Late last month, the Department of Justice filed a brief in federal court in California defending the ban on gay men and women serving openly in the military. One of the most controversial aspects of the DOJ’s brief was that it contained quotes supporting the ban from ret. Gen. Colin Powell — but it didn’t note that Powell has since disowned those statements and called for a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. A couple of examples of the language in the brief:

– General Colin Powell similarly testified that, “[t]o win wars, we create cohesive teams of warriors who will bond so tightly that they are prepared to go into battle and give their lives if necessary for the accomplishment of the mission and for the cohesion of the group and for their individual buddies.”

– General Powell testified that homosexual conduct in units “involves matters of privacy and human sexuality that, … if allowed to exist openly in the military, would affect the cohesion and well-being of the force.”

But in February, of course, Powell said that, “In the almost 17 years since the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ legislation was passed, attitudes and circumstances have changed.”

In today’s White House press briefing, The Advocate’s Washington correspondent Kerry Eleveld asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the DOJ’s brief. Instead of backing it, Gibbs said that he found it “odd” that officials included Powell’s old remarks, adding that President Obama would probably agree with his assessment:

ELEVELD: Is the President at all concerned that DOJ is a little insular or tone deaf on issues that are sort of politically sticky, especially those of interest to the LGBT community?

GIBBS: I will say this, obviously the President has enunciated his support for ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” rolling back — made a commitment to roll back DOMA in the campaign. Obviously, the Justice Department has — is charged with upholding the law as it exists, not as the President would like to see it. We have obviously taken steps on the front of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I think we’ve made a genuine amount of progress. I will say, was it odd that they included previous statements from General Colin Powell on a belief set that he no longer had? I don’t think the President would disagree with that.

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Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin and Senior Fellow Nathaniel Frank also recently gave depositions in this case, Log Cabin v. United States, and are now claiming that the DOJ misrepresented their arguments about “whether privacy concerns for service members constituted a rational basis for the enactment of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 1993.”

As ThinkProgress first reported yesterday, MSNBC host Ed Schultz told a progressive gathering in Minnesota that he recently engaged in a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. In an off-the-air conversation, Schultz told Gibbs he was “full of sh*t,” leading Gibbs to respond with “the f-bomb.” The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent followed up with Gibbs to explain what happened:

[Gibbs] says he pointedly accused Schultz of misleading viewers about the Dem health care plan in order to “get people to watch his show.” […]

Asked about Schultz’s account, Gibbs emailed that in their private talk, he strongly took issue with Schultz’s claim that the health care bill is a gift to the insurance industry.

Gibbs adds that he demanded Schultz tell him “why he’d tell his viewers something so completely and knowingly wrong in an attempt to get people to watch his show.”

The White House has tried repeatedly to dispute the concern that health insurance companies would profit from the current reform proposal. In November, White House health policy adviser Nancy-Ann DeParle argued that “insurance companies will profit if status quo remains.” And in December, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer argued that insurance companies wouldn’t be spending vast amounts of money to lobby against the bill if it were good for them.

Yesterday, RNC Chairman Michael Steele said that Senate Democrats’ effort to pass health care reform in the face of Republican obstructionism means “they’re willing to basically flip the bird to the American people and slip it in in the dead of night.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid condemned Steele’s incendiary language as “crass.” MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today for President Obama’s “take.” Gibbs responded with a quip about Steele’s lucrative side career as a paid speaker, asking, “How much did that interview cost them?”:

Gibbs was referring to new revelations, reported today by the Washington Times, that Steele is “using his title to market himself for paid appearances nationwide, personally profiting from speeches with fees of up to $20,000.” Former RNC Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf said this practice is highly unusual and ripped Steele: “Holy mackerel, I never heard of a chairman of either party ever taking money for speeches.” “The job of a national chairman is to give speeches,” Fahrenkopf said. “That’s what the national party pays him for.”

As ThinkProgress reported earlier today, RNC Chairman Michael Steele held a conference call to criticize President Obama’s Copenhagen trip later this week, where he will make a pitch for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics. “If the priority is the Olympics in seven years, okay, then tell the nation that’s the priority and that’s what we should be focused on because we’ll create jobs then and we won’t worry about it between now and 2016,” Steele said. Today in the White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained that Obama wanted to “talk directly with voting members of the IOC and make the strong case for the American side.” Asked about Steele’s criticism, Gibbs took a jab at the RNC Chairman:

QUESTION: Your response to Chairman Steele’s criticism about the President going to Copenhagen?

GIBBS:  Who’s he rooting for?  (Laughter.)  Is he hoping to hop a plane to Brazil and catch the Olympics in Rio?  (Laughter.)  Maybe it’s Madrid.

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Obama is taking only 18 hours out of his schedule to travel to Copenhagen to make a pitch for an event that could generate $22.5 billion in economic activity and the equivalent of 315,000 new full-time jobs in America. Regardless of how explicitly Obama is acting in America’s best interests, Republicans are anxious to take a political shot at him.

Earlier this month, when media outlets reported that top Democrats and White House officials seemed set to go it alone on health care reform due to “hardening Republican opposition,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs pushed back on the story by saying the he had “no reason to believe” that Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Olympia Snow (R-ME) weren’t “working in good faith” to forge a bipartisan compromise.

But since then, Enzi and Grassley have taken actions that have called their commitment to bipartisan reform into serious question. On Saturday, while delivering the weekly Republican address, Enzi attacked Democratic reform plans using misleading and false talking points such as claiming that “the bills would expand comparative effectiveness research that would be used to limit or deny care based on age or disability of patients.” Grassley, for his part, sent out a fundraising letter saying he was trying “defeat ‘Obama-care.’”

At the White House press briefing today, Gibbs said he hadn’t seen Grassley’s letter yet, but declared that Enzi’s address meant that he had “clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship”:

GIBBS: The president is firmly committed to working with Democrats, Republicans, independents, anybody who wants to see progress on health care reform. I will say this. I haven’t seen the contents of that letter. Certainly, I think the radio address over the weekend by Sen. Enzi repeating many of the generic Republican talking points — that Republicans are using that have bragged about being opposed to health care — are tremendously unfortunate, but in some ways illuminating. It appears that at least in Sen. Enzi’s case he doesn’t believe there’s a pathway to get bipartisan support and the president thinks that’s wrong. I think Sen. Enzi’s clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship and decided that it’s time to walk away from the table.

“It doesn’t help to have Republicans who say they’re for bipartisanship and say they’re at the table to try to find a solution repeating Republican party talking points about what they know is not true in the bill,” said Gibbs. “It’s bad for this town, but it’s much worse for this country.” Watch it:

Grassley spokesperson Jill Kozeny tells Greg Sargent that the senator’s fundraising letter only “describes the government-run plan in the House and HELP committee bills that President Obama supports and Senator Grassley opposes.” But the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, who uncovered the fundraising letter, writes that Grassley “is creating a campaign premised on his role in stopping Obama’s health-care reform effort” and is “not leaving himself political room to compromise on health care.”

Additionally, both Enzi and Grassley have advocated for an unrealistic standard for bipartisan reform, saying that a bill needs 75 or 80 senators supporting it for it to be bipartisan. Considering that Republicans believe that “the No. 1 assignment in 2009 is to kill Obamacare,” it’s hard to believe that the two senators are continuing to negotiate in “good faith.”

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich posted on his Twitter feed today a call for Judge Sonia Sotomayor to withdraw her nomination because she is a “Latina woman racist.” As evidence of her supposed racism, Gingrich posted an out-of-context quote from a lecture that Sotomayor gave in 2001 on diversity. Gingrich wrote, “new racism is no better than old racism” and added:

As Greg Sargent notes, Gingrich’s demand that Sotomayor withdraw was later retweeted — which is “generally taken as a sign of agreement” — by the RNC’s new media director, Todd Herman. When asked about Gingrich’s comment during today’s White House press conference, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded by noting that “the blog of a former lawmaker” is hardly the best source of objective information on Sotomayor:

GIBBS: I think it is probably important for any involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of the impending confirmation. I think we’re satisfied that when the people of America and the people of the Senate get a chance to look at more than just the blog of a former lawmaker that they’ll come to the same conclusion that the President did.

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Noting Gingrich’s offensive Twitter post, ABC’s Jake Tapper asked, “Will [the] ousted Speaker impact [his] former colleagues on Hill?” So far, it looks like Gingrich may not have to. Indeed, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said yesterday that he is worried that Sotomayor might allow “undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences” affect her rulings, while Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) said similarly that he believes that Sotomayor has shown “personal bias based on ethnicity and gender.”