Distrust of the media remains highest among Republicans, whose confidence in the media (26%) is far lower than Independents (31%) and Democrats (58%).

Negativity toward the press is at an all-time high for a presidential election year, according to the survey. But that’s due mostly to the increased skepticism of Independents, who are reportedly “quite dissatisfied with [their] ability to get fair and accurate news coverage of this election.”

There is also a 20 point gap between Americans who generally trust the media and those who do not. This is up from previous years and is the widest margin Gallup has ever recorded since they started regularly asking Americans about how much confidence they have in the media back in the 1990s.

If true, it sounds like Mitt Romney was a jerk in high school. Bullying of this kind is cruel.

Romney said he didn’t remember the incident, but he nonetheless apologized. He owned up to the fact that while he did a lot of pranks in high school, some of these likely went too far.

To me this sounds like a ten-minute story. Worth noting? Sure. But worth talking about for days? Not really.

Everyone can make their own judgment of Mitt Romney’s character. But I know I wouldn’t want people to judge me today for how I acted in high school. I wasn’t a bully, but I was kind of a jerk, too.

Now some people who are jerks remain jerks forever. But not all of them. Not most of them, I reckon. It sure sounds like Mitt grew out of this immaturity and became a nice man who went on to help people in everyday situations. He doesn’t strike me as the cold-hearted businessman in the movie Wall Street. In fact, The Daily ran a story detailing a long list of little-known acts of generosity where Mitt quietly helped out people in need.

I think the Washington Post story is worth a read, but should we really spend days and days talking about what happened at Mitt’s prep school in 1965?

Some in the media seem to think so. MSNBC anchor Tamron Hall brought in conservative Tim Carney to discuss the Mitt Romney bullying story.

Tamron did not like Tim’s opinions one iota. In fact, she had his mike cut off:

Tim Carney and I are personal friends, so perhaps my judgment is biased. But it didn’t sound like Carney was rude to the host. But what Carney did was to expose one of the media’s most commonly used tricks (especially 24-hour cable news of which Fox is also a culprit). They continually hype up a story and then they turn around and defend their coverage by saying that everyone is talking about it. These kinds of stories get Americans either agitated or excited depending what “side” they are on. Political campaigns naturally play to this media phenomenon.

But do we really want a presidential campaign to focus considerable time and energy on Romney being a jerk in high school or Obama eating a dog when he’s 6? Seems a silly way to elect the most powerful man on the planet.

There is little room for dissent with Kathleen Sebelius in charge, says WSJ columnist Bill McGurn. He gives a shout out to the new CatholicVote ad in his column. (Subscription might be required). http://is.gd/gzNO77

Too soon to call it a comeback, but Rick Perry climbs up to 13% in the latest Iowa poll.

Perry’s also starting a month-long bus tour of Iowa. http://is.gd/01oIhI

Michele Bachmann will one-up him, by hitting all 99 counties of Iowa in her bus tour. http://is.gd/rwIaYw

A brokered GOP convention? Don’t bet on it, says Sean Trende. http://is.gd/Z8Krl8

Speaker Boehner says the House will pass a bill extending the payroll tax cut. The bill also contains a provision on the Keystone Pipeline which Obama opposes. http://is.gd/uO9gqW

NBC calls the ad with Tim Tebow and his mother a “controversial anti-abortion ad.” http://is.gd/btr2aQ

The Supreme Court is an ‘enormous issue’ for 2012. http://is.gd/aX0Q7T

Obamacare could obliterate most health care conscience protections, experts say. http://is.gd/DbjGro

New Gallup poll claims that a majority of Democratic voters (52%) rarely or never attend church. http://cvote.to/7l

Election Day today: Personhood Amendment in MS, Public employee reform plan in OH, Guv race in KY, GOP hopes to win State Senate in VA, Controversial anti-immigration candidate up for recall in AZ. http://cvote.to/7m

Conservative commentator Bill Bennett says the media has been hypocritical but there has been no “lynching” of Herman Cain. http://cvote.to/7j

Penn State University officials are accused of failing to report credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors to the authorities. http://cvote.to/7n

Nun excommunicated for Phoenix hospital abortion given award by Call to Action. http://cvote.to/7k

DC Circuit Court rules Obamacare to be constitutional. (PDF link). http://cvote.to/7p

Senator Jim DeMint endorses Don Stenberg for the United States Senate seat in Nebraska. http://cvote.to/7o (My interview with Don Stenberg will be published later today.)

