Cecile Richards, The Daily Beast
If you want to see what women’s health care in America will be like if Mitt Romney becomes president, just look at Texas and Arizona.Both states are in the news these past few weeks for trying to prevent women from getting health care at Planned Parenthood. It’s wrong, and it will have devastating consequences for women for years to come—and Mitt Romney wants to do it in all 50 states.

Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president.

George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, are expected to return to the White House later this month to be honored by President Barack Obama with the unveiling of their official portraits that will hang at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The White House confirmed on Friday that the Bushes are slated to revisit their Washington home of eight years on May 31 for a rare joint appearance between the current and past president.

Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard
For our part, we’d like to see a decisive triumph for Romney and his running mate over two formidable representatives of contemporary liberalism, rather than a discounted victory over a flawed ticket with only one strong candidate. So we sincerely suggest to President Obama: Dump Joe Biden. We’re sure the thought has occurred to the president. He knows his undisciplined vice president did him no service by popping off about same-sex marriage on Meet the Press, thereby forcing Obama to engage the issue prematurely. Instead of making his announcement of his...

Noam Scheiber, The New Republic
The Wall Street Journal has an intriguing story today about the anxiety in the White House over $2 billion-and-counting loss that JP Morgan announced last week. At first blush, the reason for the angst isn't entirely clear. After all, the loss would seem to strengthen the case for financial reform, which, as it happens, the president signed into law two years ago, and which Mitt Romney opposes. To the extent that JP Morgan revives the debate over financial reform, it would seem to benefit Barack Obama.  

Hugh Hewitt, Townhall
These quotes are from my interview Wednesday with Bloomberg View's Jonathan Alter, the transcript of which is here.Rev. Jeremiah Wright is relevant again, and about to get even more relevant, and it will be hard for the MSM which loved the 50-year old story of alleged bullying at Cranbrook to ignore the details of what happened 50 months ago. Alter is a strong supporter of Obama and a very smart guy, and he knows this re-emergence of Wright is very bad news for the president. His dismissal of the story is a cue for every other MSM lefty.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Full Flop | Mitt Romney once distanced himself from Ronald Reagan, but no longer

Ronald Reagan is the ultimate icon for Republicans. But has Mitt Romney flip-flopped on his support for the Gipper? The flip-flop charge was raised by the Democratic National Committee in an video advertisement. Separately, one of Romney’s Republican primary opponents, Newt Gingrich, charged that Romney has demonstrated insufficient warmth for the late president. In this item, we’ll ask whether Romney has flip-flopped on his degree of support for Reagan. We’ll start by noting that the Flip-O-Meter rates politicians' consistency on particular topics from No Flip to Full Flop. ...

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It seems for the moment that the arc of the moral universe is bending toward equality. On the heels of the president's historic announcement supporting marriage equality last week, several officials and even rap mogul and philanthropist Jay-Z have come out on the right side of history. In a CNN interview Jay-Z stated, with regard to marriage equality, "I've always thought [of] it as something that was still holding the country back."

Exhibiting praise for inequality is not a business plan, nor should it be a campaign slogan, yet Mitt Romney seems comfortable playing the bigotry banjo as the rest of his camp claps and sings to the beat. Romney had a great opportunity when Richard Grenell, his openly gay national security spokesman, was being attacked by the far right for being gay, to speak out against such vitriol -- especially given that Grenell was so highly qualified. But instead of standing up to the bullies on the right, Romney took Grenell's resignation after just two weeks on the job.

What kind of leadership does that show? Not only did Romney reaffirm his support for inequality after the president's announcement last week, stating that "marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman," but he recently reversed a statement he made on gay adoption. Last week Romney said that he was "fine" with gay adoption, adding that "that's something that people have a right to do." But just when he was starting to make sense, he quickly did a political two-step and retracted his statement: "Actually, I think all states but one allow gay adoption. So that's a position which has been decided by most of the state legislatures, including the one in my state some time ago. So I simply acknowledge the fact that gay adoption is legal in all states but one."

Not only did Romney recant his earlier televised interview, but he did so by misstating the facts. Only 18 states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex parents to petition for joint adoption -- that's a far cry from "all states but one."

Romney reminds me of a kid who is trying his damnedest to get the "cool kids" to like him, but he's failing miserably to convince them he's "down." It's essentially a role reversal from his high-school days as "bully-in-chief," when he led a group of kids in holding down another student as Romney cut his hair while the victim cried and yelled for help. Now, instead of being his own man and showing that he has grown past the "pack mentality," he's decided instead to adopt the role of sheep, following the rest of the conservative right's flock -- right of a cliff! This is the same man who took to the Bay Windows paper in 1994 stating that he would "be better than Ted [Kennedy] for gay rights." Really? But like the right has said about Romney's bullying incident, you can't judge someone on things they did (or said) decades ago -- ain't that the truth!

Danielle Moodie-Mills is the Advisor to LGBT Policy and Racial Justice at the Center for American Progress. Read her musings on politics and pop culture at threeLOL.com, and follow her on Twitter @DeeTwoCents.

Michael Barone, DC Examiner
Is it panic time at Obama headquarters in Chicago? You might get that impression from watching events -- and the polls -- over the past few weeks.In matchups against Mitt Romney, the president is leading by only 47 to 45 percent in the realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls. A CBS/New York Times panelback poll, in which interviewers call back respondents to a previous survey, showed Romney leading 46 to 43 percent -- and leading among women.

