Republicans are likely to go with Tampa, Florida, as the venue for their 2012 presidential nominating convention in part because evangelicals hate Mormons. That’s the gospel truth, at least according to Chris Matthews, who yesterday went on a loopy rant that was pure bluster and completely unsubstantiated in its assertions.

[MP3 audio available here; click play on the embedded video at right for video]

Matthews informed viewers that an RNC selection committee had submitted its recommendation of Tampa — the RNC still has to give its formal approval — over other finalists Phoenix, Arizona, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The "Hardball" host than gave his theory behind why the latter two cities were rejected, failing, of course, to cite any sources nor to add the caveat that this was purely his own speculation.

Here’s the relevant transcript:

Well the Republican Party will nominate its presidential candidate for 2012 in the city of Tampa, Florida, with big news on that the decision came today and when you consider the other finalist city it’s a no-brainer. The other choice for the Republicans were Phoenix. They ain’t going there because of the controversy over the illegal immigration law.

[The other finalist was] Salt Lake City, which would provide endless storylines about how Christian conservatives think about Mormons, regardless of whether Mitt Romney’s the nominee. So, mark your calendars and book your tickets if you’re involved.

It’s Tampa for the Republicans in 2012 despite that lingering memory of hanging chads and a governor down there who’s been run out of his party. A former Republican who may beat the Republicans.

Matthews’s explanation for Phoenix is somewhat plausible– despite polling that shows the vast majority of Americans approve of the law — but his explanation for Salt Lake City is just loopy. Indeed, a more rational explanation is that both Arizona and Utah are fairly reliable conservative states, whereas Florida is a quadrennial swing state. 

What’s more, Matthews’s crack about the "lingering memory of hanging chads" and the meme about Charlie Crist being "run out of his party" tell us more about the mainstream media kool-aid that the "Hardball" host has been guzzling than anything else.

The only people likely to obsess over the 2000 election some 12 years after the fact are likely to be liberal journalists intent on pounding out irrelevant storylines in order to distract the 2012 Republican convention and its nominee away from its substantive challenge to President Obama and his policies.

Matthews doubtless knows that, but to him it’s all part of his "job" to ensure Obama’s success.

On the Swampland blog, Time’s Jay Newton-Small reports congressional Democrats are peeved at Newsweek pundit Jonathan Alter’s Obama-polishing book on his first year, especially how he seems to give the president most of the credit for passing ObamaCare. Alter defended himself with more Barack-boosting:

Even though he did not draft the bill, it has come to be known as “Obamacare” and will be – for better or for worst – one of the crowning achievements that history will remember of Obama’s first term. “On the idea of winning- it’s always messy,” Alter tells me. “He has joined  [Franklin] Roosevelt and [Lyndon] Johnson as a President of great domestic accomplishment. He gets the credit, even though he may have screwed up here or there, but in the final analysis he won and if he’d lost nobody would’ve given him credit for good intentions.”

Yes, health care reform could not be done without Obama, but there’s a case to be made that it also couldn’t have been done without Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe and any number of people in the sausage making process. But sausage makers aren’t sexy and they don’t sell books.

Don’t miss the note of arrogance in assuming Obama is only in his "first term." 2012 is already a cakewalk, and Obama will be greeted like a liberator. Like many media liberals, Newton-Small thinks that Obama dithered too much with Democrats on the Hill, and should have put a boot on the neck of the moderates who were delaying the drive and making deals that smelled like special-interest pleading:

If only Obama had thrown his weight around! August 2009 through March 2010 might have been avoided. Defending this, Alter notes in a telephone interview a quote in the book from an unnamed White House official saying: “I love Max Baucus, but I wish we’d put our foot down harder and said, it’s over Max.” But Baucus wasn’t the only problem: Obama’s reluctance to say no to Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman’s demands for special deals caused more headaches for Dems than they were worth. His inability to reign in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer when – over Obama’s objections – they ditched negotiations with Maine Republican Olympia Snowe and made a final, and nearly fatal, push for a public plan. If Obama had only introduced his own plan – or even outline –six months before his address to the Joint Session, a lot of heartache and drawing of arbitrary lines in the sand might have been avoided.

Pardon my harping, but it’s perpetually amazing to me that tens of thousands of people can assemble every January in the nation’s capital for the March for Life, and draw not a second of network TV attention. But 14 illegal-alien advocates blocked traffic in Los Angeles, and both ABC and NBC acknowledged them on the morning of May 7:

JUJU CHANG, ABC: Well, police in Los Angeles have arrested more than a dozen protesters, who chained themselves together on a downtown street, to protest the new immigration law in Arizona. 14 activists locked themselves in a circle in front of an immigration detention center, blocking traffic for about four hours.

ANN CURRY, NBC: And at least 14 people are under arrest in Los Angeles after blocking traffic for about four hours on Thursday. They chained themselves together to protest Arizona’s new immigration law.

