New York Times reporter Monica Davey was in Indianapolis to cover the Tea Party toppling of the moderate, establishment Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana: "G.O.P. Voters Topple Lugar After 6 Terms." Davey barely concealed her regretful tone:

Richard G. Lugar, one of the Senate’s longest-serving members, a collegial moderate who personified a gentler political era, was turned out of office on Tuesday, ending a career that had spanned the terms of half a dozen presidents.

Mr. Lugar, a six-term senator from Indiana who had won most of his recent elections with more than 60 percent of the vote, lost a hard-fought Republican primary to Richard E. Mourdock, the state treasurer. Mr. Mourdock’s campaign was fueled by Tea Party groups and national conservative organizations that deemed Mr. Lugar too willing to compromise and poured millions of dollars into the campaign to defeat him.

Mr. Lugar, 80, had not faced a challenge from within his own party since his first election to the Senate in 1976, and his defeat seemed to serve as a caution to moderates on both sides of the aisle.

In February, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a moderate Republican, decided not to run for re-election, citing polarization in Washington. Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota, a Democratic fiscal centrist, and Jim Webb of Virginia, a moderate Democrat, are retiring. Two other moderate Democrats, Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana, face tough re-election races.

The American Conservative Union, which compiles ideological ratings for congressmen, would disagree that the Democrats mentioned by Davey are "moderates" or "centrists." While Sen. Snowe is a legitimate centrist based on her rating of 49 out of 100 (I'm rounding the ACU's figures to the nearest digit), Conrad's 18 is certainly not "centrist," and neither is McCaskill's lifetime rating of 15. Tester and Webb are no more centrist, with ratings of 16 and 14 respectively. (To be fair, only six of the 100 U.S. senators had complied ACU ratings between 30 and 70, an indication of today's polarized climate.)

Tea Party organizers and conservative leaders held the Indiana outcome as evidence of a broader national demand for Republicans with unshakable stances on fiscal reform and conservative values, as well as proof of the continuing power of the Tea Party movement.

“Richard Mourdock’s victory truly sends a message to the liberals in the Republican Party,“ said Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth. “Voters are rejecting the policies that led to record debt and diminished economic freedom.”

For a number of Mr. Lugar’s supporters, the results were a sorry arc — not just for a man who has served for 35 years in Washington and as mayor of Indianapolis before that, but for a larger notion of trying to work across party lines in Washington.

….

Almost immediately, Democrats began emphasizing Mr. Mourdock’s conservative views. “Hoosiers deserve real leadership that will reach across the aisle in Richard Lugar’s successor, not Richard Mourdock’s Tea Party extremism,” said Dan Parker, the chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party.

For months, the campaign here had been intense, expensive and, by Indiana standards, mean. National groups including the Club for Growth, the National Rifle Association and FreedomWorks, which helped build the Tea Party movement, had viewed Mr. Lugar as a ripe and overdue target, and they poured millions of dollars into the state.

….

“Everybody’s time comes,” said Ed Budd, who described himself as a Tea Party supporter and handed out Mourdock leaflets outside a polling place in Fairland on Tuesday when Mr. Lugar walked up looking, in Mr. Budd’s words, “diminished some” from the familiar image he had seen on television for so many years.

Throughout the day, voters for and against Mr. Lugar confided quietly that they felt sadness and discomfort as they witnessed the unfolding scene.

By contrast, the Times shed no tears when another "moderate," Sen. Joe Lieberman, was beaten by Ned Lamont in the August 2006 Democratic primary over Lieberman's support for the Iraq War.

Jennifer Steinhauer's mostly fair profile of Mourdock Wednesday appeared under this sour headlinke: "Many Pursuits, but Bipartisanship Isn’t One of Them."
 