At a fundraiser in Elbert County last weekend, Colorado Republican Congressman Mike Coffman shared some startling thoughts about President Barack Obama, raising the issue of the president's United States citizenship.

Toward the end of his speech, after citing the downturn in the U.S. economy, Coffman said:

I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that. But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American.

Listen to a clip from the Elbert County fundraiser speech that was uploaded to YouTube above, the remarks about Obama begin at 3:21.

9News, which first reported about Coffman's statement and has complete audio of his speech from Elbert County, spoke to Elbert County Republican Chairman Scott Wills who was in attendance and said that the comment was met with "deafening silence" at first, followed by applause.

Coffman apologized on Wednesday night, completely walking back from his original statement about Obama's citizenship. "I misspoke and I apologize," Coffman said about the comments in Elbert County in a written statement. "I have confidence in President Obama’s citizenship and legitimacy as President of the United States."

Coffman went on to say in his written apology: "However, I don't believe the president shares my belief in American Exceptionalism. His policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals. As a Marine, I believe America is unique and based on a core set of principles that make it superior to other nations."

Fox31 reports that the Democrat challenging Mike Coffman's seat, Rep. Joe Miklosi, slammed Coffman saying, "These outrageous comments once again make clear that Mike Coffman is Colorado’s version of Rush Limbaugh."

In 2011, a Colorado judge ruled in favor of Democratic-drawn redistricting map and in the process made Coffman's once solidly Republican suburban Denver seat (District 6) much more competitive by including a relatively even split of Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated voters, 7News reported.

Congressional boundaries are redrawn every 10 years by the state legislature to accurately reflect population changes.

On Valentine's Day 1998, the four founders of Marriage Equality California (two gay men, a lesbian, and a straight guy) staged America's first public "mass-marriage" protest for gay couples. We organized about three dozen same-sex couples to line up at the Beverly Hills Courthouse and marched in, two by two, to have our purported marriages rejected by the city clerk's office. At the time -- only 14 years ago -- the protest had an air of unreality. People questioned why gay men and lesbians would even want to get married. How far we have come.

In 2000, another California lawyer and I drafted California's first civil unions bill, only the second one in the country after Vermont's. We did something unprecedented: we gave California gay couples equal rights to straight couples, something that had not even been done in Vermont. This idea, less than marriage but the fullest equality allowable by law, was considered so radical at the time that even the premier nationwide and local gay-rights organizations refused to support it. These organizations considered it politically impossible to even propose that gay people should have equal rights under the law and forced the pro-gay (but straight) legislator who introduced the bill to kill it and to substitute it for a bill that a gay-rights organization had drafted in its stead, a bill that allowed hospital visitation and a few other protections for gay couples but less than 1% of the thousands of legal and civil rights that marriage provides to couples under California and federal law. How far we have come.

I was pleased that Vice President Biden mentioned Will and Grace as one of the societal changes that helped change his mind. In 1994, I joined with a few dozen other advocates in a march on Hollywood where we met with high-ranking studio executives and asked them why it was that gay and lesbian characters were always minor characters and stereotyped. We reminded them that the depiction of African Americans in situation comedies had led to a decline in racism and an understanding by white Americans that black families were not so different from white ones, with the same joys and sorrows, pleasures and pain that all humanity faces. We urged them to show that gay families were not so different from straight ones and noted that it could be done with humor and sensitivity. I remember the face of a pained studio executive who had no counterargument. He knew we were right, but felt the "time was not right." How far we have come.

Last year, Frank Kameny died. One of the founding fathers of gay rights in the United States, Kameny served bravely in World War II but was fired from the Army in 1957 for being gay. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, which argued in 1961 -- and still says today -- that you can be fired just for being gay. That didn't stop Kameny. He organized dignified protests in front of the White House. He worked to change laws that made it illegal for two men to have consensual sex. He worked to change the view of the American Psychiatric Association that claimed until 1973 that homosexuality was a disease. It is less than a decade ago that the United States Supreme Court finally held that a state cannot put adults in jail for private consensual oral sex, something the State of Georgia had found punishable (even between a husband and wife) with up to 20 years in prison. How far we have come.

Fifty years ago, Bayard Rustin, the inimitable organizer of the March on Washington, was almost prevented from speaking at the event he organized, by civil rights leaders who feared his sexual orientation would detract from the Event. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. overruled the naysayers at a time when being gay was still considered a disease and a crime. Dr. King was way ahead of his time. How far we have come.

As brave as President Obama is for being the first sitting president to endorse marriage equality, his "evolution" on the issue must be understood in the context of America's evolution. On perhaps no issue other than marriage equality has public opinion changed so dramatically in 15 years, from a quarter of the population to majority support. People under thirty today have difficulty understanding why anyone would deny equality under the law to two loving, committed individuals in an attempt to prevent them from their pursuit of happiness. Just as people under 60 today fail to understand why this country once banned the marriage of the president's parents. How far we have come.

I'm proud to have played my small part in this evolution, from co-founding Marriage Equality California to helping draft the marriage-equality legislation that just recently passed in the District of Columbia. I'm quite confident that state after state will follow suit until, 15 years from now, all 50 states allow gay and lesbian couples the equal protection under the law that the Constitution purportedly guarantees. We still have a lot of work to do. But when the president of the United States finally openly affirms that gay and lesbian Americans should have the same rights under the law that straight women and men enjoy, it seems OK, for just a day, to celebrate, sit back, and reflect on how far we have come.

Mark Levine, a talk radio host in Washington, DC and a Fellow with the Truman National Security Project, formerly served as Legislative Counsel for openly gay Congressman Barney Frank.

