memeorandum: The Bain Quatrain (Ed Kilgore/Washington Monthly)

1:00 PM ET, July 16, 2012

Top Items:

July panic for Obama — for good reason — Why has the Obama team been publicly wailing about losing out to Mitt Romney in the money race? Why would the president accuse his opponent of not merely being wrong or unqualified but criminal? After all, the polls are tied, so why so much worry in Obamaland?

Discussion: americanthinker.com, Questions and Observations, The Other McCain, The Daily Dish, The Spectacle Blog, Maggie's Farm and Prairie Weather

Bloomberg:

Romney's Bain Yielded Private Gains, Socialized Losses — By Anthony Luzzatto Gardner 2012-07-15T22:30:01Z — Mitt Romney touts his business acumen and job-creation record as a key qualification for being the next U.S. president. — What's clear from a review of the public record during …

Discussion: Firedoglake, Gawker, The Mahablog, Daily Kos, Balloon Juice and Mediaite

CNN:

Facts don't support Obama's charges against Romney — Editor's note: David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has been an adviser to four presidents. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership …

Discussion: Red Alert Politics, Fortune, Balloon Juice, The Huffington Post and ABCNEWS

Kevin Robillard / Politico:

Mitt Romney rips Obama camp's ‘dishonesty’ — Mitt Romney on Monday accused President Barack Obama of running a “campaign based on falsehood and dishonesty,” while brushing aside suggestions from anxious conservatives to alter his campaign strategy. — “A campaign based on falsehood …

Discussion: Hot Air, Outside the Beltway, The Gateway Pundit and Washington Examiner

Ed Kilgore / Washington Monthly:

The Bain Quatrain — So to get a little distance from last week's big presidential campaign discussion, how did Mitt Romney's campaign get to where it is today on the questions surrounding his stewardship of Bain Capital? — First, there was the fateful decision to make Romney's success …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The New Republic and Washington Post

Philip Rucker / Washington Post:

Romney tries to regain momentum with new focus on Obama's ‘political payoffs’ — Trying to shift the presidential campaign narrative away from his personal finances and tenure at Bain Capital, Republican Mitt Romney will launch a fresh assault this week accusing President Obama of political cronyism …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, New York Magazine, Bloomberg, The Maddow Blog, Red Alert Politics, No More Mister Nice Blog, Right Wing News and Politico

New York Times:
When Did Romney Step Back From Bain? It's Complicated

Discussion: CNN, Marbury, Guardian, ABCNEWS, Washington Post, The Caucus, The Page and American Power

Paul Krugman / New York Times:
Policy and the Personal — A lot of people inside the Beltway …

Discussion: Newshoggers.com, Prairie Weather and Paul Krugman

Geneva Sands / The Hill:
Romney campaign accuses Obama of ‘political payoffs’

Discussion: Politico and CNN

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
TPM Editor's Blog

Discussion: david-frum, Washington Examiner, The Daily Dish and Mother Jones

John Cassidy / News Desk:
Why Won't Romney Release More Tax Returns?

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, The Maddow Blog, Bloomberg, ABCNEWS, Balloon Juice and The Hinterland Gazette

David Corn / Mother Jones:
Romney's Account of His Departure From Bain Undercut By...Romney Testimony

Discussion: The Daily Dish, Taegan Goddard's …, msnbc.com and The Huffington Post

Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
Romney super PAC raised record $20 million in June

Discussion: ABCNEWS

Susan Page / USA Today:
Analysis: Obama, Romney and a turn in the debate on jobs

Discussion: New York Magazine

Brian Knowlton / The Caucus:
Romney Faces Mounting Attacks on Bain and Taxes

Discussion: Ricochet Conversations Feed and The Page

Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:

Pawlenty Looked at as Romney Running Mate — EAGAN, Minn. — It was four years ago this summer, when Tim Pawlenty ranked high on the list of John McCain's potential running mates, and Mr. Pawlenty and his wife, Mary, were plowing through a voluminous questionnaire probing deep into their finances …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Washington Wire, Washington Post, ABCNEWS, Hot Air, Politicker, The Daily Caller, LifeNews.com, Angry Black Lady Chronicles, National Review, Outside the Beltway, Ricochet Conversations Feed, Wall Street Journal and Business Insider

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

John Thune rising: GOP senator on Romney's veepstakes and his future — Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has reemerged as a viable vice presidential candidate who would check many of the boxes Mitt Romney is looking for in a running mate. — He's an experienced legislator who has earned respect …