Media reports are quite explicit that the Obama White House chose ABC's Robin Roberts for an Obama interview because of her reputation for warm and fuzzy news and — her race and even her age. “The White House went with Robin because of her personal rapport, their friendship, the past interviews — but also her race [African-American], even her age,” one producer at ABC said to Politico's Dylan Byers about Roberts, 51. “There is a very strong, very basic connection there.” Think Oprah.

On Good Morning America, Roberts does close to zero political interviews — George Stephanopoulos hogs them. Roberts offered a "warmer, gauzier" and less combative presence, former CNN White House correspondent Frank Sesno told Paul Farhi at the Washington Post. The White House wanted a "conversation across the back of the fence," not a newsmaker interview:

“If you’re the White House and you have to deal with something this white-hot, do you want to engage this as a news story or as conversation across the back of the fence?”

Farhi added:

Roberts is amiable on TV, and having her across from the president suggested a soft and easy conversation, rather than a major policy announcement, said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay and lesbian civil rights organization. That she is a woman, a breast-cancer survivor and the co-host of a morning program that does not regularly feature battles among talking heads helped enhance this effect.

What’s more, Roberts is African American, which might blunt some of the opposition to gay marriage among African Americans, Sainz said.

“I thought the selection of Roberts was genius,” he said. “She comes across as the neighbor you’d be happy to have a cup of coffee with. That’s the way to frame this issue, as an ongoing conversation with the American public.”

ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said Roberts had a reputation as "direct but fair." But do the Republicans get to have a "conversation" on ABC when they take on a very controversial social issue? No.

Byers also suggested it was due to Roberts being religious:

Jonathan Wald, executive producer of CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight,” said, “The White House is very careful who it picks for which message. Robin is universally regarded as an excellent interviewer, and she and Obama have a relationship. It’s clear that the president likes to do interviews with her.”

By giving the interview to an African-American and Christian — two groups whose opposition to same-sex marriage has been significant — the White House may have been aiming to make Obama’s announcement more palatable to groups that differ with his support for gay marriage. (Christianity has long played a central role in Roberts’s life — she has credited her success to her parents’ emphasis on the three “D’s”: Discipline, Determination and “De Lord.”)

But while respected inside ABC and throughout the industry as a skilled and experienced interviewer, Roberts was also viewed as a safe pick for the Obama administration, in part because she comes from the world of morning network television and rarely flexes any political muscle or attack-dog approach to journalism.

“She’s friendly turf,” one executive at a rival network said. “I assume if Oprah was still Oprah, she would have landed this interview.”

On Wednesday's Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN host Piers Morgan mocked Catholic League president Bill Donohue's declaration that Catholicism demands that gay children should still be loved by their parents by suggesting in a later segment that he would have more respect for Donohue's opposition to gay marriage if he would just claim to "hate" homosexuals instead of being "wishy washy." Morgan:

To me, that's where the whole argument starts to crumble, you know. I almost would respect them more if they came out and said, "I hate gay people, I hate everything about them." I respect that more than this wishy washy nonsense about, you know, "Well, I would love them. Of course I would."

Morgan's mockery of Donohue and those who oppose gay marriage came as the CNN host discussed the day's news with singer and gay rights supporter Clay Aiken, during a program in which the entire hour was devoted to a discussion of President Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage, and the aftermath of North Carolina's vote to amend the state constitution to ban such marriages.

After the segment which included Donohue and a gay marriage supporter had ended, Morgan brought aboard Aiken and at one point posed to him:

When you hear Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League – and I'm a Catholic, you know, Joe Biden's a Catholic – when you hear him saying, you know, "If one of my children was gay, I would love them, et cetera, et cetera, but I would" – clearly the extension of his argument is, "I wouldn't ever let them get married." So, you know, they're fine, I love this little sinner," but they couldn't then have the same rights as my straight children.

He continued:

To me, that's where the whole argument starts to crumble, you know. I almost would respect them more if they came out and said, "I hate gay people, I hate everything about them." I respect that more than this wishy washy nonsense about, you know, "Well, I would love them. Of course I would." You know, really? What to you think?