Do the networks understand that they’re instructing protesters to get arrested before they get noticed, no matter how many thousands of them peacefully assemble? At the very least, ABC and NBC could have offered a few choice words from the drivers who were blocked by these protesters.

If pro-lifers took this example and decided to get arrested — for publicity’s sake, I would pick blocking an abortion clinic door, although I don’t have the left-wing appetite for an arrest — it’s a good bet that if the networks noticed, it would suggest sympathy for the embattled clinic. Even if the arrested were harmless grandmothers, the networks would probably show the obligatory B-roll of the abortionist putting on a bulletproof vest.

The comparison of the results contained in the April 2010 Monthly Treasury Statement released this afternoon to April of last year is bad enough. But if the American people knew that April 2010 came in about a quarter-trillion dollars worse than both 2007 and 2008 with almost 40% less in tax collections, most of them would be appalled. Many more than are already doing so would be questioning what in the heck this administration and Congress are up to.

That’s why you probably won’t see establishment media outlets like the Associated Press go back more than one year in their detailed comparisons, even though during the presidency of George W. Bush, writers like the AP’s Martin Crutsinger and others frequently went back to fiscal 2000 and 2001 to remind readers of the surpluses that occurred during those fiscal years. The intent, of course, was to imply that things were just peachy keen under Bill Clinton until the eeeeevil Bush ruined everything. As noted later, that ain’t so.

Here is the AP’s Crutsinger on today’s Treasury Statement, blissfully pretending, with the exception of one cryptic reference, that the two high-collection Bush years neeeeeeeever happened:

The federal budget deficit hit an all-time high for the month of April as government revenue fell sharply.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday the April deficit soared to $82.7 billion, the largest imbalance for that month on record. That was significantly higher than last year’s April deficit of $20 billion and above the $30 billion deficit private economists had anticipated.

The government normally runs surpluses in April as millions of taxpayers file their income tax returns. However, income tax payments were down this April, reflecting the impact of the recession which has pushed millions of people out of work.

Total revenues for April were down 7.9 percent from a year ago, dipping to $245.3 billion.

… The trillion-dollar-plus deficits are being driven by the impact of the recession, which has cut government tax revenue while driving up spending.

Analysts estimate that roughly one-third of the increase in the deficits over the past two years came from lost revenue — the result of fewer people working and lower corporate profits. Another third is from increased government spending that normally occurs in a downturn, such as higher payments for unemployment benefits and food stamps. The final third reflects the added government spending on the $787 billion stimulus bill and the $700 billion financial bailout.

Crutsinger mentioned "the past two years" in the last excerpted paragraph and had a golden opportunity to tell readers the degree of the difference between this year and 2008, but did not. When you see how big the difference is, you’ll totally understand why:

Since Crutsinger has already used up the word "sharp" to describe April 2010’s collections decline vs. April 2009 of 7.9%, what adjective would he have employed to describe the 39.3% drop from April 2008, or the 22.6% decline in year-to-date receipts?

By far, the most troubling pair of numbers in what’s presented above is April 2010’s individual income tax collections ($107.3 billion) vs. April 2008 ($244.0) billion. That’s a 56% drop. It’s the most troubling because, as a BizzyBlog commenter pointed out earlier this evening, that April number includes two things besides withheld income taxes: "the 2009 tax settlement that occurs on April 15th for individuals" and "tax receipts from individuals … (for) the first installment of 2010 estimated taxes." The commenter added that "Historically, individual estimated taxes are what drives the usual surplus months." I should also note that the e-mailer saw no mention in media reports of the estimated-tax component.

What this means is that as a group, quarterly tax-filers (largely entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and investors) had such a bad 2009 that during 2010 they will mostly be making low required quarterly payments (generally 25% of last year’s liability each quarter). As a result, collections in June and September, which like April are usually months pretty flush, will more than likely also be weak.

One of two things could happen next with this group:

• Ultimately, if they really do have a good 2010, they’ll owe and pay in a lot of money in January and April of 2011.
• But if they do not have a good 2010, and if they continue to nowhere near the kind of money they were making in 2007 and 2008, the downward slide in collections from the economy’s most productive people will continue into 2011.

As much as I’d like to believe the former scenario, it’s hard to see it happening.

Now let’s take on Crutsinger’s read on the source of the annual deficit changes. The fiscal 2008 deficit was $455 billion, while the current-year deficit is on track to be roughly $1 trillion higher. Breaking that down:

