ThinkProgress flags an interesting exchange from a congressional town-hall meeting in Ohio this week, when a Republican congressman was pressed on whether he’d accept a debt-reduction with $10 in cuts for every $1 in revenue — a compromise every GOP presidential candidate said isn’t good enough.

During a town hall meeting earlier this week, an Ohio constituent posed the same hypothetical to Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH). Chabot was initially hesitant to answer because “we’re never going to get that deal,” but then went on to express his opposition to raising revenues at all, saying, “I’m not for raising taxes.” When a constituent correctly noted that taxes are at their lowest level in more than 50 years, Chabot was skeptical, declaring, “I don’t really buy that that’s the case.”

Right. The constituent tries to explain that taxes are at a 50-year low, and Steve Chabot replied, “I’ve heard that quote thrown around and I don’t really buy that that’s the case, that they’re the lowest. I know there’s some groups that have said there are. I’m not really convinced that’s the case. There may be some people that have it, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

You know what? Fine. Members of Congress can’t be expected to know everything off the top of their heads. This seems like a fairly important detail given all of the votes Chabot and his colleagues have been asked to take in recent months, but if the Republican congressman doesn’t know this detail from memory, I’ll gladly cut him some slack.

Of course, by saying he’s “not convinced,” Chabot is suggesting he’s open to reviewing the evidence. I certainly hope that’s true. In fact, let’s give the Ohio Republican the benefit of the doubt and conclude that Chabot actually cares about reality — he could have easily told that constituent, “I don’t care about the facts; I care about protecting millionaires from Clinton-era tax rates.” But he didn’t say that; Chabot kept saying he’s merely skeptical.

With that in mind, let’s educate Steve Chabot: taxes really are at a 50-year low.

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman’s presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.

Some conservative political movements such as the “Tea Party” have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.

Federal, state and local income taxes consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

“The idea that taxes are high right now is pretty much nuts,” says Michael Ettlinger, head of economic policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.

And as it turns out, low taxes not only lead to larger deficits; they also lead to less revenue. Jared Bernstein posted this chart recently, and GOP lawmakers like Chabot should probably take a look at it.

Republicans assume, and expect everyone else to assume, that the government is bringing in plenty of money to meet its needs. It’s important to understand, the, how very wrong Republicans are about this. Federal revenues have dropped to 15% — a 50-year low. To bring the federal budget closer to balance, we’d expect to see this number around 19%.

Those are the facts. So, Steve Chabot, what do you have to say now?

It seems almost quaint in retrospect. In the first two months of the Obama presidency, with the global economy still teetering on the brink of collapse, Republicans were preoccupied with a threat that didn’t exist: the return of the Fairness Doctrine.

Everyone from George Will to Dick Morris, National Review to the RNC, all said Democrats would very likely use their new power to impose strict new broadcast rules that would invariably kill the Republican Media Machine.

The apoplexy was terribly silly. Not only were there more important things to worry about, but Democrats had no intention of pursuing the policy that hadn’t been enforced in decades. The GOP freak-out was based on a largely imaginary threat.

As Republicans may have noticed, their cries were misplaced, and Democrats never made any effort to restore the policy. In fact, this week, the Obama administration scrapped the Fairness Doctrine altogether.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski called this perennial debate a “distraction” in a Monday statement on the commission’s site, in which he announced the elimination of the Doctrine and 82 other “obsolete” rules. […]

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee were quick to applaud the rule’s demise on Tuesday. […]

Of course, despite all the breathless reaction, the death of the Fairness Doctrine, which hasn’t been enforced in 20 years, is largely symbolic. “As I have said, striking this from our books ensures there can be no mistake that what has long been a dead letter remains dead,” Genachowski wrote on Monday. “The Fairness Doctrine holds the potential to chill free speech and the free flow of ideas and was properly abandoned over two decades ago.”

Dylan Matthews had a good piece detailing the history of the Fairness Doctrine, which is certainly worth checking out.

