memeorandum: Former ‘60 Minutes’ Producer: Discredited Benghazi Story Was Done To Appeal To Conservatives (Igor Bobic/Talking Points Memo)

6:25 PM ET, November 8, 2013

Top Items:

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

Obama's Second-Term Slide Continues — 65% Disapprove of his Handling of Economy — Barack Obama has had a difficult year since his reelection victory. His overall job rating stands at 41%, down 14 points since last December. A majority (53%) now disapproves of the way he is handling his job as president.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Firedoglake, The Plum Line, Weasel Zippers, Associated Press, Politico, Pejman Yousefzadeh, Post Politics, Business Insider, The Daily Caller and Hot Air

George E. Condon Jr / NationalJournal.com:
How Obama Blew the Entire Last Year

Discussion: Associated Press

Jennifer Epstein / Politico:
Obama laments site, not health plans

Discussion: The PJ Tatler and Twitchy

Aaron Blake / Post Politics:
Poll: Obama's approval hits new low

Discussion: Weasel Zippers

Igor Bobic / Talking Points Memo:

Former ‘60 Minutes’ Producer: Discredited Benghazi Story Was Done To Appeal To Conservatives — A former “60 Minutes” producer who was fired over a 2004 story about then-President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard said Friday that CBS' now retracted story about the attack in Benghazi …

Discussion: Associated Press and Liberaland

New York Times:

CBS Correspondent Apologizes for Report on Benghazi Attack — The correspondent for the disputed “60 Minutes” segment about the attack on the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year apologized on the air Friday morning, saying it was a “mistake” to put …

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:

CBS 60 Minutes' Lara Logan Apologizes for Erroneous Benghazi Survivor Report: ‘We Were Wrong’ — CBS 60 Minutes reporter Lara Logan admitted on Friday that a person who claimed to have been witness to the deadly September 11, 2012 attack on an American consulate in Benghazi and who served …

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Hullabaloo, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The Daily Banter, more at Mediagazer »

Peggy Noonan / Wall Street Journal:

Noonan: 'I'm Gonna Be the Republican Nominee' — Mitch McConnell on the shutdown's failure, ObamaCare's future, and his own primary challenge. — Washington — It is a month since the government shutdown and a day after the election. The minority leader of the U.S. Senate …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Riehl World News, Pejman Yousefzadeh, Hot Air, No More Mister Nice Blog, First Read and Connecting.the.Dots

Andrew Kohut / Wall Street Journal:

The GOP Is in Better Shape Than You Think — Independents favor the GOP on handling the economy by a whopping 46%-30% margin. — Tucked away in recent polls—which have documented the extraordinary anger directed at the Republican Party during the shutdown crisis—are measures of clear disappointment with the Democratic Party.

Discussion: VodkaPundit, Questions and Observations, CANNONFIRE and The Reaction

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:

Obama Considers Administrative Fix To Health Care Law — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering a fix to the president's health care law that would expand the universe of individuals who receive tax subsidies to help buy insurance, an administration source told The Huffington Post.

Discussion: American Prospect, Talking Points Memo, Roll Call, The PJ Tatler, Forbes, Washington Post, National Review, Daily Kos, The Incidental Economist, Ross Douthat, The World's Greatest … and The Moderate Voice

Lynn Sweet Washington / Chicago Sun Times:
Sweet: Obama tries to empathize over health insurance cancellations, but is that the best he's got?

Discussion: Conservatives4Palin and Patterico's Pontifications

Mark Finkelstein / NewsBusters:
Obama Plays The Victim: 'I've Been Burned' By ObamaCare Website

Discussion: The Daily Caller

McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Analysis: Tens of millions could be forced out of health insurance they had — Facebook Twitter Google Plus Reddit E-mail Print — WASHINGTON — Even as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans …

Discussion: Pejman Yousefzadeh, Hot Air, Weasel Zippers and Ed Driscoll

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:
Former MSNBC Host's Health Plan Cancelled, New Plan Costs 3.5 Times More

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Gateway Pundit, Weasel Zippers, Twitchy and Instapundit

Robert Laszewski / Fox News Insider:
How Many Americans Have Lost Their Health Insurance Under ObamaCare?

