In case you think Republicans have a monopoly on brass-knuckle over-the-top campaign ads, take a look at this ad.

White House sidesteps questions about whether Syrian leader should step aside.

Haley Barbour says he’d reinstate DADT to avoid battlefield danger of “amorous mindset[s].”

Benjy Sarlin has been documenting Newt Gingrich’s epic flip-flop on Libya this week, but in this latest post, we’ve dispensed with the exegesis and just gone with Newt’s own words — raw and unplugged — on various aspects of the Libya issue. All you can say is: Wow.

Professor Cronon responds to the latest volley from the Wisconsin Republican Party over its demand for public release of his university emails.

As noted last night, the Wisconsin GOP has resorted to a state FOIA request to try to gain access to the emails of a University of Wisconsin History Professor who wrote a critical blog post about Gov. Walker’s campaign against the state’s public employees unions.

Now the state Republican party is charging that criticisms of their efforts to get the professor’s emails will have a “chilling” effect on open government efforts everywhere.

Gov. Walker’s (R-WI) staff says they never saw the email suggesting they stage a fake assassination of the governor to delegitimize his union opponents.

You can point to any one of a number of specific pieces of baggage that Newt Gingrich carries into a presidential race which could by itself sink his campaign, but his sudden, inexplicable, and utterly contradictory implosion on Libya policy over the last few days reveals as much about the man’s judgment, instability, and character as any of those old Newt stories — and happens to be fresh and concerns an issue of pressing national importance.

As Benjy Sarlin has been reporting, Newt’s flip-flop — and defense thereof — is enough to make your head explode. His current position on Libya amounts to: Obama should never have followed my advice.

This article in the Post says that Social Security is “splintering” Democrats while providing virtually no actual evidence that this is the case.

Beware articles that conflate Social Security with Medicare. Beware articles that hang on statements from pressure groups with virtually no constituency within the Democratic party.

Late this afternoon I mentioned this bizarre story of an Indiana prosecutor who had to resign his job today after it was discovered that he’d emailed Gov Walker during the height of the protests in Wisconsin suggesting that Walker arrange a fake assassination attempt against himself to turn the public against the unions. Here’s the story.

What occurred to me though is that the story sounds so cartoonish and unreal that you might get the sense that this was some sort of hastily penned throwaway line. Or perhaps it was meant as a joke.

But look at what the guy actually said … Read More