• Lower receipts account for something between 40% and 50% of the difference, and certainly not "roughly one-third." Fiscal 2008 collections were $2.523 trillion (that’s actually low, because in a bad accounting move about $90 billion in 2008 stimulus payments were subtracted from that, but we’ll stay with Treasury’s number anyway). Fiscal 2009 collections came in at $2.105 trillion, or $418 billion lower (that’s 41.8% of $1 trillion). As seen above, fiscal 2010 receipts thus far are running $57 billion behind fiscal 2009. If there is no further decay in the final five months, fiscal 2010 collections will trail fiscal 2008 by $475 billion (i.e., 47.5% of $1 trillion). Further decay in year-over-year collections could cause the 2010 v. 2008 gap to be $500 billion or more (i.e., 50%).
• We can only wish that Crutsinger’s claim that "another third" comes from "increased government spending that normally occurs in a downturn." It just isn’t so. Food stamp and unemployment comp increases, though annoying in many ways, make up a small percentage of the Obama administration’s spending increases. For example, Health and Human Services is on track to spend $164 billion in fiscal 2010 than it did in fiscal 2008. Most of that has to do with Social Security and Medicare, and very little of it has to do with the recession (which Crutsinger refers to as if it’s still ongoing). Defense spending, however meritorious and of course unrelated to the recession, is heading towards a fiscal 2010 total that will be about $80 billion higher than fiscal 2008. Projected spending in smaller departments whose spending is not at all recession driven is on track for at least another $100 billion. I’m already at $344 billion, or over "another third" that has little or nothing to do with the recession. The problem is that the administration has ratcheted up spending almost across the board.
• TARP and other bailouts, as offensive as they are, make up a relatively small percentage of the total deficit change, and certainly not "a final third," especially when their total costs are spread over two fiscal years.

Crutsinger also failed to mention that the Congressional Budget Office estimated last Friday that April’s deficit would be $85 billion and essentially nailed it. Why the AP’s consulted economists totally blew the call, as noted earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) is a mystery.

As to those 2000 and 2001 surpluses referred to earlier, the Clintonian mythology ignores the fact that the Republican Congress during that period, led by the likes of then-Congressman John Kasich, created the conditions for the late-1990s prosperity and the federal budget surpluses that eventually arrived in 2000 and 2001. In an unaccountable lapse, an unbylined May 2009 AP report (original saved here for fair use, discussion, and establishment media torture purposes) acknowledged this inconvenient fact.

Clinton’s "contribution" was to overheat the economy, as his Securities and Exchange Commission allowed start-up and mostly Internet-based companies that barely had a business plan and had never earned a dime of revenue to go public as if they were the type of company suited to ordinary investors instead of wealthy, accredited ones (yes, ordinar investors also deserves a healthy slice of the blame).

Two years after the "Supply-Side Stunner," the name yours truly gave to the all-time one-month collection record of April 2008, a journalistically negligent one-year comparison window employed by the AP and Crutsinger enabled the wire service to avoid properly rendering just how awful the government’s financial situation is now compared to then. As bad as it looks as AP rendered it, it’s clearly much, much worse.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd seemed astonished by how a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll confirmed solid agreement with Arizona’s immigration enforcement law – “a whopping 64 percent support the law,” Todd marveled, “and we read them the law verbatim exactly as it’s been written” and still, he repeated, “64 percent approve of it.” NBC also treated as surprising the majority backing for racial profiling to prevent terrorism, while Todd didn’t mention what NBC’s polling partner, the Wall Street Journal, found most newsworthy. Lead of the WSJ.com post:

Republicans have solidified support among voters who had drifted from the party in recent elections, putting the GOP in position for a strong comeback in November’s elections, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

In his limited air time, Todd used the video wall at 30 Rock to highlight the public’s belief the government and BP haven’t done enough to address the Gulf oil spill, but he didn’t note another finding which counters the media’s preferences and narrative, that despite the accident, 60 percent support “more drilling for oil off the coast of the United States.”

MSNBC.com, however, headlined its poll summary, “Poll: Despite spill, support for oil drilling high”

Brian Williams cued up Todd on profiling, suggesting it has, or at least should have been, a topic of hot debate: “I know after this attempted bombing in Times Square, you asked a question every family has debated about racial profiling.” Todd recounted what the survey determined:

We did, and we asked it specifically on the issue of: Would you be in favor of racial profiling when it comes to combating terrorism? And guess what: A majority said yes. It’s a slim majority, but a majority nonetheless: 51 percent would approve of it; 43 percent disapprove of it. Clearly, this issue of terrorism is something that people, they’re willing to give up some of their own personal rights, and they’re willing to see some racial profiling, Brian.

On the attitude toward the two parties and the Tea Party movement, Todd conveyed:

Both political parties viewed negatively. The Democrats, 37 percent positive rating, 42 percent negative. Republicans, a lesser positive rating [30%]. But check this out. The Tea Party – it’s not an official political party – but there are more people have a positive view [31%] of the Tea Party than of the Republican Party. And fewer people have a negative view of the Tea Party than either of the two major parties [30%].

The Wall Street Journal saw a lot more positive for Republicans. From the story posted Wednesday night, presumably what will run in Thursday’s newspaper, by Peter Wallsten, Naftali Bendavid and Jean Spencer:

Republicans have solidified support among voters who had drifted from the party in recent elections, putting the GOP in position for a strong comeback in November’s elections, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

The findings suggest that public opinion has hardened in advance of the 2010 elections, making it harder for Democrats to translate their legislative successes or a tentatively improving U.S. economy into gains among voters.