Anita Dunn, CBS
"This president's policies for women have been extraordinary," former Obama adviser Anita Dunn said on CBS's "Face the Nation." Dunn also called President Obama's policies with women have been "groundbreaking.""Mitt Romney has a backward-looking attitude, particularly when it comes to women that I think will come out," Dunn said.

Mitt Romney said the protesters rallying against Bank of America in Charlotte this week are too young "to really understand how the economy works."

“Unfortunately, a lot of young folks haven’t had the opportunity to really understand how the economy works, and what it takes to put people to work in real jobs, and why we have banks, and what banks do," Romney told WBTV in Charlotte, according to National Journal. "It's a very understandable sentiment if you don't find a job, and you can’t see rising incomes. You're going to be angry and looking at someone to blame."

Romney said the protesters' blame should be targeted at "the president and the old school liberals that have not gotten this economy turned around." He made a not-so-subtle 2012 push, insisting he's the one who "understands how to get the economy going again."

The protesters -- which included Occupy Wall Street activists, environmentalists, pro-union advocates and victims of home foreclosures -- held massive demonstrations outside of Bank of America's shareholder meeting in Charlotte on Wednesday. Occupiers saw the event as a trial run ahead of September's Democratic National Convention, which will have an increased police presence thanks to a City Council ordinance from earlier this year.

HuffPost's Jason Cherkis and Zach Carter report:

In fact, the arrests have already begun. On Monday, three activists were taken into police custody for carrying a banner criticizing the bank, according to organizers who discussed the matter on a Tuesday call with reporters. The city of Charlotte has authorized a broad array of unconventional police powers for the bank shareholders' meeting on Wednesday. The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized the preemptive crackdown for permitting the arrest of anyone carrying a backpack, purse or briefcase with the intent to conceal anything on a long list of prohibited items, ranging from weapons to markers to bicycle helmets. Those same police powers will be in effect for September's DNC Convention.

"Part of it is testing those out," explained Tammy Shapiro, an activist with Occupy Wall Street. She came to Charlotte from New York City to participate in the protests. She called the new police powers "ludicrous." "There's the sense that we are going to challenge what these laws are."

The new police powers were authorized by a City Council ordinance earlier this year that also banned camping in Charlotte, effectively razing the Occupy Charlotte community.

Watch video from Wednesday's protests above.

With Gov. Romney the clear favorite to win the Republican nomination, the question of a Mormon president in the White House will be a hot topic this election season. One of the most prominent displays of Mormonism is TLC's popular reality show "Sister Wives," in which an openly polygamist Mormon family shares their life and faith with the world.

While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has officially rejected polygamy, the Brown family openly continues with the practice.

"Well, we're abiding by it because we believe the ancients used to," Kody Brown, the 44 year old father of 17 children and husband to four wives told The Huffingtonpost in a phone interview. "I mean all the cool guys in the Old Testament had more than one wife. It didn't make them righteous. They had to be righteous in spite of it."

When asked how they believe Romney's practice of Mormonism differs from their own, Meri, the first wife, said "He’s in the Mormon LDS faith, and we are in the Mormon fundamentalist faith. Both of the faiths have same origins but the Mormon church abandoned the practice of polygamy over 100 years ago.”

When asked who the family is voting for in the upcoming election, the response from the Brown family was surprisingly mixed. "We are going to vote based on the best person for the job, not based on faith," Meri explained. When pressed on what candidate they felt was the best person for the job, Meri revealed that “different members of our family go different ways on that."

The family celebrated Hanukkah this year instead of the birthday of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Kody Brown explains in the video clip above that celebrating Smith's birthday felt too much like idolatry whereas the spirit of Hanukkah inspires their faith further.

"Jesus honored the festival of light, this isn't a universal part of our faith, but something we've embraced as a family to enhance our Christian experience," explained Janelle, the second wife. "We absolutely accept the Old Testament and study it as a religious doctrine."

The new season of "Sister Wives" premiers on Sunday, May 13 at 9 p.m. EST.

Carl Campanile, New York Post
Bill Clinton thought so little of President Obama — mocking him as an “amateur” — that he pressed his wife last summer to quit her job as secretary of state and challenge him in the primaries, a new book claims,  “The country needs you!” the former president told Hillary Clinton, urging her to run this year, according to accounts of the conversation included in Edward Klein’s new biography of Obama.  The title of Klein’s explosive, unauthorized bio of Obama, “The Amateur”...

Robert Borosage, Huffington Post
Barack Obama put himself on the side of history yesterday. By supporting the right to same sex marriage, he did what the best leaders do: he tugged on that arc of history to help it bend towards justice.The media and the left naturally are filled with often cynical views of the president's motives.His statement is dismissed as a political calculation, forced by the need to raise funds from Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and the desire to rouse the young. It's decried as too little, with the president leaving states in control where 30 have enacted bans on gay marriage. It's...

-- In Europe, where more than 200,000 people thronged a Berlin rally in 2008 to hear Barack Obama speak, there's disappointment that he hasn't kept his promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and perceptions that he's shunting blame for the financial crisis across the Atlantic.

In Mogadishu, a former teacher wishes he had sent more economic assistance and fewer armed drones to fix Somalia's problems. And many in the Middle East wonder what became of Obama's vow, in a landmark 2009 speech at the University of Cairo, to forge a closer relationship with the Muslim world.

