, on the eight-year detention of two Pakistanis who have never been charged with crimes. Picked up in Iraq by British soldiers, the two men are being held in Bagram AFB in Afghanistan "in conditions far worse than those at Guantánamo Bay."

New York Times Editors: "Ten years ago, Cardinal Edward Egan, then the leader of the New York archdiocese, famously apologized to his parishioners for the church’s failure to deal with priests who abused children. Now, three years after his retirement, he suddenly feels moved to renounce that courageous move.... Court records that the church fought to keep secret revealed cases in which then-Bishop Egan did not alert secular authorities in Bridgeport, failed to aggressively investigate allegations, moved offending priests to other parishes and authorized hush-money payments.... Cardinal Egan’s feckless ruminations are Exhibit A on the problem of shepherds hiding from their responsibilities."

Jake Tapper of ABC News: "Tomorrow outside the Westminster dog show at Madison Square Garden at noon the group 'Dogs Against Romney' will protest 'to ensure pet lovers are aware that Mitt Romney is mean to dogs,' according to the group’s press release." ...

Right Wing World

Lydia Saad of Gallup: "Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are now statistically tied for the lead in Republican registered voters' preferences for the 2012 GOP nomination -- 32% to 30%, respectively. Newt Gingrich, who led the field as recently as late January, is now third, favored by 16%, while Ron Paul's support has dwindled to 8%, the lowest level yet seen for him in 2012." ...

... Public Policy Polling: "Rick Santorum's taken a large lead in Michigan's upcoming Republican primary. He's at 39% to 24% for Mitt Romney, 12% for Ron Paul, and 11% for Newt Gingrich. Santorum's rise is attributable to two major factors: his own personal popularity (a stellar 67/23 favorability) and GOP voters increasingly souring on Gingrich. Santorum's becoming something closer and closer to a consensus conservative candidate as Gingrich bleeds support." Willard's father George was a popular governor of Michigan. ...

... Greg Sargent: "In November, Romney was beating Obama among these voters, 53-41. Now those numbers are upside down: Obama is beating Romney among them, 51-42. That’s a net 19 point swing of independents in Obama’s direction in three months." ...

... Ezra Klein: "The mounting danger for Romney is that his candidacy will lose its central justification: That he’s the most electable Republican in the field." ...

... David Frum in the Daily Beast: "In his charmingly blunt way, [during his CPAC speech, Grover] Norquist articulated out loud a case for Mitt Romney that you hear only whispered by other major conservative leaders; to wit: Romney will be a weak president who will do what congressional Republicans tell him to do. "This is ... not a very realistic political program: congressional Republicans have a disapproval rating of about 75%. If Americans get the idea that a vote for Romney is a vote for the Ryan plan, Romney is more or less doomed." Thanks to contributor Jack Mahoney for the link.

Frank Bruni: "To understand voters’ bottomless cynicism, look no farther than politicians’ boundless revisionism. Republicans have no monopoly on it [CW: examples of Obama lies, please, Frank], but they occupy center stage at the moment, shedding culpability for past deeds even as they ask us — as leaders do and should — to take responsibility for our own."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Members of a House-Senate committee charged with writing a measure to extend a payroll tax reduction and provide added unemployment benefits reached a tentative agreement Tuesday evening, with Republicans and Democrats claiming a degree of political victory in a fight with significant election-year implications."

New York Times: "The health care products giant Johnson & Johnson continued to market an artificial hip in Europe and elsewhere overseas after the Food and Drug Administration rejected its sale in the United States based on a review of company safety studies. During that period, the company also continued to sel in this country a related model, which earlier went on the market using a regulatory loophole that did not require a similar safety review."

New York Times: "A proposed wireless broadband network that would provide voice and Internet service using airwaves once reserved for satellite-telephone transmissions should be shelved because it interferes with GPS technology, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday. The F.C.C. statement revokes the conditional approval for the network given last year. It comes after an opinion by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which said that 'there is no practical way to mitigate the potential interference at this time' with GPS devices."

