Chuck Todd said "the stupidest thing" Josh Marshall has ever heard.

It's just painful for poor Josh to watch. Todd somehow actually says: "Democrats wish they had the diversity of speakers and deep bench [of the GOP] to show America...." Gasp!

Biden says something decent and sound, only to be swallowed back into the inane, unbelievable political script.

Here's Biden being a wholly decent and sensible person....

"I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties."

But, no! You can't say that. It's too completely straightforward and reasonable. He couldn't have meant that, the most obvious and ordinary thing to say on the subject of same-sex marriage (unless you're actually opposed to it). He had to be saying... oh, you know, the careful script that's been worked out for the Obama reelection campaign.

My link goes to a long article in the NYT headlined "A Scramble as Biden Backs Same-Sex Marriage," but I'm disappointed that it fails to include the awkward quote that went yesterday. Here it is, officially from a "spokesperson for the vice president":

The vice president was saying what the president has said previously – that committed and loving same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans, and that we oppose any effort to rollback those rights. That’s why we stopped defending the constitutionality of section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in legal challenges and support legislation to repeal it. Beyond that, the Vice President was expressing that he too is evolving on the issue, after meeting so many committed couples and families in this country.

Evolving. Isn't it funny, that the term "evolution" has been appropriated to paper over such bullshit? Why, I remember when "evolution" was the bugaboo of the kind of Biblical sticklers who hate gay marriage!

***

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first meaning of "evolution" is "I. A movement or change of position.  a. Mil. and Navy. A manoeuvre executed by troops or ships to adopt a different tactical formation." Apt! Here's the oldest usage:

1616   J. Bingham in tr. Ælian Tactiks xxviii. 132   The nature of this Euolution is clearely to leaue the File-leaders in front, and Bringers-vp in reare.

Bringers-vp in reare. Really, amusingly, ineffably apt!

ADDED: "They are so sensitive to Biden doing this because, number one, gay money in this election has replaced Wall Street money," said NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd.

"Dow Jones plunges 74 pts on news that @ChuckTodd wanted to see Obama's plan in writing."

Ha.

Via Legal Insurrection. Details on the Todd-Carney confrontation here.

Another occasion for the "Obama is like Nixon" tag.

Politico reports:

“I don't think it will be offensive at all when [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is] convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

When Todd asked Obama if he was interfering in the trial process by declaring that Mohammed will be executed, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, insisted that he wasn’t trying to dictate the result.

“What I said was, people will not be offended if that's the outcome. I'm not pre-judging, I'm not going to be in that courtroom, that's the job of prosecutors, the judge and the jury,” Obama said. “What I'm absolutely clear about is that I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors from New York who specialize in terrorism."

Journey back to 1970:

Nixon Calls Manson Guilty, Later Withdraws Remark; Refers to Coast Murder Trial in Talk in Denver, Then Says in Washington He Didn't Mean to Prejudge Case

...

President Nixon asserted today that Charles Manson, a hippie cultist now on trial in California, "was guilty, directly or indirectly, of eight murders without reason."

But, faced with criticism that he had prejudged the outcome of the Manson trial, Mr. Nixon issued a statement ... saying that "the last thing I would do is prejudice the legal rights of any person, in any circumstances."

***

Googling, I saw that this isn't the first time someone has compared something Obama did to the old Nixon/Manson screwup. Back in July, the comparison was made after Obama said the "police acted stupidly" in arresting Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

From that July article:

Robert Dallek, a presidential historian, said in an interview that Nixon’s comments, while seemingly a gaffe, reinforced his stance in the prevailing cultural wars and seemed calculated. “He was playing to the whole idea that conservatives stand for law and order and Democrats were permissive and indulgent toward criminals,” Mr. Dallek said.

So, what do you think?

When Obama said KSM will be convicted and executed, what was he doing?
	Making a gaffe.
	Trying to send the message that he's tough on terrorism.
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"It's a negative intensity" between John McCain and Sarah Palin.

As witnessed and characterized by NBC's Chuck Todd:



Is he blaming her? Is she blaming him?

"I can't emphasize enough the odd body language."

Harsh, but not all that unbelievable.

ADDED: "Chuck Todd" sounds like inappropriate personal advice to Sarah Palin.

"I feel like you're describing, you know, it could be Green Bay in Wisconsin."

That's what NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd said tonight responding to this word picture painted by Chris Matthews:

"Now imagine a town that's deindustrialized. You have the rotted, the rusty factory shell as you come into town. The Blockbuster and the diner being the only thing there with the gas station. Everything else is basically done. People living on checks. They don't really have jobs anymore...."

Green Bay is the third largest city in Wisconsin. A recent report in the Green Bay Press-Gazette was positive about the local economy. ("Northeastern Wisconsin manufacturers have adjusted well to competing in a global economy, providing continued opportunities for commercial and industrial lending... Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota... are not Michigan and Ohio, Midwestern states with more serious economic issues.") Yet these clowns picture nothing but a Blockbuster, a diner, and a gas station! Incredible! They're trying to provide fine-textured analysis of voting patterns in the state, but they seem to be reporting from an East Coast fantasy.

ADDED: Watch this "Band Meeting with Murray" clip from "Flight of the Conchords." Doesn't Murray look just like Chuck Todd?

About those "things" James Dobson "probably shouldn't know."

John Fund writes in the Wall Street Journal about the behind-the-scenes assurances the White House gave pro-life conservatives about Harriet Miers. Will the confirmation hearing delve into the October 3 conference call?

Some participants in the Oct. 3 conference call fear that they will be called to testify at Ms. Miers's hearings. "If the call is as you describe it, an effort will be made to subpoena everyone on it," a Judiciary Committee staffer told me. It is possible that a tape or notes of the call are already in the hands of committee staffers. "Some people were on speaker phones allowing other people to listen in, and others could have been on extensions," one participant told me.

Should hearings begin on Nov. 7 as is now tentatively planned, they would likely turn into a spectacle. Mr. Specter has said he plans to press Ms. Miers "very hard" on whether Roe v. Wade is settled law. "She will have hearings like no nominee has ever had to sit through," Chuck Todd, editor of the political tip sheet Hotline, told radio host John Batchelor. "One slipup on camera and she is toast."...

Should she survive the hearings, liberal groups may demand that Democrats filibuster her. Republican senators, already hesitant to back Ms. Miers after heavy blowback from their conservative base, would likely lack the will to trigger the so-called nuclear option. "The nomination is in real trouble," one GOP senator told me. "Not one senator wants to go through the agony of those hearings, even those who want to vote for her." Even if Ms. Miers avoids a filibuster, it's possible Democrats would join with dissident Republicans to defeat her outright.

It's one thing to grill Miers about the Roe v. Wade. That's what they did to John Roberts. It's an ordinary ritual that any nominee should have to endure. It's quite another thing to make the October 3 conference call the object of an intense investigation, with the participants subpoenaed and expected to hold up to grilling -- under oath -- about what was said. It seems to me that the decision to do that would be tantamount to an open demand that the nomination be withdrawn.