Hot Air has all the details. Probably the big news is that the racist Tea Party has driven Dick Lugar out of office. I didn’t even know he was black.

In other news, North Carolina has banned gay marriage and civil unions. President Obama was seen looking for the missing link in his “evolving” position on these issues.

[Posted by Karl]

With the GOP presidential nomination a near-certainty for Mitt Romney, today’s big elections concern the fates of US Sen. Dick Lugar in Indiana and same-sex marriage in North Carolina.

Taking the latter first, Gallup reports 50% of Americans are in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage (down marginally from last year’s 53%).  However, the latest PPP poll suggests a SSM ban will pass, with only 39% opposing the idea.  Although I tend to doubt Obama will win North Carolina in November, he undoubtedly would like to keep it in the mix of battleground states where the GOP has to spend money.  Accordingly, while much will be made of the fact that SSM is backed by Democrats and Indies but largely opposed by Republicans,  White House flack Jay Carney spent yesterday looking like a Dancing With The Stars contestant regarding Pres. Obama’s stated opposition to SSM.

Turning to the Indiana primary, where recent polling suggests the incumbent Lugar may get knocked off by state treasurer Richard Mourdock, I found the defense of Lugar by Peggy Noonan highly instructive, although not for the reasons she hoped: (more…)

The L.A. Times reports a Very Important Story that just happens to play into Obama talking points: Romney stands silent as Obama is accused of treason.

Mitt Romney drew criticism Monday after he failed to challenge a questioner who suggested at a campaign event that President Obama should be tried for treason.

The woman, in posing a question to Romney, asserted, “We have a president right now that is operating outside the structure of our Constitution.”

She was interrupted by applause from the crowd.

“I want to know,” she said before turning to another audience member and saying, “Yeah, I do agree he should be tried for treason. But I want to know what you are going to be able to do to help restore balance between the three branches of government and what you’re going to be able to do to restore our Constitution in this country?”

Romney, after waiting for the applause to die down, answered the woman’s question without addressing the treason remark.

So Romney didn’t correct a troll. Big deal. It’s about the same thing as when some yahoo makes a really dumb and inflammatory comment on this blog and I don’t say anything. I don’t have a responsibility to respond to every dumb comment. (Most of them are smart, by the way!) And Mitt Romney does not have a responsibility to take on every silly comment made by some citizen asking him a question.

Of course, the Obama camp jumped all over Romney for this, as does the L.A. Times. But remember when little Jimmy Hoffa got up on stage before President Obama and delivered this inarticulately nasty battle cry?

President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let’s take these son-of-a-bitches out and give America back to America where we belong.

Obama’s reaction? He came on stage and named a bunch of union leaders, including Hoffa, and said: “we are proud of them”:

How does the L.A. Times portray that episode?

The Romney campaign called foul, pointing to a 2011 Labor Day rally in which Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa used foul language to refer to Republicans and said Democrats should take them out. Obama later took the stage and made no mention of the comment.

Technically accurate, I suppose. But how about telling readers that Obama also praised the guy who made the comment?

And why must editors portray it as the Romney response, rather than putting the institutional weight of the paper behind the observation that it happened? The spin would be very different if the article portrayed this as “Obama camp makes big deal out of Romney silence. But Obama was silent in the past in a similar situation.” Instead, we get: “Romney was silent. But he says Obama was silent in the past in a similar situation.” See the difference?

At least the Times article notes the blatant hypocrisy coming out of the Obama camp, which was all over Mitt Romney for failing to denounce the “treason” comment — but which was singing a different tune back when Jimmy Hoffa was calling us all “son-of-a-bitches.” Let’s pick up where we left off:

The Romney campaign called foul, pointing to a 2011 Labor Day rally in which Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa used foul language to refer to Republicans and said Democrats should take them out. Obama later took the stage and made no mention of the comment.

Asked later if the president should have disavowed the remark, White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said the president shouldn’t be expected to “serve as the speech police for the Democratic Party.”

Hahahaha. Hypocrites.

P.S. Let’s keep in mind that there is a sound basis to say that Obama is operating outside the structure of the Constitution. ObamaCare is a solid example. Somewhere between 4-5 members of the Supreme Court agree with me that the law is an overreach and is not tenable under our structure of government.