New York Times: "A team of European and American mathematicians and cryptographers have discovered an unexpected weakness in the encryption system widely used worldwide for online shopping, banking, e-mail and other Internet services intended to remain private and secure."

Guardian: Chinese Vice President "Xi Jinping, the man destined to lead China in the coming decade..., arrived [in the U.S.] on Monday, and the highlight of his full four days in America will be an Oval Office meeting on Tuesday with president Barack Obama." Reuters story here.

ABC News: "After a relatively quiet weekend that saw nearly 50 people killed, heavy shelling resumed this morning in the neighborhood of Bab Amr in the city of Homs, Syria. Tuesday marks the tenth day of the Syrian Army's assault on Homs, and activists tell ABC News that over 500 people have been killed since February 4th."

Haaretz: Israeli "Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday that the attempted bombing in Bangkok proves that Iran and its proxies continue operating in the ways of terror.... Earlier on Tuesday, a man thought to be an Iranian national was seriously wounded in Bangkok when a bomb he was carrying exploded and blew his legs off. Shortly before, there had been an explosion in a house the man was renting in the Ekamai area of central Bangkok."

Guardian: "News Corporation executives could be vulnerable to individual prosecution by US anti-bribery authorities under the so-called 'willful blindness' clause that holds company chiefs culpable if they chose to be unaware of any specific wrongdoing by their employees. The FBI and other law-enforcers are probing Rupert Murdoch's media empire under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that seeks to punish US-based companies engaging in bribery abroad. News Corp is headquartered in New York."

The Commentariat -- February 13, 2012

Abso-fucking-lutely not. -- Christina Romer, in 2009, on whether the stimulus had been big enough ...

... ** Norm Scheiber of The New Republic on "Obama's worst year." Scheiber lays out the 2011 internal White House deliberations on the budget, the deficit, the debt ceiling. Not a pretty picture. Read the whole thing; here's Scheiber's conclusion:

For voters contemplating whether [President Obama] deserves a second term, the question is less and less one of policy or even worldview than of basic disposition. Throughout his political career, Obama has displayed an uncanny knack for responding to existential threats....But, in every case, the adjustments didn’t come until the crisis was already at hand. His initial approach was too passive and too accommodating, and he stuck with it far too long.

Given the booby traps that await the next president — Iranian nukes, global financial turmoil — this habit seems dangerously risky.... Is Obama’s newfound boldness on the economy yet another last-minute course-correction? Or has he finally learned a deeper lesson? More than just a presidency may hinge on the answer.

... As Paul Krugman wrote,

Yet it seemed totally obvious to me that

1. There would be no going back to the well if the first stimulus fell short
2. Obama would get no credit for fiscal responsibility, no matter what he offered by way of spending cuts
3. The GOP would ruthlessly exploit whatever leverage it was given

So how is it that all these worldly-wise political types got these things so wrong?

       ... CW: this is the same thing I asked yesterday in response to Jim Fallows' analysis of the Obama presidency.

Kathleen Hennessey & Christi Parsons of the Los Angeles Times: "President Obama's 2013 budget, scheduled for release Monday, offers a preview of the November election as both parties angle to refine the vision they hope to sell to voters. Obama's plan and the House Republicans' answer, due in the spring, are aimed as much at offering voters a choice as at promoting policies destined for enactment. For the president, the budget is another opportunity to try to position himself as a defender of the middle class, a leader willing to ask the wealthiest to pay more in taxes and to use government spending to spur job growth. It will give a nod to the president's call for balanced deficit reduction, while also aiming to preserve Democrats' brand as guardians of the social safety net. Over the last year the conversation was about 'How much do we cut?' Obama's budget will try to shift to more politically advantageous questions: 'Who should pay more?' and 'What is fair?'"

Bill Moyers talks to Reagan administration economist Bruce Bartlett on where the right went wrong. The transcript is here:

Cullen Murphy in a New York Times op-ed on the dangers inherent in moral certitude. "Triumphalist rhetoric about the Constitution ignores the skeptical view of human nature that underlies it."