Morgan then demonstrated his dissatisfaction with North Carolina voters for voting overwhelmingly to approve the ban:

I just find it extraordinary that North Carolina, your state, that people feel strongly enough when there's economic crisis, there are wars, there's famine, they want to go out and vote for their right to absolutely guarantee two loving gay people can't get married. What is wrong with them? I mean, seriously?

After Aiken asserted that some voters regret voting for the ban because the proposed amendment would also ban civil unions for homosexuals and affect  hetersexual couples in domestic partnerships, Morgan continued his condescension toward North Carolinians:

Yep, I think it may be time to wake up and smell the coffee in North Carolina.
 

The New York Times really loathes Rupert Murdoch. The Gray Lady almost achieved Nirvana on the front page the other day when a group of Laborites in the British Parliament asserted in a “damning report” that Murdoch was “not fit” for major media ownership. Bill Keller, recently the paper’s Executive Editor, devoted his latest column to Fox News with the headline “Murdoch’s Pride Is America’s Poison.”

The man who edited the New York Times is blunt: “I would argue that — at least for Americans — Fox News is Murdoch’s most toxic legacy.” If that’s not ridiculous enough, try this: he claims the problem is not that Fox is conservative, but because…wait for it…Fox pretends to be objective instead of openly admitting it’s partisan. Unlike, say, The New York Times.

“My complaint is that Fox pretends very hard to be something it is not, and in the process contributes to the corrosive cynicism that has polarized our public discourse,” he declares. Whether he was giggling uncontrollably as he typed this was unclear.

Can these liberals be more clueless? Actually, yes. Keller is smart enough to understand why the American people believe the media elite is shamelessly slanted to the left, and is presently huckstering for President Obama like he’s a struggling brand, a political New Coke. Keller concedes his media critics “probably are convinced that what they have created is the conservative counterweight to a media elite long marinated in liberal bias.”

But then comes another passage that really deserves its very own laugh track. Keller insists the conservatives are wrong. They’re not biased at The New York Times because “we try to live by a code, a discipline, that tells us to set aside our personal biases, to test not only facts but the way they add up, to seek out the dissenters and let them make their best case, to show our work. We write unsparing articles about public figures of every stripe — even, sometimes, about ourselves.”

Quick, let’s disprove Keller in a sentence or less. (It can be done.) Here’s Bill Keller reporting from Moscow in 1989: "Watching the Supreme Soviet invent itself is a little like speed-reading the Federalist Papers." In 1996, he asserted dissenter-murdering Mikhail Gorbachev was “a man of impeccable character.”

Unlike Rupert Murdoch or Roger Ailes. They poison America.

Anyone who reads The New York Times can easily disprove Keller. In stories about global warming, does the Times “seek out the dissenters and let them make their best case”? What about “gay marriage”? Abortion? Waterboarding? Anything Dick Cheney?

Keller concedes the Times has “often been condescending to those who don’t share our secular urban vantage point” on the social issues, but then insists “It’s also true that we have sometimes been too evenhanded, giving equal time to arguments that fail a simple fact-check.” There’s not a single conservative anywhere fishing in the deep end of the sanity pond who would agree with that.

Keller tut-tuts that Fox can’t really believe its shows are “fair and balanced,” because “that’s just a slogan for suckers.” And “All The News That’s Fit to Print” is for scholars? Isn’t the “fair and balanced” just as implied when Keller talks of how the media elites have a “code” where we “set aside our personal biases”?

But think of that Times slogan for a minute. The key words for Keller are “fit to print.” In the glory days of pre-Fox journalism, if the Times insisted a story – let’s just guess a story that gores the liberal ox – was not “fit to print,” the story was deep-sixed. Spiked. Axed.

The real reason Fox is somehow “America’s Poison” is because of its willingness to go around the liberal censorship wish list and define what is “fit to print” in a different way. If Keller really liked “seeking out the dissenters,” wouldn’t he applaud Fox instead of comparing it to metaphorical cyanide?     

