10:43 PM: I think Mitt is doing halfway well in fighting back against this fusillade from Chris Wallace. But just how is very hard to figure. Romney has this fugue of words, which together just make no sense at all. Or perhaps it’s that each sentence makes logical sense but together the sentences amount to complete nonsense. And yet at the end of the statement, Mitt decides it all makes sense.
10:51 PM: That was a fascinating moment with the heckler. Did everyone see the Fox News security forces scramble to take him out?
I find it hard to judge who did well and who didn’t in this debate because it comes against a backdrop of public opinion that is in deep flux. There was a lot of evidence in the polls over the last couple days that support for Newt Gingrich has peaked and is starting to drop. And Mitt Romney’s unwillingness to attack Newt head-on suggests that his team suspects Newt is already in free-fall. If that’s the case maybe Mitt did well by just playing it safe. We’ll find out more on that front soon enough. Read More
Vanity Fair just tweeted that Christopher Hitchens has died. 1949-2011.
The ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ grinds its way through committee. So far not a single amendment proposed by critics has passed. Here’s what to expect today.
Congressional leaders come up with a deal to prevent a government shutdown. Game-playing continues on payroll tax holiday.
A scandal involving misuse of government funds has had the side effect of forcing Southhaven, Mississippi Mayor Greg Davis out of the closet. (Southhaven is a suburb of Memphis and Mississippi’s third-largest city.) Receipts from a gay sex shop in Canada, revealed by a FOIA request, forced Davis to admit that he is gay.
Said Davis, in an interview with the Commercial Appeal: “At this point in my life and in my career, while I have tried to maintain separation between my personal and public life, it is obvious that this can no longer remain the case. While I have performed my job as mayor, in my opinion, as a very conservative, progressive individual — and still continue to be a very conservative individual — I think that it is important that I discuss the struggles I have had over the last few years when I came to the realization that I am gay.”
This is the last day to get us your nominations for this year’s Golden Duke Awards. Those are our annual awards honoring great achievement in scandal, public corruption and all sorts of villainy and betrayals of the public trust. You must have someone in mind, right? Click here to see the categories we’re accepting nominations for and how to nominate your favorite.
Amid the ongoing controversy over the ‘Fast and Furious’ gun-walking scandal, the NRA has been pushing a much more outlandish conspiracy theory — that the Obama administration created the program to lay the groundwork for taking away Americans’ 2nd Amendment rights. And now Hill Republicans are starting to buy into that conspiracy theory.