Prof. Nancy Folbre in the New York Times: "A political and cultural battle has now become an economic siege. Having failed to roll back legal access to abortion and contraception, opponents now seek to make them as costly as possible. It’s a clever strategy, because it does not require majority political support.... The women most directly affected are those with the weakest political voice and the lowest discretionary income." In Kansas & Virginia, where "supply-side" restrictions (like imposing specific square-footage requirements for the janitors' closet!) "the provider best able to withstand the regulatory assault is Planned Parenthood, which helps explain why this organization has come under Congressional investigation and was — at least temporarily — threatened by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation with withdrawal of support."

Click on the image to see the entire strip by Brian McFadden of the New York Times.

Right Wing World

Paul Krugman: "... tinfoil hats have become a common, if not mandatory, G.O.P. fashion accessory.... For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy.... Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum — and now the party elite has lost control."

Blame My Wife. -- Rick Santorum. Brian Knowlton of the New York Times: When George Stephanopoulos asked Rick Santorum on Sunday "to explain a remark in his book 'It Takes a Family' that accuses 'radical feminists' of undermining families and trying to convince women that they could find fulfillment only in the workplace..., Mr. Santorum said that his wife, Karen, had written that section of the 2005 book — though only his name is on the cover and he does not list her, in his acknowledgements, among those 'who assisted me in the writing of this book.' ... Mr. Santorum pleaded unfamiliarity with the citation, saying, 'I don’t know — that’s a new quote for me.' ... Mr. Stephanopoulos had asked him about the same quote in 2005."

Alex Koppelman of the New Yorker: Mitt Romney's narrow win (194 more votes than Ron Paul got) in the sparsely-attended, non-binding Maine caucuses & in the CPAC straw poll (he's won it three times before) don't mean much. And neither does he: "... there never seems to be any depth of feeling there; his speeches are, like the man himself, all surface perfection, and not much underneath. Saying the word 'conservative' almost once per minute substitutes for real passion."

NEW. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "For a candidate running against the entrenched interests of Washington, Mitt Romney keeps an awful lot of lobbyists around." ...

... Amy Shipley of the Washington Post writes a story under the headline, "10 years after Salt Lake City Olympics, questions about Romney's contributions." You might think it would be a shocking exposé of Romney's shoddy work & total sleaziness. It isn't. The article pretty much says the answer to the "questions" posed in the headline is -- "Romney is fantastic!" The only raps: he took the job for political reasons (no kidding!) & he secured a lot of federal government funding for the games. So call this a puff piece masquerading as a critical report. ...

... An homage to Gail Collins:

Who's Writing the Laws? New York Times Editorial Board: "The American Legislative Exchange Council was founded in 1973 by the right-wing activist Paul Weyrich; its big funders include Exxon Mobil, the Olin and Scaife families and foundations tied to Koch Industries. Many of the largest corporations are represented on its board.... It is no coincidence that so many state legislatures have spent the last year taking the same destructive actions: making it harder for minorities and other groups that support Democrats to vote, obstructing health care reform, weakening environmental regulations and breaking the spines of public- and private-sector unions. All of these efforts are being backed — in some cases, orchestrated — by [ALEC].... Voters have a right to know whether the representatives they elect are actually writing the laws, or whether the job has been outsourced to big corporate interests." ...

... Mike Ludwig of Truthout: "Over the past year, Ohio lawmakers introduced 33 bills that are identical to or 'appear to contain' elements of the ALEC's infamous model legislation that promotes a pro-corporate agenda, according to a report released this week by watchdog groups." The report, commissioned by a number of watchdog groups, is here. Thanks to contributor Dave S. for the link.

Prof. Alexander Keyssar in a New York Times op-ed on the long history of voter suppression in this country. The one the right is foisting on us now fits right in with this sordid history. "No state has ever attempted to disenfranchise upper-middle-class or wealthy white male citizens. Acknowledging the realities of our history should lead all of us to be profoundly skeptical of laws that burden, or impede, the exercise of what Lyndon B. Johnson called 'the basic right, without which all others are meaningless.'”

