In January, Mediate Founder Dan Abrams authored an editorial on Manning. We are re-printing it in its entirety.

For well over a year, many have feverishly raced to the defense of U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, accused of 22 criminal charges — including aiding the enemy — for leaking hundreds of thousands of pages of classified documents (and video) to Wikileaks. Late last month, for the first time, we finally heard his side of the story during an evidentiary hearing to determine whether he should be court-martialed. Many of his supporters, often at the courthouse daily clad in t-shirts emblazoned with his picture, must have been disappointed that Manning’s own lawyer hardly portrayed him as the grand patriot those defenders have depicted.

RELATED: Julian Assange: Media Coverage of Bradley Manning’s Imprisonment is ‘Appalling’

Hailed as a hero by some for exposing what they claim are U.S. government misdeeds, as well as illegal and immoral conduct, he has websites like BradleyManning.org devoted to him and many prominent supporters — aside from, of course, Wikileaks editor Julian Assange. Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg stated flatly that he “was Bradley Manning” and that he was profoundly affected by Manning’s decision to leak. “I never thought,” he said of Manning, “for the rest of my life, I would ever hear anyone willing to do that, to risk their life, so that horrible, awful secrets could be known.” Manning himself can allegedly be counted among those promoting the lionization of his image, accused of having said about his own conduct: “This is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare.”

Unfortunately, that sort of principled position is far from what his own defense team suggests motivated Manning’s alleged perfidy. No, they appear to be pursuing the defense that he was a gay man in a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell military, struggling with gender identity issues, who never should have had access to the files in the first place. His attorney focused on Manning’s alter ego, Breanna Manning, and quoted an email from Manning where he said his “entire life feel(s) like a bad dream that won’t end. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what will happen to me. But at this point I feel like I am not here anymore.” That characterization suggests he was no hero; not a man standing for principle nor acting in the best interest of the country but, rather, a sad troubled soul worthy of sympathy. It is a defense which appears to concede that he leaked the documents but also abandons any pretense of righteousness in exchange for an apologia for his behavior. That is a trade Assange himself would likely detest since he complained to then New York Times Editor Bill Keller that a profile of Manning “psychologicalized” him while giving “short shrift” to his “political awakening.”

Sure, his lawyer also said the disclosures were relatively harmless. “The sky is not falling,” defense attorney David Coombs argued. He briefly invoked Martin Luther King on civil disobedience and cited the famous quote from Justice Louis Brandeis that “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” but the defense’s larger argument as to why he did it appears to be that Manning was a mentally disturbed individual who should have been stopped by his superiors. Essentially, the duty of stopping Manning from leaking the documents, goes this argument, would fall to superiors, because Manning was mentally incapable of stopping himself.

RELATED: Report: Bradley Manning Cleared To Leave Isolation Cell

That, however, does not make the case any easier for the prosecution. Proving that Manning had the intent to provide the information to enemies of the United States may be difficult, and that could even lead to a plea deal on the horizon. Nor would this minimize legitimate concerns raised about his overbearing and solitary prison conditions which appear to have been improved.

Furthermore, this was a pretty pro-forma hearing. The defense comes into it knowing they will “lose,” that the case will almost certainly move forward no matter what they do. So, his sympathizers might argue, the defense called only two witnesses knowing that there was no good reason to pull out all the stops at this point in the legal process (some of the defense’s proposed psychological witnesses were also not permitted to testify).

Fair enough. But when it comes to a broad judgment about the man and his actions, his lawyers have left us with two choices for now: loathsome, as the prosecution asserts, or pathetic. No one inside the courtroom, at least not yet, is really arguing that he was valiant, courageous or heroic.

The girls’ mother, Anita, says her daughters inherited the disorder from their late father:

Anita was only 12 when she wed her husband in an arranged marriage, and she did not see him until the day they tied the knot.

“It was only on the day of my marriage that I discovered what he was; [he] was hairy on his face, ears and body. That’s when I found out,” she said.

“I was very young. I didn’t know what kind of boy he was.

“He scared the hell out of me when he arrived at the [ceremony].”

The girls, who have been stigmatized for their appearance, are worried about what their hypertrichosis universalis will mean for their chances of ever getting marries. “Marriage is not an option for us,” said Savita. “Who is going to marry us when hair keeps growing on our faces?” Savita treats her hair with creams and tries to hold down a job, but her employers ask her to leave once her hair begins growing back.

h/t NY Post, The Sun

In his latest video, O’Keefe operatives secretly tape Minnesota election workers explaining how they can register people like “Timothy Tebow” and “Thomas Brady” to vote by mail, without showing any ID, and how easy it is for someone to obtain an absentee ballot under false pretenses. If you can stand the idiotic smugness (heh, heh, Tim Tebow! Thomas Brady!), check it out, and pay attention to the questions O’Keefe’s operatives ask:

The premise of O’Keefe’s investigations into “voter fraud” is that it’s easy for someone to fraudulently register to vote, and consequently, to cast fraudulent votes. The idea is that the only way to preserve democracy is to enact strict voter ID laws that have the added benefit of disenfranchising millions of voters who tend to vote Democratic. The Brad Blog‘s Brad Friedman, who makes a habit of dismantling O’Keefe investigations, explains why, even if you accept everything O’Keefe’s video says as true, such laws wouldn’t help at all:

1) While one can indeed register to vote (in most places) without showing an ID via third party, what O’Keefe fails to mention in his video, is that the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 already requires those who do not register in person to provide ID when voting for the first time at the polling place. In other words, if “Thomas Brady” registers to vote via the registration forms received via O’Keefe’s video, he would be required, by federal law, to show an ID the first time he votes in person at the polling place. That is already federal law. O’Keefe must have forgotten to mention that in his latest “Voter Fraud Investigation” video.

2) To work around the above point in order to commit voter fraud, one could, after committing a felony by fraudulently filling out a voter registration form, go ahead and commit another felony by voting via absentee ballot without having to show an ID, as also discussed in the video (at least in states which allow easy, “no-excuse” access for that type of voting.) It would, indeed, be possible, in this way, to commit voter fraud, if one wished to risk the very high penalties for committing yet another felony. What O’Keefe fails to mention in his video, however, is that the polling place Photo ID restrictions that Republicans have been pushing for, and which this video is obviously meant to support, would do nothing to prevent this absentee voter fraud!