Republicans have reassembled their coalition by reconnecting with independents, seniors, blue-collar voters, suburban women and small town and rural voters—all of whom had moved away from the party in the 2006 elections, in which Republicans lost control of the House. Those voter groups now favor GOP control of Congress.

"This data is what it looks like when Republicans assemble what for them is a winning coalition," said GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducts the survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart. He said the Republican alliance appeared to be "firmer and more substantial" than earlier in the year….

A big shift is evident among independents, who at this point in the 2006 campaign favored Democratic control of Congress rather than Republican control, 40% to 24%. Now, independents favor the GOP, 38% to 30%.

Suburban women favored Democratic control four years ago by a 24-point margin. Now, they narrowly favor Republicans winning the House. A similar turnaround has happened among voters 65 and older….

As noted above, Todd pointed out that on Arizona “we read them the law verbatim exactly as it’s been written.” Here’s that question, #34:

The Arizona law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally. It requires local and state law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status if they have reason to suspect a person is in the country illegally, making it a crime for them to lack registration documents. Do you support or oppose this law? (IF SUPPORT/OPPOSE, THEN ASK) And, do you strongly (support/oppose) or just somewhat (support/oppose) this law?

(46 percent “strongly support,” nearly double the 24 percent who “strongly oppose.”)

In fact, the statute requires a prerequisite lawful reason for stopping someone before the law enforcement officer can check their immigration status:

For any lawful stop, detention or arrest made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of this state or a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency of a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and  is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.

PDF of the full results, as posted by MSNBC.com and WSJ.com

The poll rundown provided on the Wednesday, May 12 NBC Nightly News, transcript provided by the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth who corrected the closed-captioning against the video:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: We have new numbers tonight, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. And it’s a revealing one – everything from politics to oil to racial profiling. Our chief White House correspondent and NBC News political director Chuck Todd is with us here at the board with the numbers. And, Chuck, we asked about a lot of subjects this time.

CHUCK TODD: We did. A lot’s happened since the last time we went into the field. And let’s begin with the oil spill and what folks think of the federal government’s response so far. And it’s a mixed bag: 45 percent believe the government is not doing enough; 43 percent believe they are doing enough. Of course, BP is the one that a lot of people blame a lot more right now than the federal government.

How about that new immigration law in Arizona? Well, a whopping 64 percent support the law. And we read them the law verbatim exactly as it’s been written – 64 percent approve of it; 34 percent oppose it. But look at this number among Hispanics: It’s reversed – 70 percent of Hispanics oppose it; 27 percent support it. It is something that is going to be a political hot potato for probably the next couple of years.

How about the President? Well, look at this. There’s sort of a polarizing view of the President these days – 51 percent, a majority, actually now disapprove of his policies. And yet he’s still well liked: 69 percent like him personally. So this polarized view, he’s sort of Teflon personally, but he’s having a hard time selling his agenda.

How’s this translating to the political parties? Well, look at that. We know there’s an anti-incumbent atmosphere out there. Both political parties viewed negatively. The Democrats, 37 percent positive rating, 42 percent negative. Republicans, a lesser positive rating. But check this out. The Tea Party – it’s not an official political party – but there are more people have a positive view of the Tea Party than of the Republican party. And fewer people have a negative view of the Tea Party than either of the two major parties. It’s a conservative movement for now, but it is something that seems to be catching on.

So what is this anti-incumbent atmosphere all about? Why is it that everybody is so angry? Well, look at these numbers. We’ll start with this. Large majorities, 56 percent, say the country’s heading the wrong direction. It’s been that way for six months; 58 percent, for instance, believe the stock market is not a fair and open process to them. Look at this one: 75 percent believe that they don’t trust anything that comes out of Washington; 81 percent are dissatisfied with the economy. And now you have 83 percent that believe the two-party system has real problems, and a large chunk of those voters would like to see an actual creation of a third party, the largest we’ve seen yet. And, Brian, this explains why Republican Bob Bennett lost in Utah, a Democratic Congressman lost last night in a primary. We may have two Senators this Tuesday both lose. It’s an angry and pessimistic public.

WILLIAMS: And I know after this attempted bombing in Times Square, you asked a question every family has debated about racial profiling.

TODD: We did, and we asked it specifically on the issue of: Would you be in favor of racial profiling when it comes to combating terrorism? And guess what: A majority said yes. It’s a slim majority, but a majority nonetheless: 51 percent would approve of it; 43 percent disapprove of it. Clearly, this issue of terrorism is something that people, they’re willing to give up some of their own personal rights, and they’re willing to see some racial profiling, Brian.

Jeanne Sahadi at CNNMoney.com has finally realized Social Security needs urgent reform – and by reform, she means going after the wealthy, of course.

