Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), now an advisor to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, defended the candidate’s position on gay rights: “He’s always had the same position as to regards to the gay agenda. Look, he wants to know people to know he values gay people as people, okay? But he doesn’t want the militant gays to be able to change the cultural institutions of the country.” Who are the “militant gays”? And how does Romney plan to combat them?

* There’s been a lot of talk this afternoon about an Obama-Richardson deal, though there are a lot of official denials and nothing firm. It may not matter soon, since the caucuses are just a couple of hours away.

* Remember the anti-Mormon call scandal in New Hampshire a while back? The state AG’s office has identified the firm behind the calls as Moore Information. Greg Sargent noted, “But the AG has not been able to determine who contracted the company for the calls, which obviously is the crucial info here…. According to the AG’s release Moore Information outsourced the job to Western Wats, the firm that actually made the calls — and Wats was tied to Romney in various ways, giving weight to the theory that Romney himself was behind the calls.”

* Spencer Ackerman: “Suicide bombings in Iraq: not actually over. The last two weeks there’s been something approaching a bombing every two or three days. And they’re not where U.S. forces are spread the thinnest, but where they’re in full effect — Diyala and Baghdad. The Post reports the trend line for suicide bombings has been upward for the past two months. Happy 2008, year of the de-surge.”

* In Pakistan: “Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday there were problems with Pakistan’s investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s killing and conceded that uncertainty remained over the exact cause of the former prime minister’s death. He denied accusations the military or intelligence services were involved in the attack.” Somehow, I suspect that won’t settle the matter.

* Was Bush’s veto of the defense authorization bill last week constitutional? Oddly enough, it’s a debatable point.