Five Reasons Obama May Have Changed His Mind About Super PACs

Obama's fundraising principles are like Newt Gingrich's wives. He sticks by them until a flashy new way to raise money walks into his life.

Back in 2008, he reversed his position on public financing. In his 2010 State of the Union address, he criticized the Citizen's United decision. Now he's changed his mind and embraces super PACs.

Maybe we're being too cynical, and there's some perfectly reasonable explanation for his reversal. Here are a few possibilities…

1. Visit from Ghost of Election's Future

Maybe a Dickensian ghost visited Barack Obama in the middle of the night and showed him a future where Mitt Romney was president and he made it a law that everyone had to wear slacks to the beach. That'd scare anyone into turning their back on what they believed!

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Tags: Barack Obama, Karl Rove, Mitt Romney, Stephen Colbert, Super PACs

Karl Rove Offended by Insufficiently Bleak Car Commercial [VIDEO]

While watching the Super Bowl last night, like I was not — because, really, a pox on both those teams — did you happen to see that incredibly-offensive overtly-political commercial that really just went too far? No, no! Not Pete Hoekstra's Chinese minstrel ad. That one was only matched in hilarity by its adroitness.

No, I'm talking about that disgusting Chrysler ad in which that Commie actor Clint Eastwood imagines a better tomorrow for America and for its auto-industry. And in a car commercial, no less…

"They almost lost everything," Eastwood says of Detroit. "But we all pulled together. Now Motor City is fighting again."

"I was, frankly, offended by it," said Karl Rove on Fox News Monday. "I'm a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising."

How do those auto companies get away with such hamfistedly-partisan pro-auto industry commercials on network television?!

And to do it with our tax dollars! That would certainly be going too far if it weren't a completely fabricated point. Still! I'm not going to let the make-believe-ness of Rove's factoid get in the way of all this righteous ire I'm experiencing.

What's next? Bally Total Fitness mindlessly mouthing Michelle Obama's pro-anti-fatness agenda?

Tags: Advertising, Auto Industry, Clint Eastwood, Football, Karl Rove, Sports

Stephen Colbert on Donald Trump's Looming Debate

Donald Trump moderating a U.S. presidential debate seems a little bit like a four-year-old directing a mov… No, wait, like a chimpanzee operating on a spinal… No, I got it! Like a politically ignorant egomaniac trying to seize control of an already-dysfunctional electoral process.

Coverage continues with Jon Stewart's gleeful take after the jump. Also, you should watch the Black Keys' Colbert performance. Do it!

The Daily Show and Colbert Report air Monday through Thursday starting at 11/10c.

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Tags: Debates, Donald Trump, Karl Rove, Mitt Romney, Primaries, Republicans, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, Video

Michele Bachmann and George Bush: It's Complicated

If there are two things we know about Michele Bachmann, it's that she loves George W. Bush and she loves dressing up. In her latest memoir, Core of Conviction, Bachmann tells a story about the day those two loves coincided.

It began in 2006, when Bush came to lend his support to her faltering congressional campaign. Not knowing what to wear, Bachmann consulted her mother.  The two decided that she should wear pink. All pink. Molly Ringwald in a cotton candy factory disaster pink. Pink shoes, dress, purse, and gloves. Bachmann's "straight" guy with a "queer" eye must have been gnashing his teeth in the other room.

That day, Bush surprised Bachmann with an invitation to ride in his limousine…

But as she rode in the car with then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty, then Sen. Norm Coleman and Bush’s top aide Karl Rove, she could see the president that she described as "a good listener" who responded "thoughtfully" disagreed with her mother’s advice.

"Speaking of thoughtful, he looked down at my pink-gloved hand and asked with a crinkly smile: 'Why are you wearing those gloves?'" she wrote. "I explained and he said gently, 'Lose the gloves.' I could see Rove agreed."

Bachmann lost the gloves, agreeing that they were over-the-top, and won the election. So from that day on, her mother had to sit at the "socialist's table" during all holiday meals, OR SO WE CAN IMAGINE.

Also, one day while waiting for the former president to speak, Bachmann was reading Team of Rivals when Karl Rove came over and told her to avoid being photographed while reading. And so, from that day on, she stopped reading altogether, OR SO WE CAN DEDUCE FROM THE EVIDENCE BEFORE US.

Photo by Charles Ommanney/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Tags: Books, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Michele Bachmann, Primaries, Republicans

From the Pork Barrel: Snogging Chavez

* Benetton's new Unhate ad campaign is extremely effective (at making me feel really weird).

* The Awl has discovered a collection of recipes from top U.S. politicians including John F. Kennedy and Adalai Stevenson. Unfortunately, it's pretty old, so Mike Huckabee's popcorn fried squirrel is not to be found.

* Occupy Karl Rove went over better than expected.

* It turns out President Obama is worth less than $51,000 in crocodile attack insurance. There goes about a third of his economic recovery plan.

Tags: Advertising, Animals, Barack Obama, Food, Hugo Chavez, John Kennedy, Karl Rove, Mike Huckabee, Occupy Wall Street, Pork Barrel