Priebus: Last Week ‘A Good Week’
Credit where credit is due: Reince Priebus is trying so hard to believe in Mitt Romney that he told George Stephanopoulos on This Week that “we [the GOP campaign] had a good week last week.” What? As in the week where secret video revealed Romney had called nearly half of the electorate “victims”? The week where Romney was accused of dyeing his face brown for a Univision interview? The week where Paul Ryan was booed at the AARP? Priebus said “we were able to frame up the debate last week in the sense of what future do we want,” but if that was a good week, what does a bad week look like?
Clinton: No Magic Could Have Helped the Economy
Former President Bill Clinton sat down with Face the Nation Sunday, and at once offered strong support for President Obama’s reelection and an intense rebuke of the GOP. No president could have “magically” healed the country’s economic woes, Clinton said, and the Republicans’ “militant anti-government approach” isn’t the way to get the economy back on track. Obama’s plan is “more likely to produce broad-based prosperity than Romney’s,” he said. “That’s why we’ve got to keep working at it.”
Coulter: Dems ‘Dropping the Blacks and Moving on to the Hispanics’
Ann Coulter has an innate ability to make outrageous, provocative, and offensive claims in an incredibly self-assured, ‘this is not actually horribly offensive’ tone— and still be taken seriously (or, continue to be invited onto roundtables). This time, Coulter took to This Week to claim that immigrant rights are not civil rights—“civil rights are for blacks”—and that “Democrats are dropping the blacks and moving on to the Hispanics.” Even if she wasn’t using the terms ‘the blacks’ and ‘the Hispanics,’ this rant ranks right up there in the higher echelons of Coulter craziness.
Woodward: Privacy ‘Doesn’t Exist Anymore’
Legendary journalist Bob Woodward sat down with Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources to share his thoughts on the morality of publishing information from anonymous sources. Not surprisingly, the Watergate reporter saw nothing wrong with airing the video of Romney secretly taped at a private fundraiser. “It’s an open forum to a certain extent,” Woodward said. “No one in the world has an expectation of privacy—it doesn’t exist anymore.”
Gibbs Gets Grilled on Fox
Robert Gibbs got taken to task Sunday over the Obama administration’s continuous claims that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was spontaneous, not pre-planned. On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace peppered the former White House press secretary with questions, bringing up clips of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and current press secretary Jay Carney stating that the attack was simply a reaction to an offensive internet video, not a terrorist action. Gibbs made clear that the White House has since called the assault a “terrorist attack,” and stood by Rice and Carney who, he said, were simply giving the best answers they could with the information they had.
Graham: ‘I Like Our Positioning’
On State of the Union Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) joined Reince Priebus as high profile Republicans somehow pleased with their party’s standing in the presidential race. “Quite frankly, I like our positioning,” Graham said. Really? Candy Crowley asked, as her audience yelled the same thing at their televisions. “Yes, I really do,” Graham said. “No one’s ever been reelected with an economy this bad.”
Ayotte vs. Patrick: Mitt’s Taxes
Mitt Romney just released his 2011 tax returns, and Deval Patrick doesn’t think it’s a huge deal. When David Gregory asked the Democratic Massachusetts governor on Meet the Press whether it’s fair to ask for more tax returns—as the Democrats have been doing for some time—Patrick responded, “I think it’s a perfectly fair question. But I think the bigger question is what is it he plans to do with everybody else’s taxes…” And Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) skirted Gregory’s challenge that Romney’s 14 percent tax rate might make him seem (even more) out of touch with regular Americans. Instead, she launched into the now-very familiar GOP talking points about ballooning food stamps rolls and weak jobs reports.