News Ledes

President Obama presented the National Medals of Arts & Humanities today:

     ... Related post here.

Washington Post: "Trying to avert another tax showdown, House Republican leaders Monday proposed an extension of the withholding-tax holiday to the end of the year without offsetting spending cuts.... The top three House GOP leaders backed off previous demands that its extension be accompanied by spending reductions to shore up the finances of the Social Security program, which is funded through withholding taxes."

Seattle Times: "In a crowded reception room surrounded by applauding gay couples and lawmakers, and with media from around the country looking on, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Monday signed landmark legislation legalizing same-sex marriage in Washington state. The historic event brings Washington in line with six other states and the District of Columbia, which allow gays to marry." ...

... AP: "In a move that supporters called a civil rights milestone, New Jersey's state Senate on Monday passed a bill to recognize same-sex marriages, marking the first time state lawmakers officially endorsed the idea — despite the promise of a veto by Gov. Chris Christie. Monday's vote was 24-16 in favor of the bill, a major swing from January 2010, when the Senate rejected it 20-14."

New York Times: "Apple said Monday that it had asked an outside organization to conduct special audits of working conditions inside Chinese factories where iPhones, iPads and other Apple products are manufactured.... Apple said the group, the Fair Labor Association, started its first inspections Monday at a factory in Shenzhen, China, known as Foxconn City.... Working conditions in Foxconn factories, including safety lapses that led to worker deaths, were the subject of; an investigative article last month by The New York Times. Last week, coordinated protests of worker abuses occurred at Apple stores around the world."

NPR: "Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been the victim of an armed robbery but is unharmed. Breyer, his wife, Joanna, and a friend were at the Breyer vacation home on the Caribbean island of Nevis when a man broke in with a machete and confronted them."

President Obama speaks about the FY 2013 budget:

Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff Jacob J. Lew on Sunday dismissed Republican criticism of President Obama’s latest spending plan, arguing that it charts a long-term strategy for tackling the national debt while offering a short-term boost to the recovering economy. The budget request, due on Capitol Hill on Monday, calls for spending $3.8 trillion in 2013, according to sources with knowledge of the document, including fresh increases for roads, infrastructure, manufacturing and education, as well as a year-long extension of emergency unemployment benefits and a temporary payroll tax holiday." AP story here. ...

     ... Update: here's the New York Times story on the budget, which has now been released.

Yahoo! News: "China's Vice President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington late Monday for a whirlwind visit to the White House, Pentagon, Iowa and Los Angeles. White House officials describe the visit as an opportunity to build relations with the man expected to become China's president next year." Washington Post story here.

Reuters: "Syrian forces bombarded districts of Homs and attacked other cities on Monday after Arab states pledged support for the opposition battling President Bashar al-Assad and called for international peacekeepers to be sent to the country." Al Jazeera's liveblog is here.

Al Jazeera: "Israeli diplomats have been targeted for car bombings in India and Georgia, leaving three injured and the nation's foreign minister promising a response. An Israeli embassy van blew up in New Delhi, the Indian capital, injuring an Israeli diplomat and two other people, but it was not immediately known whether the explosion was caused by a bomb, officials said." ...

... Haaretz: "The wife of an Israeli diplomat was moderately wounded on Monday when a car bomb exploded outside of Israel's embassy in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Haaretz has learned."

Washington Post: "Coroner’s officials say they will not release any information on an autopsy performed Sunday on [singer Whitney Houston] at the request of police detectives investigating the singer’s death. Houston was found in the bathtub of her room, but Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter declined to say anything more about the room’s condition or any evidence investigators recovered. There were no indications of foul play and no obvious signs of trauma on Houston’s body, but officials were not ruling out any causes of death until they have toxicology results, which will likely take weeks to obtain." ...

