by Patrick Appel
Karl Rove's least favorite Super Bowl commercial:
In response to Rove, Charles Blow recalls some recent history:
Chrysler nearly collapsed in late 2008 under private equity ownership. Bush agreed to a $4 billion bailout of the company. …Trying to eschew Bush’s role in order to tarnish Obama’s results is fundamentally dishonest. Trying to put the bailouts or the loss solely on Obama is simply dishonest.
TNC doesn't understand the controversy:
I just watched the ad seconds ago, after reading about the Republican freak-out, which I have to say is bizarre. This is the exact sort of gauzy nationalism (to paraphrase Jonathan Chait) that corporations have put out for years and Republicans have, themselves, often alluded to.
Amy Davidson thinks the ad breaks with other messages of American exceptionalism:
We’ve often been asked to think of the time of our country’s life as a perpetual dawn—“morning in America,” as in Ronald Reagan’s ad. … Reagan isn’t alone: Romney and Obama sometimes seem to be in a competition to describe the brightness of the coming American day. …That’s what makes Eastwood’s ad so powerful. It doesn’t pretend that we’re dallying in an endless pre-game show, or that you can always tell the timekeeper to put a few seconds back on.
The Dish 