memeorandum: Republican leaders racking up ‘yes’ votes on Rep. Ryan's budget (Ian Swanson/The Hill)

10:10 AM ET, March 23, 2012

Top Items:

First Read / msnbc.com:

First Thoughts: Health care takes center stage — Health care's two-year anniversary, but White House is quiet on the subject. ... Supreme Court takes it up next week and will determine its fate by June. Whatever the outcome, it will have a big impact on the president's legacy.

Discussion: Prairie Weather

NBC's Andrew Rafferty / msnbc.com:

Santorum: GOP better off with Obama than ‘Etch A Sketch’ Republican — SAN ANTONIO, TX — Rick Santorum today suggested it would be better to stick with President Obama over a candidate that might be “the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future” — a shot at chief rival Mitt Romney.

Discussion: The Reaction, Taylor Marsh, BuzzFeed, today.yougov.com News, Power Line, American Spectator, Rumproast, Hotline On Call, Hullabaloo, Politico, Guardian, Ballot Box, Hot Air and Rasmussen Reports

Tom Jensen / Public Policy Polling:

Santorum leads in LA and other notes... Rick Santorum is headed for a commanding win in Louisiana on Saturday. We find him with 42% to 28% for Mitt Romney, 18% for Newt Gingrich, 8% for Ron Paul, and 2% for Buddy Roemer. — It's interesting to look at these numbers in the context of last week's results in Alabama and Mississippi.

Discussion: Politico, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Taegan Goddard's …, The Atlantic Online and JSOnline

Michael A. Memoli / Los Angeles Times:

Santorum suggests Obama preferable to ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ Romney — Rick Santorum holds an Etch-A-Sketch as he speaks during a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas. (Eric Gay / Associated Press / March 22, 2012) — Rick Santorum's latest attempt to use a Mitt Romney aide's “Etch-A-Sketch” …

Discussion: Shakesville, Don Surber, BuzzFeed, Mediaite, Ricochet Conversations Feed and Bangor Daily News, more at Mediagazer »

CBS DC:
Santorum: Might As Well Have Obama Over Romney

Discussion: GOP 12, Erick's blog, YID With LID, Pundit & Pundette, iOwnTheWorld.com, The Agonist, Michelle Malkin, New York Magazine and Fox News

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Santorum: Maybe America's better off with Obama than taking a risk on an “Etch-a-Sketch” candidate

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Washington Examiner, The Right Scoop, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS and Democracy in America

Matt Townsend / Bloomberg:
Etch A Sketch Maker Doubles After Romney Aide Mention

Discussion: New Orleans Times-Picayune, MarketBeat, The Raw Story, BuzzFeed, Mashable!, CNN, Washington Post, The Huffington Post and US Politics

Mario Tama / ABCNEWS:
Santorum Suggests Obama Beats an ‘Etch A Sketch’ Candidate

Discussion: Hot Air, msnbc.com, Outside the Beltway, The Daily Caller and Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog

Jim DeMint / CNN:
DeMint calls for GOP assessment of race, praises Romney

Discussion: Washington Post, americanthinker.com, Campaign 2012, Politico, The Lonely Conservative, Washington Monthly and GOP 12

Charles Krauthammer / Washington Post:

Obamacare: The reckoning — Obamacare dominated the 2010 midterms, driving its Democratic authors to a historic electoral shellacking. But since then, the issue has slipped quietly underground. — Now it's back, summoned to the national stage by the confluence of three disparate events …

Discussion: Power Line, Weekly Standard, Ricochet Conversations Feed and Betsy's Page

James Taranto / Wall Street Journal:

The Ineffective Greenhouse — A liberal legal legend's ludicrous ObamaCare defense. — Linda Greenhouse is something of an institution of legal journalism. She became the New York Times's Supreme Court correspondent in 1978. Thirty years later, when she accepted an early-retirement package …

Discussion: The Volokh Conspiracy and National Review

Dahlia Lithwick / Slate:
It's Not About the Law, Stupid

Discussion: American Prospect and ThinkProgress

Linda Greenhouse / Opinionator:
Never Before — Journalistic convention requires that when …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, ACS Blog, Hit & Run, RADAMISTO, Campaign 2012, Prairie Weather, Ezra Klein, Reuters and American Bar Association

Carrie Budoff Brown / Politico:

5 things Dems got wrong on health care — President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies thought their political assumptions were airtight during the yearlong battle to overhaul the health care system. — Voters would reward them, they thought, even if Democrats muscled a bill through without Republican support.