Instead, Keller unspools the classic liberal complaint that what’s wrong with “news” consumers these days is they often seek “an information diet that simply confirms your prejudices.” The elitists in “traditional news organizations…see it as their mission see it as their mission to provide — and test — the information you need to form intelligent opinions. We aim to challenge lazy assumptions. Fox panders to them.”

Ah, those insufferable elites. But here’s what really, truly gets them: We don’t have to suffer them any more. We don’t have to rip up our morning papers daily. Only the subscription notices, once.

Now conservatives have choices. Now we can insist that it’s liberal twits like Arthur Sulzberger who are “not fit” for media ownership, at least not the kind we want to bankroll. The republic will survive without having its information diet loaded with the empty calories of The New York Times.

On MSNBC's Ed Show on Monday night, Ed Schultz attacked Mitt Romney for failing to disagree emphatically with a voter who said Obama should be tried for treason. "For all his faults, at least John McCain [in 2008] had the guts to talk down the crazy. Four years later, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party doesn't have the character or leadership skills to correct conspiracy theories on the road at an event? Romney didn't address the treason accusation at an event until a reporter grilled him about it."

Guess who didn't have the "character or leadership skills" to correct his supporters when they made crazy talk about "treason" in the last presidential election? That would be Barack Obama. Which supporters? You can start with…Keith Olbermann, occupying Ed Schultz's current spot on MSNBC. Check out Olbermann on April 25, 2008, for example, when the treason came from Team Clinton, which was supposedly going to undermine Obama in the fall:

OLBERMANN: Surely, the specifics of the racial aspect to this are being overplayed, aren’t they? I mean, if any Democrat were to deliberately try to undermine another Democrat`s chances at winning in November, wouldn’t that just be regardless of color, gender, or anything else, would not that not be political treason or something like it?

REP. JIM CLYBURN: That’s absolutely correct. No question about that.

Of course, Krazy Keith also unleashed this attack on Team Bush. Take Valentine's Day, 2008, on Bush's promise to veto any extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that did not grant immunity to the telecom companies:

OLBERMANN: Because if there were, sir, now that you have vetoed an extension of this eavesdropping, if some terrorist attack were to follow, you would not merely be guilty of siding with the terrorists. You would not merely be guilty of prioritizing the telecoms over the people. You would not merely be guilty of stupidity. You would not merely be guilty of treason, sir. You would be personally, and eternally, responsible.

And if there is one thing we know about you, Mr. Bush, one thing that you have proved time and time again, it is that you are never responsible.

But Schultz in 2012 just regurgitates Obama talking points like he was that actress Alicia Silverstone feeding her baby:

The Obama campaign responded with this statement, "Time after time, in this campaign, Mitt Romney has had the opportunity to show that he has the fortitude to stand up to hateful and over-the-line rhetoric. And time after time, he has failed to do so. If this is the leadership he has shown on the campaign trial, what can the American people expect of him as commander-in-chief?"

You know, now, this is the key point. Today's event displayed Mitt Romney`s weak leadership skills. It's become a pattern. Last week, Romney buckled to the Christian right getting rid of a top foreign advisor because he was gay. And a few months ago, he was all about Ted Nugent until he said crazy stuff. And now, he's allowed an accusation of treason to slide by. This is about character.

What really made Schultz's opposition to "crazy talk" amusing was his first guest to address the "treason" talk on Monday: Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who just recently was describing the House Speaker and the House Majority Leader as "demons." Jane Wagner came to her defense. 

Waters praised Schultz for his attack: "Well, Ed, you nailed him again. He has been consistent in lack of being grounded in anything."

It's becoming clearer and clearer that the time has come for MSNBC's Chris Matthews to retire.

