If you don’t think pandering can be a bipartisan effort, just look at how both parties are tripping over themselves to placate the coal industry.

Last week, an Obama campaign Web site on the president’s “all of the above” energy policy did not mention coal. This week, following industry complaints, it includes “clean coal” alongside solar, wind, nuclear and other electricity sources in its headlining graphic. Doing that, though, wasn’t enough for Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman John Barrasso, who released a memo Tuesday lambasting President Obama’s “War on Coal” (h/t National Journal).

The overriding goal of securing the arrest of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin was to get this strange case out of the court of public opinion and into a court of law. All of the conjecture and amateur sleuthing that consumed us for more than a month would give way to real police work and rules of evidence. Yesterday, we got our first look at the evidence that both the prosecution and the defense are examining during the discovery process. They fill in some of the holes in the picture from that rainy night on Feb. 26, but the story remains murky, particularly on one key question.

Two polls out yesterday — one more dramatic than the other — show signs that folks are feeling a little bit better about the nation’s economic future. And the Commerce Department released data yesterday that buttress those rosier feelings.

The hullabaloo over the Newsweek cover of President Obama beneath a rainbow-colored halo and dubbed “The First Gay President” says a lot about publisher Tina Brown’s prowess for publicity. But the negative reaction not only to the cover but, more important, to the headline says a lot about how people view gay men and lesbians.

There’s been a lot of reaction to the Newsweek cover dubbing President Obama “The First Gay President.” Some of it has been bizarre. Some of it lacks any kind of sense of history or a sense of humor.

The moment I saw the cover and read the headline I instantly knew the rhetorical game being played. As The Post’s Felicia Sonmez correctly noted, it is a riff on Toni Morrison’s 1998 declaration that President Clinton was “the first black president” of the United States. Sullivan’s long essay touting Obama’s historic stance on same-sex marriage is anchored in his belief that the president’s experience as a biracial son of America imbued him with a deep understanding of the struggle for acceptance and dignity faced by gay men and lesbians. In her piece on Clinton, Morrison linked his impeachment to the experience faced by many black men.

In a talk I had with Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley last week about President Obama’s decision to publicly support same-sex marriage, the Democrat hit on a tale-of-two-visions theme against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that is beginning to play itself out in a blistering ad out today from the president’s reelection campaign.

In a post for the New York Times’s Campaign Stops blog, Kenji Yoshino zeroed in on an aspect of President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage that hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention: the affirmation of gay men and lesbians as parents. And there are plenty of them. According to an October 2011 report from the Center for American Progress, Movement Advancement Project and the Family Equality Council, about 2 million children are being raised in households headed by same-sex parents. Unfortunately, because of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, those families are being short changed by the same federal government they pay taxes to.

A lot has been said about Mitt Romney, his rather aggressive high-school “hijinks” and his “troubling reaction” to the story in The Post. But I want to slightly take issue with and then expand on something Ruth Marcus wrote in her post.