Friedman explains that he’s “currently on the road and don’t have enough time for his idiocy as is,” so I generously made time for this idiocy, and found out that even O’Keefe’s absentee scenario is false. According to Minnesota election law, anyone registering by mail must either provide a verifiable driver’s license/state ID number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. If those items don’t match state records, or if the registrant checks that third box, they are sent a notice informing them that they have to register using the same requirements as in-person registration. Those requirements are:

(1) presenting a driver’s license or Minnesota identification card issued pursuant to section 171.07;
(2) presenting any document approved by the secretary of state as proper identification;
(3) presenting one of the following:
(i) a current valid student identification card from a postsecondary educational institution in Minnesota, if a list of students from that institution has been prepared under section 135A.17 and certified to the county auditor in the manner provided in rules of the secretary of state; or
(ii) a current student fee statement that contains the student’s valid address in the precinct together with a picture identification card; or
(4) having a voter who is registered to vote in the precinct, or who is an employee employed by and working in a residential facility in the precinct and vouching for a resident in the facility, sign an oath in the presence of the election judge vouching that the voter or employee personally knows that the individual is a resident of the precinct.

So, if O’Keefe wants to register Tim Tebow to vote in Minnesota by mail, he needs to either create a CIA-worthy document trail for him, featuring a valid, verifiable state ID number or Social Security number. Otherwise, fake Tim needs to show ID, or get another registered voter in that precinct to swear (and sign) an oath before an election judge, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, attesting to the identity of the bogus Tebow. That’s quite a bit different from O’Keefe’s claim of “without identification requirements of any kind.”

The truth is, submitting fake voter information is easy, but successfully registering fake people is incredibly difficult, and casting fake votes is even harder. Doing either of them enough times to affect the outcome of an election is a near-impossibility, and certainly not worth the penalty.

Passing a law that imposes a requirement that many of your opponent’s supporters don’t meet, however, is effective, and when you get people to believe garbage like this, downright simple. It’s easy to vote for other people to go get something that you already have.

According to the report:

“29.3% of South Carolinian adults could not “accurately identify who the current vice president—Joe Biden—is. Almost one-quarter (23 percent) couldn’t remember who the vice president is; 3.3 percent supplied the incorrect name; and 3 percent named Dick Cheney.”

Biden has often had to deal with significant percentages of the American public being unaware he is the Vice President. In 2010, a Pew Research Poll found that 41% of Americans could not identify Biden as Vice President.

(h/t Daily Caller)

RELATED: Lawrence O’Donnell Targets Asian Actress In Hoekstra Ad, Calls For ‘Dirty Politics’ Boycott

And, so. Here’s this:

My co-worker Jon Bershad was watching this video with me, and he brought up another routine that has a very similar “point,” but was executed quite differently. In Improv Everywhere’s (recently re-released) “Meet A Black Person” sketch, the group set an actual, real-life Black Person™ up in Aspen, Colorado — a place, the video notes, that is but 0.44 percent black. He then proceeded to introduce himself to many white people enjoying a nice ski vacation.

Have a look:

Ha! And cringe! And more ha!

Now, I think Ackerman’s point here (and I’m sure you’ll happily and graciously let me know if you think I’m over-analyzing) is to do more than simply point out ignorance regarding Black History Month and famous black figures throughout history. This bit seems to focus on a wider-ranging ignorance and awkwardness that exists between two groups, as well as point out the manner in which people can sometimes live in a homogenized bubble with very little awareness of or interest in anything that exists outside of that. And that’s ripe for humor. Awesome concept; I’m on board. But. There are problems.

First, I’d like to ask Ackerman (whose work I’m, admittedly, not familiar with) if setting this up at a well-known Mormon school (called out by name in the video) is a deliberate choice. Is this supposed to be commentary on Mormons? Religious education? Religion in general? Conservatives?

And I’d also, you know, like to ask Ackerman about his use of blackface. The video notes that only three people said something about Ackerman not really being black, and that he finds this disturbing. But… why? Was this one of the video’s goals – to try and see whether (mostly) white BYU students would be able to read a dark person as being “not black”?

I guess I’m left with more questions than laughs.

What do you guys think, though? Was the video funny? What worked, what didn’t? And what, my dears, is your take on his use of blackface?

h/t Dave Ackerman, via BuzzFeed

RELATED: Donald Trump Slams Rick Santorum On Early Start: ‘I Don’t Get Rick Santorum, I Don’t Get That Whole Thing’

“I’ve taken a gander throughout the Republican media, conservative media, and all over the place, and they are shocked. They’re literally shocked. The Republican establishment had no idea this was percolating out there. I can’t believe how insulated they are. I mean I know they’re insulated. I know they’re inside the Beltway. I know they have their own world in which they live, but to look at the reaction they’re having today, to see how shocked they are that Rick Santorum has come out of what they thought was an impossible position equivalent to nowhere, is an incredible thing.”

Influential Republicans weren’t the only ones getting Limbaugh’s scorn. He also took shots at anyone foolhardy enough to lay the credit for the victories at his door.

Last week, some were wondering if Limbaugh had slipped a secret Santorum endorsement into his show by ending a broadcast, right before the Florida primary, with the assertion that all of the GOP candidates were “guilty of some transgression somewhere against Conservatism…except Santorum.” Already there are media figures theorizing that this could have contributed to last night’s results. Over at The American Spectator, Jay D. Homnick put it in no uncertain terms, writing a column called “Thank Him, Santorum!”

Limbaugh wasn’t going to accept this though, positing that this line of thinking didn’t give enough credit to Santorum or Limbaugh’s listeners:

“Of course, the Drive-Bys are crediting me for this.

…

It can’t be the candidates. It can’t be that Santorum’s connecting with voters. It can’t be that, no, no, it can’t be that Santorum’s resonating with Republican voters, the conservative base. It can’t be that the conservative base just isn’t happy with Romney. It can’t be any of that. No, no, no. It has to be that the Republican base is a bunch of mind-numbed robots sitting out there waiting for marching orders from me.”