On Tuesday's Hardball, despite virtually every intelligent person in this country knowing that Ford was the lone American car company to not accept a bailout in 2009, Matthews actually claimed President Obama "bet on" the auto giant (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: It seems to me one thing that somebody of a business background like Romney – and that’s where he spent his life, making money – should be very good at picking winners, testing business character, who’s got it, who doesn’t have it. Alan Mulally, the head of Ford now, has taken them to number five in the country as profitable corporation. Ford is back as the number five most profitable company in the country right now.

Again, back to you, John, it seems to me that somebody should have paid attention to the fact that Mulally having this kind of gift and ability to do this kind of thing, and he didn’t bet on him. Obama bet on him.

No, Mulally bet on himself and his employees by refusing to take one red cent from the federal government.

But this is the kind of misinformation we should expect from the likes of Matthews and virtually all the Obama-loving media as they do everything within their power to get the current White House resident reelected including misrepresenting the truth.

Before you think that too harsh, consider that New York magazine's John Heilemann played right along with lie:

JOHN HEILEMANN, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Yeah, well, it’s true, Chris, although just, I mean, yes, Obama made a big bet there as did Steve Rattner the car czar under Obama that they identified the leadership of at least a couple of those companies in Detroit as having been capable of survival and thriving if they just got a little help from government.

Also involved in this segment was Politico's Maggie Habermann. She too chose not to bother correcting Matthews.

And this is what passes for news on this disgraceful farce of a television network.

The folks at NBC, Comcast, and General Electric must be so proud of this division.

Martin Bashir — he who slammed Ann Romney as "two-faced," gratuitously ripped fellow Christian Rick Santorum by comparing him to Stalin, and cravenly suggested Santorum's less of a genuine Christian than Barack Obama  judged by the amount of money the men gave to charity respectively — mounted his moral high horse yet again to thunder hellfire and brimstone upon a conservative Republican.

The target of MSNBC's demon deacon today was Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), whom Bashir was calling to account for his plans to vote for a bill that would spare the Pentagon of budget cuts by trimming social welfare spending elsewhere in the federal budget.

Bashir wasted no time getting straight to his biased, loaded questions:

We want to recognize your support for Meals on Wheels and your service to the community, but, are you, as Rep. Gwen Moore said on this broadcast yesterday, are you really going to vote with your colleagues in the House to cut food deliveries for the elderly, school lunch subsidies for 280,000 poor children, and vote for 300,000 poor children to lose their health insurance. Are you going to vote for that?

Barton responded that he was committed to voting to "honor our commitment that we made last summer to begin to reduce the gigantic federal deficit." Barton added that he and his wife personally financially support the Meals on Wheels program, and that his wife regularly volunteers for the program.

Bashir, of course, wasn't satisfied with Barton's exercise of personal charity and sought to use the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and later the Bible, as cudgels to accuse Barton, who is United Methodist, of being a bad Christian.

"You will know that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has expressed some very real criticism of this targeting of the poor and the refusal to raise taxes on the super-rich," Bashir complained before turning to attack Barton by ripping a psalm out of context:

How do you square your approach to the words of Psalm 146, where the psalmist writes this:

"He gives food to the hungry, the Lord protects the foreigners, he defends orphans and widows."

Isn't this the exact opposite of the cuts that are being proposed by Republicans in Congress?

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But alas, the VERY psalm that Bashir is quoting warns the reader to not put one's trust in government but in God (emphasis mine):

Put not your trust in princes,in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.
(Psalm 146:3-4 ESV)

The psalmist continues by ascribing glory to God and announcing blessing upon those who trust in the Lord, the God of Jacob (Israel):

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the LORD!
(Psalm 146:5-10 ESV)

It is the Lord who will reign forever, not human princes who return in death to the earth and whose plans perish with them. Bashir's use of Psalm 146 would only makes sense if one views the federal government as acting as God.

True, Christians are called to imitate God's character (Eph. 5:1; I Cor. 11:1; I Cor. 1:6) and to "do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith" (Gal. 6:10).

