Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 978

JP Morgan Is Facing Criminal and Civil Mortgage Investigations

JP Morgan Chase announced on Wednesday that they're the subject of criminal and civil Department of Justice investigations pertaining to mortgage-backed securities. The company disclosed the information in their quarterly Securities and Exchange Commission filing, although Reuters notes that the company learned of at least one of the probes in May. 

The news follows one day after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Bank of America that claims the bank intentionally defrauded investors over their offerings of mortgage-backed securities. The JP Morgan civil investigation, Reuters says, covers the years 2005 to 2007, and is based on a preliminary conclusion that "the firm violated federal securities laws in offerings of subprime and Alt-A residential mortgage securities." The company has also bumped up their potential legal losses after reserves to $6.8 billion from $6 billion. The criminal investigation is in tandem with the civil one, and is being run out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in California, Bloomberg reports.

The Justice Department has been rather timid in pursuing big financial institutions in the wake of the housing crisis and recession (see the phrase: "too big to fail"), leaving those with a taste for Wall Street comeuppance to console themselves with minor convictions of individuals, like that of Fabrice Tourre, a mid-level Goldman Sachs employee. But JP Morgan Chase is the biggest American bank, counting by assets, hinting that critics of the Tourre case might be able to hold their breaths for hope of at least a small piece of what they've been waiting for. Then again JP Morgan has already felt the sting of embarrassment, if not punishment, thanks to the 2012 so-called "London Whale" trading loss.

       

Georgia Republicans Have a Higher Opinion of Paula Deen Than MLK

The pollsters at Public Policy Polling, never shy to include questions with the goal of luring casual observers, on Wednesday tweeted a rather stunning detail from their most recent Georgia survey. Among Republicans in the state, Paula Deen was seen more favorably than Martin Luther King, Jr. And then it got worse.

We asked them for a breakdown of the data included in the survey, particularly so that we could look at how those favorability ratings — the number of people who saw a person favorably or unfavorably — compared. They were kind enough to oblige. So we learned that it wasn't only King and Deen that were asked about. They also asked about Honey Boo Boo. (Previously.)

Using their poll data (which, we must note, had a fairly small sample size), we determined the net approval for all three people. Net approval is the number who have a favorable opinion of the person minus those with an unfavorable opinion. So if 80 percent approve of, say, Santa Claus, and 15 percent disapprove, the net is +65. The higher the number, the more the person is liked.

Below, the graph of net approval. After that, our summary.

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So what does this show?

It isn't just Republicans that see Deen more favorably than King. Any time the blue bar is longer than the red bar pointing to the right, it indicates higher approval for Deen. So Romney voters were about twice as favorable to Deen on net. And, by slim margins, so were white people and those over 65 years of age. Granted, there's generally decent overlap between those groups and Republican voters. Everyone has a negative opinion of Honey Boo Boo. Which is actually kind of messed up, since she's a kid. Those with the least negative opinion were Democrats and people under 30. Women preferred King over Deen far more than men. Make of that what you will. Public Policy Polling is good at getting press attention. This is the most obvious lesson of all.        

Judy Greer May Finally Get Her Due

Today in show business news: Judy Greer may be cast in a big movie, LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian get their own show, and Rashida Jones has a new job.

Judy Greer may be the most fretted-over actress in Hollywood. So lively and sharp and appealing, her consistently supporting-player status is consternating, befuddling. But maybe now, after so many years of almosts and nearlys, she may be getting her big movie shot. (She kinda already had her TV shot.) She's in talks to join the cast of Tomorrowland, the big mysterious Disney movie that's being directed by Brad Bird and already features George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, and Britt Robertson. So it's quite possible that this is another supporting role, it's likely even, but this is still a pretty big movie. Potentially big, at least. Who knows these days with Disney. But, whatever. Good for Judy Greer. If nothing else, it'll be a nice big paycheck. And that's gotta count for something. [Deadline]