Limbaugh argued that the reason for Santorum’s win was simply that Republican voters are “engaged” and can tell that he is the “least corrupted,” not because Limbaugh told them to vote that way.

Of course, Limbaugh wasn’t going to turn down all of the credit. In the end, he agreed that it was probably a “mixture of both.”

Listen to the clip below:

(h/t The Daily Rushbo)

Joe Hildebrand

Joe Hildebrand began by tweeting “I just want to say I think it’s great that Sydney Airport is providing so many jobs for the mentally handicapped.”

This prompted a reasoned, articulate rebuke from columnist Stella Young, herself a disabled Australian. Her column was noteworthy in that it eschewed shaming, or demands for firing, in favor of a simple plea for empathy: (the whole thing is more than worth a read)

Like the countless people who make thoughtless jokes about disability, I don’t think Joe Hildebrand was conscious of the ableism inherent in his silly joke. But it was there. And the thing with speaking from a position of privilege is that you’re not often asked to think about how your language affects other people – and when you are, it seems everyone jumps up and down complaining about how the system is oppressing their freedom of speech, with little thought for those whom the speech routinely oppresses.

Much like the homosexual community has to deal with people (okay, mostly teenagers – the rest of us have finally cottoned on that it’s more than a little bit homophobic) referring to things that are a bit shit as ‘so gay’ in our post-ironic society. I find it hard to imagine Hildebrand referring to the staff at Sydney Airport as ‘so gay’ – so why is it still okay for disability to be treated as synonymous with subpar performance?

Hildebrand’s tweet is offensive because it uses disability as a shortcut to mean “crap”. And in doing so, he reveals a subtle and no doubt unconscious contempt for disabled people that is still rife in our culture. At best, it displays a blatant ignorance of the very real barriers faced by people with disability, some of which, ironically, are employment and air travel. At its worst, it assumes that jokes like these are okay – because they’re not about anyone important. Perhaps it’s assumed that people with intellectual disabilities won’t ‘get it’ anyway. That they can’t be hurt by a joke they don’t understand.

Young’s message appeared to have gotten through, as Hildebrand retweeted a link that described the piece as “passionate and articulate.”

Yeah, not so much. Hildebrand followed up that tweet with these:

Just want to say how sorry I am for using the words “mentally handicapped” in a tweet. That was really retarded of me.

Just want to say I’m sorry for offending so many people by using the word “retarded” in a tweet. That was really Irish of me.

Sorry I just offended so many people by using the term “Irish”. Just having a blonde moment.

Then, just to be sure everyone knew he was specifically spitting on Young’s rebuttal, he retweeted this:

@mostlyFilth @Joe_Hildebrand your series of faux pas today has been pretty gay.

If Hildebrand is anything like Rush Limbaugh, the courage he displays in the face of the mentally disabled, the wheelchair-bound, the Irish, and the gay ought to stand him in good stead with his audience.

This brand of “defiance” crops up quite a bit here, but the thing that people like Hildebrand or Rush Limbaugh fail to realize is that what they call “language policing” is really just an attempt to let people know when they’re being assholes, and affording them the opportunity to stop.

(h/t Kate Doak)

Wall Street, of which Mayor Bloomberg is a billionaire alum and continues to rely on for his tax base, should be thankful and conciliatory, not defiant and obtuse. Yet in response to Occupy Wall Street protests, we get this:

“Instead of vilifying our most successful businesses, we should be supporting them and encouraging them to remain in New York City,” expressed John Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund trader, in a press release that also described his “$28 billion, 120-person fund as an exemplar of the American Dream.”

That’s not the mark of a man who is in touch with the reality so many Americans are currently facing.

And even though Wall Street received one of the biggest bailouts in history from the current administration, they support Mitt Romney (a millionaire alum) by a 5-1 margin, while President Obama fuddles with a foreclosure crisis he can’t avert, and is hastening to approve a weak multi-billion dollar settlement with lenders over foreclosure abuses. If that weren’t enough, President Obama is suggesting that he is willing to waive certain requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley in order to motivate corporations to hire new workers. This defies logic for two reasons:

(1) Relaxing rules that were just passed by Congress to better regulate public companies will only lead to all stakeholders — businesses, consumers, and Congress itself — realizing there’s no commitment to regulatory change.

(2) Worker productivity, the measure of output of each worker, has been high for years as the economy struggled through a recession and businesses cut back on labor expenses. But it really couldn’t get much higher, because there are only so many hours each employee can work — the manufacturing sector saw, “the largest quarterly gain in hours worked since the fourth quarter of 2005,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Businesses are bound to start hiring once consumer demand returns to its regular levels. No amount of administration kowtowing or rule bending will change that. And increasing consumer demand starts with consumer confidence (which, by the way, has increased for five straight months, something the administration does deserve credit for), not allowing businesses to do as they please.

Ironically, at a time when there couldn’t be both better timing and a better platform in which to deliver an economic message with populist zeal, the administration has wasted its opportunities: Occupy Wall Street has brought income inequality to the forefront of politics for months; the GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney, pays one of the lowest tax rates of any major presidential candidate in the last 25 years; the man who trails him, Newt Gingrich, wants to enact a tax plan that would have Romney paying a 0% rate on the far majority of his income (which is capital gains and is currently taxed at a 15% rate). Next thing you know, Gingrich would be suggesting the government pays millionaires to earn an income. As I noted in an article last month, most taxpayers don’t have that much capital gains — only 1.4% of taxpayers’ incomes mostly consist of them. So Newt’s plan is fully focused on the 1%. But what about the rest of us?

It’s past time that President Obama tell the American people what’s in it for them. Because the 1% is not looking to save him.

Yes, Obama decided to flaunt his hatred of our nation by filling its most sacred building with child scientists (which, as we all know, is the worst kind because their youth probably means they’re also cool with gay people). He then asked one of them, a boy named Joey, if he could test out his giant weapon. The two then mercilessly desecrated the interior of the building by shooting a marshmallow right into the wall. I’m not sure, but the Apologizer in Chief probably used the gun to spell out the word “SORRY” in Mandarin.

