Via the Weekly Standard, a little something from yesterday afternoon that got sidetracked after the attack in Boston. Carney’s technically correct here — a president’s comments about a pending state criminal proceeding risk producing a mistrial, as Richard Nixon once almost learned the hard way. But wait:

https://twitter.com/CuffyMeh/status/323859601273528322

Newtown’s not “pending” because there’ll be no prosecution of Adam Lanza, but Cuffy’s onto something. How about this?

In danger of losing congressional momentum on the issue, Obama went to Colorado — which has a deep-rooted hunting tradition and where gun ownership is a cherished right — to use its example and public pressure to prod Congress to act…

Obama met with 19 law enforcement officers, activists and elected officials at the Denver Police Academy, not far from Aurora, where 12 people were killed in the movie theater shooting. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for James Holmes, the accused shooter…

“I don’t believe that weapons designed for theaters of war have a place in movie theaters,” Obama said to applause.

James Holmes had a Glock, a shotgun, and a semiautomatic rifle. Are those “weapons … of war”? Did that choice of words influence any of the jurors in Holmes’s case, making it more likely that they’ll convict? Turns out the guy who once declared that the police in Massachusetts “acted stupidly” without knowing the facts of the case after they arrested a friend of his is selective about commenting on pending cases. But that’s okay. The fact that Ed Henry’s asking about this now means he, or someone, will be asking about it again when the trial’s over. Stay tuned.

While we’re on the subject of Gosnell, here’s another data point for this week’s inevitable left/media talking point that there’s no connection whatsoever, no sir, between what “respectable” higher-end abortion clinics do and what Gosnell did. You already know that’s a lie; the question is how much of a lie is it. From Friday’s Anderson Cooper interview with David Altrogge, writer/director of a documentary about Gosnell:

[ALTROGGE:] So, I think that absolutely played a part of it. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that all of his patients were minorities. I was just talking to one of his former patients last week who was a white girl who went to a reputable clinic in Maryland and that clinic referred her to Gosnell. So, there were hundreds of women who came to Gosnell from his neighborhood, but this were women who came from all over the eastern seaboard who were referred to him.

COOPER: Right, out of state.

ALTROGGE: — who were referred to him, yes.

COOPER: It seemed as he became as known as the specialty. He was a guy who for cash, I mean, these are the allegations, that for cash he would perform late-term abortions whereas others wouldn’t.

TOOBIN: Right. And as we all know, late-term abortions are one of the most politically controversial aspects of abortion now. They are generally banned except when the life of the mother is at stake, life or health of the mother. But that, it can very much be determined by the doctor. And Gosnell apparently had the reputation for finding justification of doing it.

Which “respectable” clinics referred patients to Gosnell? And did they know what conditions at his charnel house were like when they did? At least one abortion-rights group did, and they said nothing.

Exit question: Carney says Obama believes abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. “Rare”? Since when?