... ABC News: "Whiney Houston probably died from a combination of the drug Xanax and other prescription medication mixed with alcohol, TMZ reported, citing family sources who were briefed by L.A. County Coroner officials. Coroners informed Houston's family that there was not enough water in the singer's lungs for her to have drowned, and that she may have died before her head became submerged in the bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel where her body was found Saturday, TMZ.com reported."

The Commentariat -- February 12, 2012

My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is on Ross Douthat's riff on Charles Murray's book about the moral decline of working-class white Americans. It's a short-course in how conservatives mischaracterize liberal policies and hide their own true agendas behind policies that sound good or that contains appealing elements. The NYTX front page is here. You can contribute here.

James Fallows, in a long Atlantic article, "explains" President Obama & his presidency. CW: I think you're still going to come away asking, "How could Obama have made such mistakes -- of personnel and tactics -- that even I could see were mistakes?" There's not a chance, for instance, that I would have larded top-tier Cabinet & staff positions with Clinton leftovers, especially since the Clinton people were part of the problem in the first place.

"Kill the Pill." Rachel Maddow in a Washington Post op-ed on the right's war on birth control, one which all the GOP presidential candidates have pledged to lead or embraced "absolutely." ...

... Nicholas Kristof: "I had thought that Jesus talked more about helping the poor than about banning contraceptives.... The cost of birth control is one reason poor women are more than three times as likely to end up pregnant unintentionally as middle-class women.... Coverage for contraception should be a pillar of our public health policy — and ... of any faith-based effort to be our brother’s keeper, or our sister’s.... Every dollar that the United States government spends on family planning reduces Medicaid expenditures by $3.74.... We try to respect religious beliefs, and accommodate them where we can. But we ban polygamy, for example.... Your freedom to believe does not always give you a freedom to act."

** Binyamin Appelbaum & Robert Gebeloff of the New York Times: "... many ... residents who describe themselves as self-sufficient members of the American middle class and as opponents of government largess are drawing more deeply on that government with each passing year. Dozens of benefits programs provided an average of $6,583 for each man, woman and child in the county in 2009, a 69 percent increase from 2000 after adjusting for inflation.... The government now provides almost $1 in benefits for every $4 in other income. Older people get most of the benefits, primarily through Social Security and Medicare, but aid for the rest of the population has increased about as quickly through programs for the disabled, the unemployed, veterans and children.... Politicians have expanded the safety net without a commensurate increase in revenues.... In 2000, federal and state governments spent about 37 cents on the safety net from every dollar they collected in revenue.... A decade later..., spending on the safety net consumed nearly 66 cents of every dollar of revenue."

** Rod Nordland of the New York Times: The war in Afghanistan "is a war where traditional military jobs, from mess hall cooks to base guards and convoy drivers, have increasingly been shifted to the private sector. Many American generals and diplomats have private contractors for their personal bodyguards. And along with the risks have come the consequences: More civilian contractors working for American companies than American soldiers died in Afghanistan last year for the first time during the war. American employers here are under no obligation to publicly report the deaths of their employees and frequently do not."

Erik Eckholm of the New York Times: "Far from dissipating, [Occupy] groups around the country say they are preparing for a new phase of larger marches and strikes this spring that they hope will rebuild momentum and cast an even brighter glare on inequality and corporate greed.... Though still loosely organized, the movement is putting down roots in many cities. Activists in Chicago and Des Moines have rented offices...." With photos. CW: this article is pretty negative, but try to read past Eckholm's skepticism for the content.

New York Times Editors: "The $26 billion foreclosure settlement between the big banks and federal and state officials is a wrist slap.... The banks did not get the blanket release they originally sought from legal liability for all manner of mortgage misconduct. But the settlement still shields them from state and federal civil lawsuits for most foreclosure abuses.... The banks are not off the hook for criminal prosecutions ... or for private lawsuits. They are also not off the hook for wrongdoing in their aggressive pooling of mortgages into securities.... President Obama will need to press his own administration hard to deliver an unsparing follow-on investigation that results in more clarity, more money and more justice." ...

