Congrats to former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, the new head of the Republican National Committee; you can watch Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin interview Steele here.

And sadly, as Allahpundit quips, "Let the racist 'progressive' photoshops begin!"

Fred Barnes suggests that "The Republicans' Best Weapon" is Obama himself:

In 1994, congressional Republicans carried laminated copies of their Contract With America (tax cuts, term limits, etc.) in their pockets. They may now want to laminate President Obama's inaugural address and carry it around.

This is not as silly as it sounds. Republican leaders believe the speech pleased them more than it did House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid. Obama's "new era of responsibility" echoed the "Personal Responsibility Act," the third of the ten planks in the Contract With America. Obama also said that it's not the size of government which matters but whether it works. Newt Gingrich coined that thought years ago. Obama lauded "risk-takers." Democrats want to tax them to death.

For the foreseeable future, attacking Obama will be counterproductive for Republicans. He's both enormously popular and the bearer of moral authority as the first African-American president.

Barnes notes that "Obama's words may be bromides or boilerplate that bear little relationship to his true sentiments or real plans." Well, as Jim Geraghty likes to note, those words (just words) all come with expiration dates.

"But so what?", Barnes adds. "Republicans in the House and Senate are a badly outnumbered minority. They have few political weapons at their disposal. Citing Obama's words makes political sense. It's at least worth a try. Republicans have nothing to lose."

As Greg Pollowitz writes, you won't be seeing these in the MSM--they've got more important issues to discuss.

David Horowitz has an exceptional piece on today's transition of power, placing it into both America's long-term history, and the last forty years of the left's culture war upon that tradition. As an up and coming player in Chicago politics, Barack Obama fell in with those who sought the latter; as the nation's 44th president, Horowitz lists numerous helpful signs of him embracing the former, richer tradition.

Which isn't all that dissimilar from the career path of Horowitz himself, come to think of it. As Paul Mirengoff writes, "David Horowitz may not have seen it all, but he has seen more than just about all of us, and from both sides of the political divide."

Paul quotes just about all of it, but I'll merely direct you to either link and strongly suggest reading the whole essay.

Heh: "Obama Inaugurated, Ex-Klansman Collapses."

One leading economic indicator wasn't impressed by today's festivities, as Reuters notes:

U.S. stock indexes extended losses and hit session lows on Tuesday after President Barack Obama's inauguration speech provided few new details about measures to tackle the growing economic crisis.

"I think people were looking for something, new plans, new hopes," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading in Chatam, New Jersey.

"They didn't hear something new."

To be fair, an inauguration speech isn't exactly the place to lay out a new administration's fiscal agenda, but still, between this, Ted Kennedy passing out, the racially charged benediction from Rev. Joseph Lowery, whatever caused Rahm to flip the Emanuel, and the jeering of the incoming president's supporters at the outgoing commander-in-chief, there were lots of fumbles during the ecstasy.

Update: Perhaps this (via the Professor) helps to explain today's market swoon: "In the mind of the anti-free-marketeer, the government occupies the same kind of intellectual territory as the divine designer in the mind of an anti-Darwinian."

More" The temperature wasn't the only thing icy in DC today. Witness: "The awesomely awesome Carter/Clinton snub"--complete with video!

Bill McGurn, President Bush's former chief speechwriter, whom I interviewed in November while we were both on the National Review cruise, is spot-on when writes that as the president leaves Washington DC, "he carries with him the near-universal opprobrium of the permanent class that inhabits our nation's capital. Yet perhaps the most important reason for this unpopularity is the one least commented on":

Here's a hint: It's not because of his failures. To the contrary, Mr. Bush's disfavor in Washington owes more to his greatest success. Simply put, there are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable.

Read the whole thing, and also note this hopeful sign:

Mr. Bush's success in Iraq is equally infuriating, because it showed he was right and they wrong. Many in Washington have not yet admitted that, even to themselves. Mr. Obama has. We know he has because he has elected to keep Mr. Bush's secretary of defense -- not something you do with a failure.

Mr. Obama seems aware that, at the end of the day, he will not be judged by his predecessor's approval ratings. Instead, he will soon find himself under pressure to measure up to two Bush achievements: a strategic victory in Iraq, and the prevention of another attack on America's home soil. As he rises to this challenge, our new president will learn that when you make a mistake, the keepers of the Beltway's received orthodoxies will make you pay dearly.

But it will not even be close to the price you pay for ignoring their advice and succeeding.

(H/T: Jennifer Rubin, who rounds up plenty of other inauguration morning links worth checking out, at Commentary.)

John Hinderaker has a lengthy and sober assessment of President Bush's tenure in office. Definitely read the whole thing, but here's the linchpin of the post:

In assessing the pluses and minuses of the Bush administration, one always returns to Iraq. Many think that Bush was too slow to change strategies after sectarian violence erupted in 2006; others think that he deserves great credit for backing the surge and ultimately winning the war. The second proposition, I think, is indisputable, while the first is questionable. I'm inclined to agree with Dick Cheney that it's wrong to suggest that nothing good happened in Iraq until 2007.

With the benefit of a bit of hindsight, it seems to me that Bush's failings on Iraq were mostly political. It was always obvious that the biggest challenge in Iraq would not be felling Saddam, but rather what would come afterward. The ethnic and sectarian divisions in that country were well understood, and many (like me) wondered whether Iraq was really a country that could stay together once its tyrant was deposed. But Bush failed to adequately prepare the public for the tough, ambiguous conflict that was sure to ensue once Saddam was gone.

This failure was especially regrettable since the war, when launched, was not Bush's war but America's. Large majorities in the House and Senate voted to authorize the war, including most leading Democrats. But because Bush failed to prepare the public for the post-major combat stage, the Democrats could plausibly take the view that they had signed on only for the easy overthrow of a dictator. When the inevitable messiness ensued, they double-crossed the President. That was shameful, but it was also foreseeable, and it was enabled by Bush's failure to do the political work necessary to educate the American public.

In the end, the greatest failures of the Bush administration were political. Bush was the first MBA President, and he always seemed to think that results would carry the day. He followed Lincoln, who wrote that if events bore him out, no one would remember his critics, while if events did not bear him out, a thousand angels swearing he was right wouldn't make any difference.

That's fine as far as it goes, but Lincoln went to considerable lengths, sometimes to the derogation of the war effort, to make sure that public opinion in the North stayed with him. And he was, in the event, saved by the victories won by Grant and Sherman.

As John writes, "Bush's great failing was that his focus was almost exclusively on policy, and he was unwilling to pay adequate attention to politics." And its too bad--because had he reminded voters of the continuity on regime change of his administration and the prior one, the bipartisan support this effort had from 1998 until 2002, and the rank hypocrisy of the left's pivot on the issue, he could have done much to prop up the GOP in 2006 and 2008. Not to mention his own poll numbers.









Update: "Good luck to you on your travels, Sir. Be well."

More: "Closed Press."

Ann Althouse writes, "Here's the post where you can say good-bye to George Bush":

The sun has set on the last night of the Bush presidency. Now, tired old George can retreat to Texas and not be kicked around anymore. He can wait for that history he's always talking about to do its curative work. Someday, they'll say he wasn't so bad, but, my, how he was hated. Not by everyone, though. Many of us stood by him, beginning on September 11th, when he found out that he would not be permitted to spend his time in the White House trying to distinguish himself as a purveyor of compassionate conservative. Many of us would not abandon the man who needed our support, who was, perhaps, overwhelmed by the task that was thrust upon him. And now, the work is over, so I think it would be appropriate to say thank you to George Bush, who is -- to say what Barack Obama said of him -- a good man.

All-in-all, indeed.^TM Click over to Ann's blog if you'd like to post some thoughts about the outgoing president.

Tremendous passage from Paul Greenberg:

History is up to its old tricks again. The radical agitator of one generation becomes the conservative icon of another. Martin Luther King Jr. meets the very definition of an American conservative, that is, someone dedicated to preserving the gains of a liberal revolution.

Even when he was leading the civil rights movement, what appeal could have been more conservative or more American than his now classic speech before the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963?

"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Is any passage more frequently cited against the quota system called Affirmative Action? Is any passage so clear a call for what conservative candidates for president always seem to be calling for -- character?

King's rhetorical might belied his relative youth; Orrin Judd adds, "the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn't even have been 80 until next year. All this change has occurred within his natural life span. Pretty remarkable."

Update: Don't miss Virginia Postrel's post on the generation of culture warriors immediately before King:

With the Tuskegee Airmen headed to the inauguration, let's take a moment to remember what they looked like when they were young and glamorous--and, of course, just how subversive that glamour was.

Be sure to scroll through the accompanying sideshow.

As Bloomberg.com notes, "Obama Inaugural Strains Lincoln Comparisons While Inviting Them":

Barack Obama's inauguration is dedicated to the proposition that all presidencies are not created equal.

In ways big and small, Obama is trying to summon Abraham Lincoln's spirit to the proceedings.

Obama will roll into Washington's Union Station today by train, duplicating part of Lincoln's railroad journey from Illinois for his swearing in. The president-elect is to appear at a concert tomorrow at the Lincoln Memorial, and will take the oath of office Tuesday with one hand on the Bible that Lincoln used in 1861. Inaugural planners drew so many ties between the Illinois legislators-turned-presidents that Obama may risk straining the comparison.

"Everyone wants to be Lincoln," says Harold Holzer, who has written or edited more than 20 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. "Is Obama overdoing it? Maybe."

For most of the 144 years since Lincoln's death, presidents of all political persuasions have tried to enlist Lincoln's reputation for honesty and courage in support of their own ambitions. Leaders "see in Lincoln's suffering validation of the criticism they have to endure," Holzer says.

In the early, pre-9/11 days of the Bush Administration, the left threw a snit about President Bush invoking JFK and his call for tax cuts to bolster a similar 21st century plan, as Jeff Jacoby wrote in March of 2001:

JFK's words are as persuasive today as they were four decades ago -- so much so that a group of Republicans has resurrected them for use in radio ads promoting Bush's tax-cut proposal. Narrated by Steve Forbes, the conservative publisher who has long championed lower taxes, the ads are designed to put pressure on Democratic senators in states Bush carried last year. "If Jack Kennedy can support tax cuts," Forbes says in the version of the ad airing in Louisiana (for example), "so can Mary Landrieu."

But not everybody welcomes President Kennedy's contribution to the tax-cut debate. Ted Kennedy, for one, is in a snit.

"It is intellectually dishonest and politically irresponsible," he fumes in a letter to the team that created the ads, "to suggest that President Kennedy would have supported such a tax cut.... If President Kennedy were here today he ... would be outraged by comparisons between his 1963 tax cut and the current proposal."

He wouldn't of course, and there's likely much in Barack Obama that Lincoln would have admired as well. But has any journalist asked someone in that slain leader's party if they're OK with one of their chief icons being co-opted for partisan purposes, as they did in 2001?

Update: Related thoughts from Sister Toldjah.

Via Jonah Goldberg, this is a well produced look at the political spectrum and its history. Jonah writes, "I have my quibbles, but overall I think this pretty useful." I'm very much in sync with the graph that outline the poltical spectrum, which appears at 30 seconds into the video:

For a guaranteed lump in the throat, don't miss this one: "One of New York's Finest Takes Care of Marine Hero in Final Days."

(Via The World According To Carl.)

Former athlete and congressman Jack Kemp, age 73 has been diagnosed with cancer. Here's the AP report:

Jack Kemp's office says the former housing secretary, congressman and Buffalo Bills quarterback has been diagnosed with cancer.

A brief statement says Kemp is undergoing tests to determine the origin of the disease and how to go about treating it. The type of cancer was not disclosed.

In the meantime, Kemp says he will continue to serve as chairman of his Washington-based Kemp Partners consulting firm and will remain involved in his charitable and political work.

After his football career, Kemp represented western New York for nine terms in Congress, leaving the House for an unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988. He later served as President George H.W. Bush's housing secretary and ran for vice president as Bob Dole's running mate.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) adds:

"Jack Kemp has inspired a generation of conservatives with his unyielding commitment to freedom and free-market policies. Like millions of other Americans, I was saddened today to learn of his illness. My thoughts and prayers are with Jack, Joanne, and the Kemp family as Jack battles to defeat cancer. We need the strong, confident voice of Jack Kemp in the national dialogue as our country confronts the challenges that lie ahead."

In The American Spectator, Ryan L. Cole writes that mister, we could use a man like Silent Cal again:

Today Coolidge lies buried in a tiny Vermont village just a short distance from the house where he was born and raised. A humble headstone marks his final resting place; the word "president" is nowhere to be found on the simple marker. On the occasion of Coolidge's death, H.L. Mencken said, "Should the day ever dawn, when Jefferson's warnings are heeded at last, and we reduce government to its simplest terms, it may very well happen that Calvin's bones now resting inconspicuously in the Vermont granite will come to be revered as those of a man who really did the nation some service." Given the results of our recent election, the arrival of that day seems unlikely.

As Cole writes, Coolidge "had no interest in saving or rescuing the American people -- he possessed, what is today, an uncommon faith they could take care of that themselves."

