Sunday Roundup

This week delivered another stark lesson in the difference between a real scandal and a manufactured one. On Tuesday, President Obama was photographed at the Nelson Mandela memorial service taking a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt, thus kicking off #selfiegate. This happened just before the president apparently destroyed America by shaking hands with Cuban President Raul Castro -- at a ceremony honoring a man for, among other things, rising above old hatreds and promoting reconciliation between former enemies. Attracting far less social media fury was the fact that an estimated 28,000 people, including almost 200 children, have been killed by gun violence in the year since Newtown -- or that under the Murray-Ryan budget deal being worked out, extended unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans will abruptly end on December 28. Maybe for Christmas, we should all ask Santa for a more well-placed sense of outrage.