On Monday, Sahadi reported on news from the Congressional Budget Office that Social Security is dipping into savings already this year and will not be able to meet its obligations by 2037. That’s at least 15 years earlier than what the CBO had predicted during the last administration, and with 27 years to go it’s entirely possible the deadline will move again, especially if the current recession persists.

But Sahadi wasn’t worried. In fact, she began her piece by saying "it should be a snap" to rescue the program from bankruptcy.

After blissfully assuring readers that Social Security will be fine for another 27 years, Sahadi offered three easy-peasy steps that could be enacted over time to make the program solvent. Sadly, those three ideas were all too predictable:

Raise the age limit, ration benefits paid out to the rich, and remove the cap on taxable income to exact more revenue from – you guessed it – the rich.

This genius strategy was touted as the "well known" plan put forth by America’s experts. Yes it sounded exactly like the plan they come up with for everything else, but they swore it would work for this. They even had a nonpartisan think tank to recommend it:

Reforming Social Security is still a hot-button issue. But relative to other measures needed to stabilize U.S. debt, it should be a snap.

"They could begin with Social Security, which oddly enough has gone from being the ‘third rail of American politics’ to the low-hanging fruit," wrote Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan, grassroots deficit watchdog group.

Ah the good old Concord Coalition, which is so grassroots it was founded in 1992 by a bunch of beltway insiders who hobnob with presidential administrations.

On Monday, a Concord Senior Economist appeared in the Christian Science Monitor to push for a Value Added Tax on Americans – not as a reform measure to replace the current mess, but as an extra burden placed on top of everything else. A few weeks before that, Executive Director Robert Bixby insisted that "the only solution" for America’s debt was a tax increase combined with less spending.

That’s a sample of this "grassroots" watchdog group’s typical reaction to fiscal issues.

And that was the formula offered to CNN Money as the way to save Social Security:

The menu of options for making Social Security solvent is well known.

Increasing the retirement age: One option that gets a lot of buy-in from policy experts is a slow increase in the retirement age at which one may collect full Social Security benefits. Today, it’s 66, and it is scheduled to increase to 67 by 2027.

This idea initially sounded reasonable, as most people concede it will be inevitable at some point in the future. But the second suggestion got a bit dicey:

Reducing growth in benefit levels: Another measure that has gotten a lot of attention is "progressive indexing." Such a measure would not affect the promised benefits for lower income workers but would lower future benefits for middle- and high- income workers relative to what is currently promised.

Under progressive indexing, the Social Security benefits of higher-income workers would be indexed to inflation rather than to wages, as is currently the case. That would have the effect of reducing benefits from their current promised levels because inflation tends to grow more slowly than wages.

Progressive indexing is essentially the same idea as a progressive income tax: the more you earn, the less you get to keep. High income citizens would see their benefits tied to a stricter index, meaning cost of living increases would be harder to come by, while low income citizens would be given more generous raises.

Who would continue to pay for those raises? Wealthy young workers, naturally:

Raising the payroll tax: There is also the option of increasing the Social Security payroll tax rate on wages or raising the cap on how much of wages is subject to the payroll tax (currently it’s the first $106,800).

So even though your benefits would be capped and subject to meager inflation increases, the amount seized from your paycheck won’t have such restrictive caps. Pay more taxes, get less out of it.

Nowhere in Sahadi’s entire report did she entertain conservative ideas such as privatizing any portion of Social Security. President Bush’s reform plan in 2005 was completely ignored, as was Congressman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) who advanced a similar proposal in February. Readers would get the sense from Sahadi that a tax-and-ration plan is the only idea that exists.

Of course, for Sahadi to give ear to those ideas now, it would signal a major change in her reporting. Back in 2005 when Bush introduced his plan for partial privatization, Sahadi did everything she could to undermine it. First she insisted the program was not in dire trouble, and then she attacked privatization as a bad idea.

Check out Sahadi all over President Bush’s reform plan on January 12, 2005:

The debate over Social Security is well under way, with President Bush Thursday giving guidelines for addressing what most acknowledge will be a shortfall in the program’s funding in 40 or so years.

The president and some others support overhauling the system by partially privatizing it by giving younger workers the option of creating personal accounts and diverting some of their Social Security taxes to fund them.

But critics say the current proposals are dangerous. And some argue that it’s wrong to characterize the eventual shortfall as a crisis.

CNN/Money will be covering the Social Security debate on an ongoing basis. This week, we’re mapping out some of those critics’ arguments.

Not only is Social Security not in crisis, it is as financially sound as ever, according to the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research, run by Mark Weisbrot and Dean Baker, coauthors of "Social Security: The Phony Crisis."

The drumbeat continued for Sahadi on February 3 of that year, when she reported it was "not necessarily accurate" to claim the program would be bankrupt, and that President Bush "may have overstated" the scope of the problem.

