memeorandum: Improving economy defies Washington, for now (Politico)

3:10 PM ET, December 6, 2013

Top Items:

Lucy McCalmont / Politico:

Rick Santorum ties Obamacare, Nelson Mandela — As condolences and reflections followed the passing of Nelson Mandela, Rick Santorum linked the injustices the former South African president fought and Obamacare. — “He was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument …

Discussion: CNN, The Moderate Voice, Outside the Beltway, The Dish, The Hinterland Gazette, Connecting.the.Dots, p m carpenter's commentary, The Reaction, ABC News and The Democratic Daily

Leslie Larson / NY Daily News:

Sen. Ted Cruz's praise for Nelson Mandela met with criticism by supporters — The Texas senator posted a message on his Facebook page saying that Mandela would ‘live in history as an inspiration for defenders of liberty,’ but some of the comments posted called the former South African leader a 'terrorist …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The Hinterland Gazette, Daily Kos, Liberaland, BOR, p m carpenter's commentary and Joe. My. God.

Andrew Kaczynski / BuzzFeed:

7 Nelson Mandela Quotes You Probably Won't See In The U.S. Media — The former South African president, who died Thursday, was a revolutionary and a deep skeptic of American power. — Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters — “If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.

Discussion: Liberaland, ThinkProgress and The Daily Caller

The Atlantic Online:

Apartheid's Useful Idiots — Nelson Mandela died yesterday, and all around the world, much-deserved hosannas are coming in, praising the life of one of the most important figures in modern Western history. That last bit reflects my own bias. What's become clear in all my studies …

Discussion: Balloon Juice

Nick Wing / The Huffington Post:

Dick Cheney Didn't Regret His Vote Against Freeing Nelson Mandela, Maintained He Was A ‘Terrorist’ — In 1986, Nelson Mandela — the former president of South Africa who died Thursday at the age of 95 — was serving the 23rd year of what would ultimately be a 27-year prison sentence.

Discussion: The New Republic, Liberaland, ThinkProgress, National Review, US Department of State, Hullabaloo, Gawker, Brains and Eggs, Mediaite, Daily Kos, Londonderry Patch News, ≠ Inequality Matters and New York Times

Adam Peck / ThinkProgress:

Rick Santorum Compares Obamacare To Apartheid — Rick Santorum, the erstwhile Republican presidential candidate with a penchant for controversy, appeared on Fox News' O'Reilly Factor on Thursday night and memorialized the passing of South African leader and global visionary Nelson Mandela by equating Obamacare with apartheid.

Discussion: Austin Chronicle, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Week, Washington Monthly, Mediaite and Shakesville

Max Boot / Commentary Magazine:

The Character of Nelson Mandela — While traveling around the country promoting my last book, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, I was often asked which insurgents I admired the most. The answer is those insurgents who have fought relatively humanely …

Discussion: News Desk, The Daily Caller, The Dish, Slate, The Monkey Cage, TIME, Betsy's Page, Spectator, The New Republic, National Review and BREITBART.COM

The Daily Beast:

Don't Sanitize Nelson Mandela: He's Honored Now, But Was Hated Then — By Peter BeinartDecember 5th 20137:40 PM — If we turn the late South African leader into a nonthreatening moral icon, we'll forget a key lesson from his life: America isn't always a force for freedom.

Discussion: Gawker, Right Wing Watch, The Mahablog, CANNONFIRE, The Dish, Politico and No More Mister Nice Blog

Hunter Walker / Talking Points Memo:
Richard Branson: Mandela Tried To Stop The Iraq War

Discussion: CNN and Liberaland

Dylan Scott / Talking Points Memo:
Santorum: Fight Against Obamacare Like Fight Against Apartheid

Discussion: Liberaland, Jezebel and Gawker

Scott Wilson / Washington Post:
Mandela's cause shaped Obama's political awakening

Discussion: Booman Tribune, Washington Wire, Post Politics and Taegan Goddard's …

Peter Schweizer / Politico:

When Barry Met Kathy — Almost never, it turns out. — Journalists and pundits have begun offering lengthy postmortems to explain the causes of the ruinous Obamacare rollout. The debacle's scale has surprised even progressives who supported the Affordable Care Act.

Discussion: PostPartisan, Hot Air, National Republican … and Government Accountability …

Byron York / Washington Examiner: No talk of affordable health care in Obamacare PR push

Laura Barron-Lopez / The Hill:
Eagle-killing rule almost done

Discussion: americanthinker.com and Prairie Weather

Art Swift / Gallup:

Majority of Americans Want Major Changes to Health Law — Fifty-two percent want Congress to repeal or scale back the law — WASHINGTON, D.C. — After two months of glitches with the new federal healthcare website and attempts to fix it, the percentage of Americans who prefer that Congress scale …

Discussion: Firedoglake, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, The Plum Line, Weekly Standard, Business Insider, Weasel Zippers, Reuters and JustOneMinute

Tal Kopan / Politico:

Scott Brown: Where am I? — Scott Brown on Thursday night broke a cardinal rule of touring, whether it's in politics or rock 'n roll: Get the name of where you are right. — Speaking with reporters while in New Hampshire for a dinner at a local Republican group meeting …

Discussion: CNN, The Democratic Daily and Londonderry Patch News

First Read / NBCNews:
First Thoughts: Universal, bipartisan praise for Mandela — when that wasn't always the case

Discussion: The Fix and Taegan Goddard's …

Marc Fortier / Londonderry Patch News:
Scott Brown in ‘No Hurry’ to Decide on NH Senate Run

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Brendan Sasso / The Hill:

Patriot Act author: Obama's intel czar should be prosecuted — Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the original author of the Patriot Act, says Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be prosecuted for lying to Congress. — “Lying to Congress is a federal offense …

Discussion: Politico, Firedoglake, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Caller, Hit & Run, The Switch, SiliconBeat, CNN and The Gateway Pundit

Emily Schultheis / Politico:

Thad Cochran to run for reelection — Six-term Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) will run for reelection next year, POLITICO has confirmed. — The second most-senior Republican in the Senate guarded his decision so closely that even Senate leaders and top officials at the National Republican Senatorial Committee …

Discussion: CNN

Clarion-Ledger:
Republican U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran said Friday he will run for re-election next year.

Discussion: Business Insider and NPR

Nathan L. Gonzales / Rothenblog:
Cochran to Seek Re-Election in Mississippi

Discussion: Roll Call and The Daily Caller

Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:

Exclusive: The Obamacare Error Rate Has Fallen Dramatically — Some perspective on the latest ACA freak-out — These days it seems like everybody following Obamacare is talking about the 834s. Those are the personal data files that healthcare.gov sends insurance companies, in order to notify them of new enrollees.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Hot Air and The Huffington Post

Politico:
State exchanges hitting data snags, too

Discussion: Hit & Run and Los Angeles Times

Charlie Cook / NationalJournal.com:

Can Democrats Recover From the Obamacare Catastrophe? — If Republicans don't flub the coming fiscal debates like they did in the fall, voters will focus squarely on the health care rollout. — Most graphs of polling data show shifts that are very gradual.

Discussion: First Read and Roll Call

Michael O'Brien / NBCNews:
Obama: GOP should be ‘embarrassed’ by low productivity on Hill

Discussion: Washington Wire and Independent Journal Review

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Obama Gets Real — Much of the media commentary on President Obama's big inequality speech was cynical. You know the drill: it's yet another “reboot” that will go nowhere; none of it will have any effect on policy, and so on. But before we talk about the speech's possible political impact …