Cole writes that when shortly before Coolidge died on this date in 1933, he was quoted as saying, "I feel I no longer fit in with these times." Imagine how he would have felt witnessing 2008: "The Year Americans Rejected Self-Reliance."

Had dinner at the Four Seasons tonight, on the drive down from New York State to visit my mom in NJ before heading back to California. Three observations:

1. If the New York economy is hurting, you couldn't tell it tonight, as the Pool Room was nearly packed.

2. The filet of bison with foie gras and Perigord truffle sauce main course was pretty amazing.

3. The older, salt and pepper-haired gentleman and his wife sitting opposite us were a seriously class act, picking up the tab for a young Marine in his dress blues having dinner with a young woman in a strapless dress that I can only assume was his girlfriend, fiancee or wife at the other end of our row of tables. When the Marine walked over to thank him, the older gentleman and his wife both replied, "No, thank you for everything you're doing to keep us safe."

Which is an awesome note to end the year on, all around.

If you missed it today on Sirius-XM's POTUS channel, the year-end wrap edition of PJM Political is now online in handy portable podcast form (as frequent contributor James Lileks is wont to say).

Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com and myself for the year-end edition of PJM Political as he recaps the key moments of the 2008 presidential election. Plus a look back at the decisive elections of the past with:

• Michael Knox Beran, the author of Forge of Empires: Three Revolutionary Statesmen and the World They Made, 1861-1871 describes "How Lincoln Saved The World."


• Amity Shlaes, the author of the New York Times best-seller The Forgotten Man on the 1932 and 1936 presidential elections.


• James Piereson, the author of Camelot and the Cultural Revolution on JFK and the election of 1960.


• Craig Shirley, the author of the Reagan's Revolution and the forthcoming Rendezvous With Destiny on the 1976 and 1980 elections and the fall and rise of Ronald Reagan.

Tune in here to listen!

In his profile of Paul Weyrich for the DC Examiner, Lee Edwards writes:

He was born on October 7, 1942, in Racine, Wisconsin, the son of working-class German Catholics. His father tended the boilers of St. Mary's Catholic Hospital for 50 years. He was politically active from an early age: at 19, he and his friends took over the Racine Republican party.

He worked for a local daily newspaper and then as a radio-television journalist before coming to Washington in 1967 as press secretary to Senator Gordon Allott (R-CO).

He learned how to organize from the liberal opposition. During President Nixon's first term, he attended a meeting of key liberals planning the enactment of an open housing bill. Present were a White House official, a Washington newspaper columnist, an analyst from the Brookings Institution, representatives from several black lobbying groups, and aides to a dozen senators.

Weyrich noted that everyone took an assignment. The Senate aides promised that their bosses would make supporting statements and contact other senators. The White House official said he would keep everyone informed of the administration's strategy.

The newspaper columnist promised to write a favorable article about the legislation. The Brookings analyst promised to publish a timely study that would impact the debate. The black lobbyists agreed to produce public demonstrations at the right time.

"I saw how easily it could be done with planning and determination," Weyrich later recalled, "and decided to try it myself." With funding from conservative businessmen like Joseph Coors and direct mail assistance from fundraiser Richard Viguerie, he helped start major conservative institutions such as Heritage, the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress (later the Free Congress Foundation), the Senate Steering Committee, the Republican Study Committee, and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Liberals as well as conservatives acknowledged his essential role. In January 1981, the AFL-CIO described the New Right and specifically the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress as smart, effective and responsible for "a whole passel of persons sitting in the U.S. House and Senate."

The manufactured dissent that Weyrich describes witnessing in the early '70s and emulating during its second half reminds of something Tom Wolfe told an interviewer about his New York Herald-Tribune salad days:

Well, one of the things is what I would call "media ricochet", which is the way real life and life as portrayed by television, by journalists like myself and others, begin ricocheting off of one another. That's why to me, in Bonfire of the Vanities, it was so important to show exactly how this occurs when television and newspaper coverage become a factor in something like racial politics. And a good bit of the book has to do with this curious phenomenon of how demonstrations, which are a great part of racial and ethnic politics, exist only for the media. In the last days when I was working on The New York Herald-Tribune, I'll never forget the number of demonstrations I went to and announced that to all the people with the placards, "I'm from The New York Herald-Tribune," and the attitude was really a yawn, and then, "Get lost". They were waiting for Channel 2 and Channel 4 and Channel 5, and suddenly the truck would appear and these people would become galvanized. On one occasion I even saw a group of demonstrators down in Union Square, marching across the Square, and Channel 2 arrived, a couple of vans, and the head of the demonstration walked up to what looked like the head man of the TV crew and said, "What do you want us to do?" He says, "Golly, I don't know. What were you going to do?" He says, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You tell us."

As Edwards wrote, Weyrich simply took the methods of the left and moved them starboard. Something that Mary Katharine Ham notes that Rick Warren is doing in his recent interviews with the legacy media.

If you missed it yesterday on Sirius-XM's POTUS channel, Saturday's PJM Political is now online; tune in here to listen.

Join host Steve Green of VodkaPundit.com for his take on President-Elect Obama's cabinet choices, and the Pythonic implications of the "shoe toss" incident that bedeviled President Bush in Iraq.

Plus, from PJTV:

• Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon debates Frost/Nixon with fellow Oscar-nominated screenwriter/producer Lionel Chetwynd.
  
• Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin talk with Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, now looking to helm the Republican National Committee, followed by their conversation with the surprise celebrity from the last month of the presidential election, Joe Wurzelbacher, aka...Joe The Plumber.
  

If you missed any previous episodes of PJM Political, click here and scroll through for hours of audio archives. And tune in to Pajamas Media's PJTV channel for video coverage throughout the week.

As you've undoubtedly read by now, Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich has passed away at age 66. At Pajamas HQ, Jennifer Rubin asks, "Who Will Be the Next Paul Weyrich?"

Meanwhile, Robert Stacy McCain has some thoughts on Weyrich and the state of American culture as a whole. Be sure to follow his links as well.

Comedian, writer and cultural commentator Evan Sayet emails in:

My Friends (I borrowed that from John McCain since he's not using it anymore.)

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) is the last Right to Laugh event of the George Bush era. Please try to join me and a great group of political (Republican) comedians as we skewer the media, the Demorats and, of course, the man who holds the "office of the President-Elect").

This is one of the best line-ups yet, featuring the great Al Sonja Schmidt, with guest sets from Monty Hoffman and Eric Porvaznik (Mr. E. Pluribus), John Ziegler (KFI radio, "How Obama Won") taking time out from answering his hatemail to emcee. I'll be your host and headlienr.

As those of you who have attended before know, the night usually includes famous radio talk show hosts, best selling conservative authors, a few movie and TV stars -- and that's just the folks on the stage! We typically have even more in the crowd!

So...see you all tomorrow and, if you would, please pass on word to others.

Merry Christmas!

Evan

The event is at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood and begins tomorrow at 8:00 PM--if you're in the area call 323-656-1336 for reservations.

Evan's email is also a great excuse to repost this, which is a terrific summing up of How We Got Here, to borrow David Frum's book title:

The Gray Lady sadly notes:

Representative William J. Jefferson was defeated by a little-known Republican lawyer here Saturday in a late-running Congressional election, underscoring the sharp demographic shifts in this city since Hurricane Katrina and handing Republicans an unexpected victory in a district that had been solidly Democratic.

The upset victory by the lawyer, Anh Cao, was thought by analysts to be the result of a strong turnout by white voters angered over federal corruption charges against Mr. Jefferson, a black Democrat who was counting on a loyal base to return him to Congress for a 10th term.

A majority of the district's voters are African-American, and analysts said lower turnout in the majority black precincts on Saturday meant victory for the Republican.

With all precincts reporting, Mr. Cao, who was born in Vietnam, had 49 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Mr. Jefferson, who had not conceded as of late Saturday night.

To paraphrase The Sweet Smell of Success, the cat's in the bag, and the bag's in the freezer.

Taken back-to-back, the last two paragraphs of the Times article are a hoot:

Mr. Cao, 41 and known as Joseph, fled Vietnam at age 8 after the fall of Saigon. His father was a army officer who was later imprisoned for seven years by the Communist government. Mr. Cao, who has never held elective office, has been an advocate for the small but prominent Vietnamese community here and has a master's degree in philosophy from Fordham University.

"Knocking Jefferson off is something you don't want to bet on," Elliott Stonecipher, a Louisiana political analyst, said Saturday night. "These elections continue to show us that there is a smaller, different and more progressive New Orleans that is emerging."

So electing a Republican who mercifully escaped Vietnam after American liberals of the 1970s left the nation to be slaughtered by the Vietcong and who ousted one of the most infamously corrupt Democrats of recent years counts as a "more progressive New Orleans"?

Hey, fine with me! It's rare that the Times sees a move to the right as progress, but I'll take it.

Update: Over at The "Moderate" Voice, Jazz Shaw makes a cheap shot that moves by so quickly, it's worthy of the drive-by legacy media:

Ed Driscoll doesn't seem terribly interested in a post-racial society, but will take a win in the GOP column any day of the week.

Hmmm--how does Jazz know I'm not "interested in a post-racial society"? Isn't a Vietnamese immigrant becoming a congressman in a district in which, as the Times article I quoted above notes, "a majority of the district's voters are African-American" actually a perfect example of a post-racial society?

The Judd Brothers are loaded for bear, err turkey, today--just keep scrolling.

Glenn Reynolds notes: "ANOTHER CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY: Winnetka, Illinois repeals its handgun ban."

Clearly, there's only one piece of music that fits:

Considering he was at least as tall as Romney, I wouldn't want to call him Mini-Mitt, but the gentleman whom Jim Geraghty pointed out to me during the National Review cruise as looking like Mitt Romney's stunt double is actually a blogger at Red State, and he has a terrific round-up (complete with video) of the cruise: "If we're going to have a nuclear holocaust, I'm going to the buffet first."

(You can read my immediate impressions of the cruise here.)

Zombietime proffers a new holiday: Victory in Iraq Day, November 22, 2008:

The moment has come to acknowledge the obvious. To overtly declare a fact that has already been true for quite some time now. Let me repeat:

WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ
And since there will never be a ticker-tape parade down Fifth Avenue in New York for our troops, it's up to us, the people, to arrange a virtual ticker-tape parade. An online victory celebration.

Saturday, November 22, 2008 is the day of that celebration: Victory in Iraq Day.

What do you need to do to participate? Simple. Just make a post on your blog on Saturday, November 22, announcing that the war is over, and declaring that day to be Victory in Iraq Day. That's it.

If you want to write a short post (or a long essay) analyzing the nature of our victory or cheering the troops for a job well done, great; but if you just want to make a simple announcement of the victory, that's fine as well. Anything will do. Just come and join the celebration to mark the day.

Works for me--especially since we'll never see the folks who were forgainst the Iraq War acknowledge their 180 degree pivot in 2003.

Something for the optimists and pessimists at Pajamas Media HQ--and if the latter group are proven correct, some thoughts on who will blamed the most and why, and yet may very well be the party's best hope in the near term future--although the latter conventional wisdom doesn't always survive the campaign trail.

Having been dubbed racists and rednecks by Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA), (after previously being dubbed bitter and clinging by Barack Obama) at least one poll illustrates that his constituents are especially eager to prove the punitive liberal wrong.

In the Weekly Standard, Sam Schulman asks, "Why is Bill Ayers a respectable member of the upper middle class and Sarah Palin contemptible?"

Pour yourself a Johnnie Walker Black and remember. The presidential campaign was going to be about sex--the sex of the inevitable winning candidate. Then it was going to be about race. We dreamed we would atone for slavery and the Berlin Airlift, impress Europe and charm the Arab world. But the undecided voters who will determine the winner are no longer interested in race or sex. They are looking at social class. Which ticket best expresses the values and tastes of the upper-middle-class--and captivates the rest of us who follow the lead of the upper-middles?

The class argument is why the Bill Ayers strategy won't do. In the sex and race eras, it would have worked nicely. Obama's longtime working collaboration with the radical educational theorist and retired terrorist would dramatize his carefully but hastily discarded political radicalism. But no longer. The anti-Ayers publicists are quite right about Ayers's malignity and Obama's connivance. But when they try to explain what Ayers has done in the past and still wants to do--turn schools into nurseries of revolution, make leftist views a condition for becoming a teacher, promote dictatorship, and glorify violence--they injure not help their cause. Class will always trump politics. Being the first in one's family to adopt liberal political sentiments or move to New York City means a step into the middle class, for most Americans, and an increase in social status. More extreme political radicalism lifts one a step or two higher.

Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn became Sixties royalty not because of the status of the Ayers family in Chicago, but because of their relish for violence. They attempted to kill, and celebrated the killings of others (like Charles Manson's victims and the murder of any number of cops), to set an example for the less privileged. "We've known that our job is to lead white kids to armed revolution. . . . Tens of thousands have learned that protest and marches don't do it. Revolutionary violence is the only way," said the future Mrs. Ayers in 1970. On the other hand, there were the masses of students who merely marched and flashed the peace sign. Socially, they were nowhere. That was the shock of the Kent State massacre--the veteran martyrs of Harvard's University Hall and Columbia's Low Library wondered that such a terrible and authentic event could have taken place at a far-away state school to people of whom we knew nothing.