Yesterday, one of Herman Cain’s accusers stepped forward to offer the face and juicy details his detractors on the left had been waiting for.

Since Jonathan Martin of Politico first broke the story, Cain’s sturdy poll numbers have utterly mystified the media. Martin seems equally troubled that the Republican primary candidates haven’t started piling on.  Yesterday, he told Judy Woodruff of PBS News, “It’s been a fascinating spectacle over the course of the last week, a top candidate for president with some explosive charges against him, and his rivals don’t mention it. “

When Juanita Broaddrick asked to meet and discuss her violent assault at the hands of Bill Clinton with Susan Estrich, a feminist law professor and rape victim herself, Mrs. Estrich responded in a cold, terse email, “Not interested.”

It’s ironic that the same people who told us over and over again that Clinton’s trail of sexual misconduct (which included allegations of rape) were not relevant to his job as president, are stunned when the culture wholly embraces the moral standards they worked so hard to erode.

Indeed, admiration for Bill Clinton among Democrats and media elites has only increased with time.  As Bill makes the A-list media rounds this week to promote his new book, does anyone expect that between the fawning he’ll be asked to comment on Cain’s predicament in light of his own string of campaign sexual harassment charges.

What about the muted, page 10 reporting in the mainstream media of numerous sexual assaults at the Occupy Wall Street protests, including the rape of a 14 year- old runaway?  Could you imagine anything less than front-page headlines if that had happened at a tea party?

If you spend time with other moms, especially the kind of moms who try daily to hold the line on an increasingly raunchy popular culture, they can point to the moment when America’s youth lost its innocence: the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal.

That was the first time, as a dear friend and teacher recounts, that 2^nd graders began asking questions like, “What is oral sex?” Kids on the playground learned that some adults did funny things with cigars. And none less than the leader of the free world reassured teenagers, to the horror of their parents, that oral sex didn’t count as sex.

That was 15 years ago.  And it’s been a swift race to the bottom ever since.

Over time, the public has been systematically desensitized to sexual scandal.  The indecorous details no longer shock or offend us.  And the media’s glaring double standard for conservatives rightfully make everyone skeptical.

In fact, there’s much about Cain’s accuser, Sharon Bialek that invites skepticism, including her Holly-weird choice of attorney who mocks the seriousness of the accusation with crass references to “stimulus packages”.

This is a culture that celebrates Clinton, Snookie, and rewards Governor Spitzer with a prime-time cable show.

So enough with all the faux outrage.  We all swim in the same cultural cesspool, even Republicans.

What is the pope inflating? A pregnant woman. How idiotic.

If you want to understand why this editorial cartoon is so misguided, read Steven Mosher’s column in the National Catholic Register: “Too Many People? Ignore the UNFPA and Welcome Baby 7 Billion.”

Steven is the president of the Population Research Institute, which recently released this excellent video explaining what Baby 7 Billion is actually all about:

If anything, we should be thanking the Catholic Church and the pope for advocating a pro-human message. But I guess it’s too much to hope that a WaPo cartoonist would understand the facts behind the figures.

UPDATE: See my follow-up comments published today: “Fact Check: Why Catholics Who Disagree With Justice & Peace White Papers Aren’t “Cafeteria Catholics.”

You may have seen this story which was headlined earlier today on the Drudge Report:

The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises.

A major document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should be music to the ears of the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.

The 18-page document, “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority,” was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions. [CNBC]

In a scenario which will surely strike some as deja vu, the liberal jesuit Fr. Tom Reese previewed the contents of the document last week, in much the same way that the liberal Fr. Charles Curran “previewed” Humanae Vitae for the mainstream media before the document was actually released (the pope overruled Fr. Curran’s claims that the Church would endorse contraception — but the media had already made up its mind and few bothered to actually read what the pope had to say).

