Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The arrogance of Washington pundits

_{Visual source: Newseum}

David Ignatius decides that Obama is ready (in Ignatius' mind) to finally be a Commander in Chief because he, Ignatius, loved the Afghanistan visit visuals (see Obama: Finally a commander in chief). Note to DC pundits and WaPo headline writers: No, you don't get to decide when the President finally gets to be considered President. That's up to the American electorate (and the Constitution.) It's not frickin' up to you. Ever.

Ah, well. Hardly a new attitude at the Washington Post. 1998, Sally Quinn refers to Bill Clinton in this well known quote:

"He came in here and he trashed the place," says Washington Post columnist David Broder, "and it's not his place."

Yeah, it's your place, your cocktail parties, your salons. If you are looking for a reason the internet is rising while print media fails, you're looking squarely at it.

Talk about arrogance. William Kristol, wrong about virtually everything, is back with advice and nostalgia about George W. Bush's wonderful global War on Terror (GWOT) was, and how short sighted of Obama to not agree. He even takes potshots at Bush for not being all in.

This isn't a pleasant reality, and even the Bush administration wasn't quite ready to confront it.

Some people have no shame, and (apparently) no memory. If I were as consistently wrong as Kristol is, I'd be embarrassed to write another thing. Ever. Also. Arrgh.

Speaking of memory, EJ Dionne:

We expect some hypocrisy in politics, but it was still jaw-dropping to behold Republicans accusing President Obama of politicizing the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. Wasn't it just eight years ago that the GOP organized an entire presidential campaign ' including the choreography of its 2004 national convention ' around the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and George W. Bush's response to them?

Obama's opponents don't just think we have short attention spans. They imagine we have no memories whatsoever.

Greg Sargent:

A new Marquette Law School poll that's generating lots of chatter today finds that Scott Walker and his most likely recall opponent, Tom Barrett, are in a dead heat, with Barrett edging Walker by 47-46 among registered Wisconsin voters.

The really important finding here, however, is that Walker's approval rating, and his head to head numbers with Barrett, have not changed in months ' if anything, they're going down. And this is in spite of the fact that Walker and his allies have vastly outspent rivals in TV ads.

Back to reality with Margie Omero:

Moms are on our minds. A single comment a few weeks ago erupted into a full-scale battle in the so-called "Mommy Wars," where moms, allegedly, stew in ready-to-boil tensions between those who work outside the home and those who don't. But my firm's recent bipartisan qualitative work suggests the only "Mommy War" is the one all moms fight every day -- the battle to take care of their families, their homes, and themselves, all at the same time...

A bickering Washington overly focused on social issues reinforces how out of touch politicians are with these moms. Moms feel Congress is out of touch, and out of control. One schoolteacher compared Members of Congress to her middle-schoolers, and another called them "bickering children." Said another, "If they [Congress] had to think about how to pay for food and gas, the tone in Washington might change."

Margie's panel at NN12 (Providence), Making Sense of Polling Data, will run Saturday, June 9 (I will be moderating.)

Remember bird flu (H5N1)?  

In a long-awaited study that helped prompt a contentious debate over the wisdom of conducting research that has the potential to help as well as harm, scientists reported Wednesday that they had engineered a mutant strain of bird flu that can spread easily between ferrets ' a laboratory animal that responds to flu viruses much as people do.

That means that bird flu has "the potential to acquire the ability to transmit in mammals," said University of Wisconsin virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, who led the study.

Only a few mutations were necessary for the transformation, he added, which suggests that a more contagious strain of bird flu could emerge on its own without targeted prodding by scientists in the lab.

We've covered it for years here, but this makes the discussion a lot more interesting to most people:

Fear that a pandemic strain could emerge in nature prompted scientists to study its potential to mutate, so that they could monitor new variants as they arise and get a head start on developing a vaccine and treatment. The National Institutes of Health helped fund Kawaoka's and Fouchier's studies in high-security labs.

When the scientists were ready to publish their results, critics said the research could be used as a recipe for bioterrorism ' assuming a dangerous strain of the virus wasn't stolen directly from a laboratory.

Bird flu has mutated, alright... to an issue of free speech and scientific censorship.

NY Times:

From Mr. Grenell's hiring three weeks ago, which prompted an outcry from some Christian conservatives, it became clear that the appointment of the former Bush administration official with pristine Republican credentials had become entangled in the unforgiving churn of election-year politics, leading to his resignation on Tuesday and the Republican candidate's first public misstep since effectively clinching the nomination.

They had no idea... and Romney is still clueless. Anyone surprised?