WAS THERE A MEMO ON JOURNOLIST OR SOMETHING? Miami TV Reporter Fired For Separate But Similar Edit Of Zimmerman’s 911 Call.

ANYTHING THE GOVERNMENT GIVES YOU, the government can take away. “A majority of doctors support measures to deny treatment to smokers and the obese, according to a survey that has sparked a row over the NHS‘s growing use of ‘lifestyle rationing’.” I recommend a growing use of “tar-and-feathers discipline.” It’s an Anglo-American tradition!

FLIPPER FLOPS: “Suddenly Professor Krugman has fetched up singing the praises of President Reagan.”

FRANK BRUNI: Remember When A College Diploma Meant Something? Yes. But our ruling class debased the currency, as they debase all currencies they control.

HMM: Mysterious Objects Punching Holes In Weird Saturn Ring. “The discovery comes from detailed photos taken of the Saturn system by NASA’s Cassini orbiter. In these images, researchers spotted strange objects about a half-mile (kilometer) wide tearing through Saturn’s F ring, the thin outermost discrete ring around the planet.”

It’s the aliens again. Beware.

UPDATE: Several readers point out that Footfall started this way.

DESPERATION IS THE MOTHER OF CREATIVITY: Dick Lugar to target cell phones near Mourdock events. “Dick Lugar has announced that his campaign will target cell phone users browsing the internet in zip codes where Richard Mourdock events are taking place. The targeted ads will repeat the misleading claim, already debunked by FactCheck.org, that Mourdock cheated on taxes.” Nice job, Dick.

HEY, THEY’RE ONLY TAXPAYERS AND VOTERS: DOJ Employee Shows Contempt for Mississippi Citizens on Facebook.

MORE DAN SAVAGE BACKLASH. I wonder if Obama will distance himself? Heck, I wonder if MTV will? Will Savage’s college visits be met by protesters denouncing bigotry? You never know what those bitter-clinger slopehead types might get up to . . . .

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T TRUST TWITTER.

UPDATE: On Facebook, Alex Pournelle has a suggestion:

Business plan! Escrow accounts for your Twitter followers. When your account gets suspended, and they blink, and reinstate you, it auto-adds your followers back.

Permissions based, and allows you to watch for slamming, spoofing, and abuse.

Michelle Malkin should get working on this ASAP.

Well, she should.

SOOTHING: Walker Gains in Wisconsin: NYT Shields Readers From Distressing News. “Sometimes I wonder if the Times hasn’t been infiltrated by a group of stealth conservatives, a sleeper cell dedicated to making the left stupid and ineffectual. For liberals to be basking in a dream world in which OWS is effective and unions are fighting back and winning in Wisconsin is exactly what conservatives want. Look how it worked on Obamacare: not a serious liberal in the country thought the individual mandate could possibly be thought unconstitutional until, quite horribly, the Supreme Court justices started asking all those questions that the press had done its best to ignore.”

SPRING MARKDOWNS IN Patio, Lawn & Garden.

EIGHT LESSONS from the Republican primaries.

OUR FEARLESS WATCHDOG PRESS: CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux ready to throw her panties on stage at Correspondents’ Dinner. “Pressing issue of the day for an oh-so-esteemed journalist: look at our super cute shoes! Oh, do you think Obama will notice? Notice me, The One! Notice ME.”

NOW OUT: Edward Jay Epstein on Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Three Days in May: Sex, Surveillance, and DSK. (Bumped).

CHANGE: Microsoft backs away from CISPA support, citing privacy. Good.

BERKELEY UPDATE: Are you ready for the most ridiculous and pointless Occupation ever? “Last week, on Earth Day, the Occupy movement illegally took over an entire farm and transformed it into…a farm!”

THOUGHTS ON THE SPIN, from reader Michael Brendzel: “The way the apparatus are pushing the idea that Obama is ‘cool’ reminds me of how they parroted the idea that he was ‘smart’. I guess they feel they can’t sell that bill of goods anymore.”

WHAT DO YOU MEAN? THERE ARE LOTS OF NEW FACEBOOK APPS! When Will This Low-Innovation Internet Era End?

ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS: Obama Has Already Held More Fundraisers Than Previous Five Presidents Combined.

AT OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LAB, saying goodbye to the Mail Robots.

MAMAS, DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE paleontologists.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: It’s Cool To Be In The Tank For Obama. “Reporters normally cast a jaundiced eye at a political campaign’s PR strategy. Yet they are eagerly parroting the Obama campaign’s talking point about how “cool” the president is.” Their first loyalty is to the apparat.

GOLFER-IN-CHIEF: No Girls, Please.

ANNALS OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT: Hundreds of 5-year-old municipal vehicles found in Miami that were never used. “The county ‘discovered’ this fleet of no-mileage vehicles after reading about them in a Spanish-language newspaper there (see the source for more images). Most of the misplaced motorcade is made up of Toyota Prius hybrids whose warranties either expired with very few miles on the odo or will very soon.”

But remember — if you complain about government or taxes, it’s because you hate teh children.

AFRICA’S WAR OF RELIGION heats up. “Attacks apparently directed against Christians by radical groups claiming the mantle of Islam in Kenya and Nigeria yesterday illustrated the increasing polarization along Africa’s Christian-Muslim divide.” Very sad to see this. My brother spent a lot of time in Kano back in the 1990s and remembers it fondly. But then, I guess, the Saudi money came in.

MIKE GODWIN, COVER YOUR EARS. Feeling the results of gleichschaltung.

PROF. JACOBSON ON THE DANGERS OF “BLOGGER BURNOUT.” I’m still around. But I suppose it’ll get me too, someday. But today is not that day!

UPDATE: No, that doesn’t mean that I’m “grimly hanging on.” Quite the contrary at this point.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: “I Have a Boyfriend, but I Want a Sugar Daddy, Too.”

AT AMAZON, Digital Deals.

Plus, over 100 mysteries on Kindle for 99 cents.

THIS WEEK IN MOTORCYCLE NEWS: Naked Rider Gets A Ticket For Not Wearing A Helmet.

DURHAM COUNTY D.A.’S OFFICE still an embarrassment.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS turn into inventors.

IS THE MAINSTREAMING OF SURVIVALISM, the product of economic despair?

CHANGE: Commercial Space Shuttle Replacements Complete Wind Tunnel Testing. “Two of the companies competing in NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program have been busy in the wind tunnel. The overly secretive Blue Origin broke its silence this week with pictures of its unique capsule design and Sierra Nevada Corporation also released news of its Dream Chaser, completing scale model wind tunnel testing in Texas.”

TEST-DRIVING the new Audi S7. I drove the A7 last year and was quite impressed. The S7 should just be . . . moreso.

UPDATE: Reader Marc Greendorfer writes:

Interesting review you linked to on the new Audi S7. Likewise for your previous review on the A7.

We recently traded in our fairly new (2010) Audi A5 for a 2012 A7. I loved the A5, but it was my wife’s daily driver and for her 90+ mile daily commute, mostly on freeways, the smaller size and harsher ride of the sports oriented A5 was a problem. So with much regret on my part, she traded in the A5 for the A7.

The A5 had the 3.2 six cylinder with and the a7 has a 3.0 supercharged six cylinder with an eight speed automatic. We were always pleased with the mileage on the A5, especially given the level of performance it provided (usually in the low 20s in the city, high 20s on the freeway), but the significantly larger A7′s mileage is actually better that A5′s. City mileage is about the same but we’re getting a bit over 30 mpg on the freeway. I think a lot of this has to do with the 2 extra gears in the transmission, but it may also be that the 3.0 supercharged engine is more efficient generally. In any event, I was surprised to see the concern about fuel economy in your initial review of the A7, as it’s been a nice surprise for us.

And the rest of what you say about the A7 is definitely what we’re experiencing. It’s a big, comfortable, sporty ride with very adequate power and a lot of welcome tech features. The fact that it’s a hatchback (albeit one with a low roofline) makes it pretty much a do-everything vehicle for us. I suspect we will keep this Audi for a lot more than two years.

Sounds nice. Yes, the hatchback is a very useful feature.

IN THE MAIL: From Eric Flint, 1636: The Saxon Uprising.

LOVE FOR SALE? Well, maybe internships. You know, I just pointed out that I don’t have interns at InstaPundit, but I was missing the whole revenue-model approach . . . .

Also, a larger lesson: “School no longer prepares kids to either get or keep jobs, and internships are springing up to fill the gap. This is partly an indictment of our educational system and partly a statement about how the job market is changing.”

THIS SEEMS QUITE WRONG TO ME AS A MATTER OF FIRST AMENDMENT DOCTRINE: Facebook “likes” aren’t speech protected by the First Amendment–Bland v. Roberts.

CAMPAIGN ADS: The Audacity of Bubba.

Former President Bill Clinton appears in a new Obama campaign ad suggesting that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would not have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, even though Clinton himself repeatedly spurned opportunities to capture or kill the 9/11 mastermind.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Free Beacon that Clinton’s appearance in the ad was “just astonishing.”

“It’s pretty preposterous to suggest that he ran an aggressive counter-terrorism shop,” Gerecht said of Clinton. “Far, far from it. The notion that President Clinton was focused on the issue, was aggressive on the issue and was willing to really put his presidency on the line to go after bin Laden is absurd.”

In a 2006 interview on Fox News Sunday, Clinton animatedly claimed he “worked hard to try to kill [bin Laden].”

The facts suggest otherwise.

Yes, Clinton blew his shot at getting bin Laden before 9/11 — and when that was dramatized in The Path To 9/11, the Clintons used their influence to ensure that the made-for-TV movie never aired again. And it still hasn’t. It’s not available on DVD, either. (For more on this see Blocking The Path To 9/11 with Andrew Breitbart.)

Of course, any commercial where Bill Clinton is talking about honor and integrity is automatically a joke.

DAMON ROOT: The New York Times Flipflops on Judicial Restraint. “Shouldn’t the Times’ editorial board try a little harder to avoid openly contradicting itself like that?”

They’re just phoning this stuff in now.

WHO NEEDS A BOTTLEOPENER, when you can use a Buttleopener?

TRANSPARENCY: FCC Approves New Rule on Political TV Advertising.

The Federal Communications Commission approved new regulations Friday requiring broadcasters to publish political advertising data online, a move that could shed light on who is trying to influence elections amid unprecedented campaign spending.

Television stations already are required to track purchases of political advertising and make the information publicly available, but posting it on the Web will make it easier to access. Only stations affiliated with ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in the top 50 media markets will be required to post data on new ad buys this year, with smaller stations expected to follow in 2014.

I’d like to see the New York Times’ advertising figures, too. Since they supported this rule, perhaps they’ll provide them. . . .

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Sports, Exercise, and Outdoors.

DOG-EATING PRESIDENT JOKES ABOUT EATING DOGS. Jim Treacher tweets: I win. No blenders were mentioned, however.

Also: Jimmy Kimmel jabs Obama/Holder over Fast and Furious; most of D.C. media/Hollywood celebs scratch heads.

MORE ON THOSE UNDERFUNDED / OVER-GENEROUS PUBLIC PENSION PLANS: How Retirement Benefits May Sink the States.

Government retiree costs are likely to play an increasing role in the competition among states for business and people, because these liabilities are not evenly distributed. Some states have enormous retiree obligations that they will somehow have to pay; others have enacted significant reforms, or never made lofty promises to their workers in the first place.

Indiana’s debt for unfunded retiree health-care benefits, for example, amounts to just $81 per person. Neighboring Illinois’s accumulated obligations for the same benefit average $3,399 per person. Illinois is an object lesson in why firms are starting to pay more attention to the long-term fiscal prospects of communities. Early last year, the state imposed $7 billion in new taxes on residents and business, pledging to use the money to eliminate its deficit and pay down a backlog of unpaid bills (to Medicaid providers, state vendors and delayed tax refunds to businesses). But more than a year later, the state is in worse fiscal shape, with its total deficit expected to increase to $5 billion from $4.6 billion, according to an estimate by the Civic Federation of Chicago.

Rising pension costs will eat up much of the tax increase. Illinois borrowed money in the last two years to make contributions to its public pension funds. This year, under pressure to stop adding to its debt, the legislature must make its pension contributions out of tax money. That will cost $4.1 billion plus an additional $1.6 billion in interest payments on previous pension borrowings.

Business leaders are now speaking openly about Illinois’ fiscal failures.

Let’s just be thankful that the folks running our national budget don’t think the same way as . . . uh oh.

See, the thing is, some people say that people aren’t clever enough to plan for their own retirement. But what makes anyone believe that people can then be clever enough to plan for other people’s retirements?

Or as one commenter says:

So Nocera made bad, costly decision after bad, costly decision, and his conclusion is “The 401(K) is a failed experiment”?

Let me guess: the solution is a government-funded retirement for everyone. Yes, that’ll work out just fine. Nocera can retire, and I can pay for his retirement with my tax money.

Only if politicians value buying his vote more than yours.

UPDATE: Reader Joe Glandorf writes:

Nocera doesn’t seem to notice that defined benefit plans, both public and private, have failed and (for the public sector) are on the verge of failing, massively. Does he not know that all these beneficiaries will get downgraded from what they were “promised”? Yes, as recently as 20 years ago, managing a 401-k or IRA was expensive as well as challenging. Today, however, a complete investment novice can go on-line and quickly find a low cost, highly diversified, automatically re-balancing investment program from a number of sound investment firms (I use Vanguard) for one’s IRA if not an employer’s 401-k. These will, essentially, duplicate what any pension fund has historically done. The difference is that the beneficiary will know each step of the way where they REALLY stand and can control their spending and expectations accordingly. But that would take most people about 30 hours to do some thorough research. Apparently, this is too much for the Nocera’s of the world to expect from anyone; actually do some work understanding how to provide for your own financial security.

Of course, that won’t help you if you raid the fund to pay for new granite countertops. But then, that’s what our political leaders have been doing on a national scale for years.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader writes: “One recurring theme that I’ve noticed with 50-60 something NY Times columnists, and indeed men of that age in general, is that their financial woes involve a messy divorce earlier in their life. For people who are wondering why young men don’t ‘man up’ and marry, they may want to consider the effect of one example of divorce-induced financial ruin after another.” Well, that’s what the Insta-Wife’s forthcoming book is about.

And reader Jeff Randles emails: “If I raid my 401k then I’ve got the granite counter tops. If the government raids my 401k, then somebody else gets the granite counter tops.”

MORE: A reader who asks for anonymity comments: “Just wanted to point out that Teresa Ghilarducci was the Democrat operative that proposed the GRA to a congressional committee as a replacement for the 401K. That was what triggered the blogosphere backlash and the subsequent backpedaling of Democrats when it was suggested that they were trying to seize peoples’ 401K and IRA accounts. So having Joe Nocera quote her in his article about his 401K is a bit telling, don’t you think?”

MORE STILL: Reader Theodore Simon spots an irony:

‘What, then, will people do when they retire? I asked Ghilarducci. “Their retirement plan is faith based,” she replied. “They have faith that it will somehow work out.” ‘

Isn’t that precisely what Congressional Democrats always offer as their excuse for doing nothing to ensure the long-term viability of Social Security and Medicare, that in the end, it will “somehow work out”?

As I say, if people are too dumb to plan for their own retirements, they’re probably too dumb to plan for other people’s, too. And certainly there’s no evidence that the folks in Washington are any less dumb than the public at large.

STILL MORE: Reader John Primmer writes:

Professor Reynolds: Isn’t it telling that when a 60 year old NYT columnist wakes up to the fact that he has messed up his retirement plans, he turns to a “behavioral economist at the New School.” And the advice he gets is “OMG this is truly a mess. We must devise a new system to fix it.” As another reader observed, you can go online and have access to gobs of information that can help you make sound investment decisions. Or you can call on financial consultants employed by dozens of low-cost brokers/custodians, such as Schwab, Fidelity, T Rowe Price, E Trade, et al. In contrast to most politicians, reputable financial advisors realize that their advice has consequences and they will be judged on their performance.

Heh. Indeed.

THE HILL: Senate Democrats plan another trap for Romney with female voters.

I think Romney should promise that, if elected, he will seek to extend sexual-harassment law to cover members of Congress. Then ask Senators where they stand on that issue . . .

RAND SIMBERG: Rectification Of Names. “The ‘War on Terror’ may be over but the fight against Islamism continues.”

ELIZABETH WARREN: “Funny, she doesn’t look Siouxish.”

CREEPING ISLAMIZATION? British Docs Busted For Offering Female Circumcision.

MARK STEYN: Democrats Should Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. “My point is that self-loathing cultural relativism is so deeply ingrained on the left that any revulsion to dog-eating is trumped by revulsion to criticizing any of the rich, vibrant, cultural diversity out there in Indonesia or anywhere else. Most polygamy in the developed world is nothing to do with Mormons: It’s widely practiced by western Muslims, whose plural marriages are recognized de facto by French and Ontario welfare departments and de jure by Britain’s pensions department. But ‘edgy’ ‘transgressive’ leftie comics on sad, pandering standup shows will reserve their polygamy jokes for Mormons until the last stern-faced elder in Utah keels over at the age of 112.” Or until Mormons start sawing off heads. Transgressiveness has its limits.

Plus this:

Obama’s appetite for dogs isn’t as critical as his appetite for spending and statism. But it was part of his cool. “Mitt Romney isn’t cool,” declared Brian Montopoli of CBS News this week in a story headlined “Can Mitt Romney Make Boring Sexy”? For economically beleaguered Americans, the more pertinent question is: “Can Barack Obama Make Cool Affordable”? It’s not just that Obama ate the dog, but that he’s screwing the pooch.

Indeed.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama Is Losing His Rock-star Status Among Young Voters.

SWIM CALL: “ARABIAN SEA (April 24, 2012) A Sailor jumps from an aircraft elevator during an all-hands swim call aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). Abraham Lincoln is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility conducting maritime security operations, theater security cooperation efforts and support missions as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jonathan P. Idle).” Cool pic.

MIGUEL OCTAVIO: Notes From A Visit To Revolutionary Venezuela. I hope he’s right about Chavez’s prospects.

THANKS TO EVERYONE who’s bought via the Amazon links on this page or the searchbox in the right sidebar. By doing so you support this blog at no cost to yourself. It’s much appreciated! And note that you can always visit Amazon while supporting this blog by clicking the “Shop Amazon” link at the top of the page, too.

HMM: “That’s how I might expect a very far-left fringe candidate to describe our successful mission to kill the head of al Qaeda.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Tips For Online Dating Over 40.

AT AMAZON, up to 60% off on Blu-Ray.

Also, Blu-Ray releases under $10.

HMM: U.S. Amasses Stealth-Jet Armada Near Iran.

A DAN SAVAGE SCANDAL Twitter Roundup.

MARTIN ROTH: How a Misunderstanding with Instapundit Led to the First Directory of Christian Bloggers.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Does 7 Days Of Sex Really Work?

So are we back to the whole maintenance sex thing? Not quite the same.

ROLAND MARTIN MELTDOWN, DAY TWO. I’d be more interested if I’d ever seen Roland Martin.

DAVID SWINDLE ON The hatred of Derrick Bell’s Afrolantica Legacies.

NO SECRET SERVICE CAREERS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS INTERVIEW: ‘Whores’ Glory’: An Interview With Michael Glawogger. Tracy Quan talks with the maker of a “surprisingly accurate” documentary about prostitution around the world.

HOW BIG GOVERNMENT is killing California. “When you’ve lost the entrepreneurs, free-spirits, and dreamers, you’ve lost the Golden State.”

RETROSPECTIVE: L.A. riots: Good Samaritan remembers his scary truck-driver rescue.

In one of the most disturbing images from the Los Angeles riots, six black assailants dragged Reginald Denny, a 33-year-old truck driver, out of his cab in South Los Angeles and bashed his head in with a brick. A television chopper broadcast the violence live. The attack happened shortly after not-guilty verdicts were handed down in the racially charged trail of the police beating of Rodney King, which kicked off six days of rioting that left dozens dead and thousands injured.

About a mile and a half away, Titus Murphy and his then-girlfriend Terri Barnett were watching the Denny attack on live television. Murphy, who was an unemployed engineer at the time, couldn’t believe what he saw.

“When this gentleman was getting beat something was just telling me this isn’t right, this isn’t what it’s all about,” he told Yahoo News 20 years later. “When he got hit in the head with the brick something told me to go down there. I just reacted.”

Read the whole thing. But I don’t think you can blame this on a “class of have-nots.” At least, if the races were reversed, you wouldn’t be getting socioeconomic excuses.

SO I GOT AN EMAIL LAST NIGHT THAT OPENED THIS WAY: “Hello Professor (or whichever intern may be reading this).”

I don’t have any email-reading interns. (In fact, I don’t have any interns at all.) That means I miss a lot of email, since I get something like 1500 emails a day. But I prefer to miss stuff randomly rather than subject it to some sort of systematic filtering. Alas, I’ve been busier than usual these last few months, which means I’ve been an even worse correspondent than usual. Sorry! I do my best, but there’s no way I can read, much less respond to, all the email I get.

TRUE THE VOTE, DAY TWO: Breitbart Is Here.

EXPIRATION DATE, HIT: Obama yesterday: #DontDoubleMyRate; Obama today: Let the rates double!

SPEAKING TRUTH to power.

THIS WEEK IN THE FUTURE.

SIGNS OF A CULTURAL SHIFT: I got an Amazon recommendation for Survival Mom: How to Prepare Your Family for Everyday Disasters and Worst-Case Scenarios. This disaster-prep stuff used to just be for Soldier of Fortune types. Now, it’s mainstream.

MOORE’S LAW LIVES ANOTHER DAY: “After Monday’s launch of Intel’s newest line of processors, named Ivy Bridge, Moore’s prediction is still looking sound. The chips are the first to become available from any company with features as small as 22 nanometers (the finest details on today’s chips are 32 nanometers), allowing transistors to be smaller and packed more densely. Ivy Bridge chips offer 37 percent more processing speed than the previous generation of chips, and can match their performance while using just half the energy.”

DANIEL BLATT: If It Gets Better, Then Why Is Dan Savage So Bitter?

Related: Anti-bullying hero bullies conference of school children.

UPDATE: Savage responds with non-apology.

Plus, from Ann Althouse: “My question is whether the school engages in viewpoint discrimination. Does it bring in other speakers who present other interpretations of the Bible? I doubt it.”

ED DRISCOLL: Audio Interview: Whit Stillman Discusses His Damsels In Distress.

SLOWING COGNITIVE DECLINE with strawberries and blueberries.

WELL, THAT NARROWS IT DOWN: Gas may hit $6 mark, or maybe pump prices have peaked.

HMM: Mitochondrial DNA that escapes from autophagy causes inflammation and heart failure. So is there a way to block that?

IN THE MAIL: The Great Experiment: The States, the Feds, and Your Healthcare.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR JOHN MCCAIN THIS WOULD HAPPEN, AND THEY WERE RIGHT! U.S. Doesn’t Need To Know A Person’s Name to Kill Him in a Drone Strike.

PROF. JACOBSON: Obama Got Osama, But Lost The Middle East. It does seem to be working out that way, alas.

THE HILL: Republican floats measure calling on official to resign over “crucify” remarks.

THE BEST WAY TO BE A SOCIALIST.

ANN ALTHOUSE: Why aren’t we all talking about the “secret plan to evacuate some residents of Chicago in the event of major trouble during the NATO summit next month”? Well, I did have a post last week, though this sounds bigger.

But really: If the Obama Administration can’t keep his hometown safe for residents during a NATO summit, what can it do?

COOL IS AS COOL DOES: GOP-Controlled Legislature Passes a Medical Marijuana Bill; Democratic Governor Plans to Veto It.

AT AMAZON, warehouse deals on groceries, health, and personal care.

JOEL KOTKIN: As California Collapses, Obama Follows Its Lead.

NEW YORK SUN: Geithner Crosses the Line Into the Political Fray as a Particularly Partisan Treasury Secretary.

IT TURNED OUT TO BE BEDBUG BITES: Monkeypox Scare Grounds Flight In Chicago.

BIG STICK, OR TWIG? Memo Reveals The ‘Gutsy’ Bin Laden Call That Wasn’t.

Like so many others, the final decision to pull the trigger on the world’s most-wanted man was delegated to an admiral who undoubtedly would have been thrown under the bus had the mission failed.

It’s been almost a year since President Obama’s leadership and foreign policy bona fides were allegedly established by the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. A campaign film narrated by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks tells of the president’s alleged solitary, agonizing decision.

With apologies to Vice President Biden, maybe President Obama doesn’t carry quite as big a stick as Joe would lead us to believe.

As reported by Big Peace, Time magazine has obtained a memo written by Leon Panetta, then-director of the Central Intelligence Agency and now-Secretary of Defense, that says “operational decision-making and control” was really in the hands of William McRaven, a three-star admiral and former Navy SEAL.

Hmm.

SOMEHOW, I MISSED THIS LAST WEEK: In apparent first, a public pension plan files for bankruptcy.

GOOD QUESTION: Rosenbaum Rep: ‘Why Does MSNBC Compensate a Racist Like Sharpton?’

WHEN SARAH PALIN TALKED ABOUT “TARGETING” THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BEYOND THE PALE, BUT NOBODY CARES ABOUT THIS: Sharpton Sows Seeds of Next L.A. Riot.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Congress Is Making The Higher Education Bubble Worse.

By keeping the price of loans artificially low, Congress will make the value of getting a college degree appear to be worth more than it really is, thereby encouraging more students and their families to take out more loans. That means more demand for college, resulting in higher tuition. So Congress is putting more air into the higher-ed bubble.

So why are lawmakers doing it? The simple answer is the election is six months away, college loans are, in effect, a middle-class subsidy, and neither political party wants to upset loads of middle-class voters. And with all the emphasis both sides are putting on attracting young voters, they especially don’t want to anger them by increasing the price of college.

The somewhat more complicated answer is that politicians know that they are not likely to be blamed if the bubble does eventually burst. The economist Thomas Sowell once told me, “People ask me, after something like the housing bubble, don’t members of Congress ever learn? And I reply, ‘Of course they learn. They learn they can get away with it!’”

Indeed.

IT’S THOSE SUITS: Charlie Cook on Obama: ‘We have kind of a metrosexual president.’

PEGGY NOONAN: Republicans are aggravated by Obama. They should cheer up. So is everyone else.

Republicans are worried about the power of incumbency, and it is a real power. Presidents command the airwaves, as they used to say. If they want to make something the focus of national discussion, they usually can, at least for a while. And this president is always out there, talking.

But—and forgive me, because what I’m about to say is rude—has anyone noticed how boring he is? Plonking platitude after plonking platitude. To see Mr. Obama on the stump is to see a man at the podium who’s constantly dribbling away the punch line. He looks pleasant but lacks joy; he’s cool but lacks vigor. A lot of what he says could have been said by a president 12 or 20 years ago, little is anchored to the moment. As he makes his points he often seems distracted, as if he’s holding a private conversation in his head, noticing crowd size, for instance, and wishing the front row would start fainting again, like they used to.

I listen to him closely and find myself daydreaming: This is the best-tailored president since JFK. His suits, shirts and ties are beautifully cut from fine material. This is an elegant man. But I shouldn’t be thinking about that, I should be thinking about what a powerful case he’s making for his leadership. I’m not because he’s not.

The suits are nice, but they’re empty.

DALAI LAMA: You know who I love? George W. Bush!

CHANGE: Amazon.com agrees to begin collecting Texas sales taxes.

INDIANA: Pro-Lugar SuperPAC calls it quits.

CHANGE: President who tried to prosecute the men who waterboarded KSM to find Bin Laden now spiking the football over killing Bin Laden. Don’t be too hard on him. He doesn’t have much else to brag about.

Plus: “And this will come as a shock: That Romney quote is crap. . . . I also like that they included Wolf Blitzer’s question, but not the answer. Obama thinks you’re stupid. And if you voted for him, he’s right.”

Related: FLASHBACK: Obama Campaign Accused Clinton Of Using Bin Laden To ‘Score Political Points’ In 2008.