AP: “A South Korean presidential spokesman who was fired after inappropriately touching a woman during a U.S. trip blames a “cultural difference” with America.”

Rubio blasts press for being more interested in AP probe than ‘Benghazi’. Watch.

Two stories not to miss from yesterday.

First, with that White House emails brouhaha last week about Benghazi. ABC said they’d seen the actual emails when they hadn’t. They’d only seen written summaries, apparently by an unnamed GOP staffer.

Second, remember the deficit? Lost in yesterday’s news, it’s falling rapidly, on track to be the lowest since the Bush administration and falling again next year. Turns the entire Washington narrative on its head.

Yesterday the US Navy made it first attempt to launch a fully-autonomous carrier-based Navy Drone. Check out the photo here. Both visually, and in terms of its intended use, it goes a lot further toward something like an unmanned fighter jet than what we normally think of as a drone. Take a look.

Senator’s letter to constituent elides his vote against background checks.

It’s still not clear why the news of the IRS’s inappropriate targeting of conservative groups broke when and where it did last Friday — and no one was as perplexed as those in the audience when it happened. Eric Lach reports.

Soldier assigned to coordinate sexual assault prevention at Ft. Hood under investigation for “abusive sexual contact” and being a pimp.

As we reported a short time ago, those blockbuster White House emails which showed the White House aggressively massaging the fabled Benghazi talking points turn out to have been doctored. Doctored, edited, choose your verb. They were altered to make it look like the White House was more focused on the talking points than it actually was.

So what happened. A short time ago, ABC responded and said basically, what’s the problem? “Assuming the email cited by Jake Tapper is accurate, it is consistent with the summary quoted by Jon Karl,” an ABC spokesperson told Erik Wemple of the Washington Post. Read More

It was a very busy day across the board, not least for people who like to compare things to Watergate.

Full-size version.

You wouldn’t know it from the public debate in Washington, to put it mildly, but the federal deficit is actually falling and falling rapidly. According to new CBO projections out today, assuming no changes to current law, this year’s deficit will be $642 billion, the lowest since 2008. Chart after the jump … Read More