And yes, Christians aren't simply to pray for the welfare of the afflicted but to personally do what they can to help them out of their own financial means (James 2:15-16). But As Bashir himself admits, Barton does his part personally to help those in need.

Bashir, however, seems to believe the hallmark of Christian charity is not simply doing good personally but using government to fund charitable enterprises, an issue on which the Bible is, quite simply silent, and about which Christians can charitably debate and disagree on civilly.

Alas, civil debate in a spirit of brotherly love seems to be the furthest thing from Brother Bashir's mind in episodes like this.

When a lone attendee at a Mitt Romney rally said President Obama should be tried for treason, Romney ignored and later disagreed with the statement. CNN correspondent Jim Acosta played up the incident big time on Tuesday's The Situation Room, using it as an example of the Romney campaign being "straight off script."

Of course, CNN is helping the Romney campaign to be "off script" by hammering them for a non-story. "I don't correct all the questions that get asked at me," Romney explained to a reporter after the event, and added that he "obviously" didn't agree with the woman. However, this prompt correction was not enough for Acosta, who insisted the campaign had veered off course. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN showed far less discretion than Romney back in 2006, when reporter Susan Roesgen described a figure of President Bush's face with horns and a Hitler moustache as simply a "look-alike" of Bush. She did not denounce the despicable display, but instead put it on the air as a Bush "look-alike."

During Acosta's Tuesday report, the headline blared "Trying Obama for Treason? Romney camp falling off message," which implies the Romney campaign is either saying Obama should be tried for treason or wasting valuable time on the topic – neither of which is accurate.  However, Democrats said it was an issue, and CNN reported that.

"Democrats said Romney failed the John McCain test, noting how the Arizona senator handled an unruly supporter four years ago," reported Acosta after he mentioned the incident at the rally. And he added that "Democrats sensed another gift" before covering Romney taking credit for the recovery of the U.S. auto industry.

CNN then aired an auto union worker criticizing Romney for taking credit. The United Auto Workers union is one of the biggest donors to Democrats so the criticism does not come as a surprise, and CNN did not disclose that the UAW is a Democratic heavy-hitter.

More grace was shown to Vice President Biden later in the hour for his Tuesday morning statement that drove headlines, that when Obama took office America was "the problem" in dealing with Iran.

With a headline titled "Not Your Typical Vice President," CNN's Gloria Borger noted the "difficult transition" Biden had to make from being a Senator to being a Vice President. White House correspondent Jessica Yellin admitted that "he causes headaches" but "he's perceived as far more help than hurt."

"He's a very smart guy. He's going to play a significant role as a strategist, shall we say, in the re-election campaign," said anchor Wolf Blitzer.

A transcript of the segment, which aired on May 8 on The Situation Room at 4:01 p.m. EDT, is as follows:

[4:01]

WOLF BLITZER: But we begin this hour with the Romney campaign having some trouble staying on message. Let's go straight to our national political correspondent Jim Acosta. He's on the campaign trail with the presumptive Republican nominee. You're in Lansing, Michgan right now. Tell us what's going on, Jim.

[HEADLINE: Trying Obama for Treason? Romney camp falling off message]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN national political correspondent: Wolf, earlier today Mitt Romney accused President Obama of governing to the left of Bill Clinton and bringing big government back with a vengeance. It is a new message for a campaign that is sometimes straight off script in recent days.

(Video Clip)

ACOSTA: (voice-over) In Michigan, Mitt Romney tried to steer his campaign back on message.

MITT ROMNEY: America's going in the wrong direction. Not forward, but sideways. Or worse.

ACOSTA: He not only hit the President's campaign slogan "Forward," but also slammed the fictional character on Mr. Obama's website "Julia," who's shown receiving help from government programs all her life.

ROMNEY: What does it say about a president's policies when he has to use a cartoon character rather than real people to justify his record?