Now mainstream Chicago regards Ayers as rehabilitated--but why?

Schulman's piece appears to have written before a certain Ohio tradesman became a household name. But the blowback caused by Joe's walk-on part in the cold civil war reminds us that it is very much a class war--and specifically, the left's attempts to eviscerate the middle and working classes.

Related: Jennifer Rubin writes, "Suddenly, the race card doesn't look as important as the class warfare card."

Dave Burge of Iowahawk has a rare non-satiric post in which he writes:

We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.

Politicians -- Sarah Palin, Bill Clinton, et al. -- obviously have to put up with some rude, nasty shit, but it's right there in the jobs description. Joe the Plumber is different. He was a guy tossing a football with his kid in the front yard of his $125,000 house when a politician picked him out as a prop for a 30 second newsbite for the cable news cameras. Joe simply had the temerity to speak truth (or, if you prefer, an uninformed opinion) to power, for which the politico-media axis apparently determined that he must be humiliated, harassed, smashed, destroyed. The viciousness and glee with which they set about the task ought to concern anyone who still cares about citizen participation, and freedom of speech, and all that old crap they taught in Civics class before politics turned into Narrative Deathrace 3000, and Web 2.0 turned into Berlin 1932.0.

Godwin's Law! you say? if the jackboot fits, wear it.

Or as Jim Treacher notes:

The whole "He's not a licensed plumber!" non sequitur is really fantastic. So, if you happen to be standing in front of Obama when he publicly reveals his socialism, what does the media do? Demands to see your papers. That's just delicious, is what that is.

Of course, at Matt Drudge once said:

"Roger Ailes told me early on, you don't need a license to report. You need a license to do hair".

Or be a plumber. But which job gets your hands dirtier?

(Meanwhile, Jim Lindgren spots a tax issue that doesn't involve Joe the Plumber, but an actual presidential candidate. Which is why the issue will never be raised by the media.)

Noel Sheppard writes:

Somehow I get the feeling we're going to be hearing much more from Joe...how 'bout you?

Post facto exit question: is Joe the Plumber this election's October surprise? Could he single-handedly change this entire campaign?

Think about it: regular guy wanting to advance himself without the shackles of a socialist tax plan.

Could this be a game-changer?

Not in the slightest.

As Glenn Reynolds writes, the legacy media have done "more investigations into Joe the Plumber in 24 hours than they've done on Barack Obama in two years." The media have internalized Joseph Conrad's famous aphorism from The Heart of Darkness and they're in the process of completely destroying Joe the Plumber, as an object lesson for anyone else who dares Think Different, just as they've already successfully done with Sarah Palin, just as they did 20 years ago with Dan Quayle. Occasionally, an apostate such as Ronald Reagan, Clarance Thomas, Rush Limbaugh or George W. Bush is able to survive such exposure and go on to powerful accomplishments, which is all the more reason why the media must destroy the Other, the Alien, before his message becomes too powerful.

Update: And just like that, a meme is born! Ed Morrissey (with a memetic assist from Jim Treacher) goes inside "The Tanning Bed Media."

As we've discussed numerous times around here, when states go from red, or even purple, to hard core blue--residents and businesses vote with their feet. (Even in the big blue states overseas.)

Ed Morrissey's latest post explores similar ground--and it focuses on a state (New Jersey) whose fiscal and gubernatorial woes were the subject of one of our very first podcasts.

Update: This comment underneath Ed's post crystallizes the opinions I've heard from several of my friends and family still in New Jersey.

Guest blogging for Hugh Hewitt, Bill Dyer notes the passing of Betsy Newmark's father at age 93:

I extend my condolences to Betsy Newmark, the fine blogger who's long been on both Hugh's and my blogrolls as the writer of Betsy's Page, on the loss of her father, George Washington Bamberger, last night at age 93. Like my own, Betsy's dad was a veteran, a volunteer who'd served in the Pacific theater in WWII. And as also was true in my family, she only heard some of her father's war stories when he told them to his grandchildren. But he no doubt reveled quietly and long in the calmer life of a husband, father and grandfather, and businessman. We all mourn with her the passage of yet another unpretentious American hero of our Greatest Generation, and we commend her father and his entire family for his life lived well.

Indeed.

In Forbes, Peter Robinson writes:

This is a story about using American politics to promote the highest of ideals and to realize the worthiest of accomplishments. You may be forgiven your skepticism. But keep reading.

Indeed--it's a terrific profile of War Connerly, who notes:

Politicians have seldom supported him. "When it comes to race," Connerly says, "political correctness is profound. Even conservative Republicans are afraid to take a stand." Organizations from chambers of commerce to unions to the League of Women Voters have fought him, instigating legal challenges that have so far thwarted his efforts to put initiatives on the ballot in Florida and Oklahoma. "In issues involving race," Connerly explains, "the establishment is always at odds with the people." But Connerly has succeeded in putting bans on racial preferences on the ballot in Washington, Michigan, Colorado and Nebraska. The people of Washington enacted a constitutional amendment banning racial preferences in 1997. The people of Michigan did so in 2006. The people of Colorado and Nebraska will make their decision on Nov. 4.

Will the measures in Colorado and Nebraska win? Comfortably, Connerly insists. Whenever bans on racial preferences are permitted to go before the voters, they win.

In a related item, Roger L. Simon explores "Dangerous times ahead: racism in the Blogosphere."

The great conservative filmmaker and film blogger "Dirty Harry" reviews David Zucker's new movie on his blog. And tune in here for a recent edition of PJM Political featuring audio interviews from Glenn Reynolds, Roger L. Simon and myself with stars Jon Voight and Robert Davi, and screenwriter/executive producer Myrna Sokoloff recorded during the film's premiere at the GOP convention in Minneapolis.

As Glenn writes, "If An American Carol does well this weekend, it'll make it a lot easier for the next film of its type to be made." As someone who's enjoys--on one level or another--the starboard side of the Blogosphere, you can help ensure the film's success; check here for times and theaters near you.

Update: Much more on the film from Kathy Shaidle, at Examiner.com.

"Dear Editor," Sarah Palin wrote in 2002. "San Francisco judges forbidding our Pledge of Allegiance? They will take the phrase 'under God' away from me when my cold, dead lips can no longer utter those words."

I just recorded a brief segment for PJTV's September 11th show. I had tons of notes prepared, since I didn't know how long I'd be on, so I'm reprinting some of them here in the form of a blog post on 9/11's impact on the culture war:

9/11 changed the culture quite remarkably, but it did so in ways that may not have been expected. Back in 2004, the great Charles Krauthammer wrote a piece in which he referred to "the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release":

The loathing goes far beyond the politicians. Liberals as a body have gone quite around the twist. I count one all-star rock tour, three movies, four current theatrical productions and five best sellers (a full one-third of the New York Times list) variously devoted to ridiculing, denigrating, attacking and devaluing this president, this presidency and all who might, God knows why, support it.

How to explain? With apologies to Dr. Freud, I propose the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release.

The hostility, resentment, envy and disdain, all superheated in Florida, were not permitted their natural discharge. Came 9/11 and a lid was forced down. How can you seek revenge for a stolen election by a nitwit usurper when all of a sudden we are at war and the people, bless them, are rallying around the flag and hailing the commander in chief? With Bush riding high in the polls, with flags flying from pickup trucks (many of the flags, according to Howard Dean, Confederate), the president was untouchable.

The Democrats fell unnaturally silent. For two long, agonizing years, they had to stifle and suppress. It was the most serious case of repression since Freud's Anna O. went limp. The forced deference nearly killed them. And then, providentially, they were saved. The clouds parted and bad news rained down like manna: WMDs, Abu Ghraib, Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Joe Wilson and, most important, continued fighting in Iraq.

Stripped of his halo, the president's ratings went down. The spell was broken. He was finally once again human and vulnerable. With immense relief, the critics let loose.

The result has been volcanic. The subject of one prominent new novel is whether George W. Bush should be assassinated. This is all quite unhinged. Good God. What if Bush is re-elected? If they lose to him again, Democrats will need more than just consolation. They'll need therapy.

The pressure was released during the 2004 election cycle, but when John Kerry lost, it mutated further into a virulent strain that was only fully released after Katrina. As Mickey Kaus very presciently noted, Hurricane Katrina gave the media a way to talk about Iraq without talking about Iraq:

I'm not saying Bush and the Feds don't clearly deserve major grief for not getting today's National Guard aid convoy into downtown New Orleans a couple of days earlier. Some people are probably dead as a result. But the commentators on Washington Week in Review seemed a little too happy when proclaiming this a "debacle" that will damage Bush politically for a long, long time. And I don't think they were happy just because Bush has suffered a blow. I think it's because the hurricane and its New Orleans aftermath at least seemed to solve a big problem for anti-Bush commentators and politicians. Previously, they couldn't grouse about the Iraq War without seeming defeatist (and anti-liberationist and maybe even selfishly isolationist). Even the Clintons never figured a way out of that trap. But nature has succeded where they failed; it has opened up a way out, at least temporarily. Now Bush opponents can argue, in some cases quite accurately, that without the Iraq deployment aid would have gotten to New Orleans faster. And 'if we can [tk] in Iraq, why can't we [tk] in our own South?' They aren't being selfish. They are just asserting priorities! In short, Katrina gives them a way to talk about Iraq without talking about Iraq. No wonder Gwen Ifill smiles the "inner smile."

In a very real sense, 9/11 also created the Blogosphere and the idea of partisan journalism--and I don't mean that in any sort of pejorative sense--which began with Matt Drudge and Fox News in the mid 1990s, and Rush Limbaugh's national radio show nearly a decade earlier, and began to become an increasingly accepted element outside of the conservative media.

In 2004, the New York Times admitted what was obvious to all concerned--that it was a liberal publication; and a year prior, Eason Jordan, then of CNN, admitted that his network had shilled for Saddam Hussein. The pressure cooker that Krauthammer refers to led directly to some incredibly sloppy thinking, such as Dan Rather's MemoGate at CBS, and the rise of MSNBC, an openly hyper-partisan division of an otherwise staid establishment liberal news operation like NBC. This morning, MSNBC nobly ran the videotapes of The Today Showfrom 9/11, when all was chaos and uncertainty except for the two towers and the Pentagon being hit. But yesterday, as Kathryn Jean Lopez noted, Keith Olbermann of MSNBC said:

The television networks were told that the Convention would pause, early in the evening, when children could still be watching, for a 9/11 Tribute, and they were encouraged to broadcast it.

What we got was not a tribute to the dead of 9/11, nor even a tribute to the responders, or the singularity of purpose we all felt. The Republicans gave us sociological pornography, a virtual snuff film.

In addition to hyper-partisanship, 9/11, also fueled (if you'll pardon the carboncentric pun) the rise of environmentalism in the media. Julia Gorin, whom I've interviewed for PJM Political on XM, had a piece in the Christian Science Monitor in 2006 in which she talked about environmentalism as a sort of Freudian displacement for the War On Terror:

Tough language is borrowed from the war on terror and applied to the war on weather. "I really consider this a national security issue," says celebrity activist and "An Inconvenient Truth" producer Laurie David. "Truth" star Al Gore calls global warming a "planetary emergency." Bill Clinton's first worry is climate change: "It's the only thing that I believe has the power to fundamentally end the march of civilization as we know it."

Freud called it displacement. People fixate on the environment when they can't deal with real threats. Combating the climate gives nonhawks a chance to look tough. They can flex their muscle for Mother Nature, take a preemptive strike at an SUV. Forget the Patriot Act, it's Kyoto that'll save you.

That's why in 2004 we got "The Day After Tomorrow" - so we could worry about junk science that may or may not kill us in 1,000 years instead of the people who really are trying to kill us the day after tomorrow.

While the hawks among us worry about preventing the Armageddon that's coming, our modern-day hippies just want to make sure the planet is pristine when it does. In fact, the more menacing terrorism becomes, the more some people seem to worry about the weather. Scared and unsure how to fight terrorists, they confront "climate change," which only requires spending trillions of other people's dollars on something that may not need fixing or may not be fixable. No wonder some of these people chain themselves to trees - they think money grows on them.
Why are these people so worried about the environment, anyway? It's not like they're living on this planet. Speaking of which, scientists have recently discovered global warming on Mars. See that? Martians need to stop driving those darn SUVs!

Notice that the undercurrent in all the doomsday rhetoric is America as chief culprit in the axis of enviro-evil (just as it is in all the world's turmoil). Having found a warm and fuzzy cause to snuggle up against in this big, bad, scary world, the enviros pick a fight with the one guy they're not scared of: America.