Here’s Fr. Reese on MSNBC “explaining” the news:

Notice that Fr. Reese does NOT correct the news anchor that this document comes from a vatican congregation — not the pope! Fr. Reese seems perfectly happy to help the mainstream media fundamentally misunderstand the authority of teaching this document enjoys. He claims that the pope has “more in common with the people at occupy wallstreet” than the tea party, even though he has to immediately walk back that claim when it is pointed out to him how violent (and anti-Catholic!) the Occupy Rome demonstrations were (as I blogged about last week). I think it’s no surprise that Fr. Reese spends so much time talking about the 60′s — that’s still his cultural frame of reference.

Rather than get into the nitty-gritty of the 18-page document (which I may do at a later point), let me focus on the most important point: framing. Here’s how Cardinal Turkson, President of the Congregation for Justice and Peace, and Bishop Toso, the secretary, explained how the document should be received and read (underlining mine):

…It is in this spirit of discernment that the Holy See, with the note of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, wishes to make a contribution which might be useful to the deliberations of the G-20 meeting”.

Bishop Toso explained that the aim of the note is “suggest possible paths to follow, in line with the most recent social Magisterium, for the implementation of financial and monetary policies…”

The Church does not wish to enter into the technical issues behind the current economic crisis, but remains within the ambit of her religious and ethical functions…

I have nothing to immediately add to that, because the very authors of the document make clear how it should be evaluated: namely, as a “contribution” (as opposed to a mandate), as a “possible path” (as opposed to a moral proscription), in line with the Magisterium’s social teaching (as opposed to introducing a new teaching), without getting into the technical issues (because the Church is an expert in humanity, not economics) while fully staying within the Church’s religious and ethical functions.

Liberal Catholic routinely (and in this case) try to read the Church’s social teaching as dogmatic while choosing to view the Church’s moral and religious teaching as optional. In fact, the Church herself is always careful to make clear that her moral and religious teaching is dogmatic and binding while her social teaching –and particularly her economic teaching– is exhortative and prudential.

With those extremely important guidelines in mind, we can more fruitfully read the text.

That said, I am absolutely sure the media cycle for the coming days and weeks will totally miss all these key points and distill this document down to misleading headlines such as “Pope Benedict Endorses Central World Bank.” But as I explain above, he didn’t.

Fr. Reese and his liberal Catholic friends would be better served acting as messengers of the Church’s teaching as opposed to creators of it.

UDATE — Samuel Gregg, an economist, adds helpful commentary:

Despite the Catholic Left’s excited hyperventilating that the document released today by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP) would put the Church “to the left of Nancy Pelosi” on economic issues, more careful reading of “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority” soon indicates that it reflects rather conventional contemporary economic thinking. Unfortunately, given the uselessness of much present-day economics, that’s not likely to make it especially helpful in thinking through some of our present financial challenges.

Doctrinally speaking, there’s nothing new to be found in this text. As PCJP officials will themselves tell you, it’s not within this curial body’s competence to make doctrinal statements that bind Catholic consciences. Moreover, the notion that an increasingly integrated world economy requires some type of authority able to make decisions about what the Church calls “the universal common good” has long been a staple of Catholic social teaching. Such references to a global world authority have always been accompanied by an emphasis on the idea of subsidiarity, and the present document is no exception to that rule. This principle maintains that any higher level of government should assist lower forms of political authority and civil-society associations “only when” (as this PCJP text states) “individual, social or financial actors are intrinsically deficient in capacity, or cannot manage by themselves to do what is required of them.” [Continue reading...]

Fr. Z also adds his editorial gloss on Gregg’s comments to aid comprehending his points.

