The Commentariat -- May 24

I've posted an Open Thread for today's Off Times Square. Brooks was unintentionally hilarious today, so I've posted my comment on his column, and also my comment on Nocera's column. Kate Madison's comment, which is very popular among Times readers, is also posted here.

Today is Election Day in New York Congressional District 26. VOTE!!!

... New York's 26th is usually a solidly Republican District, but Democrat Kathy Hochul, who has emphasized the Ryan/Republican Tea Party Medicare debacle, was ahead by 4 points in the last polling done, and Democrats attribute her potential win to the public's rebuke of the plan. Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post, however, thinks Hochul's good showing is the result of her being the most experienced politician & campaigner in the three-way race.

Prof. Bill McKibben in a tongue-in-chief Washington Post op-ed on why you shouldn't consider the many recent disastrous weather events as even remotely related to climate change: "Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that 'climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.' Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether.... If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies."

Take the Money and Run. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Thousands of companies and nonprofits that received funds from the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program owe hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes, according to estimates in a new government report. A Government Accountability Office investigation set for release Tuesday found that at least 3,700 recipients receiving $24 billion in stimulus contracts and grants owe more than $750 million to the government."

Jennifer Haberkorn of Politico: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski has become the latest Senate Republican to shy away from Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan, saying she may not vote for the House budget later this week because of her concerns about how it might affect Medicare.... She’s the fourth Senate Republican who has either come out against the House Medicare plan or expressed doubts about it. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts have said they won’t support it when it comes up for a Senate vote later this week. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine has been vocal with her criticism of the Medicare plan, too, but hasn’t said how she will vote." ...

Yes, this is an undoctored photo of self-certified doctor Rand Paul.... AND Manu Raju of Politico: "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Monday evening he couldn’t support Ryan’s budget because it would add too much to the national debt.... The conservative tea party favorite joins some moderate Republicans who have voiced concerns with Ryan’s plan for going too far on overhauling Medicare.... But Paul said he actually likes Ryan’s changes to Medicare – and he’ll later unveil his own stand-alone plan to overhaul Medicare." CW: Crazy Randy is write about Ryan's budget adding to the debt -- it would add more than Obama's working proposal -- but you can bet Li'l Randy's Medicare WIP will be good for one special interest only: questionably-certified opthamologists.

Hear yourself. Hear yourself.... You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, ‘When do I decide I’m going to take care of me?'
-- Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) ...

... CW Translation: You're on your own, Sister. (Video here.)

Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu and U.S. right-wing politicians went nuts this week over President Obama's speech in which he said the Israeli-Palestinian settlement should be based on the 1967 lines, with swaps. Bibi rejected the proposal & lectured Obama, while wingers immediately said stuff like this:

Mitt Romney ('President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus.'); Tim Pawlenty ('President Obama’s insistence on a return to the 1967 borders is a mistaken and very dangerous demand.'); and Mike Huckabee ('This is an outrage to peace, sovereignty of Israel, and a stable Middle East.') -- Peter Catapano of the New York Times

... which was all a lot of crap because, as Andrew Sullivan notes, in November 2010, Netanyahu and Hillary Clinton issued a joint statement, which read in part,

The Prime Minister and the Secretary agreed on the importance of continuing direct negotiations to achieve our goals. The Secretary reiterated that 'the United States believes that through good-faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state, based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps....'

That is, Bibi & his American right-wing enablers have thrown fits over something Bibi himself has already agreed to. What a bunch of phonies. 

Mark Ambinder of the National Journal, who has proved to be a credible Obama Administration mouthpiece, on what the Obama camp thinks of the Republican field of presidential candidates.

Right Wing World *

Glenn Thrush & Jake Sherman of Politico: how the Republican House decided to pass the Ryan plan despite dire warnings from GOP pollsters, political consultants & staffers that it would be a political disaster with no purpose since there was no chance of its becoming law. Bottom line: Boehner can't control the freshman class of teabaggers, who think they have a mandate to run roughshod over entitlements, & Eric Cantor is colluding with the kids.

PolitiFact: "An ad from the Republican controlled campaign group Crossroads GPS [Karl Rove's group] asserts that unions are exempt from the new health care law as a political favor from President Barack Obama.... We don’t see any pattern that would support a case for special treatment." ...

... As Greg Sargent wrote last October,

Here's something important that's getting lost in the firefight over the money funding the ads by the U.S. Chamber and Karl Rove's groups: Many of the ads themselves have been debunked by independent fact checkers as false, grossly misleading, or marred with distortions.

AP Fact-Checker: "'Truth' was Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's buzzword Monday when he announced his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. He said he will tell the truth about hard choices facing the nation while others — President Barack Obama notably among them — do not. A parsing of Pawlenty's opening-day statements shows they were not the whole truth." The Fact-Checker then ticks off seven of the misstatements of fact Pawlenty made in just his announcement speech. ...

... Dana Milbank: so then Pawlenty goes on Limbaugh & lies again about having been an advocate for government that actually governs. CW: not only is Pawlenty a liar, but his "truth-telling" message is a wink-wink to the right-wing: he is contrasting himself with President Obama who has "lied" about his place of birth (Kenya) & religion (Muslim) & preferred form of government (communism/socialism).

... Pawlenty says his having once been a tourist in Europe & the Middle East qualifies as "having the most or as much international experience as anybody in the field." CW: Yeah, snapping those pix of the wife & kids standing in front of the Eiffel Tower probably gave him a lot of insights into the intricacies and nuances of diplomatic negotiations. ...

... AND former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson, a Republican, says Tim Pawlenty was a fiscally-irresponsible governor of his state.

The DNC has a swell ad demonstrating just how wrong the major Republican presidential candidates are on the economy. Message: don't believe what they tell you because they don't know squat and will destroy American industry -- and American jobs -- with their dangerous, unfounded fiscal belief system:

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

President Obama this morning on the devastation in Missouri:

** New York Times: Democrat Kathy Hochul wins in New York's 26th Congressional District.

ABC News: "The United States Department of Justice has green-lighted the prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards for alleged violations of campaign laws while he tried to cover up an extra-marital affair, ABC News has learned. A source close to the case said Edwards is aware that the government intends to seek an indictment and that the former senator from North Carolina is now considering his limited options. He could accept a plea bargain with prosecutors or face a potentially costly trial." With video.

New York Times: "A series of tornadoes struck central Oklahoma on Tuesday, wiping out homes and businesses and killing at least four people. Officials said the number could rise as search and rescue teams started to fan out across a state already battered by storms over the weekend."

New York Times: The mysterious, reclusive heiress Huguette Clark died today in New York. She was 104.

AP: "The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto a defense bill, fiercely objecting to provisions limiting President Barack Obama's authority to reduce the nation's nuclear arsenal and decide the fate of terrorist suspects. In a statement, the Obama administration said it generally supported passage of the legislation, which would provide $553 billion for the Defense Department in next year's budget and an additional $118 billion to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the administration identified three provisions that would prompt the president's advisers to recommend that Obama veto the bill."

Guardian: "Egypt referred Hosni Mubarak to court on Tuesday over the killing of protesters and other charges, defying speculation that Egypt's new military rulers would spare the former president public humiliation."

Washington Post: "Speaking before a wildly receptive joint meeting of Congress that showered him with more than two dozen sustained standing ovations, [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu said Israel wants and needs peace but repeated his flat rejection of a return to what he called the 'indefensible borders that existed before the 1967 Mideast war." CW: see today' Commentariat. Liar. C-SPAN has the full speech, with backup from his Republican Likud cheerleading squad, here.

Washington Post: "A top envoy from the U.S. State Department announced Tuesday that Libya’s rebel government would open an office in Washington, the latest indication that the United States views the rebels as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people."

President & Mrs. Obama were in London today.

Los Angeles Times: "President Obama this morning expressed his sorrow about the tornado damage in Missouri, Minnesota and around the Midwest, calling the devastation 'incomparable' and promising a full federal response to help in the recovery. Obama has already dispatched federal officials to the region to survey the damage and talk with local officials, and he said he will visit Missouri personally Sunday." ...

... AP: "Rescue crews worked through the rain-soaked chill of night, ignoring lightning and strong winds to dig through splintered homes, crumpled businesses and crushed cars in this Missouri town walloped by the deadliest single tornado in nearly six decades. Even more ominous: More storms, possibly strong ones, were on the horizon. The death toll in Joplin reached 116 on Monday and was expected to climb. But there were glimmers of hope: Rescuers pulled 17 people from the rubble, and Gov. Jay Nixon vowed that crews would keep searching until everyone is accounted for."

Washington Post: "Libya’s capital shook with at least 15 massive explosions Tuesday morning, as NATO launched its largest airstrike to date on the heart of Moammar Gaddafi’s regime. The strike came hours after French officials said Monday that France and Britain planned to deploy attack helicopters to Libya. Such a move would allow greater accuracy in military action within cities but would probably put their troops at higher risk."

AP: Harold Camping, "a California preacher who foretold of the world's end only to see the appointed day pass with no extraordinarily cataclysmic event, has revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21." CW: I hope this will be the last story I link about this crank.

The Commentariat -- May 23

Today, the 44th President of the United States comes home.
-- Teoiseach Enda Kenny

President Obama's speaks in Ireland:

     ... Here's the full text of his remarks, from the White House.

I've added an Open Thread for today on Off Times Square. Karen Garcia & I posted our comments on Ross Douthat's column.

No predictor of the future — not even Orwell — has ever been as right as Chayefsky was when he wrote ‘Network.’ ... If you put it in your DVD player today you’ll feel like it was written last week. The commoditization of the news and the devaluing of truth are just a part of our way of life now. You wish Chayefsky could come back to life long enough to write ‘The Internet.’ -- Aaron Sorkin ...

... Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times examines Paddy Chayefsky's notes for his screenplay "Network." ...

...Gabriel Sherman of New York Magazine profiles Fox "News" chief Roger Ailes. "The circus Roger Ailes created at Fox News made his network $900 million last year. But it may have lost him something more important: the next election." The wacko Republican "leaders" in Ailes' employ are, well, wackos, and Ailes knows it. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... Digby properly couples the Itzkoff & Sherman articles. ...

... As If Feeling Poor Roger's Pain -- Jeff Zeleny & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "The announcement Sunday by Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana that he would not run for the Republican presidential nomination ended one major chapter of uncertainty in the race but ignited new debate over whether the current field contains a candidate capable of beating President Obama next year." ...

... Meanwhile, Jason Zengerle of New York Magazine writes a companion piece for the Ailes profile: a profile of David Brock, former conservative media whiz kid who now heads up Media Matters -- the Anti-Fox -- and three liberal PACs.

Officer X in Time looks like an interesting blogger to follow. He is a gay, still-closeted (within the military only) officer who is following the procedure of ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell. This is an insider's look at how the post-DADT world of the military is evolving. Here's Officer X's first post.

Eric Dash of the New York Times: "The nation’s biggest banks and mortgage lenders have steadily amassed real estate empires, acquiring a glut of foreclosed homes that threatens to deepen the housing slump and create a further drag on the economic recovery."

Steve Coll of the New Yorker on "The Syrian Problem": "American policy toward Syria presents mainly a record of failure.... The Obama Administration should press hard ... to hold Syria’s regime accountable. Syria’s future is pivotal to the future of the region, and the country requires credible leadership. The time for hopeful bargaining with Assad has passed."

Tim Mak & Tessa Berenson of the Frum Forum: "After Obama’s address to the AIPAC policy conference Sunday, attendees generally thought the president left the building with more friends than when he walked in." CW: Mak & Berenson betray a misunderstanding of Obama's Middle East speech on Thursday, but so do 3/4ths of the pundit class, so who's surprised? ...

... The Atlantic's Israel advocate -- conserative Jeffrey Goldberg -- liked Obama's AIPAC speech, too, and he's still troubled by Bibi Netanyahu's scolding of President Obama: "... it is still off-putting for many Americans to watch their president being lectured by a foreign leader in his own house.... The Prime Minister desperately needs President Obama to defend Israel in the United Nations, and even more crucially, to confront Iran's nuclear program...; angering him constantly doesn't seem to be an effective way to marshal the President's support." ...

... Rick Hertzberg on the whole charade: "... a chess game ... has been going on for more than a month, beginning when Netanyahu’s office arranged for the House Republicans to invite Bibi to the Capitol to address Congress. This outrageous (some might say) collusion between the right-wing parties of the United States and Israel was designed to box in the President by having Bibi set the stage for the next round of Israel/Palestine/U.S. diplomacy by using the pomp of a joint session to seize control of the agenda. CW: I've got news for all the wingers -- Israel is a foreign country with its own interests -- interests that do not always coincide with our own; you don't support it the way you do Kansas, not that Kansas ever gets the kind of support Israel does. ...

... Glenn Greenwald on the same: "It is ironic indeed that the same GOP members who will stand and cheer wildly for this foreign leader in conflict with their own country's President are typically the first to scream 'unpatriotic!' accusations at others." This is an update to Greenwald's post; the whole column is worth reading.

Raffi Khatchadourian of the New Yorker on "Manning, Assange & the Espionage Act": "As simple as Manning’s indictment appears to be, the legal case against Assange, if there even is one, is murky, with potentially lasting and harmful repercussions to civil liberties in this country."

Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.): "Before politicians in Washington try to cut spending by breaking the promises made to our seniors, we ought to be looking at ways to cut the number of unnecessary Cold War-era installations overseas while keeping our armed forces the strongest in the world." Thanks to Jeanne B.

The Democratic National Committee whacks T-Paw, who last week said he had no idea why he was running for president:

... Pawlenty figures out some reasons to run, but he doesn't know why he might be better than Mitt Romney:

Right Wing World *

Andy Borowitz: "In what some fundamentalist preachers are calling a 'partial Rapture,' all credible candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination have mysteriously vanished from Earth."

Karen Garcia: "Confronted by David Gregory over poll results that show 80 percent of Americans don't want Medicare touched, [Paul] Ryan replied that he doesn't listen to polls. 'Leaders are elected to lead and are supposed to change the polls because that's what the country wants,' he said. Ryan was essentially making the outrageous claim that once politicians are elected, they no longer need listen to the will of the people.... Moreover, it is Ryan's job to change what people only imagine they are thinking." Of course Gregory didn't bother to follow up. ...

... Here's Gregory's "Press the Meat" interview of Ryan:

... Meanwhile, over on "Fox 'News' Sunday," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell chokes on Paul Ryan's Medicare plan. After serious haruumphing, McConnell refuses to say he'll support the Ryan plan, which he claims will "empower" seniors:

... BUT Republican Sen. Scott Brown (Massachusetts) pens a Politico op-ed in which he says he will not vote for the Ryan plan: "I fear that as health inflation rises, the cost of private plans will outgrow the government premium support — and the elderly will be forced to pay ever higher deductibles and co-pays. He goes on to blame Democrats for cutting Medicare Advantage & other stuff (tho he says this is no time for finger-pointing), but still concludes with a Democratic talking point: "I do not think it requires us to change Medicare as we know it." Funny, Brown doesn't see the Ryan plan as "empowering seniors," Mitch.

Paul Krugman's column today is kind of a bore which I didn't previously link, but this blogpost is a winner:

... the hermetic nature of movement conservatism — its loyalty tests, its closed intellectual world where you get all your alleged facts from Fox News and the Heritage Foundation, the 'wingnut welfare' that ensures that defeated politicians always have a cushy job waiting at a think tank somewhere, always made it vulnerable to this kind of spin into policy craziness. The Bush debacle undermined the control once exercised by the establishment, which tried to keep up the appearance of reasonableness; and now people like Pawlenty and Romney need to sound crazy even if they (possibly) aren’t. The 2010 election may, in retrospect, turn out to have been a disaster for the GOP: it empowered the extremists, leading them to believe that they could go the whole way...." ...

... Michael Grunwald of Time: "The most important political story of the Obama era has been the Republican Party’s growing defiance of reality — its denial of climate science, its denunciations of Medicare cuts while proposing Medicare cuts, its denunciations of debt while proposing debt-exploding tax cuts, its resistance to financial regulation in the wake of a financial meltdown, and so on."

This is fun. Newt says he and his wife "are very frugal people," um, who just happened to owe Tiffany's half a million dollars. Bob Schieffer calls the bill "bizarre":

* Where facts never intrude.

News Ledes

Fox "News" has details of the Sofitel housemaid's account of her rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn. They are horrifying.

AP: "New tests have found that the DNA of the former International Monetary Fund leader [Dominique Strauss Kahn] matches material found on the shirt of a hotel maid who says he attacked her."

Des Moines Register: "Minnesota Republican Tim Pawlenty made his presidential bid official this morning in a speech in Des Moines with sharp criticism of the current president and a call for less spending, saying 'there are no longer any sacred programs.'”

New York Times: "Conditions in California’s overcrowded prisons are so bad that they violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, ordering the state to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 decision that broke along ideological lines, described a prison system that failed to deliver minimal care to prisoners with serious medical and mental health problems and produced 'needless suffering and death.' Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. filed vigorous dissents. Justice Scalia called the order affirmed by the majority 'perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.' Justice Alito said 'the majority is gambling with the safety of the people of California.'” Washington Post story here.

NBC News: "Volcanic ash blowing toward Europe caused a change of travel plans for President Barack Obama and spurred one airline to cancel most of its flights."

President & Mrs. Obama are in Ireland today.

AP: "A massive tornado that tore through the southwest Missouri city of Joplin, Missouri, killed at least 89 people, but authorities warned that the death toll could climb Monday as search and rescuers continued their work at sunrise." New York Times story here -- story has been updated. NBC News has more here, including photos of the devastation. Earlier MSNBC report above. ...

New York Times: "The Syrian government is cracking down on protesters’ use of social media and the Internet to promote their rebellion just three months after allowing citizens to have open access to Facebook and YouTube, according to Syrian activists and digital privacy experts."

The Commentariat -- May 22

Maureen Dowd writes Queen Elizabeth's wildly successful visit and President Obama's upcoming trip to Ireland. I've added a comments page in Off Times Square for Dowd & have posted my comment on her column. If you want to write about something else, please do. ...

... The Irish Times has a page of stories on Elizabeth's visit to Ireland.

Commenter P. D. Pepe recommends Jon Stewart's take on the defenders of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, charged with sexually assaulting a hotel maid at the Sofitel in New York City:

Chris Hawley of the AP: hotel chambermaids are often the targets of unwanted and unprovoked sexual assaults and advances, and those who may appear to be in the U.S. illegally are the victims of preference.

Steven Erlanger & Maia de la Baume of the New York Times profile Anne Sinclair, the wealthy, famous beauty who is standing by her man, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Prof. Juliet Williams in a Washington Post op-ed: "One was accused of a crime, and one pleaded guilty to being a cad, but those quick minds in the infotainment business soon got Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger into the same story line: Sex and politicians! ... Uh, no. One of these things is not like the other.... When a term such as 'sex scandal' is used to describe behaviors running the gamut from politically irrelevant to legally actionable, I’d say we’ve got a problem. And the weird accident of timing here reveals how badly we still confuse consensual if illicit sex with violence against women." CW: this is exactly what I said last week in a New York Times comment that was decidedly unpopular.

"Apocalypse Not." Christopher Goffard of the Los Angeles Times reports on the Rapture that wasn't. ...

... "The Great Disappointment." Stephanie Pappas of Live Science provides a brief history of what happens to believers when doomsday predictions fail. Here's an interesting one: "After Baptist preacher William Miller predicted the end of the world on Oct. 22, 1844 — a date thereafter known as 'The Great Disappointment' when nothing happened — his followers struggled to explain their mistake. One subset decided that on that date, Jesus had shifted his location in heaven in preparation to return to Earth. This group later became the Seventh-Day Adventist church."

Nicholas Kristof's quiz on the Biblical wrtings on sex is kind of fun. I would quibble with a couple of the specific answers, which Kristof bases on a book by Jennifer Wright Knust, but the general tenor of the Q&A is accurate, and Kristof's point is exactly right: "the Bible’s teachings about sexuality are murky and inconsistent and prone to being hijacked by ideologues."

Herman Cain, another Republican who will never be POTUS, formally announces he'll run anyway. Fox "News": "In 2006, Cain was diagnosed with liver and colon cancer. He says he's been cancer-free since 2007 and credits the nation's health care system with keeping him alive. He says it's one reason he's so opposed to the health overhaul championed by President Barack Obama." CW: Right. And as soon as all Americans are multimillionaires like Cain, I'll agree with him that we don't need a public healthcare system.

Mitch Daniels is not going to run for the job he is not going to get. (Also see today's Ledes.)...

Mitch Daniels is a friend of mine and one of the best governors in the country. While he may not be running, he is an intellectual powerhouse and will continue to play a leading role in the Party's politics and the Nation's policies. Mitch and I agree that America's out-of-control national debt is a threat to our nation's future, and that the next president must restore fiscal responsibility in Washington, DC. Mary and I wish Cheri and Mitch all the best. -- Tim Pawlenty

Ben Smith Translation: Whew!

Right Wing World *

CW: I missed this post by Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress, but you do have a right to know, however belatedly, that Sen. Rand Paul is stark-staring mad, & doesn't mind proving it during a Senate committee hearing, where he said, in part,

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies.... It means you believe in slavery.... I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

* Where facts never intrude.

Local News

Rachel Stassen-Berger & Bob von Sternberg of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Bradlee Dean, a Christian minister, delivers an invocation in the Minnesota State House in which he implies President Obama is not a Christian. The prayer caused an outcry on both sides of the aisle & may derail a vote on a state constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage. Dean said later he favored enforcement of sodomy laws. CW: here's a surprise: "U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann ... has fund-raised for Dean's group and is scheduled to share a stage with him at a Tea Party event ... September." With video.

News Ledes

President Obama speaks at the AIPAC policy conference:

     ... Here's the text of the speech.

New York Post: "Disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn attempted to lure two attractive hotel employees to his $3,000-a-night hotel suite -- and later put the moves on an Air France flight attendant following his alleged sexual assault on a maid, The Post has learned."

Haaretz: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must accept U.S. President Obama's vision for Mideast peace if talks with the Palestinian Authority are to resume, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Sunday." ...

ABC News: "King Abdullah II of Jordan, a key American ally and advocate of the Middle East peace process, says he does not have much hope for progress on negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in the coming months.... Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who resigned this month as President Obama's envoy to the Middle East after serving two years, said that while President Obama's comments on the 1967 borders were "a significant statement," they do not signal a major shift in policy, especially when land swaps are taken into consideration." With videos of interviews.

President Obama spoke at an AIPAC conference this morning. AP story here. New York Times Update: "President Obama, speaking on Sunday to the nation’s foremost pro-Israel lobbying group, repeated his call for Palestinian statehood based on Israel’s pre-1967 borders adjusted for land swaps, issuing a challenge to the Israeli government to 'make the hard choices that are necessary to protect a Jewish and democratic state for which so many generations have sacrificed.'”

New York Times: "Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana said early Sunday that he would not become a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, telling supporters in an e-mail message that concerns from his family were the overriding factor in deciding to stay out of the race." Washington Post story here. ...

... Don't worry, Republicans; you still have Herman Cain who made a formal announcement yesterday and Tim Pawlenty who will make an announcement tomorrow.

AP: "A spacewalking astronaut ran into trouble Sunday while trying to lubricate a joint in the life-sustaining solar power system of the International Space Station, losing one bolt and getting a washer stuck in a crevice."