In a world weary of war and economic crises, and concerned about global climate change, the consensus is that Obama has not lived up to the lofty expectations that surrounded his 2008 election and Nobel Peace Prize a year later. Many in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America were also taken aback by his support for gay marriage, a taboo subject among religious conservatives.

But the Democrat still enjoys broad international support. In large part, it's because of unfavorable memories of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, and many people would still prefer Obama over his presumptive Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

"We all had high hopes for him," said Filomena Cunha, an office worker in Lisbon, Portugal, who said she's struggling to make ends meet. "But then things got bad and there's not much he can do for us over here."

Obama's rock-star-like reception at Berlin's Victory Column in the summer of 2008 was a high point of a wildly successful European campaign tour. The thawing of a harsh anti-Americanism that had thrived in Europe was as much a reaction to the Bush years as it was an embrace of the presidential hopeful.

Those high European expectations have turned into disappointment, largely because of the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama's failure to close Guantanamo Bay in the face of vehement congressional opposition.

Foreign policy expert Josef Braml, who analyzes the U.S. for the German Council on Foreign Relations, said many Germans give Obama too much of the blame because they don't understand the limits of his powers.

"There's a lack of understanding both of how the system of checks and balances works – or doesn't work any longer – and a lack of understanding of how big the socio-economic problems in the United States are, which cause the gridlock," Braml said in a telephone call from Greece, where he was on vacation.

Obama's views on Europe's financial crisis also have rankled some on the continent. In September, he said the crisis was "scaring the world" and that steps taken by European nations to stem the eurozone debt problem "haven't been as quick as they need to be."

The Obama administration describes the eurozone crisis as a European problem that needs a European solution. The U.S. and Canada last month refused to participate in boosting the International Monetary Fund's financial resources to manage the crisis.

"I think people see through his game to put the blame on Europeans – I think Germans and Europeans still know where the economic crisis had its beginning," Braml said. "That's just finger-pointing, not doing a fair analysis of the dire situation in the U.S., but I can understand Obama is doing that because he wants to get re-elected so they need to shift blame around on the Republicans or the Europeans."

Mehmet Yegin, a specialist in Turkish-American relations at USAK, the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization, said Europe still sees Obama as superior to Romney, "because they primarily evaluate Romney as a Republican and their memories about George W. Bush linger."

Many in the Mideast also would like to see Obama win a second term, though they feel he has not lived up to his Cairo speech, in which he extended a hand to the Islamic world by calling for an end to the cycle of suspicion and discord.

Obama has been the U.S. president "least involved in the Palestinian issue," said Mohammed Ishtayeh, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"We were very optimistic when Obama was elected. He talked in his meeting with us without looking into his notes; that tells how much he knows about our issue," he said.

But since Obama made his Cairo speech, Ishtayeh added, "he found his hands tied and couldn't make much progress."

The Palestinians have refused to conduct peace talks while Israel continues to expand its settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem – areas claimed by the Palestinians. Officials have quietly given up hope for any sort of breakthrough until after the presidential election.

Obama also has a strained relationship with Israel, where Bush was popular. Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been cool to one another in their handful of meetings. Obama's Mideast envoy, former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, made no progress during two years of frequent meetings with both sides before quitting last year.

Despite the chilly relations between Obama and Netanyahu, overall ties between the allies remain strong. The U.S. has backed Israel on several key occasions at the United Nations, for instance, helping block a Palestinian attempt to join the world body last year without a peace deal and fending off attempts by other countries to charge Israel with human rights abuses.

"Concerning Israel, he has proved that he is not absolutely rigid but is willing to reconsider when confronted with facts that he would not have expected," said Avraham Diskin, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

"He began very inexperienced on all fronts, but he is a very intelligent person and Israelis see that," Diskin added.

In Iraq, site of the war that fed much of the international community's dislike of Bush, Obama has received some credit for pulling out combat forces last year.

"President Obama has removed so much of the cowboy image of America that has been imprinted in the mentality of Iraqis by Bush," Baghdad lawyer Raad Mehsin said.

But Carawan Ahmed, a high school teacher in Iraq's northern Kurdish capital of Irbil, said Obama has ignored the Kurdish minority, which continues to struggle against the Shiite-dominated government.

"When Democrats, including Obama, are in power, we lose the sympathy and support from America. To be frank, the Republicans protected the Kurdish people, while Obama's administration is not," Ahmed said.

In Mogadishu, former schoolteacher Fadumo Hussein retains a shaken support for Obama, but disapproves of the mounting casualties from U.S. drone attacks on Somalia's al-Qaida-linked insurgency while the country's humanitarian need is neglected.

"He only sent drones, not enough assistance," Hussein said. "We don't need bombs, but other means of assistance."

Obama remains popular in Japan, one of the United States' closest allies, though that may be a matter of style over substance, said Koichi Nakano, political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

"The Japanese like Obama. Maybe they don't know all that much about him, but I guess he continues to be seen as a youthful, energetic, charismatic leader," he said.

America's stature has taken a hit in Japan since the 2008 financial meltdown, which highlighted the excesses of U.S.-style capitalism to many Japanese. They also fret about the increased attention Washington is giving China, which supplanted Japan as the world's second-largest economy.

While still widely admired in Japan, the U.S. "comes across as a more divided country and less self-confident, more concerned about its social harmony and less about the outside world," Nakano said. That's translated into "a general perception that Obama may not be that interested in foreign policy, period."

Obama, however, has tried to build on America's connections to Asia as authoritarian China grows. Adam Lockyer, a lecturer at Sydney University's U.S. Studies Center, said those efforts have been received more warmly in Australia because of who is in charge.

