Charles Barkley, providing color commentary for a Celtics game, doesn't sugarcoat his opinion of Mitt Romney and a costumed Celtics fan. Open thread below.

h/t scarce at VideoCafe

After Newt's lackluster endorsement of Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann stepped up today to endorse Romney. This, after she declared emphatically that Romney had no chance of beating Obama.

On this point, I happen to agree. But Michele Bachmann sells herself as a "principled conservative." To that end, her endorsement was, well...lukewarm.

After months of hints, Michele Bachmann finally endorsed her former rival Mitt Romney in his bid for the presidency, calling him "the last chance we have to keep America from going ... over a cliff."

In a statement, the Minnesota congresswoman said she was "honored" to back Romney, describing him as "a man who will preserve the American dream of prosperity and liberty."

O RLY? The woman who called Romney "NewtRomney," who refused to say Romney is Christian, said he wasn't consistent on abortion, and then this little gem:

You may have heard Republicans call President Obama a socialist a few times. But now Michele Bachmann is using the loaded term to attack Mitt Romney, dropping a veiled shot at an unnamed "frugal socialist" who could challenge Obama in 2012.

"Unfortunately for too many Republicans, they also aspire to be frugal socialists," Bachmann told an audience at the Family Research Council in Washington, citing health care in particular as a telltale indicator. "We cannot preserve liberty if the choice is between a frugal socialist and an out-of-control socialist."

I refer you to Shep Smith's observation on Wednesday:

Politics is weird. And creepy. And now, I know, lacks even the loosest attachment to anything like reality.

[h/t Heather at Video Cafe]

Mitt Romney is not hitting his general election campaign with much aplomb this week. While it's true that he's wildly unpopular with women, that is not entirely Mittens' fault. After all, the whole GOP is wildly unpopular with women, and he's one of them. The leader, in fact. No matter how he tries to pander to women, he'll fail because he hasn't got the first clue what he's talking about.

Take this simple question put to the Romney campaign spokesmen this morning by Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post. It's easy enough: Does Mitt Romney support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

Their answer? Silence. And then..."Um, we'll get back to you on that."

Really, guys? That's just pathetic. There's no other word for it, but then this campaign is pathetic so far. If they can't answer a simple question like that they should just give up on women altogether and soon, because here's the thing. We women have brains, and we don't need to be told what to think or shoved into some weird alternate reality where up is down.

It's pretty straightforward: Women don't like Mitt because Republicans hate women. Doesn't really get any clearer than that, and the only people who have set women back over the past few years happen to have the letter (R) behind their names.

Besides Romney's GOP-ness and his choice of advisors, who I view as being as evil as their Dear Leader Rove himself, there's another reason I loathe him and his campaign. Bob Cesca put it into focus quite nicely earlier this week when he awarded Mitt Romney and his campaign the Most Cynical Ever Award:

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As has been widely reported on this site, Romney is having a particularly difficult tax season. That is no reason to make his life any less miserable (I'm sorry about the double negative--I'm a passionate man pushed to the brink). Perhaps this humble ad parody will help explain why.*

That really is the PO Box behind which Romney parks many millions of dollars tax-free, drop him a line with your questions. Or, just call (212) 326-9420. Ask for the "Cayman Getaway Package" and tell them Mitt's guy sent you.

*On a side note: seems like every week I see a story indicating that "Taxmasters" is in such severe legal trouble that there is no possible way they will continue to run those terrible, awkward, strange ads. And yet, seems like every day I see one of their g-d ads. They are either geniuses or I am an idiot, but I have no idea what their business model is. Marketing-wise they clearly save on production costs what they spend on distribution, yet their business plan seems somewhere in the "Enron Of Personal Tax Debt Rip-Off Scheme" territory. Best of luck to everyone involved, one suspects they'll need it.

The WSJ is the voice of the DC-New York GOP establishment, and that voice was crackling with anger and tears on Tuesday.

Let's just say right now what voters will be saying in November, once Barack Obama has been re-elected: Republicans deserve to lose.

Well, yes. They deserve to lose because they've learned nothing from spectacular failures of the Bush/Cheney years and are doubling down on every right-wing fetish: Even lower taxes! Even more wealth inequality! Even more war! Even fewer regulations! Let's deport 12 million people! Let's bring back child labor!

But I digress.

Above all, it doesn't matter that Americans are generally eager to send Mr. Obama packing. All they need is to be reasonably sure that the alternative won't be another fiasco. But they can't be reasonably sure, so it's going to be four more years of the disappointment you already know.

But won't Newt beat Obama in the debates?

A primary ballot for Mr. Gingrich is a vote for an entertaining election, not a Republican in the White House.

Ouch. But...but...don't we need a businessman to create jobs?

On the evidence of his campaign, Mr. Romney is a lousy CEO.

Oh, snap! And the big finish!

...the U.S. will surely survive four more years. Who knows? By then maybe Republicans will have figured out that if they don't want to lose, they shouldn't run with losers.

Just brutal.

Cheer up, WSJers! There's got to be a Bush lying around somewhere for 2016. In the meantime, please note that Newt and Willard are advocating exactly the same policies you've cheered on for decades.

Suck it up.

Open thread below...

This is why we can't have nice things. When a top campaign official not only admits, but boasts about spinning propaganda in the form of a campaign commercial, we're lost. Thomas Edsall of the New York Times got this straight from a top operative for the Romney campaign:

“First of all, ads are propaganda by definition. We are in the persuasion business, the propaganda business…. Ads are agitprop…. Ads are about hyperbole, they are about editing. It’s ludicrous for them to say that an ad is taking something out of context…. All ads do that. They are manipulative pieces of persuasive art.”

Of course ads are intended to persuade. But that doesn't really mean they should lie. As Heather pointed out, this was Lawrence O'Donnell's central point in his rewrite of the original ad. And Digby is even more pointed about it:

I'm not sure why we should be shocked by these Romney operatives taking credit for a dishonest campaign ad since operatives do it all the time, but I guess it's just the arrogant openness about their rank dishonesty that makes it remarkable:

[...]

Those Romney operatives aren't fools and they know they can get away with lying as long as the press decides they can get away with it. Whether it's because they want Romney to be the nominee or because it fits with their narrative about Obama or some combination of the two, they are very likely to let this pass or even allow it to become part of the CW, thus kicking in Cokie's Law, which says "it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's out there." Fact checking only matters if the press wants it to matter.

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Earlier this week Pew Research published the results of a study of how media -- broadcast, print and blogs -- have covered the 2012 candidates for President. One candidate in particular had remarkable numbers, particularly when it came to how much of the coverage was negative, versus positive. Who was it? Bachmann? Perry? Cain? If you guessed any of those three, you guessed wrong.

One man running for president has suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment of all, the study found: Barack Obama. Though covered largely as president rather than a candidate, negative assessments of Obama have outweighed positive by a ratio of almost 4-1. Those assessments of the president have also been substantially more negative than positive every one of the 23 weeks studied. And in no week during these five months was more than 10% of the coverage about the president positive in tone.

These are some of the findings of new work by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism that combines PEJ’s ongoing weekly content analysis with computer algorithmic technology developed by Crimson Hexagon. In combination, the two research methods assess coverage across more than 11,500 news media outlets each day. A separate analysis also tracks the level of discussion and tone across hundreds of thousands of blogs. The study covers the 23 weeks from May 2, when candidates began to announce, to October 9, one week ago—that first phase of what might be called The Media Primary.

The blogosphere, it turns out, is proving a much rougher environment than the news media for candidates, including contenders associated with the Tea Party movement. But one candidate has emerged as the winner of the blog primary so far—Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

But wait, there's more. Guess who keeps getting happy, happy glowing coverage?

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Tonight is the Big Republican Debate on Fox News. Candidates appearing are Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich. And of course, ever present in this debate will be the corporate "persons."

Fox will be livestreaming it here, or you can follow my live-tweets on Twitter.
Discuss. :)

I may chime in on Twitter @JohnAmato

President Obama had some opinions on the 2012 field of Republican candidates. I think my favorite was his message for Michele Bachmann.

Michele Bachmann is here, though, I understand. And she is thinking about running for President, which is weird, because I heard she was born in Canada. [laughter] Yes Michele, this is how it starts.

Tim Pawlenty:

He seems all-American, but have you ever heard his real middle name? Tim Hosni Pawlenty? What a shame.

Jon Huntsman:

Now, there's something you might not know about Jon. He didn't learn to speak Chinese to go there. Oh, no. He learned English to come here.

On Mitt Romney:

There's a vicious rumor floating around that I think could really hurt Mitt Romney. I heard he passed universal healthcare when he was Governor of Massachusetts. Someone should get to the bottom of that. And I know just the guy to do it. Donald Trump.

The Donald Trump comments are about as funny and as withering as anyone could get without descending into the nasty zone. Watch those to see what I mean.

As annoyingly insular as these events are -- and they are -- they're also an opportunity for the President to use humor as a way of disarming ongoing and aggravating personal attacks with some humor and some class, which he really did quite nicely.