Such displacement also helps to explain the conspiracy theories and "trutherism." For a very long time, ABC had no problem running someone like Rosie O'Donnell as part of their daytime programming, who in the course of five years went from publicly claiming support for President Bush in the early stages of 9/11 to literally telling ABC viewers not to trust what they had just heard on Good Morning America and other news shows.

The events of the morning of September 11, 2001 have changed the culture in ways that few could anticipate that morning, and will continue to do so, no matter who wins in November.

Last October, there was an interesting, if sadly brief, discussion in the Blogosphere which attempted to define the culture war, the Red/Blue, Right/Left, conservative/Bobos Divide as a "Cold Civil War." Over at PJ HQ, Phyllis Chesler ponders if the coming election will cause its temperature to increase in a rather dramatic fashion.

Scott Johnson writes:

Governor Palin's political and media enemies have not yet drawn blood. Thinking to condemn her, for example, the director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance told the Associated Press: "Her philosophy from our perspective is cut, kill, dig and drill." Reasonable people might construe that as high praise. Indeed, it sounds like a winning slogan, if not a platform.

If this quote had run a week earlier, the vendors at the Republican convention would have sold 27,325 T-shirts with that slogan printed on it.

Related: Kevin Williamson explores the the flip-side of the T-shirt wars with an exploration of liberal fashionism.

"I love Ronald Reagan, but after Sarah Palin's speech I miss him a little less. He's watching. He's okay with that."

--John Nolte

Matthew Sheffield writes, "About a year into MSNBC's strategy of refashioning itself into the network for Bush haters, some consequences are starting to emerge for the cable channel and its corporate parent NBC":

Internally, the lurch to the left has resulted in numerous outbreaks of hostility as the remains of the old guard fight to protect themselves and the token conservatives find themselves increasingly marginalized.

Some external consequences are emerging a well now. While apolitical liberals still haven't kicked their CNN habit (and likely won't), MSNBC's corporate leftism has antagonized conservatives. It showed last night here in St. Paul as conventioneers held up signs denouncing the network and began a derisive chant of "NBC! NBC!" when Alaska governor Sarah Palin took a pronounced swipe at the media in her vice presidential nominating speech.

"I've learned quickly, these past few days, that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone," Palin said in one of her biggest applause lines of the night.

Immediately thereafter, the audience started booing loudly and clapping. Within a second or so, various crowd members starting chanting out "NBC! NBC! NBC!" This quickly spread throughout the packed arena. Many conventioneers followed it up by pointing toward the MSNBC temporary studio inside the Xcel Energy Center, conveniently positioned next to the Arab television network Aljazeera by someone at the RNC.

After waiting for the boos to die down, Palin paused and delivered a retort:

"But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people."

Amusingly enough, MSNBC's biggest left-wingers Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews actually had discussed these lines in Palin's speech just hours before.

"Who those reporters and commentators might be she does not say, at least not in the excerpt. It will be interesting to see if they're named in that speech," Olbermann remarked to Matthews in highly defensive conversation between the two, NBC's Tom Brokaw, and Norah O'Donnell.

"There's no one I can think of, off the top of my head, who did what she is apparently complaining of tonight, but she will be doing the complaining herself."

Evidently the audience was a little smarter on that account.

Just click over and NBC the accompanying video.

Elsewhere in the old media war against conservatives, John McCain canceled an interview with Larry King after a drive-by attack dog interrogation from CNN's Campbell Brown of his strategist Tucker Bounds with the goal of dismissing Palin's gubernatorial experience.

Dick Heller gets his DC gun permit.

Veteran new media videographer Andrew Marcus and Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft have teamed up in order to form a more perfect blog titled Founding Bloggers. (Note proto-very early analog-era citizen journalists displayed on masthead.)

They'll be going on the road to both conventions, so stop by daily!

Details on the BrothersJudd Blog.

Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters writes:

The screencap captures it nicely: Heather Wilson, smiling. Robert Wexler, mouth agape. On this afternoon's Hardball, the feisty, brilliant [bio: high honors Air Force Academy grad, Rhodes Scholar] GOP representative from New Mexico took on the duo of the combative congressman from Florida and host Chris Matthews, and walked away a winner. The subject was Obama's Berlin speech, and by extension his presidential qualifications.

You'll find excerpts below, but they don't do begin to do justice to Wilson's brio and the coolness under verbal fire she displayed. That's why I'd strongly encourage readers to view the video. Wilson kicked off her tour de force in commenting on a clip of Obama in his Berlin speech proclaiming that various walls, including one between American and Europe, "cannot stand" and must be torn down.

The video may take a few minutes to download, as it's Windows Media instead of Flash; but don't miss it--it's well worth your time.

Tony Snow, Fox News anchor, frequent Rush Limbaugh guest host, and of course, White House Press Secretary, has passed away at age 53.

By all accounts a remarkably fair and optimistic man; a sunny conservative in the mold of--well, isn't it obvious?--he was much beloved by fellow conservatives and many--but not all--on the opposite of the aisle in the legacy media.

Ed Morrissey has some thoughts here. And the Corner has loads of posts on Snow--just keep scrolling.

Snow's death, comes so quickly after the death of Tim Russert; both men passed at away at compartively young ages, in their mid-50s. News reports and op-eds in the coming days will allow for very interesting comparisons of how the legacy media treats one of their own, versus someone who questioned the conventional wisdom of an industry which pays lip service to multiculturalism and diversity, and yet reflexively leans, and hires, almost exclusively to the left. AP has already gotten their digs in; others are sure to follow.

Happy Fourth of July!

And remember, let's be careful out there--particularly when shopping for the appropriate seasonal pyrotechnic devices:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Or, maybe they just thought Faye Dunaway looked smokin' hot brandishing a .38 snubnose in her cashmere sweater and beret.

Making the rounds to promote his new book Nixonland, Rick Perlstein tells Reason:

reason: You like to mix cultural history with political history. Bonnie and Clyde is one of the central texts in the book.

Perlstein: My theory is that Bonnie and Clyde was the most important text of the New Left, much more important than anything written by Paul Goodman or C. Wright Mills or Regis Debray. It made an argument about vitality and virtue vs. staidness and morality that was completely new, that resonated with young people in a way that made no sense to old people. Just the idea that the outlaws were the good guys and the bourgeois householders were the bad guys—you cannot underestimate how strange and fresh that was.

The 1967 release of the movie certainly coincides with the period where traditional liberalism and the far left began to merge; not coincidentally, this was also the period where traditional morality began to break down. The next year would be 1968, a year the left is alternately trying to recreate, or is permanently trapped in, or both. Mick Jagger's lyrics to the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" called the philosophy of the day "heads is tails", and whereas liberals once worshiped science and progress, they soon found themselves admiring the Black Panthers and William Ayers' Weatherman group, and tossing both modernism and hope for the future under the bus.

1968 was also the year that, only a few months before his death at the hands of a young radical, Bobby Kennedy told a college audience:

"I am also glad to come to the home state of another great Kansan, who wrote, 'If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all their youthful vision and vigor then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better the world for tomorrow.'"

Orrin Judd reviews Perlstein's book here, and makes a great observation, which dovetails perfectly into Perlstein's Bonnie & Clyde reference and the breakdown of the mid-1960s in general:

I'm only in the early stages of reading Friend Perlstein's book but am struck by a potentially fatal flaw in his thesis that's implied in the review above. With his expected honesty, Mr. Perlstein initially identifies Nixonland as the sort of Red America that the Adlai Stevenson eggheads found themselves stuck in ad unable to comprehend in the 50s. That this part of the metaphor endures--is indeed a seemingly innate part of the culture--is reflected not just in his own essays about contemporary politics but in books by his friends and fellow Brights, like Thomas Frank's unintentionally hilarious, What's the Matter with Kansas.

On the other hand, the sort of violent divisiveness that he associates with Nixonland rather conspicuously developed at the exact time that Richard Nixon was not a central part of the national political scene. Inner-city riots, assassinations, student demonstrations, radical Left terrorism--all of these social plagues arose during the Johnson/Great Society years, the pinnacle of the Left's ascendancy. Even the initial violent reactions were led by Democrats--like LBJ sending federal troops into Detroit or Mayor Daley breaking up protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention. If anything, as Mr. Douthat suggests above, the return of Richard Nixon --a liberal Republican--in 1968 might be seen as an attempt by American voters to restore the social calm and consensus of earlier eras. Richard Nixon, at least in his final incarnation, should probably be considered an effect of the social breakdown of the Liberal 60s, rather than a cause of anything much.

As president, Nixon was no conservative, particularly in his domestic governance, which much more of an extension of LBJ than any sort of warm up act for the Gipper. (And Nixon's poor handling of the economy directly paved the way for the disastrous Carter years, which spawned the economic trainwreck that Reagan and Paul Volker would miraculously right.) But to the America of 1968 that didn't think that Bonnie & Clyde "were the good guys and the bourgeois householders were the bad guys", no wonder both Nixon's association with the relative calm of the Eisenhower years (at least in comparison with what was to come afterwards), and his promise of law and order sounded remarkably appealing. In that sense, perhaps Nixon's entirely unplanned timeout from the national scene during the mid-1960s wound up serving him remarkably well.

(Perlstein quote found appropriately enough here.)

As the Mirror Universe equivalent to the history of the American left that Kathy Shaidle reviewed today, Orrin Judd has an lengthy post with multiple reviews of leftwing author Rick Pearlstein's new book on Richard Nixon, including George Will's take:

Perlstein repeatedly explains Nixon’s or other people’s behavior as arising from an Orthogonian resentment of Franklins, including establishment figures as different as Alger Hiss and Nelson Rockefeller. Nixon “co-opted the liberals’ populism, channeling it into a white middle-class rage at the sophisticates, the well-born, the ‘best circles.’” By stressing the importance of Nixon’s character in shaping events, and the centrality of resentments in shaping Nixon’s character, Perlstein treads a dead-end path blazed by Hofstadter, who seemed not to understand that condescension is not an argument. Postulating a link between “status anxiety” and a “paranoid style” in American politics — especially conservative politics — Hofstadter dismissed the conservative movement’s positions as mere attitudes that did not merit refutation. Perlstein, too, gives these ideas short shrift.

As the pollster Samuel Lubell had already noted before the 1952 election, “the inner dynamics of the Roosevelt coalition have shifted from those of getting to those of keeping.” Perlstein keenly sees that some liberals “developed a distaste” for the social elements they had championed, now that those elements were “less reliably downtrodden” and less content to be passively led by liberal elites.

The masses bought television sets and enjoyed what they watched. But Newton Minow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (and formerly Adlai Stevenson’s administrative assistant) declared television a “vast wasteland,” thereby implicitly scolding viewers who enjoyed it. When New York was becoming a lawless dystopia, with crime, drugs and homelessness spoiling public spaces, August Heckscher, the patrician commissioner of parks under Mayor John Lindsay, sniffily declared that people clamoring for law and order were “scared by the abundance of life.”

A Newsweek cover story on Louise Day Hicks, who led opposition to forced busing of school children in Boston, described her supporters as “a comic-strip gallery of tipplers and brawlers and their tinseled overdressed dolls ... the men queued up to give Louise their best, unscrewing cigar butts from their chins to buss her noisily on the cheek, or pumping her arm as if it were a jack handle under a truck.”

Perlstein deftly deploys such judgments to illustrate what the resentful resented. Unfortunately, he seems to catch the ’60s disease of rhetorical excess.

Orrin--who knows a thing or two about book reviews himself--also makes a great observation:

I'm only in the early stages of reading Friend Perlstein's book but am struck by a potentially fatal flaw in his thesis that's implied in the review above. With his expected honesty, Mr. Perlstein initially identifies Nixonland as the sort of Red America that the Adlai Stevenson eggheads found themselves stuck in ad unable to comprehend in the 50s. That this part of the metaphor endures--is indeed a seemingly innate part of the culture--is reflected not just in his own essays about contemporary politics but in books by his friends and fellow Brights, like Thomas Frank's unintentionally hilarious, What's the Matter with Kansas.

On the other hand, the sort of violent divisiveness that he associates with Nixonland rather conspicuously developed at the exact time that Richard Nixon was not a central part of the national political scene. Inner-city riots, assassinations, student demonstrations, radical Left terrorism--all of these social plagues arose during the Johnson/Great Society years, the pinnacle of the Left's ascendancy. Even the initial violent reactions were led by Democrats--like LBJ sending federal troops into Detroit or Mayor Daley breaking up protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention. If anything, as Mr. Douthat suggests above, the return of Richard Nixon --a liberal Republican--in 1968 might be seen as an attempt by American voters to restore the social calm and consensus of earlier eras. Richard Nixon, at least in his final incarnation, should probably be considered an effect of the social breakdown of the Liberal 60s, rather than a cause of anything much. [That's consistent with this Time article from January of 1970--Ed]

Of course, this perspective does tend to undermine the thesis that the consensus was never retrieved, but consider too that Nixon was followed by a Democrat who ran to the Right of where he and Gerald Ford had governed. The only other Democrat elected president since 1964 was likewise an Evangelical Southern governor. And, while Carter and Clinton only won very narrowly, several Republicans since have run up pretty big margins. The problem would seem to be a reluctance on the part of Mr. Perlstein and company to accept that the consensus has been restored but has shifted back to where it was pre-Depression, fairly far to the Right side of moderate. Thus, even when Democrats won back Congress in the 2006 midterm they've ended up governing little differently than Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay did.