ACOSTA: But keeping his campaign on script hasn't been easy this week. Take Monday's townhall in Ohio, where a supporter suggested the President is a traitor.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah I do agree he should be tried for treason.

ACOSTA: Romney didn't correct her.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Is there a reason you didn't correct her or say that you wouldn't?

ROMNEY: I answered the question.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Okay. But you don't agree with her answer?

ROMNEY: I don't correct all the questions that get asked at me. I obviously don't agree with her.

ACOSTA: Democrats said Romney failed the John McCain test, noting how the Arizona senator handled an unruly supporter four years ago.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: He's an Arab. He is not – no?

Sen. JOHN MCCAIN (R-Ariz.): No. No ma'am. No ma'am. He's – he's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with.

ACOSTA: Democrats sensed another gift when shortly after Romney's townhall, he claimed credit for the survival of the U.S. auto industry.

ROMNEY: I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy, so I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry has come back.

ACOSTA: But just across the street from Romney's event in Michigan, protesters reminded the GOP contender he opposed the auto bailout.

RANDY FREEMAN, United Auto Workers: I don't know how he can take credit for anything.

(End Video Clip)

ACOSTA: Now the offscript bug may be catching. Just ask the director of Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee. She held a briefing with reporters earlier today, and when asked about Mitt Romney's position on immigration, she said quote, "To my understanding, he's still deciding what his position on immigration is. And on that same conference call, or in that same briefing with reporters, an RNC press secretary said we never said that the governor is still deciding on immigration. So sort of correcting one of their own officials with the RNC, Wolf.

But there were other offscript moments, moments that did not go the Romney campaign's way in the last 24 hours. Consider the endorsement of Rick Santorum. It came at 11:00 last night, caught a lot of reporters off guard. And Santorum doesn't get around to endorsing Romney until the 13th paragraph of the endorsement.

But keep in mind, the Democrats have their own off-message man in Vice President Joe Biden. Earlier today, as you're going to report in just a few moments, Joe Biden said we were the problem, talking about the United States when it came Iran, dealing with Iran. The Romney campaign blasted out a statement to reporters earlier this afternoon, Wolf, accusing the Obama administration of having a blame America first policy when it comes to Iran, Wolf.        

Imagine President Barack Obama leaning hard into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, pressing him to support a piece of legislation or, say, introduce a budget bill that has been MIA for the past three years. Obama is a real go getter and has been burning up the phone lines until late at night to convince legislators to support him. He even invites a number of people from Capitol Hill to join him for rounds of golf where he continues the art of persuasion.

Hard to believe that fantasy? Well, that is what the Washington Post opinion writer Richard Cohen is fervently wishing for. Cohen's magic genie wish, inspired by the newly published Robert Caro book, The Passage of Power, is that Obama will do a complete U-turn on his introverted, hands-off personality and become like Lyndon B. Johnson. Here is Cohen going into flights of fantasy on this topic in his latest column with the somewhat less than ringing endorsement title, What Obama doesn’t know about being president:

Where Johnson was strong and unparalleled — personal relationships with much of Washington — Obama is frighteningly weak. Last week I asked a member of the Senate if he knows of anyone who really knows Obama. He said he does not.

Washington is thick with stories about Obama’s insularity and distance. We hear how he does not listen to criticism — he sometimes just walks out of the room — and how he sticks to a tight circle of friends. His usual weekly golf game is mostly limited to the same people — and when he played a round with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), it was treated as an exceptional event.

And after telling us how terrible the unvetted Obama has been as president, Cohen sings the praises of his beloved LBJ:

Lyndon Johnson, in contrast, would not think of wasting a golf game on the game itself. …Caro agrees with a prominent Johnson backer who called his man “the greatest salesman one on one.” It was this ability that enabled him to win passage of both his civil rights and anti-poverty agendas. Both were historic pieces of legislation, secured by an unelected president (Johnson had been John F. Kennedy’s vice president) and in a Congress controlled by Southern conservatives. He had no electoral mandate. It was a political tour de force.