The Republican presidential candidates had another debate last night. ABC reporter Rick Klein summed it up well: “Perry gets personal. Romney gets angry. Cain gets … confusing. http://cvote.to/5u Rick Perry attacked Mitt Romney for having illegal immigrants mowing his yard. (I think this was a cheap shot from Perry, who clearly was trying to show he’s tough on immigration.) Romney pushed back at Perry’s attack by saying, “Look, Rick, you’ve had a tough couple of debates. … So you’re going to get testy.” But in answering Romney said, “We went to the company and we said, look, you can’t have any illegals working on our property. I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals.” The Obama campaign immediately pounced. Obama’s political adviser David Axelrod noted that Romney said “not that it was wrong or not that it was illegal, I’m running for office.” http://cvote.to/5v

In the debate, all the GOP candidates blasted Herman Cain’s signature 9-9-9 tax plan, especially the proposed creation of a new 9% sales tax. Mitt Romney noted that people would pay this 9% along with their state sales taxes. Rick Santorum said he admired the boldness of the plan but noted that Cain’s plan eliminated all tax breaks to families since “a single person pays as much in taxes as a man and a woman raising three children.” Santorum specifically noted that such a tax code could drive the birth rate “into the basement.” http://cvote.to/5w

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Herman Cain said he opposed all abortions, including the aborting of children whose fathers were rapists. David Gregory asked: “What about abortion?  You want to overturn Roe v. Wade.  Could you support or condone abortion under any exceptions at all?” Cain responded: “I believe in life from conception, and I do not agree with abortion under any circumstances. Not for rape and incest because if you look at, you look at rape and incest, the, the percentage of those instances is so miniscule that there are other options. If it’s the life of the mother, that family’s going to have to make that decision.” http://cvote.to/5x

Other articles of interest:

Michael New notes that the mainstream media continues to attack pro-life progress. http://cvote.to/60

An architect of Cain’s 9-9-9 plan will urge the candidate to drop the sales tax in favor of a payroll tax. http://cvote.to/5y

A judge in Oklahoma blocks a new law regulating abortion pills from taking effect. http://cvote.to/5z

What’s worse is that this particular example of Catholic-derangement syndrome, courtesy of the Rev. Dr. Nancy Wilson, comes from a self-proclaimed “spiritual activist, pastor and lesbian” who was appointed by President Obama in 2011 to his White House Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

So much for the Faith Based office fostering understanding and cooperation between communities of different faiths. Nancy’s 600-word screed against Catholic teaching (and Archbishop Dolan in particular) is a focused attempt to demonize Catholics and claim that they are complicit or responsible for such things as “arson, beatings, family rejection, suicide and job dismissal.”

Nancy claims that her church, the “Metropolitican Community Church” (MCC) “saves lives, souls, and families.” The implication being that the Catholic Church destroys lives, souls and families.

…these malicious claims of themselves deserve condemnation. But this line takes the cake:

“…like most threatening letters, [Arch]bishop [Dolan]‘s words actually pulled back the curtain on the hierarchy’s not-so-veiled efforts to impose Catholic dogma on all U.S. citizens.

How laughable. But coming from a woman with her position, how offensive. Can you imagine a member of Obama’s faith based advisory council claiming that Jewish rabbis are trying to impose the Torah on all U.S. citizens? There would be an outcry over that.

But wait, there’s more. Nancy spends a good deal of her time arguing that Catholics ought to be forced out of social services such as adoption and foster care (and numerous other charitable activities). She specifically cites the case of Illinois where the newly-implemented same-sex civil unions bill is forcing Catholic dioceses in that state to stop doing adoptions and foster care (I explain the situation here) as a good thing, in her mind.

In other words, a member of Obama’s faith-based and neighborhood partnerships is actually advocating to force Catholics out of faith-based charity and neighborhood partnership.

Nancy is so blinded by her ideological vendetta against the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and marriage that she is willing to see Catholic Charities such as these — including the children they help — dismantled and shuttered:

In recent years, the Catholic Charities social service agencies, including CSS of Southern Illinois, have been ranked at or near the top when measured against the performance of all other comparable Illinois agencies. Altogether the four Catholic social service agencies have 2,179 children in placement with foster families, and 1933 families under supervision. Roughly, they serve about a quarter of Illinois’ abandoned, abused, and neglected children, achieving the paramount goal of “permanency” in a remarkable number of cases and proving especially fruitful in recruiting new foster parents willing to care for needy kids. [Thomas More Society]

Nancy’s proposal that Catholics get out of the foster and adoption care arena is simply a lose-lose situation. Nothing is served by forcing successful Catholic charities out of the public square, nothing except punitive damages leveraged against an institution that Nancy has decided is hateful and unworthy of public accommodation. For someone who spends so much of her time complaining that the Church is hurting people, she is categorically dismissive of even this one example of real harm being done to children in Catholic foster care when her anti-Catholic attitudes are the culprit.