It is instructive also to look at where the most divisive point in our politics is today: the racial/tribal divide between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This is an entirely predictable function of the identity politics that still characterizes much of the Left, although Mr. Obama tried desperately to run as a cipher, lest voters discover his pastor and his politics and, inevitably, reject him as just another Northern liberal too far out of the mainstream to elect president.

Orrin writes that he'll be posting a more detailed review soon.

In the Atlantic, Ross Douthat writes, "the GOP is now a working-class party":

There are two important points to be made about these numbers, and the deeper reality they reflect. The first, which you hear around these parts a lot, is that the GOP is now a working-class party (with class defined by education and culture more than income, just to be clear; there are plenty of skilled craftsmen who make more money than teachers and journalists and academics), and that it needs to start acting like one if it's going to rebuild its shattered majority.

If the first half of that equation sounds familiar, it should: it's a theme that we wrote about four years ago when the GOP, and its incumbent president were riding high. After the midterms--and with more trouble potentially on the way--Douthat adds:

The second is that the GOP can't only be a working-class party; just as the famous Judis-Texeira emerging Democratic majority is built around the mass upper class and the poor but depends on winning some working-class votes to put it over the top, so any future "Party of Sam's Club" Republican majority is going to need to win back at least some of the mass-upper-class votes that the party has hemorrhaged during the Bush years.

Hopefully it won't take another Carter-esque extended economic malaise this time.

Mark Steyn notes that, pace Obama, guns and God, and proper respect for both, are what make Red State America a much healthier--and sustainable--place than the Biggest Blue State of 'em all: Europe. Steyn writes, "In the other G7 developed nations, nobody clings to God’n’guns. The guns got taken away, and the Europeans gave up on churchgoing once they embraced Big Government as the new religion":

I think a healthy society needs both God and guns: it benefits from a belief in some kind of higher purpose to life on earth, and it requires a self-reliant citizenry. If you lack either of those twin props, you wind up with today’s Europe — a present-tense Eutopia mired in fatalism. A while back, I was struck by the words of Oscar van den Boogaard, a Dutch gay humanist (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool). Reflecting on the Continent’s accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved, but what could he do? “I am not a warrior, but who is?” he shrugged. “I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. If you don’t understand that there are times when you’ll have to fight for it, you won’t enjoy it for long. That’s what a lot of Keith Reade’s laundry list — “gun-totin’,” “military-lovin’” — boils down to. As for “gay-loathin,’” it’s Oscar van den Boogaard’s famously tolerant Amsterdam where gay-bashing is resurgent: the editor of the American gay paper the Washington Blade got beaten up in the streets on his last visit to the Netherlands.

God and guns. Maybe one day a viable society will find a magic cure-all that can do without both, but Big Government isn’t it. And even complacent liberal Democrats ought to be able to cast an eye across the ocean and see that. But then he did give the speech in San Francisco, a city demographically declining at a rate that qualifies it for EU membership. When it comes to parochial simpletons, you don’t need to go to Kansas.

Will the last person out of San Francisco please turn off the compact fluorescent light bulbs?

This is fabulous:

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

Ann Althouse looks back to Time magazine's January 5th, 1970 issue, which declared "The Middle Americans" as Time's Men and Women of the Year:

Their car windows were plastered with American-flag decals, their ideological totems. In the bumper-sticker dialogue of the freeways, they answered Make Love Not War with Honor America or Spiro is My Hero. They sent Richard Nixon to the White House and two teams of astronauts to the moon. They were both exalted and afraid. The mysteries of space were nothing, after all, compared with the menacing confusions of their own society.

The American dream that they were living was no longer the dream as advertised. They feared that they were beginning to lose their grip on the country. Others seemed to be taking over — the liberals, the radicals, the defiant young, a communications industry that they often believed was lying to them. The Saturday Evening Post folded, but the older world of Norman Rockwell icons was long gone anyway. No one celebrated them: intellectuals dismissed their lore as banality. Pornography, dissent and drugs seemed to wash over them in waves, bearing some of their children away.

But in 1969 they began to assert themselves. They were 'discovered' first by politicians and the press, and then they started to discover themselves. In the Administration's voices — especially in the Vice President's and the Attorney General's — in the achievements and the character of the astronauts, in a murmurous and pervasive discontent, they sought to reclaim their culture. It was their interpretation of patriotism that brought Richard Nixon the time to pursue a gradual withdrawal from the war. By their silent but newly felt presence, they influenced the mood of government and the course of legislation, and this began to shape the course of the nation and the nation's course in the world. The Men and Women of the Year were the Middle Americans.

Ann writes, "Read the whole, awesome essay — and marvel that we've been talking about these things for the last 40 years":

Barack Obama's recent comment about the bitterness of left-behind small-towners may seem like the latest line of dialogue in a long, long conversation.

I'm not sure what's to marvel about--Obama's rhetoric in his less guarded moments is merely another byproduct of one of the more curious aspects of what Time, almost four decades ago, called "the liberals, the radicals, the defiant young" (who are not so defiant now, merely trapped in a leftover haze of conformity): their absolute inability to advance their mindset beyond the first days of Starting From Zero.

Arlen Specter talks tough to Senate Democrats.

This just in from the Economist (via the Judd Brothers): "Why conservatives are happier than liberals: a review of Gross National Happiness by Arthur Brooks":

In 2004 Americans who called themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” were nearly twice as likely to tell pollsters they were “very happy” as those who considered themselves “liberal” or “very liberal” (44% versus 25%). One might think this was because liberals were made wretched by George Bush. But the data show that American conservatives have been consistently happier than liberals for at least 35 years.

This is not because they are richer; they are not. Mr Brooks thinks three factors are important. Conservatives are twice as likely as liberals to be married and twice as likely to attend church every week. Married, religious people are more likely than secular singles to be happy. They are also more likely to have children, which makes Mr Brooks confident that the next generation will be at least as happy as the current one.

When religious and political differences are combined, the results are striking. Secular liberals are as likely to say they are “not too happy” as to say they are very happy (22% to 22%). Religious conservatives are ten times more likely to report being very happy than not too happy (50% to 5%). Religious liberals are about as happy as secular conservatives.

Why should this be so? Mr Brooks proposes that whatever their respective merits, the conservative world view is more conducive to happiness than the liberal one (in the American sense of both words). American conservatives tend to believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed. This makes them more optimistic than liberals, more likely to feel in control of their lives and therefore happier. American liberals, at their most pessimistic, stress the injustice of the economic system, the crushing impersonal forces that keep the little guy down and what David Mamet, a playwright, recently summed up as the belief that “everything is always wrong”.

Say it with me now, all together: I need a study to tell me this?

So as he flies the blue ladies of the Emperor's Club into the sunset, we say "aloha, 5 O'clock Elliot" and return to our duties. Let me remind you the Weblog is open 24 hours for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Update: With 3,000 hours a year of annual fees, Mrs. Spitzer can certainly churn 'em and burn 'em with the best of them.

William F. Buckley passed away last week, and since I was on my cruise to Mexico, I didn't have a chance to blog about the death of the man who invented modern conservatism, and for whose Website I briefly contributed articles in the summer and fall of 2001 before taking up residence in the then-nascent Blogosphere. For an extended video look at the man, it's tough to beat the above profile by Scott Baker and Liz Stephans of Breitbart.TV.

One of Buckley's most important decisions, as I wrote a few years ago, was "casting out the John Birchers and their anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories." That's the subject of this exceptional article by Jonathan Tobin:

The long-term implications of Buckley's stands were enormous. By remaking the conservative movement in his own image, in which the emphasis was on anti-communism and a libertarian skepticism of government power, he ensured that it, and the Republican Party, which it came to dominate, would be a place where Jew-haters were unwelcome.

That enabled liberal Jews, such as Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, to feel comfortable making common cause with the right on a host of issues as he began his own journey away from the left. Though expectations that the Jews would ditch liberalism en masse were always unrealistic, the birth of an intellectually viable brand of Jewish conservative thought in this country wouldn't have happened had not Buckley first cleaned out the GOP stables.

In terms of practical politics, Buckley's rout of the anti-Semites made it possible for the sort of bipartisan consensus in favor of support for Israel that we now take for granted. He replaced the Buchanan-like world of American conservatism that existed before National Review with something that was not only more successful, but purged of Jew-hatred. If Israel Lobby authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt want to find the real father of the enormous support for Israel in our political system today, they can look no further than the irrepressible Buckley, whose life was a testament to the power of ideas.

His was a political faith that most Jews never embraced, but as we survey a political spectrum in which our enemies are confined to the margins, we should all remember the unique achievements of this American original. May his memory be for a blessing for all who love liberty.

(Via Charles Johnson.)

Over at Pajamas HQ, there's an article by Roger L. Simon, followed by a podcast interview which I produced, and transcript, of Roger's interview with Chris Peden, the councilman in Ron Paul's district who would very much like to replace him as congressman.

Harry Reid: bringing the right and the left together!

Compare and contrast: Over at Pajamas HQ, Aaron Hanscom wonders why college kids are mocking the dead:

More proof that tolerance for murder is becoming a trend comes from the story of two Penn State students who dressed as Virginia Tech shooting victims at a Halloween party. Not even a year has passed since Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 people in the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, yet one of the Penn State students was disgusted that a Virginia Tech student created a Facebook group called “People Against This Costume” in response to the tasteless choice of attire.

This is a group of college students who now think it’s trendy to be upset about their friends being killed…The thing is, everybody’s making a big stink about Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was 32 deaths out of the 26 thousand that happen in America everyday. That’s the problem with college students. They all live in an ivory tower of privilege.

While it’s not politically correct to make a “big stink” about the killings of privileged college students or holiday shoppers at the mall, honoring the murderers of Israelis is PC approved. Consider last year’s big college costume controversy. When Syrian-born engineering student Saad Saadi showed up at a Halloween party dressed as a suicide bomber, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann had no problem posing with him for a photograph. Gutmann later explained that she wasn’t aware of Saadi’s choice of costume even though he’s shown in the photograph with a kaffiyeh around his head, a toy Kalashnikov rifle in his hand and six plastic sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest. Moreover, Saadi explained that Gutman jokingly asked, “How did they let you through security?” when he asked her to take the photograph with him.

One wonders if Gutmann would have also found the humor in the Nazi costume Prince Harry wore to a party in 2005. Harry would have fit in perfectly in the class of one Harvard University professor, who has described his shock upon learning that the majority of his students didn’t believe anybody was to blame for the Holocaust. He referred to his students’ attitude about the past as “no-fault history.”

Meanwhile, James Lileks scans the boards at Fark and is disappointed--if not exactly shocked--by the nihilism he observes:

There’s a great deadness in many people, a grim harsh joy in the conviction we are just “moist robots,” to use the cynic’s phrase, living our lives in a vast factory that arose by miraculous random happenstance. Nothing amuses them more than belief, and oddly enough, nothing angers them more. It’s not even what you believe. It’s the very fact of believing in something other than Flying Spaghetti Monster photoshop contest deadlines or the enhancements on Episode IV.

Simultaneously, the Denver Post profiles Jeanne Assam:

The guard who saved untold lives at New Life Church gives credit to God for giving her cover, and boosting her firepower as she shot a heavily-armed gunman.

“I give credit to God. I say that very humbly,” said Jeanne Assam. “God was with me, the whole time I was behind cover. Based on the firepower he had, compared to mine.”

“It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God,” Assam said.

Assam spoke at a press conference in Colorado Springs this afternoon. She is one of about 12 armed security officers at New Life Church, according to Pastor Brady Boyd.

She responded when Matthew Murray, 24, began targeting church members in Colorado Springs, after a rampage hours earlier in Arvada in which two missionary training center staff members were killed and two were injured. Two teenagers at New Life were fatally shot, and three others injured before Assam could shoot Murray.

There's something that makes Assam's attitude different than those in the other two items linked above. And I just can't put my finger on it.

Don't worry; it'll come to me eventually.

Recorded last year at Duke, as the college staff and local D.A. were attempting a real life mashup of Bonfire of the Vanities and I Am Charlotte Simmons:

(Many more videos to be found at Fora.TV; hat tip: The Brothers Judd.)

Details here.

(Alec Baldwin could not be reached for comment.)

David Freddoso writes, "Hastert Resigns Today":

I am told that former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) is faxing his resignation letter to Gov. Rod Blagojevich this afternoon.

Once the resignation is official, the governor has five days to set the special election within 120 days of the resignation. Because filing deadlines and the like prevent it from being much earlier, the primary will probably be held Feb. 5, the same date as the presidential primary.

Hastert announced Nov. 15 that he would be resigning before the end of the year.