... New York Times Editors: "The [Obama] administration has put forth far-reaching proposals to help homeowners qualify for refinancing. But the proposals would be paid for, in part, by a new tax on banks. That requires Congressional approval, which Republicans are unlikely to provide. The White House needs to challenge Republicans to explain why they are more interested in protecting the banks than protecting homeowners.... Too much time has already been wasted."

** Adam Liptak, who reports for the New York Times on the Supreme Court, writes an important op-ed on the "high-tech war on leaks.... "It used to be that journalists had a sporting chance of protecting their sources. The best and sometimes only way to identify a leaker was to pressure the reporter or news organization that received the leak, but even subpoenas tended to be resisted. Today, advances in surveillance technology allow the government to keep a perpetual eye on those with security clearances, and give prosecutors the ability to punish officials for disclosing secrets without provoking a clash with the press." CW: technological surveillance is not only a threat to privacy; it is also a threat to a free press.

Sarah Lyall & Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times: "As dozens of investigators and high-powered lawyers converge on Rupert Murdoch’s News International in the phone hacking scandal, attention has focused on the printout of an e-mail excavated three months ago from a sealed carton left behind in an empty company office. Addressed to Mr. Murdoch’s son James, it contained explosive information about the scale of phone hacking at The News of the World tabloid — information James Murdoch says he failed to take in because he did not read the whole e-mail chain."

Stephanie Coontz in a New York Times Sunday Review article on the changing patterns of men's views on the qualities that make a desirable mate. It's good news all around for well-educated women who want to marry men. CW: Coontz doesn't say so, but obviously men's drastically changed attitudes are a result of the women's equality movement. So, you're welcome, young women, for all of the effort women of my generation made to make your life more fulfilling. And if you're married and your husband is "evolved," figure out a nice way to thank him, too!

Vanessa Thorpe of the Guardian: "A close-knit band of friends and colleagues around Bill Clinton at the time of the Monica Lewinsky affair will speak publicly for the first time of their disbelief and sense of betrayal this month in a much-anticipated four-hour documentary about the former US president." CW: the documentary will air on PBS's "American Experience" February 20 & 21. Here's an extended preview:

Right Wing World

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post has a long piece on the GOP presidential nominating fiasco: "... what is happening to prevent the party from coalescing? GOP veterans say there are at least five forces at work: unsettled voters, lackluster candidates, muddled messages, an unprecedented inflow of money, and new rules that have prolonged the race."

Rick Santorum tells Sam Stein of the Huffington Post that health insurance should not cover contraception at all. ...

Cartoon by Drew Sheneman. In case you can't read it, the caption says, "Seriously? Him? First Gingrich, and now this? Is this a joke? Am I being punked?"CW: Willard may have won the Maine beauty pageant (nonbinding caucuses) yesterday & the CPAC poll, but Public Policy Polling reports, "Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP's newest national poll. He's at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul." Great. Because contraception is just wrong. *

* Economist Brad DeLong says the poll sample size is too small.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times on Mitt Romney's evolution from abortion rights supporter to anti-contraception, anti-abortion orthodoxy. CW: while Stolberg allows a surrogate to complain that Romney had not signed the "personhood pledge," she does not bother to tell the reader that Romney said he "absolutely" agreed with it.

News Ledes

Reuters: "Greek lawmakers looked set to agree to a deeply unpopular bailout deal on Sunday to avert what Prime Minister Lucas Papademos warned would be 'economic chaos,' and Germany demanded Athens dramatically change its ways to stay in the euro." ...

     ... New York Times Update: "After violent protests left dozens of buildings aflame in Athens, the Greek Parliament voted early on Monday to approve a package of harsh austerity measures demanded by the country’s foreign lenders in exchange for new loans to keep Greece from defaulting on its debt."

Here's the New York Times obituary of singer Whitney Houston, who was found dead yesterday. Story includes a photo slideshow & links to related stories. Links to the Los Angeles Times obituary and related content are here.