During a visit last year in which he received an overwhelmingly popular reception, Obama announced that up to 2,500 U.S. Marines will be stationed in Australia's north for joint training exercises. Australian government fears of a public backlash were never realized.

"The fact that Obama himself was making the announcement of U.S. troops in Australia quelled a lot of fears," Lockyer said. If Bush had made it, he said, "there would have been a lot more hostility."

"Democrat presidents tend to be a little bit more hesitant to define the world as good and evil, which tends to be more attractive to Australian ears," he said.

___

Don Melvin reported from Brussels, and Rod McGuirk from Canberra, Australia. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers David Rising in Berlin, Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, Mohammed Daraghmeh and Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank, Malcolm Foster in Tokyo, Mazin Yahya in Baghdad, Abdi Guled in Mogadishu, Somalia, Hamza Hendawi in Cairo, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, and Chris Torchia in Ankara, Turkey.

We're throwing our usual format away today, because this was a momentous and historic week in American politics, and we thought it needed the entire column to address. Call it an extended rant, rather than talking points. There are two parts to this rant. The first is positive. The second is negative. Then, I (hopefully) change it all back to positive at the end.

Most Impressive

We've had to create a new award today, because our usual Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week doesn't even begin to cover it. Instead, we award President Barack Hussein Obama our first-ever Most Impressive Democrat (On This Issue) In My Lifetime award. We fully expect the MID(OTI)IML award to be a rare one indeed. If the column is still around to issue a second one, we'd actually be (pleasantly) surprised. You'll notice, however, that we did think ahead, as the careful wording means that Obama himself could win a second MID(OTI)IML, if he'd just pick another issue on which to be so downright impressive, in the future. In addition to the big award, we've got several Bravo! honorable mentions to individually hand out, as well.

Bravo! to Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden Junior for his part in this historic week. Biden either (depending on which you believe) "got out in front of his skis" on the gay marriage issue in an interview last Sunday, or was the advance man for the rollout of a new presidential policy. Whichever version you're a fan of, Biden did indeed play a crucial role in this drama, and deserves credit for doing so. Arne Duncan had a part to play as well, but Biden was the guy who got the ball rolling.

Joe Biden said one thing during his interview that I found fascinating, because it is something I've personally believed for years. Biden was making the broader point that America and American culture had changed, when it came to the subject of being gay. Biden said:

I take a look at when things really begin to change, is when the social culture changes. I think Will and Grace probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far. And I think -- people fear that which is different. Now they're beginning to understand.

Biden's comment about Will and Grace is what resonated with me, because I've been saying similar things for years now. American culture -- television and movies in particular -- had a lot to do with the growing acceptance of being gay in America. Gays used to be a caricature in pop culture, when they were even acknowledged at all. Think Three's Company, for instance. But soon after, Hollywood and corporate broadcasting began to have their own very slow evolution. Billy Crystal was a gay character on Soap. Two decades later, gay characters began popping up on shows like Roseanne, Friends, Melrose Place and even All My Children. Then Ellen DeGeneres "came out" on Ellen. Soon after, Will and Grace opened the floodgates, which led to gay characters appearing even on hard-bitten cop shows like NYPD Blue. In the movie world, the turning point was likely the moving drama Philadelphia, with Tom Hanks playing the sympathetic lead role of a gay man with AIDS. All of these cultural references probably did more to "mainstream" acceptance of gay people into the American culture than anything else. Biden was right about Will and Grace, and he had the grace to say so, beautifully. Today, it's a rare sitcom or drama that doesn't have a gay character. That's a big change, and a big evolution, and it has changed the conversation in America -- especially with young people -- more than anything else. So Bravo, Joe!

Bravo! to Obama's re-election team. Politically, this week was handled perfectly. Last Friday, some rather weak economic numbers were released. Mitt Romney had planned to use this issue to bludgeon Obama all week long. Guess what? It didn't happen. Obama, instead, was in the spotlight this week, looking good. Romney was pushed off to the side, and pushed off message, and wound up the week trying to defend being a bully in high school. That is a good week for the Obama political camp. The more the subject of gay marriage is talked about, the more mean-spirited and intolerant the Republican position looks. Obama, in the political media parlance, "won the week" and he won it big time. That's a clear victory for the political wonks, and they deserve credit for how smooth this entire rollout truly was. Well done, Obama team!

And our final Bravo! goes to none other than Barack Obama himself. If you take the president at his word, he has struggled with this issue for a long time. Obama is no different than a lot of Americans in this respect. Gay rights have not just appeared on the American scene overnight -- millions and millions of minds had to be changed for their now-growing acceptance. People who either hated gays, feared gays, were disgusted with the whole gay concept, or largely indifferent and uncaring on the issue have all moved solidly into the pro-gay rights camp -- most of them, for the remainder of their lives. It is a major realignment of thought, but once it happens, almost nobody turns back to what they believed previously. Barack Obama has not been hostile to gay rights up until this point, but he personally believed that gay marriage was a step too far. There are millions of Americans who think exactly the same thing -- including millions of Democrats and others who voted for Obama last time around.

Obama, if you take his words at face value, completed this evolution this year in two ways: asking himself how he would have voted as a state senator if a gay marriage law was being passed in his state, and seeing the entire issue through the eyes of his daughters. He saw the arc of history, and he saw which was the side of right and equality and justice for all. He overcame his religious beliefs to see the issue differently, as one of civil rights. These are momentous changes in the way any human being sees his or her world. They are not to be belittled, because (as I said) millions of other Americans are traveling the same exact path, and not all of them are precisely where the gay rights people are, or even where the president now is.