That's the headline on Power Line's post announcing Lott's retirement from the Senate next month. As Allahpundit writes:

Bad on pork, bad on racial issues, bad on amnesty, and hostile to the one media weapon conservatives wield simply because it dared to challenge him. Like Mark Levin, I shall not miss him.

I doubt few Republicans will.

(But his hair--the Important Southern Hair!--was perfect. Maybe he'll hand it over to his successor!)

This sounds like a worthy cause:

Join Move America Forward for the “Honoring Heroes at the Holidays Tour” this November 26th - December 16th as we cross this nation holding pro-troop events in 40 cities across America to honor and salute the men and women of the U.S. military who will be thousands of miles away from their homes and families during this holiday season. (Help us pay for the cost of this effort by making a donation - HERE).

Along the tour we will be collecting more than 100,000 Christmas, Hanukkah and holiday greeting cards for our troops that we will deliver to them in Iraq and Afghanistan. Get your kids involved, and invite local schools to participate! On the outside envelope be sure to write either: “Christmas Card for Our Troops” or “Hanukkah Card for Our Troops” or “Holiday Card for Our Troops.” Hear what legendary TV personality, Ed McMahon, has to say about the effort - CLICK HERE to LISTEN.

Visit their Website, here.

If you've ever heard on me on PJM Political or a podcast, I think I have a pretty typical middle-of-the-road northeast accent, but this poll does a great job of triangulating its origins:

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia   Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard.
The Midland
The South
The Inland North
The Northeast
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I'm not from Philadelphia, but I did grow up just across the Delaware in South Jersey, and I guess it's impossible to fully shake the accent.

(Via Betsy Newmark, who has some thoughts on how accents affect the messages delivered by politicans.)

Bryan Preston compares and contrasts; Glenn Beck loses it.

Rob Port makes a great observation: America's high standard of living changes the definition of "poverty"; he links to a post by Philip Brewer, who writes:

In the 1950s and 1960s, a working man could support a family at a middle-class standard of living with just one income. It might surprise you to learn that one person working full-time, even at minimum wage, can still support a family of four at that standard of living. Nowadays we call that “living in poverty.”

Rob adds:

I’m sure that will surprise a lot of people, but it’s all a trick that has been played upon us by the politicians. After all, it’s sort of hard for them to levy more taxes and expand the size and power of government unless they convince a significant chunk of us that we’re victims and cannot possibly get by without government assistance.

In the 1930s, as Amity Shlaes discusses in The Forgotten Man, it was logical to assume that poverty was partially a result of geography. But these days, as Orrin Judd and Kathy Shaidle each note (and from across the pond, so does Theodore Dalrymple in vast tracts of his back catalog), it's very often much more a function of mindset than anything else.

Jules Crittenden writes, "Columbus Day may be the most unPC holiday of the year. That’s why I intend to celebrate it doing the most unPC thing I can think of. Working for a living."

As I've written before, I belonged briefly to an organization called "the National Writers' Union" in the late 1990s; I got a couple of fun freelance assignments from their online tip sheet. But when one of their newsletters referred to Columbus Day by the angry left PC-euphemism du jour (see: Civil War, Cold), it was time for me to bail. Cult religions are far too exclusive for my tastes.

Update: Related thoughts here.

Outtakes from The Preppie Handbook? The 1981 summer Brooks Brothers catalog? (I know, I know, Papa Bush is a J. Press man. Please! Stop your letters and emails!)

In any case, Robin Givhan's next article writes itself.

Well, it's not that new a podcast--I actually recorded this last December, just as Tech Central Station was transitioning away from podcasting back towards emphasizing traditional print articles. But I didn't want this interview with author Paul Kengor and his book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism to be abandoned entirely, so I'm sharing it here, as a sort of late summer rerun. While there are a few questions near the end of my interview with the author tied to the then-recent mid-term elections, most of the material discussed is pretty timeless stuff: how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War--and spent much of his adult life preparing for the job.

27 minutes, 33 seconds in length, 25.2 MB file size, and no iPod required--virtually any PC with a broadband connection can download and play a podcast. So click here to listen!

Lots of details, and a running update, at Michelle Malkin's.

U.S. News & World Report reports, "Momentum Shifting To GOP In Iraq Debate".

Good. But somebody tell this member of the GOP.

Hot Air has the details.

Like I said when Karl Rove resigned, very few White House staffers in any administration go the distance. Snow says he's resigning for financial reasons; but I can't help but think that not having to wade into ground zero of the legacy media's attack machine every day will also be good for his health. In terms of Snow's endless public good cheer and media savvy professionalism, whoever his successor is will have some big shoes to fill.

Update: "What Will Tony Snow Do Next?", Duane Patterson asks--and suggests one possible scenario--at the newly reconstituted Radioblogger.com.

Some things are universal, whether it's over tapas in Madrid, or filet mignon in Manhattan:

Related thoughts on one of the topics that Henninger discusses, here.

"CBS 2 Exclusive: Denny Hastert Leaving Congress".

In the L.A. Times, Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts on Karl Rove's legacy, which he compares with another famous tactician of history: "Napoleon overstayed history's welcome and was treated harshly for it, first by the Russians and Mother Nature, then by his own people and, ultimately, by the historians":

Partisan victories are nice, but they aren't an end in themselves. Harry Truman, whom Rove and others see as role models for Bush, himself liked to quote Napoleon on his fateful encounter with the Russians: "I beat them in every battle, but it does not get me anywhere."

Compassionate conservatism succeeded as a political tactic by co-opting liberal assumptions in much the same way that Bill Clinton's triangulation stole conservative thunder. Rove was, famously, the architect of this strategy, and as such the left hated him not for his ideas but for his successes, which they now want to emulate at all costs. The net-root "fighting Dems" who care about partisan victory above all else are in many respects the children of Karl Rove.

"What is history," Napoleon asked, "but a fable agreed upon?" After he pens his memoirs from his Texan Elba, maybe we'll find out what fable Rove subscribes to: the one in which he was a champion for conservatism, or the one in which he liberated the GOP from conservatism.

Rove's second term fumbles are yet another reminder why so many cabinet members and White House staffers bail at the end of the first term, a mid-term election, or whenever the getting's good, rather overstaying history's welcome.

Update: Video from the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot added above. And click here for related thoughts from Power Line's Paul Mirengoff, who writes that "Karl Rove was neither a magician nor an evil genius. But he did help his candidates achieve most of what was possible."

Betsy Newmark's prediction for Karl Rove's future seems remarkably sound. Elsewhere, Rand Simberg's look at a Wall Street Journal news article on Rove's resignation brings to mind this moment from the heat of the 2004 election.

Meanwhile, Jim Treacher asks the question of the moment...

Update: More from Jules Crittenden. And Byron York writes:

He wasn’t. Beginning in late 2003, Rove became increasingly distracted by the CIA-leak investigation that would lead to his appearing not one, not two, not three, not four, but five times before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury. Rove was first interviewed by the FBI in October 2003, first appeared before the grand jury in February 2004, and appeared for a fifth and final time in April 2006. He would have to wait until June 2006 before Fitzgerald informed him that he would not be indicted.

“Nobody on the inside would ever admit it on the record, and Karl would never admit it,” says one well-connected observer, “but when the full force of the U.S. government is bearing down on you and trying to put you in jail, trying to ruin you, and you know in your heart that you have done nothing wrong, and it drags on and on and on, and the politicians and prosecutors are coming after you — it can’t help but drain you.”

It did. In 2005 and 2006, by several accounts, Rove spent a significant amount of time accommodating the demands of the leak investigation. And any time he spent doing that was time that he did not spend looking after the needs of the White House. “Everybody in Washington who knew Karl and knew how the White House worked knew that when he was under that cloud, things started to go a little awry,” the observer says. “He had to spend a lot of time dealing with it.”

Read the whole thing, as they say in the halls of Coruscant.

As Ronald Reagan liked to say, those are the scariest words in the English language. Thomas Sowell writes that Bob Novak would agree:

Parents who want to counteract politically correct commencement speeches — often after four years of politically correct indoctrination on campus — might include among the things they give their graduate a new book titled The Prince of Darkness by columnist Robert Novak.

This book gives Novak’s eyewitness accounts of the numerous Washington politicians and bureaucrats he has dealt with as a journalist for more than half a century.

There is no way you can come away from this book thinking that there is something nobler about “public service,” as it actually exists, rather than the pretty picture painted by those who want to puff themselves up as members of a high-toned profession.

Even those of us who never had any grand illusions about politicians can come away from this book shedding any remaining illusions we might have had about some of our political heroes in both parties.

Novak covers not only what they said and did in public but also what they said and did in private — and why. He turns over a lot of rocks and shows what has been crawling underneath.

Novak became a Washington journalist back in the days of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. But neither they nor the political leaders of today escape his unsentimental scrutiny.

Most of these big political figures turn out to be very petty, self-centered, spiteful, shallow, deceitful, and incompetent. Novak spells it out in eyewitness detail from behind the scenes.

Nor does he let the media off the hook, including himself. Novak notes how often his own judgments and predictions proved to be wide of the mark, and how his drinking and other shortcomings led to bad results for himself and those around him.

This is history as it happened, without spin or an agenda.

As Sowell writes, you can get "a lot of enlightenment from a prince of darkness."

"The minority party has decided we have to get to 60 votes on almost everything we vote on of substance," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "That's not the way this place is supposed to work."

Gee, and that's so unlike the previous five years, or even during the brief Jeffords-era when Tom Daschle was in charge.

David Frum writes that "The decision by Democratic senators to quash the so-called John Doe amendment is the first truly serious error made by the new majority":

The Democrats' decision to kill the amendment in a secretive way makes clear that they understand full well the danger of their vote. Andy McCarthy explains well over at the Corner just how outrageous this vote will sound to a typical voter:

What possible good reason is there to silence people who want to tell the police they saw suspicious behavior? Under circumstances where we are under threat from covert terror networks which secretly embed themselves in our society to prepare and carry out WMD attacks? Planet earth to the Democrats: To execute such attacks, terrorists have to act suspiciously at some point. There are only a few thousand federal agents in the country. There are many more local police, but even they are relatively sparse in a country of 300 million. If we are going to stop the people trying to kill us, we need ordinary citizens on their toes. Again, this is just common sense.

But it seems that the Democratic left cannot tolerate such sense. Forced to choose between multicultural orthodoxy or national security, the Democratic left has chosen multicultural orthodoxy. Fine. Let's ram the point home. Bring this measure to a vote again and again and again. Stamp it into the national consciousness. This is midnight basketball, Dukakis in the tank, and Willie Horton all rolled into one.

Over to you, Mitch!

Update: More from Betsy Newmark.

Fresh off his interview with Capt. Ed on Blog Talk Radio, Hugh Hewitt's "Generalissimo" Duane Patterson writes:

A remarkable thing happened in the United States Senate earlier this evening, and it occurred over a rather unremarkable piece of legislation that was being debated. Conservatives, frustrated at the lack of a genuine leader of their party, may have finally found one in Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.

Read the whole thing.

William Kristal explains why history will be kind to President Bush.

Right--as soon as someone can find a liberal from the New York Times or The Nation who has a favorable word for Richard Nixon, I'll believe this.

Update: Here's an article which has the audacity to claim that President Reagan, a man who, if you believe many in today's media, enjoyed universal bipartisan support in the 1980s, actually had a detractor or two during the MTV decade! Heresy I know, but still, for completeness sake, we're reposting our link to it.

Meanwhile, Power Line has some related thoughts.

National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru, June 27th:

President Bush made solid gains among Hispanic voters. Hispanics gave 21 percent of their votes to Bob Dole in 1996, 35 percent to Bush in 2000, and 39 to him in 2004. That is a much larger swing toward the GOP than we saw in the electorate as a whole, and supporters of the Bush approach to issues of particular concern to Hispanics can legitimately use it to strengthen their case. But they keep claiming that Bush did even better than he did—that he got 44 percent of the Hispanic vote—and it's just not so.

National Review's Mona Charen, yesterday:

In 2004, President Bush received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote.

But hey, what's five or six percent amongst friends?

Jim Geraghty has some thoughts on what it should contain, with a goal towards "90 for 9": that ideally, 90 percent of conservatives should agree with nine of the ten items on the list.

(Via Jim's primary blog.)

In the L.A. Daily News, Bridget Johnson compares and contrasts two very different revolutions:

ON July 4, 1776, the colonies declared independence from Great Britain. Over the next several years, thousands shed blood for the cause of freedom, resulting in the constitutional republic of the United States of America led by our first president, the noble and righteous George Washington.

On April 1, 1979, the shah had gone into exile and the Islamic Republic of Iran was created. Over the next several months, free-thinkers were executed or imprisoned, and American hostages were taken for the cause of theocracy, led by the bloodthirsty Ayatollah Khomeini.

One revolution signaled a brilliant dawn for humanity; the other heralded a dark chapter in history.

Read the whole thing.