In 2007, financial projections began to sour, but by then the media had succeeded in forcing President Bush to drop his reform plan. On March 15, 2007, Sahadi wrote this little gem:

With an expected swell in benefit-eligible retirees in the next 20 years, increased life expectancy, and a Social Security trust fund the government may have to go into debt to repay, actuaries and pension experts have been calling for changes to bolster the system’s long-term funding. It’s a debate that has been put on hold for now.

For those in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s, you can bank on this: whatever changes are decided, you’ll either end up paying more for the benefits promised or you’ll receive less of them, or, possibly, both.

How things changed in less than two years. And how convenient the debate was "put on hold" with no explanation as to who was responsible for doing that. With no retrospection into her past reporting, Sahadi flippantly told young readers that the damage was done and their futures would be bleaker.

Almost exactly one year later, on March 25, 2008, Sahadi started pressing the panic button:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, saying that Social Security is "financially unsustainable," called Tuesday for quick action to keep the system strong and released a report detailing the program’s funding shortfalls.

The federal government will have to start paying back what it owes the Social Security trust fund in 2017 so the program can continue paying 100% of benefits. By 2041, if the system is left unchanged, Social Security will only be able to pay out 78% of benefits promised to future retirees.

Now in 2010, that all-important tipping point is projected to happen in 2037. That’s a window of 15 years that evaporated in the span of one administration.

It is encouraging that the writers at CNN Money have finally caught on to the coming fiscal disaster. But five years later, the aversion to privatization remains as strong as ever, and with Democrats in charge of Washington, that debate will be "on hold" for some time to come – which is exactly what CNN Money was behind all along.

New York Times editor-turned-columnist Gail Collins’s Saturday column celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill and waxed on birth-control activist Margaret Sanger for several paragraphs, without touching on Sanger’s racism and support for eugenics. The online headline: "What Every Girl Should Know About Birth Control."

Discussing purity crusader Anthony Comstock, Collins wrote:

One of his targets was Margaret Sanger, a nurse who wrote a sex education column, "What Every Girl Should Know," for a left-wing New York newspaper, The Call. When Comstock banned her column on venereal disease, the paper ran an empty space with the title: "What Every Girl Should Know: Nothing, by Order of the U.S. Post Office."

Sanger was the first person to publish an evaluation of all the available forms of birth control. As a reward, she got a criminal obscenity charge. She fled to Europe to avoid going to jail, and her husband was imprisoned for passing out one of her pamphlets. In the end, he got 30 days, and Anthony Comstock got a chill during the trial that led to a fatal case of pneumonia.

It was the courts that eventually gave women the right to not only have access to birth control, but also information that told them what was available and how to use it. (The first big victory had the memorable name of U.S. v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries.) Sanger, meanwhile, helped bring together the wealthy donors and brilliant researchers who would bring forth the first effective oral contraception.

As noted by the Neo-Neo-Con, Collins managed to write about Sanger, birth-control activist, without hinting at her darker passages. Here’s one of Sanger’s most notorious proposals, from a 1932 speech:

Keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feeble-minded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.

Collins also heralded Sanger in her 2003 book on feminism, "America’s Women – 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines." In an October 2003 piece for the Times magazine (she was editorial page editor at the time) Collins actually called for a statue in Sanger’s honor:

For the Lower East Side there are so many potential subjects that it might be better to commandeer an entire city park and create a walk flanked by statues. You’d obviously include some of the women who came out of tenements to lead radical political movements and organize labor unions. It would also be a good place to honor Margaret Sanger, who first became obsessed with the need for effective birth control when she worked as a nurse there.

Collins made no mention of Sanger’s dark side.

On CBS’s Sunday Morning, correspondent Dean Reynolds described the latest adaptation of the Robin Hood legend by director Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe: "And so here is an evil King John, squeezing his subjects for more taxes….And here is Robin. Not as a thief, but as a revolutionary figure trying to limit the King’s power. Robin Hood meets Che Guevara." [Audio available here]   

Protesting high taxes and wanting to limit government power is the equivalent of a Communist revolution? Sounds more like the Tea Party movement.

After making that bizarre comparison, Reynolds further explained the plot of the new film: "This Robin joins the fight to get the English king to sign the Magna Carta in the year 1215, the document establishing the first rights on which modern democracies are based." Guevara, of course, was the ruthless henchman of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, hardly an advocate for democracy.

Here is a transcript of a portion of Reynold’s report:

9:38AM

DEAN REYNOLDS: Prepare for Russell Crowe’s fight scenes. The new version directed by Ridley Scott is a kind of Robin Hood meets Gladiator meets Saving Private Ryan. And it makes some claim to being, if not historically accurate, at least set in a proper historic context.

RUSSELL CROWE: Robin isn’t a super hero. He’s not – he doesn’t have a cape. And he’s – he isn’t a cartoon. What we tried to do was find out who the real person was, you know? And sift through history and see which ground was fertile for a rebel leader like Robin Hood.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR [KING JOHN]: Taxation.

REYNOLDS: And so here is an evil King John, squeezing his subjects for more taxes.

ACTOR [AS JOHN]: The crown is owed money at home.

REYNOLDS: And here is Robin.

RUSSELL CROWE [ROBIN HOOD]: We’re trying to build for the future.

REYNOLDS: Not as a thief, but as a revolutionary figure trying to limit the King’s power. Robin Hood meets Che Guevara.

CROWE [AS HOOD]: Empower every man and you will gain strength.

REYNOLDS: This Robin joins the fight to get the English king to sign the Magna Carta in the year 1215, the document establishing the first rights on which modern democracies are based.

CROWE: And when we spread history in front of us on a table, we found that the very first time the Magna Carta was signed, and the Magna Carta, obviously, is directly related to the Declaration of Independence, and it seeks to redress the balance of rights and privileges. We started thinking, well, you count back from when that was signed and why did this particular monarch – why was he brought to the table? And it may well have been because he had somebody like a Robin Hood breathing down his neck.

REYNOLDS: It’s a preposterous idea, of course, but preposterous in a good way, thinks our modern Robin of today’s Sherwood Forest, Aide Andrews.

AIDE ANDREWS: And so now in the 21st century, Robin Hood is being reinterpreted. And that’s the beauty of folklore, isn’t it? That’s the magic of folklore, because here’s the-

REYNOLDS: It’s still alive today, you’re saying.

ANDREWS: Very much so. It’s living, breathing tradition. And that’s where the magic is. That’s what’s important about Robin Hood.

REYNOLDS: The forest has changed. Notingham has changed, presumably the sheriff now works here. And if Robin Hood is still a living legend here, he’s also an industry. Every time a new Robin shows up on the screen, people show up here. And what’s wrong with that?

ANDREWS: The legends are all about escape into the wild wood, aren’t they? They’re all about freedom, you know, away from this modern world as such. So we too can escape through those stories into the ancient wild wood. And that’s got to be – that’s got to be good. Isn’t it?

One can’t help but be a bit stunned at the audacity of an organization built by Morton Halperin and George Soros lecturing others on "astroturfing." But that same audacity — not the good Barack Obama kind — is taken to extremes when that same organization alleges a corporate conspiracy where there simply is none.

Think Progress’s Lee Fang was practically giddy that he had uncovered the next vast right-wing conspiracy, proclaiming that a powerpoint "obtained" by the website "reveals how the telecom industry is orchestrating the latest campaign against Net Neutrality" via layers of astroturfing "front groups."

In reality, the powerpoint was the creation not of the giant telecoms that quite openly oppose Net Neutrality, but rather of six students in a contest at a "think tank MBA" program held by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. The whole project cost under $200. And far from being "secret," as Fang claimed, the powerpoint was posted online, as was the audio of the students’ presentation to the contest’s judges. Some astroturf!

As Declan McCullagh reported for CNET News today,

There’s just one problem with Think Progress’ claim: It’s not, well, accurate…

"The Think Progress article is hilarious," David MacLean, the Canadian member of the six-person student team from four different continents, told CNET on Wednesday. "We’ve had a really good laugh in the last day over this. This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen."

MacLean added: "It was a class project done at the Atlas think tank MBA program. We came up with the concept in a few days." Part of Atlas’ curriculum on how to manage think tanks required creating the campaign on a $100 budget and "the goal was to make it launch," said MacLean, who lives in Alberta…

Kristin McMurray, the American member of the team, said: "We have not had any contact with any telecom company during this campaign. The only funding we received was the $100 given to us by Atlas." The campaign actually ended up costing the students money, since they chipped in some of their own cash, said McMurray, an editor at the Sunshine Review, a nonpartisan organization that pushes state and local governments to post more information online.

Lefty blogs were apparently averse to checking Fang’s claims, and applauded the him for his stellar (so they thought) investigative work. "ThinkProgress has a leaked copy of a telcoms [sic] industry PowerPoint presentation laying out their plans to use astroturf to kill Network Neutrality," wrote Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing. "The industry is hiring the same turfers who work with the Tea Party movement to carry their message to the people."

A blogger at Stop the Cap claimed that "Groups like NoNetBrutality [the group of students who created the powerpoint] are designed to hide their true ties and claim they are run by ordinary concerned citizens making their individual voices heard. Too bad that PowerPoint presentation blew the lid off by telling a much different story."

Of course the powerpoint didn’t blow the lid off of anything, and the project was never a secret. Since CNET posted its revelatory piece, Stop the Cap has reverted to questioning the integrity of the six students who created the project, saying they are "budding to learn the craft of sock-puppetry." I suppose that’s better than making up conspiracy theories and playing false populist.

For its part, Think Progress has been reduced to claiming that telecoms are "orchestrating the latest campaign against Net Neutrality" by funding, in part, Americans for Tax Reform, which holds a weekly meeting that the NoNetBrutality folks once attended. Seriously. This is now what passes for a vast right-wing conspiracy in the annals of the lefty blogosphere.

For the record, the folks at NoNetBrutality displayed their expenses in full in a post on their site:

• Domain: $20 (we got .org too)
• Hosting: $10.95
• Logo: Pro bono, but he did a great job right?
• I-stockphoto: $18
• Copies for the Wednesday meeting: $125. Yes, we went over budget and used our own personal funds to supplement it.

Watch out Free Press, the telecoms are unleashing their fury, a half-dozen students at a time!

MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday actually expressed some journalistic outrage over a White House PR video disguised as an interview, deriding the administration for "crossing a number of lines when it comes to journalism." An irritated Mitchell highlighted a video on the White House website that features Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. [Audio available here.]

Most other media outlets have ignored this story. Mitchell, however, complained to reporter Kelly O’Donnell: "But, the White House has gone overboard, I think some would suggest, in terms of the control of all of this."

Attacking the "pseudo interview," Mitchell mocked, "Doesn’t this seem to you like they are really crossing a number of lines here when it comes to journalism and the proper approach to selling a justice?"

Reporter Kelly O’Donnell explained the video: "It appears like an interview. But, people who are watching it should know that it was produced and done completely by the White House." Emphasizing the point, she repeated, "[Kagan] talks about her work in law school, her love of the law. Things that are certainly glossy and friendly. But it is not an interview."

Mitchell closed by proclaiming, "[The White House video is] certainly a big issue for journalists." But, is it? Who else will cover this?

CBS’s Early Show hasn’t discussed this latest video, but, on August 3, 2009, touted an earlier Obama PR package. The MRC’s Kyle Drennen explained:

At the top of Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith touted a White House-produced video: "And your letters to the President…A behind-the-scenes look at how President Obama keeps in touch with everyday Americans." After airing the administration spin, co-host Maggie Rodriguez argued it was "all part of Obama’s promise of transparency in the people’s White House."

For more on this issue, see a blog by NewsBusters’ Lachlan Markay.

A transcript of the February 12 segment, which aired at 1:02pm EDT, follows:

ANDREA MITCHELL: Elena Kagan is making the rounds on Capitol Hill, meeting with key senators. NBC’s Capitol Hill correspondent Kelly O’Donnell joining us live. Big meetings today. What’s the sense, the mood as she has her first meetings with key members of the Judiciary Committee and others?

KELLY O’DONNELL: Well, it’s getting to know you day, Andrea. Elena Kagan is stopping at leadership. She’s had a couple meetings so far. She’ll be at this all day, really, until the early evening hours to meet these senators and to get a sense of what they may be wanting to know from her. And, of course, for senators it’s a chance to get a sense of who she is as a person, talk about issues that may come up during this process. A lot of it is really an opportunity to just sort of spend a few minutes together in private meetings, not the big public Q and A that will come at the hearing. So, that’s sort of where we are right now. From Republicans you’re getting a real sense of wanting everything to slow down a bit. They are using words like "thorough" for the process they want to go through. Meaning it will be tough. It will be as intense as they can make it knowing they do not have the numbers to really derail this confirmation. And barring any big surprise, most people believe she will be able to be confirmed. But, between now and then, there’s a lot that has to be done. She has a big questionnaire to fill out, which is everything about her public life and even professional life, personal life in terms of financial statements. So, a lot of that is going on now. Today is just a way to simply begin that process. And for us it’s a chance to see her interacting with people who will decide if she becomes the 112th justice. Andrea?

MITCHELL: Well, off course as they go through all of this process, nominees have never submitted themselves to interviews. That’s been a routine. They don’t submit themselves to interviews before they go through confirmation. But, the White House has gone overboard, I think some would suggest, in terms of the control of all of this. They’ve posted a, a sort of, pseudo interview on their website. And it appears she is speaking in her own words, being interviewed. And it turns out that the interviewer is not a journalist, it’s a White House staff member. Doesn’t this seem to you like they are really crossing a number of lines here when it comes to journalism and the proper approach to selling a justice?

O’DONNELL: Well, this White House has always tried to sort of leap over reporters to a large extent and photographers as well, to communicate directly with those people who would be in the public who will click on their website and want to learn more about her. It appears like an interview. But, people who are watching it should know that it was produced and done completely by the White House. And that means it will only deal with things that they believe are favorable and contribute to the narrative of who is Elena Kagan? What’s her background? She talks about her childhood. She talks about her work in law school, her love of the law. Things that are certainly glossy and friendly. But it is not an interview. And as you point out, typically justices do not do interviews. It’s rare. It does happen, but it’s rare. And so these behind the scenes meetings are a chance for real questions and answers. And unlike Sonia Sotomayor, who chatted a bit as she walked around the Senate last year, so far Elena Kagan has just said hello. No chance for reporters to interact. And so, that debate of how far does the White House go in its packaging is really a lively one that deals with lots of issues and certainly now with the Supreme Court nominee.

MITCHELL: It’s certainly big issues for journalists.