Oh good god. VH1 has gone and ordered a reality show starring LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, the limelight-loving couple that not only made headlines when Eddie left his wife for LeAnn, but inadvertently made a reality star out of the scorned wife, Brandi Glanville. The Eddie/LeAnn show, which will be called LeAnn & Eddie, will basically just follow them around the house as they putter about and, I don't know, break up marriages or something. The point is, who needs this? Honestly, who needs it. VH1 ordered it but when it comes they're not going to want it and they'll feel guilty and will wish they'd just ordered a salad instead. This is always how it goes. And yet they keep on doing it. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Aha. It's suddenly become more clear why Rashida Jones is leaving Parks and Recreation halfway through next season. She's just landed a pilot deal with P&R writer Alexandra Rushfield at Fox. The show, called Stuck, is a single-camera comedy about "a 'stuck in a rut' middle-aged woman who works at a bank and gets her 'stuck in childhood' daughter a job there. Within a day, the daughter is the mother’s boss. While working and living together, they help each other to get 'unstuck.'" At the moment, Jones won't be acting on the show, but you never know. Still, producing is a big job, so it makes sense that she'd walk away from Parks and Rec to work on this. I'm sure some people will miss bland old Ann, but Rashida's got other things to do. [Deadline]

Sorry folks, but the Heathers TV pilot will not be moving forward at Bravo. I know you were all excited for that classic film to be completely ruined by some dumb Bravo TV series in 2014, but it's not going to happen. I know you really wanted to see the great movie, starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in what some might call their primes, turned into some wretched TV thing about the children of the original characters. But, you can't. I'm sorry. It's not happening. Why don't you take some time to collect yourself and then we'll carry on. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Rachael Harris has been cast in the boring mom role on the upcoming Fox comedy Surviving Jack, the gnarly Chris Meloni sitcom about a tough dad in the early '90s raising his horny teenage son and, I dunno, sexy teenage daughter while his wife goes to law school. She's replacing Alex Kapp Horner, who played the reasonably thankless role in the pilot. Maybe because Harris is a real comedian they'll be amping up the character? Or maybe Harris just needed the work, even if the work involves talking with Chris Meloni about a teenage boy's masturbatory habits. (That's a scene in the pilot.) Ah well. Work is work, right? [Deadline]

       

CNN Chief's 15-Year-Old Son Leaves His Advisory Role at Cory Booker's Start-Up

Two things jumped out at many readers of The New York Times' report on Newark Mayor Cory Booker's weird relationship with video-sharing start-up Waywire. The first was that Booker, a co-founder, valued his stake in the site, which had a reported 2,200 visitors last month, at $1 million … minimum. The second was that the company's group of advisors included Andrew Zucker — the 15-year-old son of CNN head Jeff Zucker. At least one of those things has been addressed. After The Times report in Wednesday's paper, young Zucker resigned his position.

[image error]Waywire is essentially a site offering custom-curated YouTube channels, each of which includes videos on a particular theme. Booker's Waywire page (or, rather, "#waywire" page, it seems) includes a collection of videos focused on the civil rights movement, one on Earth Day, and so on. Andrew Zucker, still identified on the site as an "advisor" doesn't seem to have created a channel. (The site does list his hashtagged interests: #baseball, #technology, #newyork.)

Fortune reports that his advisory tenure has come to an end. It also indicates how he came to be involved in the first place.

Andrew Zucker's involvement seems to have first stemmed from a conversation that Sarah Ross had with an existing Waywire advisor, who had heard that the kid had a knack for spotting tech adoption trends among teens. For example, Andrew and a small group of his friends were known to informally advise his father on such matters, such as why some young people would be interested in the Vine video service but not in Twitter's traditional text service.

Andrew Zucker pointed out that kids like Vine. That insight earned him a spot as an advisor to Waywire — and some stock options. At the time that he got the gig, Hollywood Reporter noted:

“People described him to me as the Doogie Howser of start-ups,” Waywire co-founder Sarah Ross told The Financial Times, referring to the teenage doctor portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris. “He’s a start-up savant.”