Scott Johnson of Power Line writes:

President Calvin Coolidge rose to the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1926, with a speech providing a magisterial review of the history and thought underlying the Declaration. His speech on the occasion deserves to be read and studied in its entirety. The following paragraph, however, is particularly relevant to the challenge that confronts us in the ubiquitous variants of progressive dogma that pass themselves off today as the higher wisdom:

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Indeed.

Update: In Commentary, Terry Teachout explores "Our Creed and Our Character", and its expression in American art.

Jonah Goldberg writes that "our wealth is really all in our heads. Literally":

In the United States, for example, less than a fifth of our wealth exists as material stuff like minerals, crops, and factories. In Switzerland, cuckoo clocks, ski chalets, cheese, Rolex watches, timber and every other tangible asset amount to a mere 16 percent of that country’s wealth. The rest is captured by the expertise, culture, laws, and traditions of the Swiss themselves.

These numbers come from Kirk Hamilton, a World Bank environmental economist and lead author of a new study, “Where is the Wealth of Nations?” In a fascinating interview in Reason magazine, Hamilton explains how, when measured properly, “natural capital” (croplands, oil, etc.) and “produced capital” (factories, iPods, roads, etc.) are the smallest slices of the economic pie. What Hamilton calls “intangible capital,” which includes the rule of law, education and the like, is by far the biggest slice. The entire planet’s “natural capital accounts for 5 percent of total wealth, produced capital 18 percent and intangible capital 77 percent.

This makes some intuitive sense. We’d all rather be the man who knows how to fish than the man given a fish. Or think of it this way: The Malthusian thinks only about hardware, when the money is in software and design. China makes America’s iPods; America collects the profits.

Also, the richer a country gets, the less it needs to live off its natural resources. Therefore, it becomes cheaper — and more popular — to protect the environment. This has been the trend in Europe and America, and hopefully it will be around the world.

This sea change in economic thinking doesn’t cut easily along the left-right political axis, and its implications could be profound. “Root-causes” liberals can find a great deal of satisfaction in the emphasis “Where is the Wealth of Nations?” places on education. According to Hamilton, education explains about 36 percent of a country’s intangible wealth. Conservatives can find solace in the importance of property rights and, moreover, in the confirmation that not all cultures are equal — at least when measured on their ability to produce and sustain wealth. And both right and left will agree that the rule of law — including fair courts and government transparency — is the single most important contributor to a nation’s wealth.

A potential lesson for the World Bank may be that building roads, dams, and factories in the third world is a fool’s errand until those nations have the intangible capital required to maintain such things. The Marshall Plan’s success in rebuilding Europe after World War II stemmed not from the U.S. footing the bill for concrete and bulldozers but from the intangible capital locked in the hearts and minds of everyday Europeans.

In an odd way, I think this complements Weisman’s depiction of a post-human future. The greatest symbols of our civilization — from skyscrapers to libraries — not only count for a mere fraction of our wealth, they would turn to dust and rubble if we disappeared. The hardware is nothing; the software, everything. All that civilization is and can become exists within us. If we forget that, we forget literally everything.

Read the whole thing, and for more Fourth of July Jonah, don't miss his thoughts on preserving a national identity.

Update: Speaking of the role that brain power plays in building wealth and national greatness, City Journal asks, "Why have we stopped naming schools after great public figures?"

Happy Fourth of July!

And for some music to further set the mood, here's the Ed Driscoll Orchestra (aka Sonar and Reason) perfoming the "Washington Post March".

(On Monday, a friend sent me this link and asked me to make a loop of the WaPo March for the NRA's float in the Morgan Hill Fourth of July Parade; after routing all of the MIDI tracks through the synthesizers in Reason, and some reverb, I'd like to think it at least sounds a bit better than the version on the site.)

James Lileks' appointment as Blogger In Chief at the Minneapolis Star Tribune is paying huge dividends, as he's actually giving readers a reason to read a newspaper's blog without gnashing their teeth. (Fancy that.) Something tells me that the Strib hasn't run anything this much fun--not to mention patriotic--since about 1965:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Obligatory exit question: in addition to his multimedia skills, is it safe to assume that Lileks knows his way around fireworks infinitely better than these huckleberries?

President Bush commutes Scooter Libby’s sentence; emergency paramedics stand by at MSNBC just in case.

Update: Thoughts on Olbermann's latest meltdown here.

Mark Steyn writes that "Impudent citizens got Sen. Lotthorn's goat":

Sen. Trenthorn Lotthorn, meanwhile, thinks America is a nation of goatless girls. They don't understand goats the way an experienced goat-farmer such as himself does. "If the answer is 'build a fence,' " Sen. Lotthorn declared, "I've got two goats on my place in Mississippi. There ain't no fence big enough, high enough, strong enough, that you can keep those goats in that fence.

"Now, people are at least as smart as goats," the senator told Mario Recio of the Sun Herald. "Maybe not as agile. Build a fence? We should have a virtual fence. Now one of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped a couple of times they quit trying to jump it. I'm not proposing an electrified goat fence," the Lottly Goatherd added. "I'm just trying … there's an analogy there."

By now, his analogy had jumped the fence. But what an awesome monument to the senator's reign it would be: Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, the Great Electrified Goat Fence of the Rio Grande. They would sing songs about it:

"Grab your goat and get your hat

Leave your worries on the doorstep

Just direct your feet

To the sunny side of the fence … "

Follow the bouncing ball, and sing read the whole thing.

E.J. Dionne, June 22, 2007: "The dynamic in American public life...is the move away from the right and a discrediting of the conservative era".

Mark Tapscott, June 29, 2007: "Winston Churchill once remarked that God takes care of drunks and the United States of America and so it seems to be as we approach the end of a remarkable week in which milestones of success for the conservative movement have come one after another".

Here's Jim Geraghty on May 18th:

Two words for anybody who thinks this immigration bill is a done deal, and there's no way enough opposition builds:

Harriet Miers.

As Glenn Reynolds writes, "Score One For Alt-Media: Immigration bill fails".

Mark Krikorian looks at all of the forces that Alt Media was up against:

Today's defeat of the Senate amnesty bill was more than a run-of-the-mill legislative victory, representing as it did a self-organizing public's defeat of combined force of Big Business, (some of) Big Labor, Big Media, Big Religion, Big Philanthropy, Big Academia, and Big Government.

Speaking of Big Media, oh to be a fly on the wall in this newspaper's editorial boardroom.

Update: Welcome Jim Geraghty's Kerry, Hillary Campaign Spot readers! Please look around; there's sure to be a few other things here you'll also enjoy.

Byron York has a great post on how the Web has helped to shine a light on the shady backroom machinations to get the amnesty immigration bill passed:

Here’s something new. The first true Internet-Age presidential campaign was in 2004. The first major Internet-Age Supreme Court nomination was Harriet Miers, in 2005. Now, in 2007, we’ve got what is arguably the first truly major down-and-dirty Roberts-rules-of-disorder parliamentary battle fought under the searchlight of the blogs.

The Internet was critical to the immigration bill’s first failure. If not for the blogs, the bill’s deceits and flaws would not have been so well or quickly exposed, and "comprehensive reform" would probably otherwise have passed within a couple of days. Now we’re at yet another new level. The public is being exposed to a basket of legislative tricks–of a sort that are rare in any case, and surely of a kind that have never been subjected to mass and rapid-fire public exposure. The undemocratic character of all that is happening here is being conveyed to the public in short order and with clarity–often through the medium of Senate aides themselves.

Do the Senators now called "Masters of the Universe" understand this? Presumably, senate aides, who certainly read the blogs, have communicated to their senators how dangerous it is to be exposed in this fashion. But maybe some senators still don’t get it. They seem to think they can get away with backroom maneuvers in an era when blogs are serving as virtual fly-on-the-wall cloakroom cameras.

Earlier today, in "Off the Table," I argued that passing this bill is not going to make the immigration issue go away. On the contrary, the blogs-eye-view we’re getting of all this sausage making is going to be frozen in the public memory for a very long time. It’s going to inspire new campaigns, and it’s going to haunt the Masters of the Universe–and the Amnesty 8, too. I still don’t think they quite realize this. In fact, the Masters’ false belief that quickly passing this bill is going to somehow get this issue off of their backs is the method behind this their deceptive madness. They don’t seem to realize that they’ve already been caught with their pants down.

"Masters of the Universe" tend to have a fairly short-lived stay on Mount Olympus. Certainly, nobody's used that title to describe bond traders in a long, long time.

Update: "I have only my intuition to go on. My intuition tells me that it is impossible to be cynical enough about what is transpiring here".

"When we say that Congress lacks credibility, this is what we mean. When was the last time Congress worked so hard to pass legislation that so few supported, so many of which supported it because it won't work, and whose opponents hated it so badly? Certainly not within my memory".

E.J. Dionne, June 22, 2007: "The dynamic in American public life...is the move away from the right and a discrediting of the conservative era".

CBS legal analyst Andrew Cohen, June 25, 2007: "Conservatives go 4-4 today at the Supreme Court".

The latest batch of Supreme Court rulings are occurring, including their decision on the infamous "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case. Orrin Judd writes, "the Left is going to be hyperventilating somethin' fierce" over their decisions.

And speaking of which, as Ed Morrissey writes, this action to ban free speech by the city government of Oakland and backed by--surprise!--the Ninth Circuit--can't hit the Supreme Court fast enough.

Update: Further thoughts on the SCOTUS' rulings from Stop the ACLU, Gay Patriot, and Betsy Newmark.

Meanwhile, John Hinderaker writes that in an era when "free speech is under attack as, perhaps, never before in our history", the Supreme Court's decision on Federal Election Comm’n v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., is "A Small But Possibly Seminal Victory for Free Speech".

Jeff Jacoby writes:

On one important issue after another, the right churns with serious disputes over policy and principle, while the left marches mostly in lockstep. Liberals sometimes disagree over tactics and details, but anyone taking a heterodox position on a major issue can find himself out in the cold. Just ask Senator Joseph Lieberman .

In the liberal imagination, conservatives are blind dogmatists, spouters of a party line fed to them by (take your pick) big business, their church, or President Bush. Yet almost anywhere you look on the right these days, what stands out is the lack of ideological conformity.

Mindless conformity--it's so 1967!

Austin Bay interviews Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in the latest Blog Week In Review, online now at Pajamas HQ.

Bryan Preston writes, "Rather than stand with the administration against Iran" Joe Biden and the Democrats "have chosen to keep applying political pressure against the administration at home":

It has the effect of a classic pincer move, one pincer political and formed by the Democrats for the purpose of weakening the administration to the point that’s ineffectual; the other pincer formed by the Iranians arming terrorists from Afghanistan to Gaza and nearly everywhere in between. I don’t think it’s a coordinated pincer, but it might as well be: The mullahs probably can’t believe the luck they’re having in getting useful noises and pressure from the Democrats against Bush. So we will see more violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, northern Israel and southern Israel, and Biden will use that violence to argue that “See, this administration can’t do anything right.” Biden will never do two things that might help make the situation marginally better. He’ll never show unity against an enemy of the US as long as a Republican administration is in the White House, and he’ll never just shut his yap long enough for the administration to do what may need to be done.

Read the whole thing.

As Hunter S. Thompson once said, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. And at the moment, there's nobody weirder than today's professional politicians.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's apparently found his RINO soul mate in Mike Bloomberg, goes politically incorrect and gets it right. Meanwhile, Trent Lott appears to be doing an infinitely weirder RINO impersonation--he was last seen praising Teddy Kennedy (and of course, the Dixiecrats) and is now attacking talk radio--which brought him to the height of his power 13 years ago, thus allowing him to live out the Peter Principle on a national stage.

On the left, that's something that Harry Reid seems to demonstrating right now, as he first unintentionally echoes Mark Steyn--then tosses his quote down the Memory Hole.

Related: Via Instapundit, "Did Reid Really Say That?"

Update: Oy.

Eschewing conventional wisdom, Jules Crittenden isn't afraid to declare a lame duck when he sees one. Or maybe two, depending upon how you look at them.

So when will Mary Katharine Ham make the cover of Cigar Aficionado?

(More Sopranos fever, here.)

Kimberly Strassel of Real Clear Politics writes:

There's been a capitulation on global warming, but it hasn't happened in the Oval Office. The Kyoto cheerleaders at the United Nations and the European Union are realizing their government-run experiment in climate control is a mess, one that's incidentally failed to reduce carbon emissions. They've also understood that if they want the biggest players on board--the U.S., China, India--they need an approach that balances economic growth with feel-good environmentalism. Yesterday's G-8 agreement acknowledged those realities and tolled Kyoto's death knell. Mr. Bush, 1; sanctimonious greens, 0.

Read the whole thing.

(H/T: OJ)

Bill Quick, who gave the Blogosphere its name, believes that its starboard side was crucial in sinking--for now at least--the near-universally reviled immigration bill:

And I have to say that the right blogosphere as a whole did an excellent job of revealing and mobilizing this sentiment. First, we exposed the crudely hacked polls that claimed amnesty was overwhelmingly favored by those they polled. Second, we publicized the polls that showed the true state of affairs - that Americans hated this travesty - and thus gave folks who thought they were alone in their opposition the comfort of knowing that, far from being a lonely minority, they were part of a whopping majority. Third, we turned up the heat on congress, and kept it on flambe until the bill was toast. Fourth, we exposed the bill itself to public scrutiny, so that voters understood what was being attempted supposedly in their name. Fifth, we acted as instant response teams to the lies being told about the bill by the hacks, flacks, and whores desperate to pass it on behalf of the special interests they fronted for.

