Fearing he might be smeared by liberals as possessing common decency, Orrin Hatch is walking back comments that suggested he supports the right of citizens to defend their country:

“It’s deeply regrettable that liberal groups are misconstruing my position on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ for activist purposes. I certainly do not support repealing this policy,” Hatch’s statement on Thursday said.

But a day earlier, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell asked Hatch in a live interview about repealing the policy…

“I believe there are very outstanding, patriotic gay people who serve in the military and they ought to be given credit for it. And they shouldn’t have to lie about being gay,” Hatch said.

Added Hatch, “I just plain do not believe in prejudice of any kind.” Unless the wrong people applaud him for it, of course.

Hatch creates uproar on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ [Deseret News, via ThinkProgress]

We think this clears things up, but somehow we remain confused:

The Culpeper County school superintendent said Monday that the school system had never formally removed a version of Anne Frank’s diary from classrooms following a parental complaint that some passages were objectionable.

Of course, that was how the local rag originally reported it: “school officials immediately chose to pull this version and use an alternative copy.” No formality required!

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Judson Phillips, whose for-profit Tea Party Convention begins today, demonstrates how his acute grasp of math will soak his event in red ink, understating the Bush Deficit by a mere trillion dollars.

Tea Party profiteer downplays Bush’s fiscal mess before throwing him under the bus [ThinkProgress]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh0IMFsPYLs

We suppose it speaks well of the Republic that Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly can have a civil televised discussion, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have preferred a Crossfire/Cramer takedown.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA

If we undertand the visuals correctly, Carly Fiorina thinks California Republicans are a bunch of sheep. Which sounds about right to us.

[via TPM]

John McCain, October 2006:

The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.

Mike Mullen, JCS chairman, Tuesday:

No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens… Allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.

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Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, today:

In remarks before a House appropriations hearing, Mr. LaHood said his advice to owners of recalled Toyotas was to “stop driving it, take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, later today:

Afterward, at a news conference, Mr. LaHood, backing away from his off-the-cuff remarks, said: “What I said in there was obviously a misstatement.”

One question: In the hearing room, was he under oath?

LaHood Backs Off Call Not to Drive Recalled Toyotas [NYT]