In a word, President Obama is showing leadership on the issue. Now, there are those who disagree with that statement, which we'll get to in a moment. But the President of the United States of America just used his "bully pulpit" to speak out on an issue that no president has ever done before in such a fashion. This is history-making stuff, folks. This is what presidents like to refer to as "legacy" stuff. One hundred years from now, schoolchildren will read about this week in their schoolbooks. It is momentous.

For showing such leadership, for leading in the right direction, and for completing his evolution on the issue of gay marriage, President Obama not only deserves accolades and cheers, he also earns the first-ever Most Impressive Democrat (On This Issue) In My Lifetime award. Bravo, indeed, Mister President!

Most Disappointing

This section really should be labeled with a word that I can't remember where I heard first ("Dear Abby" springs to mind, but that just can't be right...). It is a one-word term for a sentiment which I simply must apply to many belittlers of Obama this past week: Qwitchyerbitchin'!

Seriously, it seemed like President Obama didn't get the worst criticism of his announcement from the far right this past week, but rather from his own base. This is exasperating in a number of ways, so we've got a number of Qwitchyerbitchin' awards to hand out. If you feel like this is going to be too annoying to read, then I wouldn't blame you if you just skipped the rest of this article. But you have been warned. Nobody's ox is going to be spared, in this gore-fest.

Qwitchyerbitchin' to everyone on the Democratic side who use the gay marriage issue as a litmus test. Seriously, just stop, OK? The most ironic part of this week, to me, was the tut-tutting which happened after Senator Richard Lugar was "primaried" out of office by a Tea Party challenger. Tears were shed, handkerchiefs were clutched, woe-is-us choruses filled the airwaves over how the Republicans could possibly force out of their party an impressive politician because he simply wasn't pure enough. If you can't see where I'm going with this by now, you need to have your irony-meter adjusted down at the shop.

People who feel perfectly fine expressing dismay that the Republican Party has such fierce litmus tests for office then also feel perfectly fine turning around and flatly stating that anyone who doesn't fully believe in gay marriage equality is simply unfit for office, and will "never get my vote." Putting down Republicans for not having a "big tent" party is stupid if you are arguing for the same thing on your side of the aisle.

I welcome Democrats who are not fully behind gay marriage. My hopes for them are that they will evolve eventually. If a politician votes the way I would vote on every other issue, then this is simply not a disqualifier for me, personally. I realize others feel differently -- there are one-issue voters on all sorts of things. But choose one or the other. If you're for litmus tests and party purity and "small tent" politics, then please don't comment on the Republicans being more efficient in their own purity drive.

Qwitchyerbitchin' anyone who is a leader on gay rights who said anything slightly snarky about Obama's decision this week. You folks need a wake-up call, seriously. President Obama has done more for the gay rights activists than he has done for pretty much any other Democratic activist group you can name. You guys have been in the driver's seat for awhile, now. Here is a quick, and incomplete, list of the other Democratic core constituencies for whom Obama has done precious little or even moved backwards: Labor, African-Americans, Hispanics, the medical marijuana community, civil liberties activists, abortion rights activists, voting rights activists, the single-payer legions, the government-option horde, the anti-Wall Streeters, the end-the-Bush-tax-cuts majority, and a good argument could also be made for the anti-war crowd. There are a whole lot of Democrats -- many of whom feel just as strongly about their issue as you do -- who have gotten very little, nothing, or an outright slap in the face from President Obama in return for their support. They -- most of them -- are still going to turn out to vote for President Obama's second term. Most of them are hoping that Obama will "see the light" on their issue and have the same sort of epiphany we just witnessed this week on gay marriage -- especially in a second term where he won't face the pressures of re-election.

But the fact remains -- in terms of specific legislation, in terms of how he has used his Justice Department, in terms of actually overturning bigoted legislation from the past -- Barack Obama is going to go down in history as the man who did more for gay rights than any other president -- and I even include most future presidents in that estimation. If Bill Clinton was the first "black president" than Barack Obama is going to be the first "gay president."

Qwitchyerbitchin', on whether Obama "went far enough" or not. Obama is not King. He cannot change everything, overnight. He's going to disappoint you on some facet in some way. But ask yourselves -- everyone who is parsing his statement and belittling how timid his stance now is -- would you rather have a president to convince to move even further on your issue who does support the concept of gay marriage (in any fashion), or would you rather have a president who had never made the news Obama just made? Which do you think will be easier to advance your cause? You just won an enormous victory, and all the rest of your future victories are going to be a whale of a lot easier because of what just took place.

Now, this sort of feeling can easily deteriorate into rank jealousy, among the Democratic groups who have not seen Obama's strong support or dramatic movement for their various issues. But seriously, gay rights activists, almost all of the rest of the Democratic Party is right next to you, cheering whenever Barack Obama moves America closer to a place where being gay will be as little remarkable as having green eyes, or being left handed. But you'll have to excuse us, because sometimes the ones outside the debate are the ones cheering loudest. We look over at the gay rights activists next to us in the midst of our cheering, and we see you standing there with your arms crossed, grumbling. We've never gotten to cheer in such a fashion on our single issue (whatever it may be), and it is truly bizarre not to hear you cheering along with us. So qwitchyerbitchin' and join in the celebration. Give the man one week of cheering, and then you can return to pushing as hard as possible to advance your cause in whatever way you see fit. We'll be trying to convince Obama to move on our issues, too, but at least give the man some credit during his moment in the sunshine.

