"I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Roberts, in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday. Excerpts of the interview will air tonight on ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer.” »

Boasting About Bin Laden »

When even Huffington thinks a Democratic attack goes too far, it usually has. And yet a moment’s scrutiny reveals that her argument doesn’t make much sense. Why do we have election seasons, after all, if not to argue about which candidate would be better-suited to making decisions that put Americans in harm’s way overseas? How can we not politicize national security, given how central it is to the work of the modern presidency, and how unconstrained the executive branch’s national security powers have become no matter which party holds the White House?

These are the arguments that Hillary Clinton partisans mounted in defense of that “3 A.M. ad,” and that George W. Bush’s partisans mounted in defense of his 9/11-centric 2004 re-election campaign. And those arguments were right! It’s one thing to say that candidates shouldn’t impugn one another’s patriotism. But impugning a rival’s judgment, as the Obama camp’s Bin Laden advertisement just did, is precisely what a presidential campaign is for.

From both the right and left, there has been a continuing, dramatic cognitive disconnect between Mr. Obama’s record and the public perception of his leadership: despite his demonstrated willingness to use force, neither side regards him as the warrior president he is. »

None of this should have surprised anyone who had paid close attention to what Mr. Obama said about the use of force during his presidential campaign. In an August 2007 speech on national security, he put the nation — and the world — on alert: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will,” he said, referring to Pervez Musharraf, then president of Pakistan. He added, “I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America.”

That’s about as clear a statement as can be. But Republicans and Democrats blasted Mr. Obama with equal intensity for suggesting that he would authorize unilateral military action in Pakistan to kill Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda leaders.

A personal appeal to the Obama team tumblrers

apsies:

Hi! Remember me? At the end of last year I led a successful campaign to get you guys to follow me. I don’t need to re-hash that tale. You know it already. Apparently you even love telling about it.

That campaign was not successful without the help of some lovely fellow tumblrers. Namely imwithkanye, who screencapped my post, the one that got your attention, that you eventually reblogged and caused you to follow me.

You have now reblogged imwithkanye multiple times, including today! The sad thing is: you don’t follow him.

I think this is a major oversight on your part.

He would never tell you this. You see some people (imwithkanye, I’m assuming) are above begging. I, on the other hand, am not.

Some might say this appeal is me taking this Obama thing just a little too far. You already follow me so how dare I go out of my way to get you to start following my friends? I get that. But here’s the thing: I did not get here today, on tumblr, being followed by the President’s social media team without a little help from my friends.

Which is why I think you’ll understand when I ask: Will you please follow imwithkanye?

Co-sign. 

I love this definition Chrome extension; if you don’t know the meaning of a word, you click on it and a box pops up with the definition and a Wikipedia link. 

In today’s Maureen Dowd column, she mentions that Rick Santorum’s name is etymologically derived from ‘sanctimonious,’ so I was curious as to what the extension would pull up. Sure enough, instead of talking about the man Santorum, it describes the phrase associated with Santorum. (notice it’s “santorum,” not “Santorum.” Lower case ‘s’ is key.)

Conversely, in the same paragraph, President Obama is mention, so I decided to see what definition flashes on my screen. Here, we get information on President Obama (with a capital “O”).

Do these things matter? I have no idea. 

"Isn't it interesting that he never talks about (the momentousness of being the first black President)? But in my book I definitely found a lot of examples of the everday experience of being the first African American family in that position. For example, when Marian Robinson (Mrs. O's mom) turned down an interview with Oprah, she told aides she liked being anonymous and laughed that the other shoppers at Filene's Basement (up the street from the White House) thought she was just another person who worked in the mansion. Meaning, she said they thought she was a housekeeper! Her story may be the most quietly dramatic in the whole family..." »

NYT reporter, Jodi Kantor, holds a Reddit IAMA about her new book about the Obamas. 

“The Running Mate Switcheroo”

Pareene nails this one. 

Bill Keller, a bad opinion columnist, has written a bad opinion column. It is about how Barack Obama will replace Vice President Joe Biden on the 2012 ticket with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a thing that will not actually happen.

The former New York Times editor has lately been celebrating his return to writing by fearlessly tackling hacky column ideas already exhausted by everyone who was writing bad opinion columns during Keller’s tenure as a person with an actually important job. Having offered his own takes on classics like “The Huffington Post isn’t as good as a real newspaper” and “Twitter is dumb,” Keller today tries the old “running mate switcharoo” scenario.

In Act of Defiance, Democrat Stalls Obama Choice for Court »

“NJ, holding grudges since 1664.”

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey is holding up President Obama’s nomination of a judge to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the only time a Democrat has tried to block one of Mr. Obama’s judicial nominees.

Mr. Menendez would not comment. But the nominee, Patty Shwartz, has been in a relationship for more than two decades with the head of the public corruption unit for New Jersey’s federal prosecutor. And that unit investigated the senator during his 2006 election fight, an inquiry Mr. Menendez has long contended was politically motivated.

AllThingsD rationalizes that President Obama "would likely veto any version of SOPA or PIPA that reaches his desk. »

1. The administration supports an open Internet: “not vetoing the bill now would be a major policy shift.”

2. The president acknowledged the importance of Facebook and Twitter during the past year’s changes in the Middle East and North Africa. 

3. Last month, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at a conference on Internet freedom in The Hague,… said that governments can do so ‘without compromising the global network, its dynamism or our principles.’”

4. SOPA puts ‘the government at odds with a project it has funded, the Onion Router (a.k.a. TOR), created by U.S. Naval Researchers” which “is meant to circumvent actions that block access to such content.” 

Under SOPA, the problem might be that people in more repressive countries, like China, can use TOR to anonymize traffic and thus bypass technical measures that prevent the free flow of information. The language in the bill is vague enough that TOR could be made illegal.

5. Obama’s promises - in an election year, he cannot go back on his promise to have a ‘free and open Internet.’

Early last month, Obama promised to veto a Congressional resolution that would overturn net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission put in place earlier this year, and which was to take effect on Nov. 20. (The Senate saved him the trouble by voting against the resolution.)

Click through to read Arik Hesseldahl’s post. It’s a calming one, for sure.