The White House has released footage of the event, presumably to mock us good Americans. Some fools have already wrongly described it as being “cute” and “funny.” However, those of us who know that “scientists” are all evil socialist bought and paid for by George Soros know that “cute” is just another word for “evil.”

Watch below:

I have followed the Court’s Citizens United decision particularly closely because my dad, Floyd Abrams, was one of the lawyers who argued it (for free, incidentally) in the Supreme Court, on behalf of Senator Mitch McConnell. Their challenge was to a part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that barred corporations and unions from engaging in what they argued was classic political speech — producing and showing a movie on television that criticized a candidate for President and spending money for ads that support or denounce that candidate. They prevailed in a divided 5-4 ruling. Subsequently, and not surprisingly, the ruling became one of the most controversial opinions of our day, with many on the left denouncing the ruling as a fundamental threat to our democracy.

Let me say at the outset that I don’t entirely agree with the position my dad took in the case. He sought and got a broad ruling striking down major parts of the statute. In my view, the Court could and should have decided the case on far narrower grounds, thereby avoiding the need to overturn some past Supreme Court rulings (On a personal note, I have also been amazed at the vitriol directed at my civil libertarian father from the left over his defense of a constitutional principle he firmly believes in. Defend a Nazi’s right to march? No problem. Defend the most repugnant members of our society’s right to speak? Absolutely. Defend a corporation’s right to engage in the political process? Inexcusable). But my personal view on the nuances of the ruling is beside the point. This is about what the ruling said and didn’t say, what it did and didn’t do. And about how so many in the media keep getting the ruling and its impact dead wrong.

There are two media myths and inventions that are most commonly cited.

Myth 1: The Court invalidated disclosure requirements in political advertising, thereby allowing donors to remain anonymous.

Wrong. The Court ruled just the opposite and upheld, by an 8-1 vote, the McCain-Feingold requirement of identifying donors.

Myth 2: That the Court’s ruling in Citizens United opened the door to wealthy individuals like Sheldon Adelson to pour millions of dollars into PACs.

Wrong again. The Citizens United ruling had NOTHING to do with the ability of individuals to spend their money to support candidates. That had been decided back in 1976, when the Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment protected the right of individuals to make unlimited independent expenditures supporting or opposing candidates for federal office. In Citizens United, the Court ruled that corporations and unions were entitled to the same rights. It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that the Swift Boat ads, legally paid for by individuals, soiled John Kerry during the 2004 campaign.

But reading the New York Times, Washington Post and watching MSNBC in particular, it is hardly surprising that the public would be confused. On January 9, in a front-page piece on the influence of Newt Gingrich supporter Sheldon Adelson, the Times inaccurately reported that Adelson’s $5 million donation to a pro-Gingrich SuperPAC “underscores” how the Citizens United case, “has made it possible for a wealthy individual to influence an election.” On January 14th, a column by Gail Collins asserted that, “all these billionaires would not be so worrisome if the Supreme Court had not totally unleashed their donation-making power in the Citizens United case.” The opinion, in fact, did nothing of the sort. I don’t know if it’s sad or just troubling that the Times issued two corrections on the earlier piece, including the year Citizens United was decided, but none on its repeated and major error about the ruling itself.

The Washington Post has done no better. On January 11th, Dana Milbank, writing of Adelson’s $5 million donation to a pro-Gingrich SuperPAC, asserted that it was, “the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision which made such unlimited contributions possible.” And on February 5th, E.J. Dionne Jr. blamed Citizens United for permitting, “the brute force of millionaires and billionaires … to have their way.”  The Post published a letter from Floyd Abrams today highlighting the error, but without a formal correction.

It seems this faulty analysis has worn off on MSNBC host Chris Matthews as well, since he, too, regularly misreports the case’s ruling. “Under this new court ruling, Citizens United, your opponent can run a terrible campaign and relentlessly destroy your reputation without putting your fingerprints on the ad,” Matthews said. “You don’t have to say, ‘I’m Mitt Romney and I paid for this ad.’ So now in Iowa, where the people don’t like negative campaigning, you can run the bombing campaign or destroy your opponent without having your face or voice associated with it. That’s what Newt wasn’t aware of. It’s his fault that conservatives like them have gone along with these court decisions, that have allowed big contributors, wealthy people to put unlimited amounts of money into negative campaigns without putting the name of their favorite candidate in the ad.”

This is a double dose of wrong, since the disclosure requirement in the law was upheld and the case had nothing to do with individuals. One might forgive Al Jazeera for getting it wrong and it’s not unusual to see partisan advocates misstate a ruling like this to further a political agenda, but the mainstream American media should have no excuse.

NBC’s Michael Isikoff seems to have become the network’s Citizens United “expert,” since he addresses it in so many of his appearances. According to Isikoff, “the ‘independent’ SuperPACs –thanks to last year’s Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case — can collect unlimited amounts from wealthy donors and directly from corporations. This gives them the latitude to potentially spend even more money than the presidential campaigns themselves, which are still constrained by official limits of $2,500 per donor.” It’s true that Citizens United changed the law with regard to corporate spending, but the opinion did not change the law on an individual’s ability to “spend even more money than the campaigns themselves.” Before and after Citizens United, individuals could give unlimited amounts to outside groups. On January 10th, leading up to the New Hampshire primary, Isikoff and Reverend Al Sharpton engaged in a conversation on MSNBC, in which both men demonstrated a misunderstanding about the ruling by repeatedly talking about the supposed impact on the ability of wealthy individuals to impact elections.

Last month, Isikoff enhanced Matthews’ misunderstanding of the opinion’s impact on disclosure:

Matthews: It seems to me, Michael Isikoff, that this is going to be message out
of Iowa, the power of these third party or SuperPACs, where you don’t have
to put the candidate’s name on it, you don’t put the names of the
contributors on it, the money is unlimited, and you can basically destroy
your opponent if you have got enough rich friends. Legal, right?

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely, under the Supreme
Court ruling Citizens United last year.

