By George, Sherrod Brown an authentic lefty?

 When we spotted a headline on the Beacon Journal's op-ed page that said "Sherrod Brown,  authentic progressive," it appeared to be an accurate  reference to the authentic  Ohio Democratic senator.  So imagine my shock when the columnist was George Will.  Was he really paying homage to the guy that he described as  a "leftist"?

No dear reader, he wasn't. Instead he cleverly  used Brown, as  "rumpled"  and "hoarse" as he may be,  as a wedge to get at his real target: um, gender-crazy Democratic activists who are clamoring to nominate Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren in 2016.

( I will dispense with professional courtesy at  this point and refer to the sniffy conservative columnist only as George because any sentence beginning with his surname  sounds ungrammatical, as in "Will wrote..." or "Will asserted...")

From a point early in his gender diatribe, George  slams both women as phony or theatrical leftists and offers up Brown as the "authentic progressive" to fill in the blank at the top of a hypothetical Democratic ticket.

Oh, the subject has come up more than once.  Brown  deflected an  insistent question from MSNBC's Chris Matthews, saying he is "quite happy where I am but, thank you".   And to the Huffington Post he said: "I have no interest.  I mean zero interest.  I love what I do.  I think if you want to be a really good senator you shouldn't   be looking over your shoulder and running for president. Zero interest.  I appreciate the question but no thanks."

Nothing, of course, is ever final in politics, particularly in George's  tantrums against female lefties.   And Brown's intense fund-raising efforts for Democratic candidates across the land does cast him as an authentic team  that more than a few  of his colleagues will remember down the road.

But George has a widening reputation for his erring punditry.  Item:  Romney would win in a landslide!    So George's readers might conclude that Brown is in fact  an authentic  crypto-right winger.  In this instance, however, we'll stick with the headline. Thanks anyway,George.

Romney: Professor backwards, sideways and forward

Funny how older news keeps turning up as newer news in a presidential campaign.  I refer to a report on Mitt Romney's  somersaults over abortion that was wickedly documented in a report by William Saletan  first published in Slate Magazine on  Feb.22. It's not that we weren't aware that Romney had a revolving  position on abortion for every occasion.  Rather, Saletan tracked it for 20 years with video clips that showed up on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC program last night - a startling indictment of a candidate who manuevered through  campaigns for governor, the U.S. Senate and now his second presidential effort.  With so much on film it will be difficult for anyone to give him the benefit of the doubt today that he is what he says  he is on abortion, whatever that is.

Here's how Saletan summarizes his investigative report that you can read on-line:

"When you see the story in its full context, three things become clear.  First, this was no flip-flop.  Romney is a man with many facets, groping his way through a series of fluid positions on an array of difficult issues.  His journey isn't complete.  It never will be.  Second, for  Romney, abortion was never really a policy question.  He didn't want to change the law.  What he wanted to change was his identity. And third, the malleability of Romney's core is as much about his past as about his future.  Again and again, he struggled to make sense not just of what he should do, but of who he has been.  The problem with Romney isn't that he keeps changing  his mind.  The problem is that he keeps changing his story."

As I mentioned at the start , there can be no denial that he's been all over the lot on abortion.    It's all on video and audio, folks.  In his voice.

Buchanan (not the old prez) is deep-sixing

WOULD SOMEBODY please toss out a life raft to Pat Buchanan, the over-exposed TV-commentator who has been engaging in a non-stop rant against Sonia Sotomayor from the day her name surfaced as President Obama's Supreme Court nominee. Buchanan's well deserved reputation as an anti- Hispanic, anti-Semitic writer/talker from the ranks of Richard Nixon's inner-circle has pulled him under the heavy undertow now favoring Sotomayor. He frantically gasps that she is a wicked witch who will cost white males any claims to their ruling masculinity, charging her in a Human Events column with a "lifelong resolve to discriminate against white males."

I really think his sociopathic comments on MSNBC and elsewhere may be prompted by watching Albert Pujols (eh, Domincan Republic lad) belt another one into the distant upper deck against an inferior white male pitcher. Does anybody except MSNBC and Pat's dead-enders take him that seriously anymore as the old bigot appears to be prepping for his own show on Comedy Central?

Palin and liberal Dems: UNSTOPPABLE?

TO FILL IN a slow news day, MSNBC'S Chris Matthews profoundly asked his guests, "What must Sarah Palin do to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2012?"

Hmmm.... That's easy: Millions of progressive Democrats will volunteer to support her candidacy all the way to the convention.