The story notes that Andrew will be paid in options. Among his reasons for taking the gig, he noted that shorter clips are becoming a bigger focus for web content. “Micro-content is really big among my friends," said Zucker.

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Booker, Fortune reports, was "not involved at all" in the decision that Zucker be given the position. The Times also reported that Booker's involvement in the company, as indicated on the conflict-of-interest forms he completed prior to his run for Senate (above), was worth somewhere between $1 million and $5 million. It's not clear how that figure was determined. Part of Booker's role was to help raise capital for the company, something that The Times suggests ended up at around $1.75 million. Those deals usually place a valuation on the company.

None of this is likely to have much effect on Booker's prospects in New Jersey's senate primary next week. A poll from Quinnipiac University has him up by 37 points.

Correction: The article originally referred to Zucker's role as board member. He was instead a compensated advisor.

Photo: File image of Cory Booker. (AP)

       

That Tea Party Boycott of Ebony Magazine Probably Doesn't Exist

Earlier today, Ebony had a rather impressive comeback to critics of its new Trayvon Martin-themed cover, but the very premise of the joke may have been based on nothing more than a rumor. The magazine announced, via a Twitter zinger, that they did not care if the Tea Party was going to boycott their September issue because of the covers. Except there's little-to-no evidence "the Tea Party" had plans to do such a thing. 

Let's back up for a moment. Instead of following the September magazine tradition of putting beautiful people in beautiful (expensive) clothes on the cover, Ebony decided to put out a series of covers, featuring celebrities in grey hoodies in solidarity with Trayvon Martin. The models included director Spike Lee, Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade, actor and model Boris Kodjoe, and the surviving members of Martin's family. The covers are pretty spectacular: 

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The covers were released yesterday, and Ebony got some deserved praise from Mediate and Jezebel, among others. But things took a turn for the negative today when talk began spreading online that Tea Party had allegedly called for a boycott against the magazine. Ebony tweeted their defiance: 

We have so many Tea Party readers and followers. To lose all zero of them due to our September cover would be devastating.

— EBONY (@EBONYMag) August 7, 2013

That's a good response. Unfortunately, a search for the target of the zinger shows that there's almost no evidence suggesting that the Tea Party, however you want to define it, was planning any boycott against the magazine in the first place. (We sent an email to Ebony for comment on the tweet, but did not hear back.)

The first person to mention the boycott on Twitter was this man, Tom Head, who "holds an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from Edith Cowan University, contributes an award-winning column to the Jackson Free Press, and serves as About.com Guide to Civil Liberties," according to his Amazon page. 

Heh. Tea Party lynching apologists now threaten to boycott @EBONYMag over the Trayvon cover, as if any of them would have subscribed anyway.

— Tom Head, Ph.D. (@_tomhead) August 7, 2013

From there the rumor slowly gained some steam, being passed around as these things are, including a mention by Dreamgirls star Anika Noni Rose, again, on Twitter: 

Word about town is that the tea party is boycotting Ebony mag. for having Trayvon on the cover. Wait for it....BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

— Anika Noni Rose (@AnikaNoniRose) August 7, 2013

That's when things really took off, and people started to defend the magazine and make fun of the Tea Party. But those who went searching for evidence beyond that those initial few tweets came up with next to nothing. Gawker reporter (and former fellow for The Atlantic Wire) J.K. Trotter went to the original source, Tom Head, and asked what evidence he had of a pending boycott. He got an cagey and odd response: 

@jktrotter 1) I live in Mississippi and have a good ear, 2) Crackpots, and 3) You cited evidence of same yourself; clearly that's not true.

— Tom Head, Ph.D. (@_tomhead) August 7, 2013

The evidence Head refers to in this tweet seem to be a single comment out of literally hundreds on a Breitbart article about the covers from yesterday. It reads (emphasis added): 

Wonder if this HEAT character is mixing the concoction "Lean" with Arizona Watermelon Tea+Skittles+Robitussin cough sirup to make a "home made" drug called "Lean" which is well known in the African American community to give you a high without the benefit of hard drugs? These people who want to elevate Trayvon are just hurting themselves.
Trayvon was a thug...who mixed everyday items to get himself high. His mother couldn't deal with his excessive behavior and pushed him on to his father. He'd been thrown out of school several times...Duh?

Notice it's in Ebony Magazine. How many white people or white hispanics even bother to look at that? They are just continuing to feed the race baiting community. How sad for America. Those that do not agree should boycott the Heat and the magazine!

That is the only evidence we can find online about a potential Ebony boycott. Head later refused to give Trotter any more information about his "source." 

To be fair, there was plenty of online criticism of the Ebony cover, mostly from supporters of George Zimmerman, who still feel aggrieved about the equally loud public support for Martin. And it's always tricky to assign any one idea to the "Tea Party," which itself a loose conglomeration of political groups and ideas. But it does seems Ebony (or more accurately, the people spreading the rumors of the boycott) made a mountain out of a molehill still under construction. Whether or not Head is telling the truth will surely come out soon. There is always a lot of talk online that is nothing more than talk. But, if any kind organized boycott was developing, surely there would be a trace somewhere, some morsel of evidence left behind of a planned protest beyond a single angry and anonymous commenter.

[Images via Ebony's Instagram account.]

       

Sophia Grace Is Everything That's Wrong with the 'Into The Woods' Movie

Small child Sophia Grace Brownlee, she of Ellen appearances and tutus and "Super Bass" covers, has been cast in Rob Marshall's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, Entertainment Weekly has confirmed. The news confirms that the cinematic approach to this classic musical is completely off. 

Okay, so it might sound like we're being complete jerks to an innocent child, but it's not really Sophia Grace's fault. She's just a kid who gets a chance to star in a movie with Meryl Streep. So, note that all our complaints are directed toward Disney and Rob Marshall. Brownlee is simply wrong for the role. As Erin Strecker at EW points out: she's 10. Sure, the character cutely chirps the show's titular "into the woods" chorus, but the Red of the musical also has a thinly disguised sexual flirtation with the show's Wolf, who will be played by Johnny Depp. It's, yes, supposed to be creepy, but Red is typically played by a teenager or a young-looking adult—Danielle Ferland was 16 when she appeared in the original Broadway cast—making it not that creepy. So either the movie has to be really creepy, or do away with those sexual undertones, which are ultimately important in context. 

Aside from that, while Brownlee can surely belt, singing Sondheim is not that simple. It's all about phrasing, and, let's face it, Brownlee (who takes large gasps for air when she sings) doesn't have great technique. The charm of her viral videos is not that she's fantastic, it's that she's enthusiastic. Enthusiasm does not a Sondheim star make. And who knows if she can sit still long enough for Anna Kendrick's Cinderella to sing No One is Alone to her. 

Unless Brownlee did something totally out of character in her audition, her casting amounts to little more than a stunt. Red is a significant role that shouldn't be stunt-cast. This is not to say that Marshall and Disney haven't made any interesting casting choices. James Corden is an actor who deserves more attention in America, which he will hopefully get from his turn as the Baker. And at least Jake Gyllenhaal is no longer playing Rapunzel's Prince. But casting Sophia Grace embodies the problem with turning this show into a Disney production. Disney is all smiles and happiness, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's certainly not Into the Woods. Sondheim's tricky, melancholy, gorgeous musical may have a fairy tale veneer, but once you hit the second act you realize it's mostly a dark, sad show about bad choices. If this latest bit of cutesy casting is any indication, those themes are going to be lost in the movie. 

       

Washington Hopes Its Donut Ice Cream Sandwich Will Make You Forget the Cronut

In an attempt to prove that Washington, D.C., is a place for food trendsetters and not simply hangers-on living in the shadow of New York City's gastronomic scene, bakers there have doubled down on the cronut craze and brought ice cream to a donut fight. "Astro Doughnuts & Fried Chicken is shilling doughnut ice cream sandwiches all week," reports The Washington Post's Maura Judkis. Judkis explains that there are two flavors—a passion-fruit donut with raspberry ice cream and chocolate donut with mocha ice cream filling. 

Both are obviously very good for you, much like the cronut and the ramen burger, those paragons of healthful eating. The mocha filling comes from Brooklyn Roasters, but don't let that take away from D.C.'s big foodie moment. Of bigger concern is the pastries' rather unseemly appearance:

Raspberry ice cream on a passion fruit doughnut, because why not? pic.twitter.com/XEmiHrc8ff

— Zack Ford (@ZackFord) August 6, 2013

But they are probably pretty tasty. These IceNuts (our name for the treats; isn't it pretty good?) just the latest attempt by foodies in The District to show they're hip to this New York City cronut craze. To be fair, these concoctions look better than the bootleg cronuts some bakeries are peddling. And unlike D.C.'s cupcake craze (they still like those things over there, even though pretentious foodies know that cupcakes are so 2000-and-late), it looks like these IceNuts are surfing right on the crest of the current craze for round, fried things.

And they're probably a good way to cool down on a humid Washington afternoon, even if they are a little messy. Moreover, these IceNuts are not even as unhealthy as some other donut-based treats you can find in the cradle of our nation's freedom.

And as the Daily Mail reports, Astro's bakers have borrowed from Dominique Ansel's cronut marketing strategy:

the donut ice-cream sandwiches are being sold in limited quantities for the remainder of the week. But if they prove popular, Astro is likely to keep making them.

So may the lines be long and the donuts greasy. And send us one, if you're so inclined. Our address is not so hard to find.

 

Photo by: ifong and Hong Vo via Shutterstock

       

The Epic Disappointments of 'Elysium'

It's been a tough summer at the movies. For the blockbuster-hungry, anyway. Star Trek Into Darkness was sleek but ultimately pretty chilly. After Earth was strange and terrible junk, while Man of Steel sucked all the life out of Superman and senselessly killed hundreds of thousands of people in the process. Pacific Rim proved too silly and top-heavy, and of course in some ways we will never fully recover from The Lone Ranger. I suppose World War Z had its moments, but beyond that and the more exciting parts of Star Trek, this summer has been a bust for big-ticket movies. Which is why, as someone who enjoys, or used to enjoy, summer spectaculars, I was holding out so much hope for Neill Blomkamp's Elysium. I had good reason to!

Four years ago, Blomkamp, then just 29 years old, stormed onto the scene with the scrappy but elegant, thrilling, moving sci-fi drama District 9, an allegorical look at the racial politics of Blomkamp's native South Africa and, at the film's biggest moments, the broader world. Blomkamp's visual style was kinetic, busy, but crisp, and assured. His metaphors were loud enough to feel urgent, but didn't bonk us over the head. District 9 is smart, inventive filmmaking, the kind of movie that announces the arrival of a Next Big Thing. Elysium is Blomkamp's long-awaited follow up, his first taste of big studio backing and budget, working with top-shelf movie stars — Matt Damon and Jodie Foster — and grafting his soulful, searching sensibility onto a summer tentpole frame. Unfortunately, somewhere in the process the unique perspective and flair that made District 9 such an original wonder was lost, and out came the Elysium which arrives in theaters on Friday. Loud, clunky, and disappointingly shallow, Blomkamp didn't rock the studio system so much as it seemingly rocked him.

What's most jarring, and dismaying, about Elysium — about a ruined and impoverished 22nd century Earth and the gleaming space arcology where all the rich people live — is how many tired action movie cliches Blomkamp traffics in. There are many, far too many, Matrix-esque slo-mo shots, so predictable and hacky by now that parts of Elysium look no more sophisticated than a Resident Evil movie. He also enlists his District 9 star Sharlto Copley to play the main bad guy (well, he's doing Jodie Foster's bidding, at first), a comically evil dude with a one-liner for everything. Of course a bit of humor is always welcome in these sorts of movies, especially these days when everything is so serious, but Copley's character is cartoonish, he makes little sense amid the otherwise textured surroundings that Blomkamp has created.

Yes, there are some good things to be said about Elysium. Blomkamp establishes his world well, giving us a Los Angeles gone to seed but still lurching along. Though showing us squalid, depressing things, the cinematography is often lovely; the camera wanders and hovers and pauses on particular moments of grace or despair. And Damon, as a lowly factory worker with a rap sheet longing in vain for the serene paradise of Elysium, is plenty likable as always, playing weary and downtrodden with a tin shimmer of gallows humor. I only wish his character had been given some dimension and shading — as is he's merely a binary system of two basic motivations.

So, yeah, back to the bad. In addition to the corny tricks and gimmicks that Blomkamp uses to gild his cluttered, ultra-violent (several people gorily explode in the movie) action sequences, Elysium suffers from a dearth of thoughtfulness. The allegory he's working with here is about immigration and health care, and while those are indeed pressing topics ripe for spinning into dark and insisting fables, here the messaging is too literal and blunt. A ship full of illegals lands on (in?) Elysium and they flee like immigrants across the U.S./Mexico border, only to be brutally and inhumanely captured. Basic healthcare is hardly available on Earth, whereas on Elysium they have machines that can cure anything, essentially granting immortality. It makes sense that Blomkamp would feel the need to delocalize his themes for his first big studio movie, but he's made them too broad, too general. He wields them clumsily and arrives at too many simple conclusions. (Undocumented immigrants are people too, everyone should have healthcare.) It's admirable that Blomkamp wants to say something amidst all the crunching and booming, but his themes feel distressingly under-considered this time. Where District 9 soared with genuinely stirring sadness and triumph, Elysium dully editorializes in between by-the-numbers action scenes.

Elysium is a disappointment. A big one, in fact. Things start going south the minute Jodie Foster opens her mouth and a bizarre and unplaceable accent comes tumbling out — my viewing partner and I arrived at Swiss, but Swiss of the future — and only rarely does the film come even remotely close to the transcendence of Blomkamp's earlier work. But the strength of that first film is enough to convince me that Elysium is just a sophomore stumble, that Blomkamp, now that he's got his big dumb studio action picture out of his system, can return to the intelligence and stylistic economy that put him on the map in the first place. Like nearly everything else in this summer of broken blockbusters, let's write this one off and look, with some uneasy expectation, toward whatever is coming next.

       

The RNC's NBC and CNN Boycott Threat Gets Liberal Backing

The Republican National Committee's planned boycott of NBC and CNN over their dueling Hillary Clinton films got some liberal backing on Tuesday. David Brock, who founded the progressive Media Matters for America watchdog group, wrote to NBC today to throw his support behind RNC chariman Reince Priebus's criticism of the subject and timing of the two planned projects.

Why? Part of it, as evidenced by Priebus's threat itself, has to do with the talking point megaphone Media Matters believes a Clinton biopic would provide to conservatives on a potential candidate for 2016. Brock asks NBC if they're ready to answer three questions: 

Will you allow NBC News' name to be tarnished by NBC Entertainment's pursuit of ratings? 

Is you network also prepared to respond to criticism that it is not providing equal time to all political candidates? 

How will your network respond to the right-wing noise machine that is already pressuring you to adopt its ideological lens on Clinton? 

And, presuming that they are not able to adequately address those concerns, says that NBC should cancel their plans. Brock has a particular interest in protecting Clinton's messaging in the press, as Politico notes: 

Brock's motive is different from Priebus's, of course. In addition to heading MMFA, Brock is the chairman of American Bridge super PAC, which recently launched an effort called "Correct the Record" to protect Clinton and other Democrats from "Republican smears."