Discussion: The Lonely Conservative, The Gateway Pundit and Scared Monkeys

Donna Cassata / Associated Press:

House GOP Leader: No Vote On Immigration Reform This Year — WASHINGTON (AP) — The third-ranking House Republican told immigration advocates that lawmakers won't vote this year on the issue, confirming what many had long assumed. — California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the majority whip …

Discussion: Liberaland

Brian Beutler / Salon:
GOP's intolerance trap: How ENDA fight explains all of U.S. politics

Discussion: The Plum Line, Liberaland and Booman Tribune

The Daily Beast:

Exclusive: Obama's Secret Iran Détente — Long before a nuclear deal was in reach, the U.S. was quietly lifting some of the financial pressure on Iran, a Daily Beast investigation reveals. How the sanctions were softened. — The Obama administration began softening sanctions …

Discussion: The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Heritage Foundation, Taylor Marsh, Weasel Zippers, The Dish, Jihad Watch, New York Times, Roger L. Simon, The Gateway Pundit and Patterico's Pontifications

Noah Rothman / Mediaite:

Obama Burns Media Supporters with Apology — Many were hurled under President Barack Obama's bus on Thursday night when he told NBC News reporter Chuck Todd that he was “sorry” those who were losing their health insurance coverage were shocked by this eventuality because of repeated “assurances” he made to the contrary.

Discussion: JustOneMinute and Outside the Beltway

New York Times:

Rules to Require Equal Coverage for Mental Ills — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday will complete a generation-long effort to require insurers to cover care for mental health and addiction just like physical illnesses when it issues long-awaited regulations defining parity in benefits and treatment.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Capital New York, National Review, ThinkProgress, Post Politics and Shakesville

Jen Christensen / CNN: Feds boosting mental health access, treatment

Shahien Nasiripour / The Huffington Post:

New York Fed Chief Levels Explosive Charge Against Big Banks — The head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Thursday that some of America's largest financial institutions appear to lack respect for the law, a potentially explosive charge against an industry already roiling …

Discussion: Firedoglake, ThinkProgress and Washington Wire

William C. Dudley / newyorkfed.org:
Ending Too Big to Fail

Discussion: Real Time Economics

Jennifer Haberkorn / Politico:

Only 5 enrollments completed in D.C. Obamacare exchange — Only five people have fully completed the enrollment process in the D.C. insurance exchange, according to information compiled by lawmakers from four of the insurance companies participating in the exchange.

Discussion: National Review and The Lonely Conservative

Jordan Weissmann / The Atlantic Online:

Yep, Being a Young, American Adult Is a Financial Nightmare — Here are the graphs to prove it. — Poverty is an astonishingly common experience here in the world's richest country. As I wrote this morning, almost 40 percent of American adults experience it for at least a year by age 60.

Discussion: The Dish

Ashley Alman / The Huffington Post:

Chris Matthews Takes A Crack At Chris Christie And Wife — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's weight has been a key concern during his years in the public eye, prompting the release of a medical report declaring Christie “fit to serve as governor” during his reelection campaign last month.

Discussion: Hot Air and Weasel Zippers

Tal Kopan / Politico:
Bill O'Reilly: Chris Christie won't do my show

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Associated Press:

HOME DEPOT APOLOGIZES FOR RACIST TWEET — You are here — Home » AP Company » Home Depot apologizes for racist tweet — NEW YORK (AP) — Home improvement maker Home Depot Inc. on Thursday apologized for a tweet that showed a picture of two African-American drummers with a person …

Discussion: The Raw Story

Frank Newport / Gallup:

Most Uninsured Americans Ignoring Health Exchange Sites — Three in 10 are familiar with the exchanges — PRINCETON, NJ — In the midst of widespread news coverage of problems with the federal health exchange website, relatively few uninsured Americans (18%) — the primary target population …

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller, Post Politics, Hot Air, Politico, First Read and Right Wing News

Noah Bierman / The Boston Globe:

Scott Brown gets a plea to run in N.H. — WASHINGTON — The signs are mounting. Scott Brown travels almost weekly to New Hampshire. Last month he formed a political action committee there to raise funds; this week he attacked the state's Democratic senator on his favorite target: national health care.