"Mitt happens."

Newsbusters takes Jake Tapper to task for that "toilet" humor, but what I think is worse can be seen in the whole quote:

Absolutely. You know, in 2008, Romney was known for attacking his opponents. He has generally held back. But with the threat from Gingrich, here we have it: Mitt happens. And what we have here is Mitt Romney basically saying in this ad, "Yes, I'm a Mormon. But at least I'm not a philanderer, like Newt Gingrich."

What's worse is the casual swipe against Mormons. Tapper seems to think that's cute. Despicable.

Obama issues a "signing statement" saying he won't follow the part of the budget bill that he thinks violates separation of powers.

Jake Tapper reports:

One rider [to the bill] – Section 2262 -- de-funds certain White House adviser positions – or “czars.” The president in his signing statement declares that he will not abide by it.

“The President has well-established authority to supervise and oversee the executive branch, and to obtain advice in furtherance of this supervisory authority,” he wrote. “The President also has the prerogative to obtain advice that will assist him in carrying out his constitutional responsibilities, and do so not only from executive branch officials and employees outside the White House, but also from advisers within it. Legislative efforts that significantly impede the President's ability to exercise his supervisory and coordinating authorities or to obtain the views of the appropriate senior advisers violate the separation of powers by undermining the President's ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Therefore, the president wrote, “the executive branch will construe section 2262 not to abrogate these Presidential prerogatives.”

In other words: we know what you wanted that provision to do, but we don’t think it’s constitutional, so we will interpret it differently than the way you meant it.

Tapper notes that when he was running for President, Obama was very critical of the way President Bush used signing statements "in an effort to change the meaning of the legislation, to avoid enforcing certain provisions of the legislation that the President does not like, and to raise implausible or dubious constitutional objections to the legislation.” And then-Senator Obama said he would "not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law." Of course, Obama is President now.

"I feel like I should grow a goatee, smoke an American Spirit and crank up some Smashing Pumpkins."

How Obama makes Jake Tapper feel.

From the Mark Penn memos: "Release the tapes. Create immediate pressure that deprives him of oxygen."

Jake Tapper asks: "What tapes?"

The date on the memo is December 30, 2007, so it must be the Jeremiah Wright tapes. Can there really be anything left that the Clintons didn't use?

Here's an index of all the memos. Can you find anything interesting?

ADDED:

“A word about being human,” he wrote. “Bill Gates once asked me, ‘Could you make me more human?’ I said, ‘Being human is overrated.’”

LOL.

"People, people...I am not making light of this horse's death, nor am I inviting you to do so. Please keep the comments civil."

Jake Tapper taps the political angle —

... Clinton told supporters..., "I hope that everybody will go to the derby on Saturday and place just a little money on the filly for me. I won’t be able to be there this year -- my daughter is going to be there and so she has strict instructions to bet on Eight Belles."

— and catches hell.

"Let's talk about this silly, frivolous, nothing stuff so that America won't pay attention."

Watching this video, I thought, first, ooh, he's good. And then, what's with his hair? It seems to be coming undone in the heat... is that... is that a toupée?

Anyway, I came to this video via Jake Tapper:

There's an interesting meme of Democratic victimology developing here…

In addition to former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, saying that media attention on his hair stems from powerful interests who "want to shut me up", it should be noted that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is also wading a bit into the waters of victimology…

After being the first one to really amp up her disagreement with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, from Monday night's debate -- her campaign sent out the video of their respective answers before the debate was even over, and she was the first one to personally use perjorative adjectives against Obama -- she's now trying to raise money claiming he "attacked" her.

"Last week, one of the leading Republican candidates equated Hillary with Karl Marx. Yesterday, one of the leading Democratic candidates called her 'Bush-Cheney lite,'" wrote Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle in the e-mail. "Hillary is under attack from opponents on all sides. When you're attacked, you expect your family and friends to stand with you…"

The short, 440-word fundraising appeal uses a form of the word "attack" six times. With Clinton as the victim, naturally.

But of course we should attack them! They can fight back, and then we can respond to that, perhaps by saying that they're indulging in "victimology." They need to think through whether it helps their cause very much to seem thin-skinned and to act prudishly offended when we speak of superficial things.

You know damned well that they are using image to try to manipulate us. (They never complain when we say they look fabulous.) They'd like to be free to pursue their political ambitions by taking advantage their good looks -- why has Edwards done so well over the years? -- but to stop us from engaging on the image level. They'd like all their subliminal campaigning to slip into our subconsciousness unchallenged.

They want all their critics to engage with them only on the substantive policy analysis level where, frankly, America won't pay attention whether there's also any silly, frivolous, nothing stuff to distract them or not.

"You're into border security/Let's break the border between you and me"... sings Obama Girl.

Obama Girl is our new glimpse into the way independent YouTube videos are going to transform campaign advertising:



According to Jake Tapper, the video "poke[s] racy fun at the way some voters have responded viscerally to both Obama's charisma and the personal nature of his political appeal." Yes, and the video also stimulates the viewer to feel even more viscerally bonded to Obama. I love the fact that there is nothing the campaigns can do about material like this (although I'm sure there are people who would like to regulate this kind of thing and think it would/should be legal to do so).

Background facts (in case you are foolish enough to assume the singing voice is that of the woman you see in the video):

The song was performed by Leah Kauffman, a 21-year-old undergraduate at Temple University in Philadelphia, who wrote the lyrics with a friend, 32-year-old advertising executive Ben Relles, and the music with her producer, Rick Friedrich.

An actress/model named Amber Lee Ettinger then lip-synched the song for the video, shot by filmmakers found on Craigslist two hours before Relles and Ettinger hit New York City one Friday in May to shoot the video on a DV camera.

"Not including the hours we spent working on it, it probably cost a couple thousand dollars," said Relles, a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, who said he did it for fun, not money, but is also selling "Obamagirl" and "I Got a Crush on Obama" T-shirts.

And they do like Obama and hope to help him -- with material he can never (openly) approve of. Interesting how his inability to control it allows something so unacceptable to have its effect helping him.

But this is America. Meanwhile, in Iran, they're executing porn actors.

UPDATE: Ben Relles grew up in Madison.