Southern conservatives? Please, Richard. Is it that hard to write "Southern Democrats?" Anyway, Cohen continues his paean to LBJ while bemoaning the unengaged Obama:

Johnson, of course, was a creature of Congress. He knew the key players and, if he didn’t, he made it his business to remedy that. Johnson passed his program one vote at a time. He was not much of a public speaker — awkward and stilted — while Obama is an accomplished orator. The trouble is that when the last echoes of an Obama speech have faded, so has the audience. The masses who cheered for change went home. The politicians then took over. It takes more than a speech for them to embrace change.

Another caveat here: Obama is only as accomplished an orator as his teleprompter allows him to be. Okay, back to Cohen whining about Obama's lack of political skills which was ignored by the liberal media four years ago:

But Obama cannot or will not indulge in the sort of face-to-face politicking that Johnson so favored. He has not stroked important contributors — one bundler told me he never hears from Obama. As the New York Times put it recently in an article about his fundraising on Wall Street, Obama himself has “a reputation for being cold at small gatherings.” “I just don’t think he likes us,” one fundraiser is quoted as saying.

The best that can be said for Obama is that he treats everyone with about the same degree of distance. One important Democrat used the term “cuckoo-clock events” to refer to White House receptions where Obama robotically appears, says a minimal amount of words and then disappears. He does not mingle — or, if he does, it is as little as possible. Bill Clinton, in contrast, was the host from hell. The party never ended.

Perhaps Cohen can remember when Obama first became prominent on the national scene and many in the mainstream media shouted down any attempt to check into his background. Perhaps if this had been allowed back then, the Democrats wouldn't have been saddled with a president whose main legislative accomplishment was to vote "Present." So complain all you want about Obama, Mr. Cohen, but its a little late for that now.

As for Robert Caro's book, your humble correspondent highly recommends that all serious students of history and politics read it. Although Caro himself is a liberal and praised Obama on Fareed Zakaria GPS (while also comparing his leadership unfavorably with Johnson), his volumes on Lyndon Johnson are notable for their attention to detail and craftsmanship.

Ron Reagan, the son of late President Ronald Reagan, came down strongly on Tuesday against Barack Obama's unwillingness to definitively support same-sex marriage.

Appearing on Hardball, the MSNBC political analyst said, "He’s taking more time evolving on this issue than humans took evolving from apes" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Tuesday's Hardball began with the same-sex marriage issue being voted on in North Carolina and the political dangers for Obama taking a position on it.

"This whole evolving thing has really jumped the shark at this point," Reagan said. "I mean, he’s taking more time evolving on this issue than humans took evolving from apes."

"We all know he’s making a political calculation," he continued. "We could argue as to whether the political calculation is correct or incorrect, but the problem for him is it’s an obvious political calculation."

"He’s taking a civil rights issue and he’s trying to kind of, you know, straddle the fence on it, and it’s unseemly. He’s beginning to look ridiculous on this issue. He needs to just get off the fence and just go wherever they know he really is in the first place."

A few minutes later, host Chris Matthews asked, “If he loses the election because of this, and Mitt Romney walks into the White House, a man who says he will not evolve…is that good for the cause?”

Reagan responded, “It’s not good for the cause, although the cause will continue and will prevail just because of demographics if nothing else."

“I understand what the calculation is,” Reagan continued, “but I think the calculation is now incorrect. You can only make this political calculation when people don’t generally see it as a political calculation. If people know that you’re not actually speaking your mind and your heart, if you are inauthentic about this issue – and it is an important issue to some people, a lot of people – then you’re doing yourself harm. You’re actually harming your electoral prospects."

It's going to be very interesting to see how this issue plays out in the coming months now that Vice President Joe Biden, appearing on Sunday's Meet the Press, has expressed his support for same-sex marriage.

Stay tuned.