I don’t have any questions for Nancy, her views are clear. But I do have this question for the Obama administration and its Faith Based Council: do they agree with and support their members publicly advocating for the exclusion of Catholics from administering social services in the public square?

You are welcome to join me in asking the Faith Based Council for its reply.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston denounced an effort to get physician-assisted suicide on the Massachusetts ballot. “We hope the citizens of the Commonwealth will not be seduced by language [such as] dignity and compassion, which are means to disguise the sheer brutality of helping people to kill themselves,” said O’Malley. http://cvote.to/3i Here are some links from the Massachusetts Catholic Conference for those interested in more information. http://cvote.to/3j Supporters of euthanasia need 70,000 signatures to get it presented for action and the Legislature would either vote on the measure or send it to the ballot box for citizens to vote on the measure.

The National Abortion Federation cheered a recent NPR story on abortion doctors and linked the story on their Facebook page. But NPR’s Ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, was upset about the story, slamming the news agency for using the loaded term “abortion doctor.” Does this mean this editor thinks it was inappropriate to label an abortionist with the nice term of “doctor”? Ah, No. He thought NPR wasn’t favorable enough to abortion supporters. “We don’t say a physician is an STD doctor. Or a child-birth doctor. Or a breast-exam doctor,” Schumacher-Matos said. Apparently the approved term is “abortion provider.” Sheesh. What a Culture of Death we live in. http://cvote.to/3h

There’s another wrinkle regarding Gardasil, a vaccine used to combat HPV. It’s been the subject of considerable discussion since Rick Perry entered the presidential race. Dr. Diane Harper, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City says the vaccine is being way over-sold. NPR notes this is “striking” since Harper worked on studies that got the vaccines approved and even accepted grants from the manufacturers (although not any longer, she says.) She changed her mind, she said, when the vaccine makers started lobbying state legislatures to mandate school children get vaccinated. “Ninety-five percent of women who are infected with HPV never, ever get cervical cancer,” she says. “It seemed very odd to be mandating something for which 95 percent of infections never amount to anything.”  http://cvote.to/3l Yes, we have certainly covered this issue extensively at CatholicVote and not all opinion here has been uniform. http://cvote.to/3k

Rep. Jeff Flake, an economic libertarian who doesn’t care too much about social issues, endorsed former Gov. Mitt Romney, an economic liberal who doesn’t care too much about social issues. Flake is an early favorite to win the GOP nomination for the Senate seat vacated by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl. Flake upset pro-family activists when he voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Arizona has moved up their presidential primary to Feb. 28, so this is considered a “big get” for Romney. http://cvote.to/3m

Other articles of interest:

CBS’s Mark Knoller reports that President Obama promises to veto any deficit plan that reduces Medicare benefits if the plan does not also raise taxes on “the rich and big corporations,” according to White House officials. http://cvote.to/3n Wow. Raising taxes in a recession? Yeah, brilliant.

The National Organization for Marriage compiled a long list of media outlets which noticed the impact that David Weprin’s vote on so-called “same sex marriage” contributed to his upset defeat to pro-life and pro-family Bob Turner in the race to fill the House seat in Queens and Brooklyn that was vacated by Anthony Weiner. http://cvote.to/3o

Republican insiders worry if Rick Perry can win over suburban voters. They wonder how the Texas governor would fare in Pennsylvania and if he’ll make Missouri more competitive than it should be. http://cvote.to/3p

President Obama’s approval ratings have dropped below 50% in nine target states that George W. Bush won in 2004, but that Obama captured in 2008. They are: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada. http://cvote.to/3q

Have a million bucks? You could buy the domain teaparty.com, which has been owned by The Tea Party, a Canadian rock band since 1993 – and they are actually liberal in their politics. http://cvote.to/3r