But the larger point to keep in mind is this: it’s gone. The Republicans who were hyperventilating about this were wasting their energy. I don’t doubt the conspiracy-minded activists on the right will be reluctant to believe the news — “Obama only wants us to think he’s scrapped the Fairness Doctrine to lull us into a false sense of security” — but for the rest of us, the debate is officially over.

This afternoon, Gallup released its new national poll, showing support from the GOP presidential candidates among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Here are top four candidates:

1. Rick Perry — 29% (up from 18% in July)
2. Mitt Romney — 17% (down from 23%)
3. Ron Paul — 13% (up from 10%)
4. Michele Bachmann — 10% (down from 13%)

All of the other candidates are below 5%. Herman Cain’s support has slipped badly from the early summer, as has Newt Gingrich’s. Jon Huntsman remains wildly popular with the D.C. media, but he’s still running a distant eighth among GOP voters nationwide, and his support is down to just 1%.

All of the usual caveats, of course, still apply, most notably the fact that it’s still pretty early. If memory serves, at this point in 2007, Hillary Clinton had a big lead among national Democrats, and Fred Thompson looked pretty strong that summer, too. A lot can happen in five months.

Having said that, we can draw a few conclusions about where things currently stand. For example, the GOP’s rank-and-file voters apparently didn’t much mind Rick Perry’s awkward first week as a presidential candidate. His strange antics may have generated scorn from liberal, East-coast elites like me, but Republicans liked what they saw.

Indeed, between the Gallup poll and Perry’s lead in Iowa, it looks like Rick Perry is arguably the new GOP frontrunner, at least for now.

It’s also worth noting that Bachmann appears to be going in the wrong direction. This isn’t terribly surprising — her shtick wears thin pretty quickly — but she benefited from positioning herself as the main far-right alternative to Romney for the Republican base and Tea Party crowd. Now, with Perry in the race, those voters don’t need her anymore.

Not only has Bachmann slipped to fourth nationally, but even in Iowa, where she appeared to be the frontrunner after the recent Ames Straw Poll, the Minnesota congresswoman has not only slipped to third, she’s also seen her unfavorability numbers jump considerably.

Obviously, conditions can still change, but while the Republican race looked like a three-way contest a couple of weeks ago (Perry vs. Romney vs. Bachmann), it’s now easier to imagine a two-person horse-race (Perry vs. Romney) going forward.

The book Rick Perry wrote less than a year ago has proven to be a valuable source of information about the governor’s worldview, but as Time’s Mark Benjamin notes today, “Fed Up!” wasn’t Perry’s first work as a published author.

[I]n a little-noticed passage in his first book, “On My Honor,” an encomium on the Boy Scouts published in 2008, Perry also drew a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism. “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” he wrote. “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”

In “On My Honor,” Perry also punted on the exact origins of homosexuality. He wrote that he is “no expert on the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate,” but that gays should simply choose abstinence. Perry’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether he maintains this view.

Drawing a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism is offensive enough, but I’m especially impressed by Perry’s assertion that gays should choose abstinence. In other words, as far as this Republican presidential candidate is concerned, gay people just shouldn’t have sex — ever. They should simply “make a choice” not to “engage in sexual activity.”

If, on the Crazy-O-Meter, Michele Bachmann calling homosexuality “part of Satan” registers as a 10, Perry’s published argument has to be at least a 9.5.

Greg Sargent asked, “[S]eriously: Does the Rick Perry campaign have any strategy at all to deal with the fact that a whole host of extreme views that almost certainly render him unelectable in a general election are right there in black and white, right under his own byline?”

I really doubt it. Team Perry has tried to argue that Perry’s published sentiments are “not meant to reflect the governor’s current views,” but given that both books were published quite recently — one in 2008, the other in 2010 — the campaign may need a more persuasive line. I haven’t a clue what that line might be.

With Anthony Weiner having resigned, there’s a congressional special election coming up in New York’s 9th district. Democrats were feeling pretty comfortable about the contest until a Siena poll showed Democrat David Weprin leading Republican Bob Turner by just six points, 48% to 42%.