So is there any argument at all to support their claims? Not on the case’s impact on disclosure requirements. But on the effect on individual donors, the strongest argument is a sort of psychological one articulated by law professor Rick Hasen, who concedes that, yes, it is true that individuals could donate unlimited amounts before Citizens United, (he points out that George Soros gave $23 million to help John Kerry), but because a “legal cloud” hung over what were referred to as 527′s, some might have been reluctant to dump huge sums into them. Well, that hardly serves as cover for the myriad of journalists and media figures claiming as a matter of fact that Citizens United opened the door for the Sheldon Adelsons of the world.

This case has led to some heated dinner conversations in the Abrams household, but in the media that debate often appears to be based on a ruling that never occurred. How many times have I heard people wonder aloud how Citizens United could have treated money as speech? It didn’t. It held, as NYU Professor Geoffrey Stone pointed out in the Huffington Post, that when the government regulates money, “because it is being used to enable free speech it necessarily raises a First Amendment issue.” Can a corporation really receive First Amendment protection? The New York Times Company, The National Broadcasting Company and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting among many others, sure think so.

You may disagree with the opinion, you may think that expanding the ability of corporations to fund campaign messaging is a true danger, or just, as I do, that outside money is a major concern for our democratic system. But that doesn’t change the fact that the political chattering set ought to be far more concerned and outraged by the indolence, indifference or just bias, that has led to the widespread misinformation by the media about what the court actually considered and ultimately ruled.

RELATED: Iowa Caucus Shocker: Rick Santorum Declared Winner By 34 Votes

NBC News reports the Santorum campaign is in good spirits: “Tonight’s victory should put to bed the idea that the Republican nomination for Mitt Romney is inevitable,” said Stuart Roy, adviser to a pro-Santorum super PAC.

RELATED: GLAAD Demands CNN Fire Roland Martin Over David Beckham Tweet

Martin has since argued that his tweets were actually insulting soccer, a claim Beck mocked. However, Beck said he had no idea whether or not Martin was actually a homophobe. However, he seemed to be very sure in his feelings on the CNN contributor’s intelligence.

“GLAAD, you should have been on this bandwagon a long time ago. There is a myriad of reasons for getting him fired from CNN. He is an idiot. I have to stand with him, unfortunately, and say that you don’t fire people for what they say in their personal life or what they believe. You fire them because they’re idiots.”

It should be noted that this was clearly not an objective assessment from Beck. He explained that he used to work with Martin during his time at CNN and alleged that the man had told more lies about him over the years than he can count. Like his response to Anthony Weiner’s misfortunes, Beck was obviously enjoying his time watching someone he thought had slighted him get in trouble. At one point, he joked that, if there should be anyone out there being homophobic, it’s a good thing it’s someone in an ascot.

Watch the clip from GBTV below. At the end, Beck also joins Bill O’Reilly in defending Ellen DeGeneres from anti-gay protesters.

(h/t HuffPo)

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign companies – to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

Obama supporters have already started the requisite circling of the wagons, claiming that even though the President was against creation of Super PACs (which is true but makes this decision worse, not better), he has no choice since his GOP competition will be using Super PACs with impunity. That’s wrong on a few accounts:

(1) Long before the president put his blessing on SuperPacs, analysts estimated the Obama reelection machine would raise $1 billion — the highest total ever raised in campaign history, which beats the previous total of $750 million that Obama set in 2008. To put that in perspective, $750 million is more than the combined total that George W. Bush and John Kerry raised in 2004.

(2) It would be rare for an incumbent president to be out-raised financially. In fact, it’s very likely that it has never been done before. And it’s not likely to happen to President Obama — as of August 2011 he had done more fundraisers for himself, Democratic committees or candidates, than the five presidents who preceded him.

(3) President Obama has yet to start his reelection campaign in earnest yet has already raised over $125 million, more than double that of his closest competitor, Mitt Romney, and has $81 million in cash on hand, four times that of Mitt Romney.

Bending the Law?

Moreover, sitting cabinet officials will speak at Priorities USA engagements with one caveat: they won’t directly raise money. However, flying federal officials around on the taxpayers’ dime for political purposes is why the Hatch Act, which exists to prevent the use of federal tax dollars for campaigning purposes, was created. Already the administration has gotten very close to the line. The LA Times reviewed fundraisers (not affiliated with Priorities USA, but otherwise Democratic) where cabinet officials have appeared and found “[s]ome people who have attended recent fundraisers described situations that came close to the [legal] limit.” Let’s hope the Obama Administration, for their sake, is better at gauging where, exactly, that line is than the George W. Bush Administration — whom the Office of Special Counsel found violated the Hatch Act on numerous occasions and even had a campaign agenda dotted with appearances by cabinet members. To be clear, plenty of past administrations have grappled with the nuances of following the Hatch Act. The difference is none of those administrations had the ability to raise the kind of money President Obama is able to raise.

Which leads to the what President Obama could have afforded to do concerning Super PACs: vowed not to support or receive money from Super PACs. He could have denounced their use and continued (in earnest) to push for changes in election law that would have nullified the Citizens United decision. But he didn’t. And does one really think he’ll make it a priority to change it after the election? If so, how could Congress take him seriously? What effect will his hypocrisy have? Very little.

Sure, the GOP can lash out and say Obama has gone back on his word but that won’t mean much to an independent voter that looks askance at what the entire political system has become: pay for play. And progressives won’t take Obama to task — not when so much is at stake and the election is around the corner. So to President Obama it was a net win. Only principle lost. But it’s been losing for a long time anyway.

Handel had been named senior vice president of public policy at the foundation in April 2011. In 2010, she had launched a gubernatorial run in Georgia, at which time she had been open about her pro-life views, specifically calling out Planned Parenthood for being an abortion provider.

RELATED: Susan G. Komen Founder Tells Shocked And ‘Anger’(ed) Andrea Mitchell, They Didn’t De-Fund Planned Parenthood

Here’s an excerpt from Handel’s resignation letter, the rest of which can be viewed here:

We can all agree that this is a challenging and deeply unsettling situation for all involved in the fight against breast cancer. However, Komen’s decision to change its granting strategy and exit the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood and its grants was fully vetted by every appropriate level within the organization. At the November Board meeting, the Board received a detailed review of the new model and related criteria. As you will recall, the Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organization’s real or perceived challenges. No objections were made to moving forward.

