HUSH ON IRAN: The New York Times describes the White House’s response to the IAEA’s report on Iran as “strikingly muted.”
SARKO EXCHANGE SILENCE: The White House spokesman declined to comment on an exchange between President Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in which the two heads of state were heard grousing about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Capital J rounds up the commentary on the incident here.)
MISSISSIPPI AND OHIO: Ohio voters repealed a law limiting the rights of public employees to collective bargaining, and Mississippians rejected a ballot initiative that would have taken aim at abortion by defining a fertilized egg as a person under the law.
EXPENSIVE CUT: A political action committee organized by San Francisco’s JCRC spent some $100,000 fighting a city referendum that would have banned circumcision but was ultimately bounced from the ballot by a court.
RUBIN REBUKED: The Washington Post’s ombudsman criticized conservative Post blogger Elizabeth Rubin for re-tweeting a Twitter post by Emergency Committee for Israel board member Rachel Abrams calling for Gilad Shalit’s “death-worshiping captors” to be rounded up and turned “into food for sharks.” But the paper’s Op-Ed page editor, Fred Hiatt, responded to a media query on the issue by singing her praises.
VOTER PROMOTER: The National Council of Jewish Women launched its Promote the Vote, Protect the Vote 2012 project.
BERNSTEIN’S DEBUT: Jarrod Bernstein, the White House’s new Jewish community liaison, made his debut on Monday with a speech to an Agudath Israel legislative breakfast.