We’ll know soon enough whether the race is as close as advertised, but with just three weeks to go before the election, we’re getting a good look at the guy Republicans nominated.

A couple of weeks ago, Turner began running ugly attack ads, targeting Weprin for supporting Muslim Americans’ rights to build a community center in lower Manhattan. This week, Turner inexplicably is going after the Zadroga law.

The GOP hopeful running for ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner’s seat says the $4.3 billion Zadroga 9/11 health law is too broad — and shouldn’t cover volunteers sickened at Ground Zero. […]

Some $1.5 billion of the Zadroga package is set aside to monitor the health of rescue and cleanup crews. It also bankrolls the treatment for Ground Zero workers, volunteers and residents who became ill from breathing in twin tower toxins.

The remaining $2.78 billion is set aside to compensate the families of those killed and the injured, including responders and volunteers - and nearby residents and office workers in an area south of Chambers St.

“I think it is a little too broad,” Turner said.

Turner said he supports the law, but just belives Democrats went too far in providing assistance to those who got sick at Ground Zero.

Who should be left out? In Turner’s mind, volunteers who showed up to help, and are now feeling ill effects, shouldn’t be covered by the Zadroga measure.

I’m not a New Yorker, but I’m hard pressed to imagine this is going to win Turner a lot of votes.

John Feal, a former construction supervisor who was seriously injured at Ground Zero, told the New York Daily News, “That day [9/11], and for months after, there were no uniforms. Volunteers worked next to rescue crews for weeks…. For Bob Turner to turn his back on those New Yorkers, but use images of the burning towers in campaign ads — a circus monkey can out-politic Bob Turner, he’s an embarrassment to the Republican Party.”

Election Day is Sept. 13.

For those voters who consider support for the death penalty their top issue, the presidential race isn’t even a contest. When it comes to U.S. officials killing U.S. citizens, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is in a league of his own.

In his nearly 11 years as chief executive, Perry, now running for the GOP presidential nomination, has overseen more executions than any governor in modern history: 234 and counting. That’s more than the combined total in next two states — Oklahoma and Virginia — since the death penalty was restored 35 years ago.

The number is partly explained by sheer longevity at the helm of a huge state that has mastered the complicated legal maze of carrying out capital punishment.

But Perry has hardly shrunk from the task…. He vetoed a bill that would have spared the mentally retarded and sharply criticized a Supreme Court ruling that juveniles were not eligible for death.

It’s hard to say how this will perceived by voters or whether it will matter at all in an electoral context, but when it comes to Perry’s record, one execution in particular is likely to stand out.

In 2004, there’s reason to believe Texas may have executed an innocent man when it put Cameron Todd Willingham to death. When Willingham was convicted, prosecutors relied heavily on an “expert” who testified on the origins of a fire that killed Willingham’s daughters, and said Willingham was responsible. The problem, we now know, is that the “expert” apparently didn’t know what he was talking about.

But that’s only part of the story. As those familiar with the Willingham story likely remember, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, created to consider the competence of those who offer forensic testimony, hired an actual arson expert, to consider the evidence and report on his findings. He was scheduled to discuss what he found in early October 2009.

Rick Perry, who was governor when the state killed Willingham, was apparently afraid of what the truth might show. In the 11th hour, the governor started firing members of the Forensic Science Commission, ensuring that the panel couldn’t hold a meeting to discuss the case.

Even for Perry, this was brazen. He was so panicky that the facts would show Texas killed an innocent man, he went to ridiculous lengths to prevent the truth from coming out. Nearly two years later, the facts still haven’t been presented.

As this relates to the governor’s presidential campaign, the next question is whether voters will care. During last year’s GOP gubernatorial primary, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) thought Perry might be vulnerable on this point. Her campaign posed the issue to a Texas focus group, which included one Republican who said, “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”

Whether voters elsewhere consider the issue the same way remains to be seen.

