Free Republic

Via Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed, who reminds us that O's attempt to disclaim responsibility for the ad under ye olde "I don't control my Super PAC" dodge is perhaps undermined by the fact that his own campaign used the story of the steelworker's wife too. Remember? Joe Soptic did a conference call with Stephanie Cutter and everything. The whole Hopenchange operation owns this smear, and regretlessly so. In fact, even Obama's gesture towards civility here in exculpating Romney for Soptic’s wife’s death is a feint: Bill Burton, who runs the Super PAC, ludicrously said that he too doesn’t think Romney...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama tried Monday to distance himself from an advertisement run by a supportive outside group suggesting there was a link between the death of a laid-off steelworker's wife and Republican Mitt Romney's former company. But Obama said he intends to keep raising sharp contrasts between himself and the GOP challenger. "I don't think that Governor Romney was somehow responsible for the death," he said.

Via Mediaite, inquiring conservatives on Twitter are asking: Er, isn't Ann Coulter herself famously a big fan of RomneyCare?Answer: Yeah, but I'm not sure it's Andrea Saul's mention of RomneyCare that's really bugging her. Mediaite's transcript: “Her response was not that it was despicable, not that Bain… that Romney had left Bain five years earlier or the woman died five years after the plant closed and didn’t even get her insurance from her husband, her response was, ‘Well, if she had lived in Massachusetts with Mitt Romney’s health care plan, she would have had health insurance.’ Anyone who donates to...

Gary Cooley, a steelworker at Gary Works No. 2 caster, feels like he's been cheated. Cooley, a veteran steelworker is on the job at the U.S. Steel Corp.'s plant for 50 work-weeks and 40 weekends a year; the other two weeks and 12 weekends he's on duty with U.S. Naval Reserve Unit NMCB26. A member of the United Steelworkers of America Local 1014, Cooley, 51, of Valparaiso, works swing shifts. If he's scheduled to spend a weekend with the Navy at its International Guard Reserve Base in Selfridge, Mich., he's been allowed to make up the time. But active duty...