So in a way, Brock's move reads like more of a preemptive strike on what Democratic supporters are seeing as a conservative attack on Hillary Clinton's character. That campaign is already underway, even though Clinton hasn't even announced whether she's running or not. But there's another liberal objection to the films that's been picked up in some progressive circles, too: the fact that the RNC (or, for that matter, the DNC) has the leverage to threaten to end a lucrative partnership with the network over their content is problematic in the first place. John Nichols at the Nation focused in on that issue in a piece comparing news coverage of the Washington Post's sale to the RNC's intention to cut partnership ties with NBC and CNN for their party's primary debates: 

Network partnerships with the parties reinforce the worst status quo instincts—in our media and our politics. Americans should be interested in who owns newspapers, but they should be indignant about an arrangement that has television news operations negotiating with, partnering with and being threatened by political parties.

Priebus gave the networks until mid-August, when the RNC holds their summer meeting, to make a decision. Meanwhile, both networks have indicated that they'll go ahead with their plans. CNN is working on a feature-length documentary on Hillary Clinton, while NBC cast Diane Lane to play the former Secretary of State in a miniseries based on her life. There's also a third, widely-anticipated movie in the works from director James Ponsoldt. 

Here's the full letter from Media Matters: 

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The Town Hall Outrage Over Obamacare Has Begun

The Tea Party made its name with its outraged appearances against healthcare reform at Congressmembers' town hall meetings during the August recess in 2009. With one of the first major milestones of that reform (lovingly dubbed "Obamacare") approaching on October 1, Tea Party advocates pledged to reignite that outrage. As two members of Congress can attest, pushback from conservative activists has begun. One of those members handled it better than the other.

Talking Points Memo found video of the exchange between North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger and a few of the people who came to his town hall meeting on Monday. In 2009, the demand was that members of Congress oppose any reform. In 2013, the demand is apparently that they defund the program — something which the Republican House has tried dozens of times. Pittenger is asked flatly: Will you vote to defund Obamacare? His response, replayed about six times in the clip: "No."

Pittenger offers a reason. He points out that such a vote is kind of futile since a move to defund the program would need to be passed by the Senate and signed by the president. "Do you think Harry Reid is going to pass that in the Senate?," he asks the questioner. "It doesn't matter," comes the response.

What's interesting is that the Republican Party, of which Pittenger is a member, tried to inoculate its members against this kind of response. In a 31-page plan that became public last month, it suggested holding thematic meetings centered on particular topics. A roundtable with doctors for example. Or an "Emergency Health Care Town Hall," emphasizing media-friendly stories about how people have been affected by health care problems. But Pittenger didn't go that route. He held an open, generic town hall, and got an earful.

On Tuesday afternoon, Pittenger clarified his answer. His office released a statement titled, "Congressman Pittenger Strongly Supports Responsible Steps to Defund or Replace Obamacare." It lists the various measures he's backed that would curtail the program. He repeats his concerns about the prospect of the Senate defunding the program, but somehow thinks they'll go for something less: "Because Democrats control both the Senate and White House, I am also pushing efforts to repeal the most damaging portions of Obamacare, including a provision that would force student workers and single parents to purchase insurance they don’t need or can’t afford."

It's not entirely Pittenger's fault that he got tripped up. The ongoing feud over how to fight against Obamacare has split Capitol Hill Republicans from each other. Pittenger's stated effort to keep young people out of the Obamacare mandate is more in line with how large conservative groups are pushing. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius on Monday called efforts from those groups to block enrollment in the government's health exchanges "dismal," as reported by the Huffington Post. If they were to succeed in halting enrollment in the government's exchanges, it could also be highly problematic for the program. Getting healthy young people involved is critical for its success, which is why the president made a strong push to that end last month. (Efforts to encourage that enrollment by Organizing For Action, the advocacy group that picked up the reins from Obama's 2012 campaign, have gotten a slow start.)

Pittenger wasn't the only one to get a question on defunding Obamacare. Rep. Aaron Schock of Illinois handled similar questions with a bit more aplomb. Also asked if he could be counted on to vote to defund Obamacare, Schock simply replied, "Please do" — and then he offered similar qualifications to his position as those released by Pittenger. Far from outraged, everyone appeared quite happy with the response.

Members of Congress: Expect Obamacare to come up. And when it does, try the Schock method in response.