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that won’t necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* In a national survey, Public Policy Polling shows President Obama tied with Mitt Romney in a hypothetical match-up, with each getting 45% support. The president leads Rick Perry in the poll, 49% to 43%, and leads Michele Bachmann, 50% to 42%.

* In Iowa, where voters have spent a fair amount of time getting to know the Republican presidential hopefuls, President Obama leads all of the leading GOP candidates by double digits in general-election match-ups.

* In Mississippi yesterday, Democrats nominated Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree as their gubernatorial nominee. DuPree’s nomination makes history — he’s the first major-party African-American candidate ever to win a gubernatorial nomination in Mississippi.

* In Nevada’s upcoming special election in the 2nd congressional district, a new Daily Kos/Public Policy Polling survey shows former state Sen. Mark Amodei (R) with a narrow lead over state Treasurer Kate Marshall (D), 43% to 42%.

* The right-wing Club for Growth is going after Republican Senate candidate Tommy Thompson in a new television ad, because Thompson endorsed a health care bill in the Senate that was an early version of the Affordable Care Act.

* In Hawaii, in something of a surprise, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D) announced she will run for re-election, rather than running for the open U.S. Senate seat.

* On a related note, Hanabusa will likely find herself in a 2010 re-match, with former Rep. Charles Djou (R) hoping to make a comeback.

* And in Michigan, the latest EPIC-MRA poll shows Romney leading the GOP presidential field with 32%, followed by Perry at 17% and Bachmann at 12%. Romney’s 15-point lead is obviously sizable, but given his history with the state — his father was governor of Michigan — many expected his lead to be even bigger.

ThinkProgress flags an odd story out of Pennsylvania, where Republican officials have already slashed education funding. In one area, cash-strapped schools are now using sheep, instead of lawnmowers, for lawn care.

Rather than spend money on cutting grass, the Carlisle School District has brought in 7 Romney sheep to tend the fields. “They’ve done a good job so far,” says Superintendent John Friend.

The sheep come free of charge, since they belong to the principal of the middle school. Friend estimates that they will save the district about $15,000 this year in mowing costs.

You know, nothing says “21st century global superpower” like schools turning to sheep because they can’t afford lawnmowers.

I often think about a story President Obama told a while back, after he returned from a trip to East Asia. He shared an anecdote about a luncheon he attended with the president of South Korea.

“I was interested in education policy — they’ve grown enormously over the last 40 years. And I asked him, what are the biggest challenges in your education policy? He said, ‘The biggest challenge that I have is that my parents are too demanding.’ He said, ‘Even if somebody is dirt poor, they are insisting that their kids are getting the best education.’ He said, ‘I’ve had to import thousands of foreign teachers because they’re all insisting that Korean children have to learn English in elementary school.’ That was the biggest education challenge that he had, was an insistence, a demand from parents for excellence in the schools.

“And the same thing was true when I went to China. I was talking to the mayor of Shanghai, and I asked him about how he was doing recruiting teachers, given that they’ve got 25 million people in this one city. He said, ‘We don’t have problems recruiting teachers because teaching is so revered and the pay scales for teachers are actually comparable to doctors and other professions. ‘

“That gives you a sense of what’s happening around the world. There is a hunger for knowledge, an insistence on excellence, a reverence for science and math and technology and learning. That used to be what we were about.”

And here in the U.S. of A., Republican officials are slashing education funding and schools are turning to sheep.

Winning the future? Not so much.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said this week that when it comes to the economy and the experts, “Republicans are listening.” If that’s true, Republicans are hearing lots of suggestions about boosting the economy with additional stimulus.

Take Republican Bill Gross and Democrat Mohamed El-Erian, the chief investment officers of the giant bond fund Pimco, for example. Both support long-term debt reduction, including entitlement curbs, but both also believe “the government needs to arrest America’s dangerous economic slide.”

In fact, their prescriptions are more aggressive than any the White House has proposed or appears to be contemplating for President Obama’s planned speech in September. Among them: direct federal hiring to reduce unemployment and increase lagging demand.

Mr. Gross, a billionaire acclaimed for his early warnings that the dot-com and subprime mortgage bubbles would burst, said, “Capitalism in its raw form can’t pull us out of this hole.”

If it feels like this sentiment keeps coming up, that’s because it does. Economists and the financial industry want policymakers to boost the economy. Wells Fargo lowered its growth projections last week, and said conditions will get worse “without policy intervention.” The conservative Financial Times argued this week, “In broad terms, the needed elements are plain: further short-term stimulus combined with credible longer-term fiscal restraint.”

The pushback against the Republican austerity agenda is arguably even more intense. Jamison Foser explained this week:

J.P. Morgan says “fiscal tightening” will worsen the “negative feedback loop” hindering economic growth. Greg Ip notes, “A shift toward fiscal and monetary austerity in the United States in 1937 helped prolong the depression. Fiscal tightening helped push Japan back into recession in 1997.” Jared Bernstein argues for more stimulus. Larry Summers, too. Bruce Bartlett, a policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, writes, “the important thing is for policy makers to stop obsessing about debt and focus instead on raising aggregate demand.”

And this doesn’t even include warnings from the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office that aggressive spending cuts would weaken an already fragile economy.

It’s against this backdrop that House Republicans believe “every economist” agrees the GOP is on the right track.

“Republicans are listening”? Listening to whom, exactly?

Last week, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry shared his thoughts on climate change. The Texas governor insisted that “a substantial number of scientists … have manipulated data,” adding, “[W]e’re seeing almost weekly or even daily scientists who are coming forward and questioning, the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

On the first point, Perry was probably referring to the silly “Climategate” story. It’s been difficult to keep up with all of the independent investigations that have scrutinized the so-called “controversy” and came up empty, but it’s worth nothing that just this week, yet another probe wrapped up: “An investigation by the National Science Foundation has found no evidence of wrongdoing or misconduct by Penn State climate-change researcher Michael Mann.”

Mann, of course, is the scientist accused by the right of hiding and manipulating data. At last count, I believe seven different investigations have cleared him of any wrongdoing.

On Perry’s second point, Brad Plumer explained yesterday that “the field of climate science is moving in precisely the opposite direction” that Perry is suggesting.

Recall that back in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change put out a report synthesizing the scientific work on global warming. While the report sounded quite certain on a number of topics — noting, for one, that it was “very likely” that most of the observed temperature increases since mid-century were due to man-made greenhouse gases — there were still plenty of vague spots in the report, especially with regards to sea-level rise.

Yet rather than poke further holes, much of the climate science that’s been published since 2007 appears to have strengthened the consensus, not weakened it. […]

Relatedly, at last year’s annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, UC Santa Barbara’s William Freudenberg gave a presentation in which he revealed that “new scientific findings [since the IPCC] are found to be more than twenty times as likely to indicate that global climate disruption is ‘worse than previously expected,’ rather than ‘not as bad as previously expected.’ “

The scientific consensus is getting stronger as more evidence comes to light and the severity of the climate crisis intensifies. Perry and the right may not care for this reality, but the evidence speaks for itself.

House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office seemed awfully excited this week about a report from the National Association of Business Economists. Boehner’s press release proclaimed:

A majority of economists surveyed believe spending cuts are the key to reducing the federal deficit — not job-crushing tax hikes. […]

The report … reflects the sentiment of the American people who oppose tax hikes “in a big way,” according to US News. Republicans are listening.

I can’t say whether Republicans are listening, but they certainly don’t appear to be reading.

Let’s set the record straight. For one thing, arguing that the public opposes any and all tax increases is demonstrably ridiculous. For months, dozens of independent national polls have shown strong public support for tax hikes on the wealthy. Indeed, the demand for higher taxes is bipartisan and consistent. Boehner can pretend reality doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t change the facts.

But more important is the report from the National Association of Business Economists that the Speaker’s office is so excited about. Does it show that most economists want spending cuts, “not job-crushing tax hikes”? Actually, no, it doesn’t.

Jim Tankersley took a closer look at the NABE survey.

A wide majority of respondents believe the federal government should reduce its budget deficit with a combination of spending cuts and, at least in small part, tax increases.

Only 12 percent said the deficit should be reduced “only with spending cuts.” […]

So, in total, nearly 88 percent of working business economists disagreed with the House GOP mantra that, as Boehner’s office put it in Monday’s press release, “spending cuts are the key to reducing the federal deficit - not job-crushing tax hikes.”

Most Americans want a balanced approach to debt reduction, which would include revenue and cuts, and most economists agree. Boehner’s office, in print, argued the exact opposite.

Either the Speaker’s office is touting a survey it didn’t read, or Boehner’s aides are deliberately trying to deceive reporters and the public. I’m leaning towards the latter — the NABE announcement said in the headline that economists “favor a ‘balanced’ approach that mixes spending cuts with revenue increases.” Even House Republican aides would have found this hard to miss.

Regardless, for Boehner to brag about a survey that shows economists opposed to his own tax policy is kind of hilarious.

President Obama has been increasingly vocal in recent months about his support for an extension of the payroll tax break approved late last year, hoping that it would help boost economic demand. Congressional Republicans have also been increasingly vocal about their opposition — in effect, the GOP is pushing for a middle-class tax increase to kick in early next year.

I argued the other day that Republicans are probably bluffing — they want the same cut as Obama, but will only approve it if they can trade it for something else. I was promptly told by a variety of people that I’m wrong, and that the GOP is genuinely hostile to any tax breaks that don’t benefit the wealthy almost exclusively. I’m beginning to think those who called me out on this have a compelling point.

Harold Meyerson has a good take today on the larger context.

America’s presumably anti-tax party wants to raise your taxes. Come January, the Republicans plan to raise the taxes of anyone who earns $50,000 a year by $1,000, and anyone who makes $100,000 by $2,000.

Their tax hike doesn’t apply to income from investments. It doesn’t apply to any wage income in excess of $106,800 a year. It’s the payroll tax that they want to raise — to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent of your paycheck, a level established for one year in December’s budget deal at Democrats’ insistence. Unlike the capital gains tax, or the low tax rates for the rich included in the Bush tax cuts, or the carried interest tax for hedge fund operators (which is just 15 percent), the payroll tax chiefly hits the middle class and the working poor.

And when taxes come chiefly from the middle class and the poor, all those anti-tax right-wingers have no problem raising them.

The debate is pretty striking. The same Republicans who’ve fought tooth and nail for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, without even trying to pay for them, are balking at keeping a middle-class break in place. Indeed, the same Republicans who themselves advocated for the payroll tax break are now saying deficit reduction is more important than middle-class workers having a little more money in their paychecks.

James Fallows added yesterday, “I had thought that Republican absolutism about taxes, while harmful to the country and out of sync with even the party’s own Reaganesque past, at least had the zealot’s virtue of consistency. Now we see that it can be set aside when it applies to poorer people, and when setting it aside would put maximum drag on the economy as a whole.”

It’s against this backdrop that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) publishes op-eds accusing the Obama administration of having a “pro-tax agenda.” The irony is rich.

Given all of this, Democrats are starting to look at this issue as a valuable political opportunity. In fact, Sam Stein reported yesterday that the Democratic National Committee intends to make the payroll tax cut a key issue in the coming months, intended to put Republicans on the defensive and highlight the GOP’s antipathy towards the middle class.

If for no other reason, the political dynamic seems likely to push Republicans to cave on this, even if they oppose the policy. After all, do they really want to let Obama become the champion of middle-class tax cuts, while the GOP gets branded as the party that raised taxes on working people during a weak economy?

By the close of business yesterday, several conservative voices were pretty worked up about President Obama’s response to the mid-Atlantic earthquake yesterday. In fact, much of the right at least pretended to be outraged.

For the record, the president was briefed on the developments during his vacation, and was available to act if needed.

President Barack Obama was just starting a round of golf when the East Coast earthquake rattled the ground around him.

He put the foursome on hold and, within the hour, was on the telephone and getting updates on the temblor’s aftermath from top aides, the White House said. Told there had been no major damage reported, Obama resumed one of his favorite pastimes and stayed at the public Farm Neck Golf Club for several more hours. […]

The White House said he asked for regular earthquake reports. He also was updated on Hurricane Irene.

So, there was an earthquake. The president was made aware of it. There was no serious damage, no casualties, nothing for emergency response teams to do, and nothing for Obama to do. He was kept apprised and went about his afternoon. I don’t know why this is supposed to be interesting.

I realize conservatives are a creative bunch, and can manufacture outrage out of whole cloth, but even for the right, making a fuss about this is just childish. Indeed, at a certain level, it’s counter-productive — shouldn’t the right be more selective, going on the attack when Obama actually messes up, so it would have a greater impact?

In the case of the earthquake, if there’d been an actual disaster, and Obama sat around reading a children’s book while Americans were dying, I could see conservatives getting upset. If Obama had been told a month ago that a serious disaster was poised to happen, and he told the geologists, “All right, you’ve covered your ass now” before ignoring the warnings, the right would have plenty of room for criticism.

But this is weak tea. When pundits are reduced to wanting to see the president “pretend to do something,” you know the discourse has badly gone off the rails.

Indeed, if we’re going to have a substantive discussion about politics, policy, and natural disasters, perhaps the better place to start would be with Republican efforts to cut funding for the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors earthquakes, and mocking investments in studying seismic activities.

Given the circumstances, this seems far more interesting.

Today’s edition of quick hits:

* Libya: “Rebel fighters overwhelmed Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sprawling compound on Tuesday, crashing through its outer gates, running pell-mell through the grounds and ransacking caches of weapons abandoned by his shrinking retinue of defenders. Colonel Qaddafi and his family were nowhere to be found.”

* Housing market: “The number of people who bought new homes fell for the fourth straight month. Sales this year are on track to finish as the worst on records dating back half a century.”

* Watching Irene: “Since yesterday, Hurricane Irene has grown to a Category 2 hurricane, and presently contains maximum sustained winds of 100 mph…. Marching west-northwestward at 12 mph, the storm is very likely to intensify into a major hurricane (category 3 or higher) and head towards the U.S. East Coast, but the exact track and specific impacts remain fuzzy.”

* Regulatory overhaul: “The White House on Tuesday unveiled plans to loosen the regulatory burden for American companies, announcing cuts in regulations that administration officials said would save more than $10 billion over five years.”

* House Republicans immediately said the regulatory overhaul isn’t good enough for them.

* Maybe now S&P; can get its act together: “The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said late on Monday that its president, Deven Sharma, who has become the public face of the firm in the wake of its historic downgrade on the United States’ long-term debt rating, will step down and leave the company by the end of the year.”

* The Jamie Leigh Jones case: “Military contractor KBR is trying to get a woman who said she was raped while working for them in Iraq to pay them $2 million to cover their court fees, claiming her $145 million lawsuit against them was frivolous and fabricated.”

* The American Sociological Association identified the four primary characteristics most associated with those Americans sympathetic to the Tea Party: “Authoritarianism, ontological insecurity (fear of change), libertarianism and nativism.” Try not to be surprised.

* Dear Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas): when lawmakers schedule congressional hearings for the sole purpose of trying to “embarrass the president,” they’re not supposed to admit it out loud.

* Sharpton’s slot: “Al Sharpton has been officially named the host of the 6 PM hour on MSNBC. The network announced Tuesday that Sharpton will host ‘PoliticsNation’ on weeknights starting August 29.”

* The difference between the RNC and the Fox Nation website is practically non-existent.

* And apparently some on the right want us to be troubled by the fact that President Obama reads novels during his vacation. Conservatives sure do pick strange things to complain about.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.