I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen’s mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants.

RELATED: Susan G. Komen Apologizes, Restores Planned Parenthood Funding

Watch Fox News break the story below:

The President’s reelection campaign has been raising money at a record clip, but as campaign manager Jim Messina has been warning for months, recent FEC filings show that despite a hefty advantage over his Republican rivals’ campaigns, outside Republican groups have been pouring enough cash into the race to dwarf the campaigns’ spending. Republican SuperPACs have raised north of $90 million, while Democratic outside groups have only raised $19 million.

So, despite his previous objections to the influence of outside money in elections, President Obama has decided to encourage donors to give to Priorities USA, the SuperPAC started by former White House staffers Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney, and to make certain administration and campaign officials available to speak at Priorities fundraisers.

A spokesman for the RNC was predictably quick to criticize the decision:

The Republican National Committee sharply criticized the decision. A spokesman, Joe Pounder, declared: “Yet again, Barack Obama has proven he will literally do anything to win an election, including changing positions on the type of campaign spending he called nothing short of ‘a threat to our democracy.”

There are even some Democrats who are apparently “confused” by the move, but the President’s position hasn’t changed. Believing in a level playing field doesn’t mean you’re obligated to kneel on an uneven one. Just as late President Ronald Reagan refused to unilaterally disarm the United States even though he wanted to see nuclear weapons “banished from the face of this Earth,” President Obama has decided not to unilaterally disarm in the face of an ominous nuclear fundraising arsenal, despite his desire to wipe them out.

Ironically, the success or failure of this move sets up a sort of Catch 22 for the President. According to The New York Times, some Democratic fundraisers see the SuperPAC money gap as a function of Wall Street’s anger at the President’s attempts to rein them in, which could mean that even with his blessing, the 1% might continue to shovel their cash in only one direction:

But major donors to Mr. Obama said in interviews that they were not sure the Democratic super PAC’s lackluster fund-raising was due entirely to the president’s public misgivings about outside spending. One longtime, high-dollar Democratic fund-raiser said it was also partly a result of Wall Street’s anger at Mr. Obama’s statements and policies concerning bank regulation, some of which have sent former Obama donors and fund-raisers to the Republicans.

Whether you think President Obama has done enough to rein in Wall Street, he clearly has less to offer them than the Republicans do. The only thing he can offer them is the possibility that he might win. In the past, moneyed interests had to hedge their bets a little, but with the ability to spend without limit, there’s little incentive to do so.

RELATED: Mitt Romney Gets Glitter Bombed In Minnesota

According to Rucker’s reporting:

The last time Romney took audience questions, Jan. 13 in Hilton Head, S.C., he got two off-the-wall ones. A girl doing a science project on germs wanted to know how many hands he shakes and how often he washes his hands. (He said he washes regularly and uses Purell sanitizer, too, “just to make sure.”) And an older woman asked whether he believes in “the divine saving grace of Jesus Christ.” (He said he did.)

Romney has eschewed town hall meetings with unpredictable questions for 15-minute stump speeches. Only time will tell if this strategy will pay off for the former Massachusetts governor.

So if Romney hasn’t been holding voter meet-and-greets, what has he been doing with all his time over the last 24 days?

Here’s a look at his public calendar of events:

Sat Jan 14
Mitt Romney Attends Huckabee Forum

Sun Jan 15
State Rep. Bryan Nelson and Commissioner Art Otero Rally Supporters Of Mitt Romney At A Pizza Party

Mon Jan 16
Mitt Romney Attends South Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition Presidential Kick-Off
Fox News South Carolina Debate

Tues Jan 17
Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally and Discusses Jobs and the Economy with Supporters (Stump speech)

Massive New York Fundraiser

Wed Jan 18
Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally and Discusses Jobs and the Economy with Supporters
(3 stump speeches)

Thurs Jan 19
Mitt Romney Visits Romney for President South Carolina Headquarters

Southern Republican Leadership Conference CNN Debate

Fri Jan 20
Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally and Discusses Jobs and the Economy with Supporters

Sat Jan 21
Mitt Romney Visits Romney for President Greenville Headquarters

Primary Night Event (South Carolina)

Sun Jan 22
Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally and Discusses Jobs and the Economy with Supporters in Florida (Stump speech)

Mon Jan 23
Mitt Romney Holds a Roundtable on Housing Issues (Florida)

St. Petersburg Times/NBC Debate (Florida)

Tues Jan 24
Mitt Romney Delivers Prebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union

Mitt Romney Holds a Florida Housing Event

Wed Jan 25
Mitt Romney Delivers Rebuttal to President Obama’s State of the Union

The Univision “Meet The Candidates” Forum (Florida)

US-Cuba Democracy PAC Event (Florida)

Pres. Tele-Townhall w/ Mitt Romney (Florida)

Thurs Jan 26
Mitt Romney Delivers Remarks At Jacksonville Small Business (Florida)

John McCain Holds A Town Hall Meeting (Florida)

John McCain Holds A Town Hall Meeting (2nd event) (Florida)

CNN-Hispanic Leadership Network Debate (Florida)

Fri Jan 27
John McCain Holds A Town Hall Meeting (Florida)

Mitt Romney Keynotes The Hispanic Leadership Network’s Lunch (Florida)

Mitt Romney Discusses Innovation On Space Coast (Florida)

Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally (Florida)

Sat Jan 28
Mitt Romney Holds a Veterans Rally (Florida)

Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally (Florida)

Sun Jan 29
Mitt Romney Holds a Rally with Supporters 11:45 (Florida)

Mitt Romney Meets with Voters 3:45pm (Florida)

Mitt Romney Holds a Rally with Supporters (Florida)

Mon Jan 30

Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally with Supporters 8am (Florida)

Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally with Supporters 2:15pm (Florida)

Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally with Supporters 6pm (The Villages, FL)

Tues Jan 31
Mitt Romney Holds an Event in Tampa

Romney for President Primary Night Event

Wed Feb 1
Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally with Supporters (Minnesota)

Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally with Supporters (Minnesota)

Thurs Feb 2
Donald Trump Endorses Gov. Romney

Reno, Nevada Rally

Fri Feb 3
Mitt Romney Holds a Business Roundtable and Addresses Employees (Nevada)

Rally with Mitt in Elko, NV

Mitt Romney Holds a Get Out the Vote Event with Supporters (Nevada)

Sat Feb 4
Grassroots Rally 2:45pm

Romney Nevada Primary Night 2012

Sun Feb 5
Super Bowl Sunday (Holiday)

Mon Feb 6
Mitt Romney Holds a Grassroots Rally with Supporters (Colorado)

RELATED: Watch The Amazing Will Ferrell Super Bowl Commercial That Only Aired In Nebraska

I have to imagine that these guys already had the video locked and loaded and releasing it today was just perfect timing. Either that or they know a guy that owns a brewery they could hang out at as soon as possible. Either way, I’m super jealous.

