CALLING RADICALISM BY ITS NAMEEDITORIALNEW YORK TIMESMr. Obama provided a powerful signal on Tuesday that he intends to make this election about the Republican Party’s failure to confront, what he called, “the defining issue of our time”: restoring a sense of economic security while giving everyone a fair shot, rather than enabling only a shrinking number of people to do exceedingly well. His remarks promise a tough-minded campaign that will call extremism and dishonesty by name.MEN IN BLACKBY MAUREEN DOWDNEW YORK TIMESHow dare President Obama brush back the Supreme Court like that? … This court, cosseted behind white marble pillars, out of reach of TV, accountable to no one once they give the last word, is well on its way to becoming one of the most divisive in modern American history. It has squandered even the semi-illusion that it is the unbiased, honest guardian of the Constitution. It is run by hacks dressed up in black robes. All the fancy diplomas of the conservative majority cannot disguise the fact that its reasoning on the most important decisions affecting Americans seems shaped more by a political handbook than a legal brief.
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MR. OBAMA TONES DOWN HIS SUPREME COURT RHETORICEDITORIALWASHINGTON POSTPresident Obama’s comments Monday about the Supreme Court were jarring. If the court were to strike down the health-care law, Mr. Obama said, it would be a blatant example of judicial activism. That “an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” the president said, would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step.” Well, not exactly, and the comments strayed perilously close to a preemptive strike on the court’s legitimacy if it were to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional. Which is why Mr. Obama was wise to revise and extend his remarks Tuesday in comments to newspaper editors. ARE WOMEN JUST NOT THAT INTO MITT?BY KATHLEEN PARKERWASHINGTON POSTThough the cumulative effect of these discussions may have swayed some women to stick with the president, to focus only on so-called women’s issues is perhaps to miss the more compelling point and, therefore, in Romney’s case, to miss what needs fixing. It is entirely possible that women simply aren’t that into Mitt. He’s just not their kind of guy. Health care, taxes, budgets, debt ceilings, capacity utilization, Chinese currency: so important. But at the end of the day — does he have “it”? His wife says he does, but then she knows the unzipped Mitt. The question for American women is, Do they really want to go there?PAUL RYAN’S HUNGER GAMESEDITORIALWALL STREET JOURNALThe President’s depiction of the wonkish and formerly obscure House Budget Chairman as some political monster is itself telling. Mr. Obama is conceding that he can’t run on the economic recovery, the stimulus, health care, green energy or any of the other grand liberal ambitions that have dominated his time in office. All of those are unpopular or failures. He was elected on hope and change, but now his only hope is to change the subject to the ogres he claims are the disloyal opposition. Did you hear about the GOP’s red-in-tooth-and-claw plan for Medicare? Grandma and Gramps are going to be drafted for the Hunger Games.OBAMA’S AMERICABY YUVAL LEVINNATIONAL REVIEWHe speaks as though the problem—our unsustainable entitlement state—were the solution, and as though the solution—a budget that restrains the growth of spending, modernizes and reforms our collapsing entitlement and welfare programs to avert their collapse, and charts a path toward economic growth—were the problem. … A psychologist might call this projection. The president’s political advisors probably call it all they’ve got. Let us hope that voters will know what to call it this fall: reckless denial and cynical dishonesty from a failed president with nothing left to offer. Or, if we are lucky, perhaps the last straw.LET MITT BE MITT… AND DULLBY JOE SCARBOROUGHPOLITICO Although he’s a lousy politician, everyone who knows Mitt personally sees him as a great father, a devoted husband and a gifted businessman. If you spend a few minutes with the man’s family, you can see his character shining through in his wife and five boys. But being a good man has not always translated well on the campaign trail. Perhaps this is because the business of politics is such an inhumane slog that only the craziest among us can look like normal human beings while going through the grind of a presidential election. Mitt can’t fake it. … If Boston wants their candidate to humanize himself, maybe they should just let him admit that fact and stop trying to stuff himself into a suit that doesn’t
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