Discussion: Ezra Klein, ABCNEWS, New York Times and Balloon Juice

WSJ Blogs - WSJ:
Missing From Obama Health-Care Anniversary: Obama

Discussion: ABCNEWS and Hotline On Call

Maureen O'Connor / Gawker:

James O'Keefe's Panty-Stealing ‘Rape Barn’ Sex Scandal — It's a right-wing rabble-rouser showdown! Jazz-handed pimp impersonator James O'Keefe is at “#WAR” with a former Project Veritas colleague who is now blogging an O'Keefe tell-all involving stolen panties, drugged beers, a “rape barn …

Tommy Christopher / Mediaite:
Former James O'Keefe ‘Accomplice’ Reveals ‘Barn Incident’ And Harassment Complaint

Discussion: Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars and Daily Kos

NADIA NAFFE: Part II: The Barn Incident

Andrew Restuccia / The Hill:

Obama heckled during energy speech in Ohio — A heckler interrupted President Obama's speech on energy policy Thursday at Ohio State University. — The president, looking frustrated, stopped speaking and addressed the man — “Sir. Im here to speak to these folks. You can hold your own rally.

Meenal Vamburkar / Mediaite:
Pres. Obama To Heckler: 'You Can Hold Your Own Rally. You're Being Rude'

Discussion: CBS News

New York Times:

U.S. Inches Toward Goal of Energy Independence — MIDLAND, Tex. — The desolate stretch of West Texas desert known as the Permian Basin is still the lonely domain of scurrying roadrunners by day and howling coyotes by night. But the roar of scores of new oil rigs and the distinctive acrid fumes …

Discussion: The Hill, ThinkProgress, CNNMoney.com, Green, Prairie Weather and InsideClimate News

Daily Mail:

SUSPECT ‘KIDNAPPED MAN’ AND THEN ‘WALKED AROUND CITY WITH SWORD IN HIS HAND’ — Suspected serial killer Mohammad Mera, who broke out of an Afghanistan jail in 2008 as part of a mass Taliban escape, once kidnapped another man, it has been reported. — A close family friend …

Discussion: CANNONFIRE and The Daily Caller

msnbc.com:

Florida governor appoints new prosecutor in Trayvon Martin case — Gun control advocates say the Florida law that authorizes using deadly force to stop someone from committing a serious crime also encourages violent behavior. NBC's Pete Williams reports. — By msnbc.com staff

Discussion: Reuters, Booman Tribune, Crooks and Liars and The Moderate Voice

Judd Legum / ThinkProgress:
EXCLUSIVE: Sanford Commissioners Who Voted In Support Of Police Chief To Face Recall

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times

Alexander Bolton / Ballot Box:

Specter says he might vote for Romney — Former Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) says he might vote for Mitt Romney in November, depending on which version of Romney shows up for the general election. — “I'm going to wait to see which Romney it is,” said Specter in an interview with The Hill at his elegant apartment in Georgetown.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, NY Daily News, Washington Post, GOP 12 and Politico

Economist:

Self-sustaining stimulus — Larry Summers says fiscal stimulus can pay for itself — WHEN he was at the Treasury nearly 20 years ago Larry Summers would counsel President Bill Clinton on the merits of “stimulative austerity”: cut deficits, and interest rates will fall by enough to produce stronger economic growth.

Chris Kromm / Pope Watch:

Locke Foundation blog uses racist image in blog on NC's Amendment One (UPDATED) — The Meck Deck, an official blog of the Art Pope-funded conservative John Locke Foundation, this week published racially-charged and homophobic imagery of President Obama in a piece this on the president's opposition …