Discussion: CNN, Washington Post, New York Magazine and Influence Alley

New York Post:

Obama wedding registry fund-raising strategy not a hit with brides — President Obama's bizarre marriage-theme fund-raising scheme — where he asks couples to request campaign donations from their guests in lieu of wedding gifts — has been a total flop. — The desperate initiative …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, protein wisdom, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers, Sister Toldjah, The Gateway Pundit, UrbanGrounds and americanthinker.com

Bob Cusack / The Hill:

Treasury probe cites officials for soliciting prostitutes, accepting industry gifts, FOIA docs reveal — Treasury Department officials have been cited for soliciting prostitutes, breaking conflict-of-interest rules and accepting gifts from corporate executives, according to the findings of official government investigations.

Discussion: The Raw Story

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Latest Word on the Trail? I Take It Back — The quotations come back redacted, stripped of colorful metaphors, colloquial language and anything even mildly provocative. — They are sent by e-mail from the Obama headquarters in Chicago to reporters who have interviewed campaign officials under …

Discussion: protein wisdom, BREITBART.COM, Wake up America, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, New York Magazine, Jammie Wearing Fools, Mother Jones and Nick Turse, more at Mediagazer »

WESH-TV:

Deputies shoot, kill man after knocking on wrong door — FDLE looking into deputy-involved shooting — Lake County Sheriff's Office deputies shot and killed a man they assumed was an attempted murder suspect on Sunday, but they now know they shot the wrong man.

Discussion: Hit & Run and The Hinterland Gazette

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Microsoft and NBC Complete Web Divorce — On Sunday night, MSNBC.com did something that successful Web sites almost never do: it renamed itself. — The site became NBCNews.com, signifying the end of a relationship between NBC and Microsoft that dates back to the earliest days of the commercial Web.

Discussion: Politico, msnbc.com, CNN, Media Decoder, CNET, Wake up America, New York Magazine, Mediaite, TechCrunch, Guardian, FishbowlDC, Scared Monkeys and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »

Peter J. Boyer / The Daily Beast:

Romney's Palin Problem: Where's Her Convention Invite? — Mitt still hasn't invited Sarah to the GOP's nomination assembly in Tampa, and the Tea Party is livid. Peter J. Boyer on how the snub could sabotage Romney's tenuous ties to the grassroots—and why Palin is keeping the week open, just in case.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, Taylor Marsh, Hot Air, Politico, The Gateway Pundit, Balloon Juice and Conservatives4Palin

Lori Montgomery / Washington Post:

Democrats threaten to go over ‘fiscal cliff’ if GOP fails to raise taxes — Democrats are making increasingly explicit threats about their willingness to let nearly $600 billion worth of tax hikes and spending cuts take effect in January unless Republicans drop their opposition to higher taxes for the nation's wealthiest households.

Discussion: The Maddow Blog, protein wisdom, Booman Tribune, The Heritage Foundation, Examiner and The Gateway Pundit

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:

CNN on the Iran threat — The news network's Pentagon reporter reasons that “Iran already has a missile that could reach the U.S” — A surface-to-surface missile is launched during the Iranian Revolutionary Guards maneuver in an undisclosed location in Iran July 3.

Discussion: Unqualified Offerings

James Warren / The Daily Beast:

Richard Posner Bashes Supreme Court's Citizens United Ruling — Richard Posner is the most influential conservative judge outside the Supreme Court. And he thinks its campaign-finance ruling encourages bribery. James Warren on Posner's latest shot—and Scalia's gun love.

Discussion: SCOTUSblog

Nick Wiltgen / National and Local Weather Forecast …:

2012 Drought Rivals Dust Bowl … This year's drought ranks among the 10 largest drought areas of the past century, the National Climatic Data Center is expected to announce today. — Preliminary data computed from the Palmer Drought Severity Index shows that 54.6 percent of the contiguous 48 states …

Discussion: The Daily Beast, ThinkProgress, The Moderate Voice, Washington Monthly and Econbrowser

Gretchen Morgenson / New York Times:

Hedge Funds Tap Into Early Views of Stock Analysts — They are supposed to be among Wall Street's most closely guarded secrets: changes in research analysts' views, up or down, of a company's prospects. But some of the nation's biggest brokerage firms appear to be giving a handful …