Obama: Biden Pushed Me on Same Sex Marriage

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This doesn’t really matter much in the big scheme of things, but it’s still sort of interesting. Apparently Joe Biden’s remarks this weekend about gay marriage had a bigger impact than we all thought:

“He probably got out a little bit over his skis, but out of generosity and spirit,” Mr. Obama said when asked whether Mr. Biden had “jumped the gun” by going first a few days earlier.

“Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way, in my own terms, without I think there being a lot of notice to everybody? Sure. But all’s well that ends well,” he said in the interview as it was broadcast on “Good Morning America” on Thursday.

Well, good for Joe. I’m a little surprised that his rather measured remarks actually had such a big effect on Obama, but apparently they did. It just goes to show the value of a bit of pressure in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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