Qwitchyerbitchin' to all the people dissecting the politics of Obama's announcement. We must, in all honesty, include ourselves in this category, to show how eminently fair-handed these rants can be. Ahem.

Political wonks are fascinating creatures (once again, including myself), aren't they? The entire universe is seen through the glass of politics, darkly. Nothing happens -- no leaf falls -- without us putting a massive political spin on it (before it even hits the ground). We fall all over each other to parse how many black votes Obama will lose, versus how big the enthusiasm will be among the youth, to what it will mean for him in the swing states, to watching the polling with eagle's eyes to see if it quivers. The rest of America (quite rightly) gets pretty sick of this sort of thing, since it really is geared towards a very particular audience -- other wonks.

Is Obama's leadership on gay marriage "good politics" for him, or "bad politics" for him? Well, you know what, we'll have plenty of time to discuss that sort of thing in the weeks and months to come. We should all just sit back, take a deep breath, and (once again) allow Obama his moment in the sun. If it turns out to be bad for Obama politically, then it is even more important that we acknowledge his leadership now. Leaders lead, and sometimes not everyone follows. That is the price of leadership -- being willing to take that gamble, and accept that risk. If it turns out Obama does gain support for his move, then we've all got plenty of time later to sneer at the cynical politics that went into his decision. For now, just get off the political high horse and stand next to everyone else in the crowd who is loudly cheering what Obama just did. Sometimes it's more important to cheer than it is to offer our sage thoughts on why each person is (or is not) cheering. Again, speaking for and to myself: "Get over ourselves, eh?" Obama just did something historic. History will remember what he said this week, not what we say, which should introduce a little humility into our writings -- humility which is in very short supply, at times.

Qwitchyerbitchin', in a similar vein, to those who are riding the cynical horse. Did Obama "evolve" just for more campaign donations? Oh, please. Obama's not going to be short of money later this year. He really won't be. Sure, there are plenty of gay rights donors. But you know what? That should spur every other activist group to action. If you're cynical enough to believe that absolutely everything in politics boils down to the money, then go out and raise millions of dollars for your cause! If it's "pay to play" then get your own leverage with the president. You want Obama to pay more attention to you than to the gay activists? Well, since we're atop the cynical pony, then pony up or qwitchyerbitchin'!

Qwitchyerbitchin' to all the people who know -- really know -- exactly what went on inside Obama's brain. These people are ignoring what Obama is saying (again, to my embarrassment, this includes me, as well). Maybe Obama is a Machiavellian multidimensional chess player, and none of what was said in the past week was anything short of sheer calculated politics. Maybe -- to put it another way -- Obama is just flat-out lying about his own personal journey in this regard, and the whole thing has been politics from Day One.

Isn't it odd that those who are arguing this point of view are falling into the trap of arguing exactly what Obama's political enemies have argued from the beginning? Righties -- for approximately the past four years -- have told everyone who would listen to "ignore what Obama's actually saying, here's what he's really saying." This is the same logic that came up with the supposed "Obama apology tour" (in which he never actually apologized for anything), and even birtherism. Obama's just a big fat liar, and we have the omniscient viewpoint of what is really going on in Obama's head. It's interesting to note (irony alert!) that these same folks are the ones who are, this week, arguing that Obama should be taken at his word and that the whole thing was just Joe Biden and gay donors pushing the president into his position, instead of what Obama is actually saying.

Give the guy a break. Take him at his word. He has personally and religiously struggled with this issue. He did not come to his views overnight, and he is a human being. How can anyone get indignant over something that we are projecting on Obama, when we haven't the tiniest shred of evidence for such analysis? Respect the ability of all people to make up their own minds. Respect the fact that everyone who disagrees about gay marriage is not merely some caricature bigot. The entire American public is "evolving" on this issue, and such things don't happen overnight. Reach out to those struggling with the issue with love and help them to walk the path to where you are. Don't belittle them for being further behind than you, and don't call them names and scream at them. Barack Obama walks a path many are walking, and all on that path should be given the basic respect for their opinions, no matter where on that path they currently are. In other words, qwitchyerbitchin', folks.

Change we can believe in

Now that we've got all of that off our chest (pause for a cry of "Tell us how you really feel, Chris!" from the peanut gallery), let's get back on a little more positive note, to wrap things up.

It's rare when you see history being made. It's even rarer when you see history being made, and it is the good kind of history. And it's even rarer still to know when it happens just how historic it truly will become. That was the past week.

This is the "change you can believe in" that millions upon millions of Americans voted for when they voted for Barack Obama. This isn't the only change we voted for, and a lot of change that some of us voted for simply hasn't happened. But that's OK for now, because this was indeed the biggest change we've ever seen from Obama. This was a momentous week for Obama, and for America. This is the sort of inspirational thing a lot of Democrats have been looking for. Sure, Obama changing his own personal views doesn't change any laws overnight. Sure, it doesn't go far enough. Sure, politics was involved.

None of that should really matter, at this precise moment in time. None of it is going to matter in that long arc of history. President Obama just announced to the country that discrimination against gay marriage was, in his opinion, wrong. He took a stand for equality. He took political risks for doing so. He showed leadership. He showed strength that even people who disagree with him on gay marriage will respect, as a politician and as a human being. He showed his love for his daughters, and his hope that they grow up in a world where they can continue to treat their friends with two mommies or two daddies as no big deal at all.

And that, my friends, is change I can believe in.

 

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Brian Wesbury & Robert Stein, First Trust
The Social Welfare State is dying. Like the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, the cradle-to-grave social welfare experiment must eventually collapse. A system of taxing work and profits, while subsidizing leisure, sloth, and retirement, must eventually fail.The end of the Social Welfare State is painful for many, and it will not end quickly or quietly as the elections of this past weekend prove. Francois Hollande, a Socialist, was elected president of France, while Greece saw a surge in votes for “anti-bailout” political parties in parliament.

The 2012 election should be about what's going on in America's boardrooms, but Republicans would rather it be about America's bedrooms.

Mitt Romney says he's against same-sex marriage; President Obama just announced his support. North Carolina voters have approved a Republican-proposed amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Minnesota voters will be considering a similar amendment in November. Republicans in Maryland and Washington State are seeking to overturn legislative approval of same-sex marriage there.

Meanwhile, Republicans have introduced over four hundred bills in state legislatures aimed at limiting women's reproductive rights -- banning abortions, requiring women seeking abortions to have invasive ultra-sound tests beforehand, and limiting the use of contraceptives.

The Republican bedroom crowd doesn't want to talk about the nation's boardrooms because that's where most of their campaign money comes from. And their candidate for president has made a fortune playing board rooms like checkers.

Yet America's real problems have nothing to do with what we do in our bedrooms and everything to do with what top executives do in their boardrooms and executive suites.

We're not in trouble because gays want to marry or women want to have some control over when they have babies. We're in trouble because CEOs are collecting exorbitant pay while slicing the pay of average workers, because the titans of Wall Street demand short-term results over long-term jobs, and because of a boardroom culture that tolerates financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign "donations."

Our crisis has nothing to do with private morality. It's a crisis of public morality -- of abuses of public trust that undermine the integrity of our economy and democracy and have led millions of Americans to conclude the game is rigged.

What's truly immoral is not what adults choose to do with other consenting adults. It's what those with great power have chosen to do to the rest of us.

It is immoral that top executives are richly rewarded no matter how badly they screw up while most Americans are screwed no matter how hard they work.

Regressive Republicans have no problem intruding on the most personal and most intimate decisions any of us makes while railing against government intrusions on big business.

They don't hesitate to hurl the epithets "shameful," "disgraceful," and "contemptible" at private moral decisions they disagree with, while staying stone silent in the face of the most contemptible violations of public trust at the highest reaches of the economy.

We must protect and advance private rights of individuals over intimate bedroom decisions. We must also stop the abuses of economic power and privilege that are characterizing so many decisions in the nation's boardrooms and executive suites.

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.

Charles Mahtesian, Politico
So how did a felon incarcerated in a Texas prison manage to win 41 percent of the Democratic primary vote against the president of the United States?For starters, Keith Judd was either clever or lucky enough to have filed for the ballot in the heart of Appalachia's anti-Obama belt.West Virginia's county-by-county numbers tell an interesting story: Judd defeated the incumbent president in 9 counties across the state, and held him under 60 percent in 30 of West Virginia's 55 counties.

Richard Cohen, Washington Post
Barack Obama has read and been influenced by Robert A. Caro's classic biography of Robert Moses, "The Power Broker." From the evidence, it is far from clear, though, that the president has read Caro's other books, the latest being the fourth installment of his massive Lyndon B. Johnson biography -- "The Passage of Power." He should immediately read it. It will teach him how to be president.Maybe I should have written that it will teach him how to be a better president. Where Johnson was strong and unparalleled -- personal relationships with much of Washington --...

Rock musician Ted Nugent discussed his profanity-laden CBS News interview on Friday, telling radio host Mike Broomhead in his characteristically provocative style that the left media wants to paint him as a "nasty man who wants to rape your puppy."

While sitting down with radio host Mike Broomhead, Nugent said that the left media and liberal figures like Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz try to paint him as an extremist.

"The left media and Wasserman Schultz will try to tell you that I threaten the president’s life and that I’m a mean, nasty man who wants to rape your puppy," Nugent told Broomhead.

Nugent also added a dig at President Obama's recollection of eating dog meat as a child in Indonesia.

"I wouldn't rape your puppy, but I'm sure if the president needs a little chow, I could do a little bushmeat for him," he said.

Nugent made headlines last month when he said at a National Rifle Association convention in St. Louis that he would be "dead or in jail by this time next year" if Obama is re-elected. His comments drew the attention of the Secret Service, who proceeded to meet with Nugent.

During the CBS interview, which largely focused on his Secret Service meeting as well as the entertainer's contact with Mitt Romney's campaign, Nugent went off on a profane tirade when reporter Jeff Glor suggested that he was not a moderate. From CBS:

"I think in an honest and sincere analysis of what Ted Nugent is, I think once you take away the battle fatigues of my rock and roll insanity -- I like to use this analogy: I'm a welder. When I work, sparks are flying and there's soot, but you know what? When I'm done welding, I take off the regalia. I shower, and I'm a pretty nice guy to hang around with. You know what I am after the welding? I'm a moderate. I'm an extremely loving and passionate man, and people who investigate me honestly, without the baggage of political correctness, ascertain the conclusion that I'm a damned nice guy. ... And if you can find a screening process more powerful than that, I'll [expletive] your [expletive], or [expletive] you. How's that sound?"

Nugent later apologized for his outburst.

Below, a look back at some of Nugent's most outrageous comments: