Jon Stewart learns a sad lesson

He realized that his interview 2011 with Donald Rumsfeld when he was plugging his memoirs was absolutely awful, allowing Rumsfeld to evade all responsibility for his lies and crimes. I panned Stewart for that interview at the time and said that it was symptomatic of a general failing of his, that he seemed to let politically powerful people off the hook when he was talking directly with them, unlike when he was taking about them in their absence.
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North Carolina showing the way for same-sex opponents?

I have mentioned that although opponents of same-sex marriage are threatening to defy any decision by the US Supreme Court that says that bans on same-sex marriage violate the constitution, they have been vague about what specific actions they might take. From North Carolina comes one possible tactic. Their Republican-controlled legislature passed a law that said that magistrates and clerks can choose to not perform same-sex marriages. The governor of the state, also a Republican who opposes same-sex marriage, had vetoed the bill on the grounds that employees of the state who have taken an oath to carry out faithfully the duties of their office should not be allowed to pick and choose whom they serve. But the legislature overrode the veto and this policy is now law.
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What people might do if same-sex marriage is legalized

We have heard dire warnings from people in the US, even Republican presidential candidates like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, that they will defy any attempt to put same-sex marriage on a par with opposite-sex marriage. These warnings have come in anticipation that the US Supreme Court might rule this month that bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.
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The Iraq revisionist history program goes on apace

Donald Rumsfeld is the latest person edging away from criminal responsibility for the Iraq disaster but rather than shifting the blame to the rest of the Bush-Cheney regime for what was doomed from the start to be a quagmire, he, like other media commentators, is now trying to blame president Obama for the mess that he inherited and has led to the current state of affairs.
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More complications on same-sex marriage

In the absence of a clear statement by the US Supreme Court, a patchwork of decisions about same-sex marriage have been created all over the country, creating a great deal of confusion. Such marriages are currently legal in 36 states and the District of Columbia. Some states have legalized them by legislative acts, some by referenda, but most have been as a result of courts declaring that bans on such marriages were unconstitutional.
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Good question

Dan Froomkin writes:

Sometimes people ask me: Why do smart, elite journalists quote people who they know are lying, or being moronically stupid, but not call what they say lies and stupidities? Why do they engage in split-the-difference false equivalence in political coverage that leaves readers terribly uninformed about what’s really going on?

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The coming Supreme Court vote on Obamacare

Sometime this month, the US Supreme Court will issue their opinion on whether the subsidies offered by the health exchanges set up by the federal government are consistent with the wording of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the official name of what has come to be better known as Obamacare). If they rule that they are not and invalidate the subsidies, this will result in tens of millions of people who now have affordable health insurance abruptly losing them. The elimination of the federal subsidies would be a serious, and some argue fatal, blow to Obamacare and thus on the surface Republicans should welcome an adverse Supreme Court opinion.
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The Fox News echo chamber

It is hard to imagine that Fox News only began operations in 1996, such has been its impact in shaping the political climate in the US, and not in a good way. There has been a lot of buzz recently about a paper published by Bruce Bartlett where he argues that Fox News has created a separate world for its viewers that is increasingly disconnected from the actual world and as a result is hurting the Republican party that has become joined at the hip to it.
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