Mourning Joe
Republican congressman turned TV talker Joe Scarborough said last week that the Newtown massacre turned his thinking on guns.
"Entertainment moguls don't have an absolute right to glorify murder while spreading mayhem in young minds across America," said the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "And our Bill of Rights does not guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-style, high-caliber, semi-automatic combat assault rifles with high-capacity magazines to whoever the hell they want. It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas."
Wishing her a weapon
U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas, wished aloud that Sandy Hook Elementary School Principal Dawn Hochsprung had been armed with an M-4 assault rifle "so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids."
Losing is a bummer
A Gallup survey found Republicans' ratings of their lives worsened significantly in November, with their scores dropping to 40.3, from 47.0 in October. Democrats grew cheerier, with their scores clipping up to 56.9, from 53.7 in October. The gap between the parties is at its highest ever.
Gallup says it's a trend. In 2008, when Republican George W. Bush was in the White House, Republicans' life ratings far surpassed those of Democrats.
Fox docs
Some conservatives have speculated on the Fox News Channel over whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton really banged her head in a fall and isn't healthy enough for congressional questioning about the slayings of diplomatic staff in Libya.
"I'm not a doctor," said U.S. Rep. Allen West of Florida, "but it seems as though ... the secretary of state has come down with a case of Benghazi flu."
Bill O'Reilly and Laura Ingraham joked about an "immaculate concussion."
Fox talker Greta Van Susteren, without claiming a medical degree, gave a second opinion.
"I don't agree with any of my FNC colleagues or anyone else who is a tad bit sarcastic on our air about Secretary Clinton's health," Van Susteren wrote in a GretaWire blog post. "I believe that (she) is suffering from a concussion."
Some of their best friends
So much for a post-racial, colorblind America.
U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina decided to leave his post for a think tank job. The governor elevated U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, a tea party Republican, to fill the seat.
Some people, including University of Philadelphia political science professor Adolph Reed Jr., in a New York Times column, noticed that Scott is African-American. He will be the only black person in the Senate, the first black senator from South Carolina since Reconstruction and the first black senator from the South since 1901.
"This 'first black' rhetoric obscures the fact that modern black Republicans have been more tokens than signs of progress," Reed wrote.
Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin swung back: "There is nothing more dangerous to liberals than the liberated mind of a minority conservative."