Watch the video from Jest below:

O’Reilly’s biggest shot in the interview landed on MSNBC, a network he referred to as having a, “very strong leftwing, partisan” approach. “Which is fine,” he added, “they can do what they want.” He pointed out that they don’t have a Shepard Smith or Bret Baier-led newsprogram, and rely on NBC for their hard news analyst roles. O’Reilly also noted that while CNN — FNC’s other main competitor — does a better job with the facts, they focus on stories that don’t pull at the hearts of average viewers.

“CNN is heavy on storms and Syria and rebellion and you know, basically, the traditional stuff,” O’Reilly explained. “But Fox News is much more interested in how the news affects the folks. So that they’ll get into the fabric of a teenager who wants to mention God in a valedictorian address, and there’s a big controversy over it. We’ll cover that whereas the others won’t.”

Later in the interview, O’Reilly tells Reynolds about the time he saved Inside Edition, which was “going down the drain” in its first month of air:

“They fired David Frost three weeks after he took over and they looked at me and they said, ‘We’re going to lose $50 million dollars; can you turn it around?’ And I said, ‘Maybe. You know, it depends on how much money you’re going to sink into it and how much latitude you’re going give me.” And I said, ‘I’ll take it over, but I have to write everything, including the promos, and get out of my way.’ And we turned that around; and that show is still on the air.”

Turning to politics, O’Reilly said that he wasn’t sure if President Obama would get re-elected, believing that his fortunes are tied to how Americans feel on Election Day. “If the voter in November feels insecure, then Obama will lose. It really doesn’t matter who runs against him,” he tells Reynolds. “But if things get better and there’s optimism in the air, then the President could very well win because he’s a very, very good campaigner. And Americans still like him personally.”

As for his opponent? “If I had to put money on it,” O’Reilly says, “I would say it would be Romney.”

Read the entire interview here, at MultiChannel News.

RELATED: Clint Eastwood Narrates ‘Halftime In America’ Super Bowl Ad

According to a report by Politico reporter Caitlin McDevitt:

“It was meant to be a message about just about job growth and the spirit of America,” Eastwood added. “I think all politicians will agree with it.”

Eastwood reiterated that he’s “not supporting any politician at this time” and added that “if any Obama or any other politician wants to run with the spirit of that ad, go for it.”

Watch the ad below:

Of course, it didn’t. I went twice before Beeny shut the museum down and threw its entire contents on eBay. The first time I went, the museum was housed in a series of conjoined trailer homes, so cramped that the gift shop was located in a bowling alley a little bit down the highway. On my second visit, it had been moved to a small house, allowing a front room that sold souvenirs: generic cheap Elvis trinkets, a few mugs with lackadaisically applied Elvis stickers. And to the side, under glass, a copy of Elvis’ complete FBI file, some 600 pages, for sale at the discount price of a few thousand dollars.

To Mr. Beeny, the heft of that pile of documents implied value. This was before everyone had a printer; the stack was presumably a photocopy generated by the FBI in Washington, acquired by Mr. Beeny at no small effort. Or maybe it was a generation newer than that, run off at a Kinko’s. Point is: it was big, not everyone had it, and it contained information.

I was reminded of this today when reading Alexis Madrigal‘s great piece about his visit to a now-abandoned satellite receiver in central California. It’s a damp, aging region, well-stocked with giant trees, once home to a critical piece of the American space program. There, Madrigal runs into Eric Lancaster.

He’d told me that he had “some real documentation of Apollo trips. Notes, signatures, serious dated stuff.” Lancaster hinted that the documents might be very valuable, and they were certainly the kind of thing I was looking for. He hadn’t scanned anything and didn’t use the Internet, so we arranged a meeting and my fiancee and I drove to Cachagua….

Next to a small backpack, on top of a plastic chair, there was a stack of mildewed manila folders held together by rusting metal clips.

“I was thinking that we might be able to make a few bucks, maybe even sell these to you guys,” Lancaster said.

To Lancaster, the documents themselves had value. Ostensibly for their contents, but really the pieces of paper themselves. They were something tangible, a good for which currency could be exchanged. Those folders had been in his house since he’d picked them out of the detritus of the satellite receiver offices. They were a thing that meant something to someone – and now that someone, it seemed, was standing in front of him.

It’s not just newspapers that confer value on medium instead of message. While not as valuable as in pre-Gutenberg days, we still put a premium on the physical conveyance of words and ideas: gorgeous books (see: Franzen, Jonathan), slick magazines, important newspaper editions. Part of it is aesthetics, of course, but a larger part is that the physical item is a metaphor for its contents. A manila envelope handed to Woodward and Bernstein in a parking garage – that totem carries with it a depth of meaning and poetry. If Deep Throat could have avoided the meeting, could have sent the information to Julian Assange, he would have. But then what goes in the museum?

Elvis’ entire FBI file is now available online. The value of Beeny’s stack, if it has survived being in storage after its eBay sale, is whatever a recycler will take for it.

Except to Beeny.

Yep, lets take a look at the (since deleted, of course) Facebook post from Louisiana’s GOP Rep. John Fleming:

Wow. Not only is this article from The Onion. Not only is it nine months old. Not only does it have the term “Abortionplex” in the headline. The whole thing is also patently ridiculous. Don’t believe me? Lets take a look at the text from the article one of our elected officials believes was real.

“‘The Abortionplex’s high-tech machinery is capable of terminating one pregnancy every three seconds,’ Richards added. ‘That’s almost a million abortions every month. We’re so thrilled!’

…

The remaining space is dedicated to amenities such as coffee shops, bars, dozens of restaurants and retail outlets, a three-story nightclub, and a 10-screen multiplex theater—features intended not only to help clients relax, but to foster a sense of community and make abortion more of a social event.

‘We really want abortion to become a regular part of women’s lives, especially younger women who have enough fertile years ahead of them to potentially have dozens of abortions,’ said Richards, adding that the Abortionplex would provide shuttle service to and from most residences, schools, and shopping malls in the region.”

Yep.

I sure am glad that well-informed people like John Fleming who have such a solid grasp on reality have the legal ability to fund and defund organizations that help tons of Americans. Keep up the good work running America, John!

(h/t The Hill via Jim Romenesko)

Martin, who spent Sunday evening live-Tweeting the game and several commercials, made a remark about an H&M commercial for David Beckham‘s line of men’s underwear. The ad, for those who missed it, features close-ups of the soccer player clad only in a pair of briefs.

“If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad,” Martin Tweeted, “smack the ish out of him!”

Martin insisted he was taking a jab at soccer fans, not the gay community. For your reference, here’s his original comment, including the Tweets that came directly before and after:

RELATED: CNN’s Roland S. Martin Livetweets Dave Chappelle’s Strange Comedy Set

GLAAD called out the Tweet for encouraging violence against gay men:

Today, Martin published a statement on the matter on his website:

Fam, let me address the issue that some in the LGBT community have raised regarding some of my Super Bowl tweets yesterday.

I made several cracks about soccer as I do all the time. I was not referring to sexuality directly or indirectly regarding the David Beckham ad, and I’m sorry folks took it otherwise.

It was meant to be a deliberately over the top and sarcastic crack about soccer; I do not advocate violence of any kind against anyone gay, or not. As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, anytime soccer comes up during football season it’s another chance for me to take a playful shot at soccer, nothing more.

GLAAD, meanwhile, has published a report titled “Enough is Enough: Tell CNN to Fire Roland Martin,” in which the group says that, not only is Martin’s Tweet certainly homophobic, it is also part of a larger pattern of behavior:

Roland Martin has never compared being a soccer fan to being an alcoholic, the way he has compared being gay to being an alcoholic. Roland Martin has never bragged that his wife has led men and women away from the “soccer lifestyle,” the way he claims she has with gay people. Roland Martin has never defended jokes about parents stabbing soccer-playing children, the way he defended jokes about parents stabbing gay children.

Based on this history, this doesn’t seem like a playful jab at what Martin considers an inferior sport.

It seems like a jab at what Martin considers an inferior community of people.

One piece of evidence GLAAD offers is a Tweet Martin made earlier on Sunday: “Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit?” he’d written. “Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass”

h/t GLAAD

(There was also a game; the Giants won.)

The exchange is all over cable news today, with much of the focus on Bundchen’s use of profanity and apparent blaming of her husband’s receiving corps, as well as her pleas, last week, for people to pray for Brady. In both cases, Bundchen’s remarks, for what it’s worth, don’t appear to have been intended for public consumption. The prayer request was made via email to friends, and she didn’t seem to be aware there was a camera on her last night.

Giants fans were heckling Bundchen about Brady’s loss, and she turned to a companion and said, “You [have] to catch the ball when you’re supposed to catch the ball…My husband cannot f**king throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe they dropped the ball so many times.”

Those comments might make things a little awkward at the next team barbecue, but as a Jets fan, I was more disturbed at the behavior of those Giants supporters. Heckling a player’s wife is not cool, and they were shouting “Eli owns your husband!”

That’s a weird thing to say to someone’s wife, as if Eli Manning had won the right of primae noctis, and can now, at will, replace Bundchen in their marital bed.

Still, Jets and Giants fans alike will tell you that Bundchen ought to be grateful she wasn’t facing our Tri-State neighbors, the Philadelphia Eagles. To their fans, it’s not heckling unless secretions are involved.

Here’s the video, from The Insider.com:

Fans of the 50 year old rocker celebrated the occasion in true rock ‘n roll style, by…purchasing a full page ad in LA Weekly? And, what, doing lines of Metamucil off of a visiting nurse?

Crying in your beer over the aging of the rebels of your youth is, of course, nothing new, but it never gets any easier. Although I was never much of a fan of Rose and GNR, their impact on popular music was impossible to miss. Rose and Co. restored a good bit of the edge to a glammed-up heavy metal scene that had devolved into horrible self-parody. It’s precisely that rebellious edge, though, that makes this transition into golden oldie-dom so hard to take.

To those youngsters cackling at their elders today, as I once did while making jokes about the Rolling Stones‘ “Steel Wheelchairs” tour, it will happen to you some day. Justin Bieber will break his first hip, or Katy Perry will start doing Activia commercials, and we will be there to point and laugh (wheezingly) at you.

If it makes you feel any better, “Rickroll” king Rick Astley is only 46 today.

The great thing about music, though, is that it is timeless. That same rebellious spirit, the one that once led GNR to defiantly flip off Tipper Gore‘s Parents Music Resource Center with an album sticker that read ”This album contains language which some listeners may find objectionable. They can F?!* OFF and buy something from the New Age section,” can still be found today, by a new generation:

“It’s halftime in America too,” Eastwood said, in an ad similar to Eminem’s Lose Yourself ad for GM last year. “People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re all wondering what they’re going to do to make a comeback.”

RELATED: Hannity’s “Great American Panel” Recaps Super Bowl Ads, Balks At White House Tailgate Menu

Eastwood continued:

And we’re all scared, because this isn’t a game.

The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again….

This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore praised the ad, saying “And Clint, the consensus is u done a good thing standing up 4 Detroit–& your sermon seemed 2 b a call 2 give O his “second half.”" Karl Rove, other the other hand, was not a fan. “I was, frankly, offended by it…I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

Watch the ad below: