The gap in the Romney "secret" video: Corn says "the recording device inadvertently turned off"...

... according to his unnamed source who, he says "noticed this quickly and turned it back one [sic]. The source estimates that one to two minutes, maybe less, of recording was missed."

Really only 2 minutes? You sure it wasn't 18 minutes? Could the name of the source be Rosemary?

Mother Jones headline: "On Israel, Romney Trashes Two-State Solution."

David Corn has more material from the secret video:

During the freewheeling conversation, a donor asked Romney how the "Palestinian problem" can be solved. Romney immediately launched into a detailed reply, asserting that the Palestinians have "no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish."

Romney spoke of "the Palestinians" as a united bloc of one mindset, and he said: "I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way."

The full context is also there (along with video) if you scroll down.

What do you think of the way Romney speaks in this video? Obviously, the damaging material will be picked out and exploited by his opponents. That's the way the game is played. But some people might prefer "secret" Romney to the Romney we're used to seeing. He's more direct and clear, less stammering and reticent. And he's long had a problem with seeming inauthentic. Maybe it's time to roll out The Secret Romney.

"There was no pot of gold at the end of the adult-in-the-room rainbow... and there were only so many times Lucy could pull away the football."

An unnamed former Obama aide utters one of the silliest sentences we've ever read.

The context is the third year of Obama's presidency, which "did not produce outcomes sufficient for frustrated liberals [but] mark the end of the compromiser-in-chief" as described by David Corn in his new book, "Showdown: The Inside Story of Obama's Fight to Save His Presidency."

Speaking of Corn's new book, Instapundit has a story about Corn yelling at a manager at a Barnes & Noble over the stores failure to give his book its own display.

Top ten bin Laden memes.

According to Jim Pinkerton....

"WikiLeaks Fallout: Should Hillary Clinton Resign?"

Asks David Corn.

Clinton... signed orders instructing U.S. foreign service officers to spy on the diplomats of other nations....

Diplomats are not spies (though spies do pose as diplomats)....

The administration's strategy -- as is to be expected -- is to focus on the easy-to-demonize messenger, not the hard-to-explain message. But Diplomatgate ought to be a top priority for the oversight committees of Congress....

... [O]ne can expect Clinton to dig in her heels, as the administration decries the leaker and ignores the leaks.

Do we Americans really want our President doing "Question Time"?

I wonder how that would go. Should the President be spending his time like that? Would it undermine the independence of the second branch of government? This isn't Britain, you know. I think we should be careful about getting too jazzed up about Obama's performance at the Republican retreat last week.

"The thing that made Friday interesting was the spontaneity," Axelrod said. "If you slip into a kind of convention, then conventionality will overtake the freshness of that."

Yes, the Prez would get unfresh. That is: tired. And we need him to be doing things that are not done in front of cameras. American politics is already too much of a show. That's why we ended up with Obama as President in the first place! 

Anyway, there's this petition, "Demand Question Time." David Corn, Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, says:

"None of us are naive and believe that implementing Question Time will cure what ails our country and our political process. We do realize that if QT does become a Washington routine, politicians and their aides will do what they can to game it to their advantage. But even though there are problems with the presidential debates — which have been taken over by the political parties and a corporate-sponsored commission — those events still have value. If you want more Question Time — even if only for its entertainment value — you can saddle up with dozens (and maybe it will turn into hundreds, thousands, and millions) of your fellow Americans in calling on our elected representatives to show us their best stuff on a regular basis."

That's an endorsement? It has some value. Bleh.

"Is Obama under-performing because he’s black?"

That's an ambiguous way to put it!