Nationnews

Michele Bachmann made her mark on cable television as a strident critic of the Obama administration. Mitt Romney has spent months impugning the president as a failure. But suddenly, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have sidled down a parallel path, threading their remarks with a clear, if sometimes selective, civility toward Democrats. Pressed by two voters in New Hampshire about how he would unite a deeply polarized country, Romney recalled working with Edward M. Kennedy, an utterance nearly heretical to some conservative voters who saw the late Massachusetts senator as the embodiment of big-government liberalism.

Michele Bachmann made her mark on cable television as a strident critic of the Obama administration. Mitt Romney has spent months impugning the president as a failure. But suddenly, the leading candidates for the Republican nomination have sidled down a parallel path, threading their remarks with a clear, if sometimes selective, civility toward Democrats. Pressed by two voters in New Hampshire about how he would unite a deeply polarized country, Romney recalled working with Edward M. Kennedy, an utterance nearly heretical to some conservative voters who saw the late Massachusetts senator as the embodiment of big-government liberalism.

Gay-rights supporters weren't satisfied by a vaguely reassuring speech:a=latimes_1min&feed:c=nationnews&feed:i=47783801 from President Obama in June about his eventual intention to eliminate the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, which keeps the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage. He'll have to do better today when he addresses the Human Rights Campaign. Nor will Obama allay the group's frustration by announcing his nomination of an openly gay man as ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, just as he did not placate gay men and lesbians by extending the benefits of federal employees to their domestic partners.