Ten years ago, this bill would have been passed and signed by the president before most Americans were even aware that it existed. Those days are over.

The right blogosphere has put many notches in its belt - Dan Rather, Trent Lott, Ports Dubai, Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzales (for SCOTUS), the destruction of the GOP congressional majorities, and now the Bush/Kennedy/McCain amnesty plan. This one was the biggest yet.

Pat yourselves on the back, folks. And welcome to the big leagues.

On the other hand, Politico writes that it's not over yet.

John Hinderaker makes a great point, noting that "I always thought that the Jefferson scandal hurt Republicans, ironically, more than Democrats":

CBS News is reporting that this afternoon, Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana will be indicted "on more than a dozen counts involving public corruption." No doubt our readers will remember that Jefferson was caught with $90,000 in cash in his freezer.

I always thought that the Jefferson scandal hurt Republicans, ironically, more than Democrats. Jefferson's malfeasance came to light at the height of the "culture of corruption" attacks on the GOP, and I don't think it sank in with most voters that Jefferson is a Democrat. Mostly, it was just seen as more confirmation that Congress is corrupt, and that hurt the party in power. Now, of course, things are different, and the mud will land where it belongs.

Denny Hastert's circle-the-wagons mentality certainly did help matters, but the GOP had lots of other wounds, most self-inflicted, in 2006.

(I'm in the American Airlines' Admirals Club in San Jose, flying out to the Corzine International Motor Speedway, err, New Jersey, if my flight--already delayed an hour--ever takes off.)

Update: Last week, Roll Call discussed the foot-dragging of the Democrats' House ethics committee to explore the Jefferson matter.

Well, it certainly wouldn't surprise me, at this point. As Bill Quick writes, "In the vein of LBJ and Walter Cronkite, I think it is fair to say that if George W. Bush has lost Peggy Noonan, then he has lost the Republican Party". (Though for a contrarian view, Ed Morrissey partially disagrees with Noonan's take.)

Glenn Reynolds has further thoughts on what he dubs the GOP's Death Wish--though, as I've said in the past, without the cool Herbie Hancock or Jimmy Page soundtrack to soften the blow.

Just to continue our trip down memory lane, Peggy Noonan says that it's Pappa Bush meets Jimmy Carter time for GWB, writing bitterly that "President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder":

One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance.

Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.

Needless to say, read the whole thing--and check out James Lileks' thoughts on the same topic, about 23:30 into this MP3 clip from Thursday's Hugh Hewitt Show.

David Frum writes, "It's Divorce":

That's what has happened between President Bush and his party over this immigration bill. And if they insist on pursuing it, I fear it is what will happen between the Senate GOP leadership and the party base as well. The issue has already all but killed the McCain candidacy. A letter from a reader expresses the sadness and anger I see in so much of my mail:

I voted twice for this man and his abdication of the most fundamental executive responsibility, to protect our country from foreign invasion, is cause for regret.

Talk is cheap. The most responsible course of action that this president can take on immigration is to do nothing. Leave it for the next president. Focus on Iraq and then go home.

Signing this bill would render what little good he has done meaningless by comparison.

I wish he were already gone.

If it is divorce, not many want to pay the alimony.

Further thoughts from The Washington Examiner and Jim Geraghty.

Update: Allahpundit notes that the divorce may be mutual:

First it was Chertoff, then Bush, now Chavez: three Republicans, one of them president, another a cabinet member, the third a would-be cabinet member, all not merely criticizing the base’s position on amnesty but impugning their character for taking that position.

A few months ago, I explored the media's Red Queen's Race to the bottom--President Bush seems to engaged in one of his own, regarding the support of his base, and his poll numbers.

Back in January, we linked to a post by David Frum, who wrote:

The day will come, and probably soon, when American liberals and the American left will wake up to the fact that (as Tom Wicker said of Richard Nixon in the book of the same name) on domestic issues Bush was "one of us." Much as they disliked Bush's foreign policies, cultural style, and political methods, he actually had more in common with them on domestic issues than he did with his own political base. It will someday be very hard to explain why liberals so hated Bush. I suppose it just goes to prove that - despite all those left-wing books about the false consciousness of those poor deluded rubes in Kansas - culture trumps economics for elites at least as much as for ordinary voters.

Today, Jonah Goldberg writes:

Richard Cohen discovers something some of us on the right have been saying for a while: if you hold your head just so and look at Bush from the right angle, he looks an awful lot like a liberal.

Related thoughts from Ed Morrissey; it's also worth re-reading Jonathan Rausch's "The Accidental Radical" from four years ago, which remains a pretty good look at Bush's overall governing "strategery".

John Goldberg on the sudden--if not entirely surprising--rehabilitation of John Ashcroft's rep amongst the Beltway left:

If in 2002 I had written that by 2007 Democrats would be singing Ashcroft’s praises as a man of integrity and sound temperament, I would have been laughed out of the room. Right now, predicting a rehabilitation of George W. Bush elicits similar guffaws from the same crowd. But the fact is, if Ashcroft can be rehabilitated, anyone can be.

Read the whole thing.

Mickey Kaus on immigration; Mark Steyn has a modest proposal in response.

Meanwhile, as Hugh Hewitt gets under the boilerplate and read the fine print, he advises, "Send Lawyers, Clerks, Judges, And Background Checks".

Guns and money probably wouldn't hurt, either.

Prominent GOP leaders booed by party faithful over immigration bill. As Glenn Reynolds notes:

I still don't know enough to know if the bill is good or bad. But if the bill is actually a good bill that the GOP base would accept if they read it . . . then that's an even bigger indictment of the GOP leadership for failing to sell it. At this point, they've either mis-sold a good bill, or produced a bad one.

Hugh Hewitt is reading the actual text of the bill (and needless to say, there's lots of text) and recommends that, "the president and the GOP Senate leadership need to postpone any cloture vote until the law is examined, debated and amended".

That sounds remarkably prudent to me.

Meanwhile, "Oklahoma's Brand of Immigration Reform Barely Makes News; Guess Why?"

Is the Immigration Bill DOA when it hits the House?

Update: As Hugh Hewitt writes, "N.Z. Bear has the picture worth 1,000 posts".

More: Mickey Kaus disagrees with Power Line's thesis: "Opponents of the GOP cave-in on immigration would be fools, I think, to rely on Nancy Pelosi's House to kill the legislation...Hugh Hewitt's instinct--to try to stall the bill now, in the Senate--seems sound".

Mickey Kaus has some words of encouragement for those feeling disenfranchised by the Senate's immigration bill yesterday.

Glenn Reynolds has some thoughts on the immigration bill: "Whether or not this is a good bill -- which I'm not sure of one way or another -- it's likely to be political disaster for the GOP. Can you say 'death wish?'"

Dean Barnett lists one potential immediate casualty: "Today’s events put the non-viability of the McCain candidacy into stark relief. McCain has committed so many offenses to conservatives over the past six years that he can’t realistically hope to emerge from their shadow".

Update: Meanwhile, another congressional story may be flying under radar while the immigration bill dominates the news, at least in the Blogosphere: "Congress OKs $2.9 trillion budget plan".

More: Ed Morrissey has a contrarian take on the immigration bill:

As I wrote yesterday, this is about as good as we will get in this Congress. In fact, the Democrats probably had enough votes to pass something much more like a wide-open amnesty, given a few Republican votes in support of that and the relaxed attitude of the White House on immigration reform. The GOP did a pretty good job of holding the line and forcing the Democrats to include the border-first triggers, the reduction of the family interest, and the rest of what Kyl managed to retain.

It's not great, and it's not even very good. It's not bad, though, and given our lack of strength in Congress and the White House on this issue, it's a good deal that will strengthen our national security now rather than wait another two years to address it. To quote the Rolling Stones, you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need. This is one of those times.

I don't think that argument is going to mollify Hugh Hewitt, who's not a happy camper--to the say the least--on his radio show right now.

"Your university may not honor your military service, but the United States of America does".

--President Bush in the White House East Room for an ROTC commissioning ceremony.

"This is what my 9th grade teacher told me government is all about and I finally got to experience it".

--Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on today's immigration agreement.

Allah writes:

From Drudge bombshell to news article to sinfully delicious talking points to retreat in the span of about three hours.

Might be a new record.

* As defined by Mickey Kaus.

As Glenn Reynolds would say, "They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected, freedom of speech would be on the way out. And they were right".

Or are they?

Andy McCarthy explains why in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s "present hour of need, his only enthusiastic supporter appears to be the president":

Throughout her tumultuous tenure as attorney general, Janet Reno could always rely on Democrats and liberals to circle the wagons when critics ripped her judgment, competence, and forthrightness. They’d close ranks when the opposition claimed her Justice Department elevated political considerations over legal ones. By contrast, in Alberto Gonzales’s present hour of need, his only enthusiastic supporter appears to be the president. Why?

Because of politics. Not politicization, as in partisan obstruction of particular investigations. Rather, good, old-fashioned politics in the best sense of the word: namely, an administration’s accountability to its supporters and its fealty to the policies that induced their support.

The Reno Justice Department, whatever else you may think about it, cared passionately about signal “progressive” causes and backed them to the hilt, regardless of criticism. To the contrary, the Gonzales Justice Department and, indeed, the president, often turn spaghetti-spined when the priorities of their base are at stake. How surprising, then, that when friends are most sorely needed there are none to be found.

You can only tune out your base for so long before it reciprocates.

(Via Ed Morrissey, who reminds us to get used to the endless hearings. "We have two years to live in Subpoenaville".)

This doesn't sound like a smart move on Speaker Pelosi's part:

WASHINGTON, Apr. 24, 2007- - As the House and Senate prepare to vote this week on the final conference report on the $124 billion troop funding bill -- which would also mandate that U.S. combat troops begin withdrawing from Iraq on October 1 at the latest -- Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to come to the Hill tomorrow to brief lawmakers on the progress of the recent troop escalation.

ABC News has learned, however, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will not attend the briefing.

"She can't make the briefing tomorrow," a Democratic aide told ABC News Tuesday evening. "But she spoke with the General via phone today at some length."

A Pelosi aide said the speaker on Tuesday requested a 1-on-1 meeting with Petraeus but that could not be worked out. He said their phone conversation lasted 30 minutes.

Last week House Democratic leaders were criticized by their Republican counterparts when they initially declined an invitation from Petraeus to brief House members on the status of the war due to "scheduling conflicts."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the decision "irresponsible" and constituted a "dereliction of duty." But by the end of the day Pelosi's office changed course and scheduled a briefing for Members of the House for Wednesday, April 25.

The office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says the senator will attend the classified briefing with senators on Wednesday at 4 p.m.

But his mind is also already made up.

Robert Bidinotto, editor of the Objectivist New Individualist magazine agrees with my take from Saturday on Michael Bloomberg and (original inner circle member) Nathaniel Branden's "Stolen Concept" concept.

Speaking of Bloomberg, I was going to comment on his recent fashion faux pas, but the photo of Val Kilmer that Tammy Bruce found today makes Mayor Mike seem like the very definition of sybaritic elegance.

Update: City Journal's Nicole Gelinas has more on Bloomberg's public and private transportation woes.

Jim Geraghty writes, "Today's partial-birth abortion ruling complicates lives for the Democratic candidates. The GOP is probably 90some percent opposed to partial-birth abortion; for them it's a no-brainer":

Even Rudy liked it.

For pro-choice candidates, the interest groups (NARAL, etc.) are likely to declare this decision the first step on a slippery slope, the camel's nose in the tent, etc., and thus they will declare this decision disastrous.

Jim collects quotes from Edwards and Obama, but given the current name of his blog, one candidate's quotes are, at the moment, prominently missing, and are perhaps being formulated as we speak. Given that she'll probably want to run as the successor to her husband's policy that abortion should be "safe legal and rare", it should be interesting to watch her triangulate on this issue, and see which direction(s) she breaks towards.

Update: Jim has revised and extended his post to include Hillary's remarks, which are of a kind with Edwards and Obama. I think her husband's take would have been more artful under similar circumstances.

Don Surber writes:

Irony alert. The Washington Examiner pointed out: Under Bush, unemployment dropped to numbers seldom seen — far below the Clinton years. Clinton’s people counter with well, the stock market took off when he was prez. Wait a second, aren’t Republicans supposed to be the Wall Street guys while Democrats are the blue collar guys?

Not necessarily; just ask John Kerry and Elizabeth Edwards.

According to a Washington Times article from 2003, the Transportation Security Administration's slogan is "Dominate. Intimidate. Control." But it sounds like their real slogan should be more like our headline above, based on this story from Minneapolis' KSTP:

A Canadian woman and her boyfriend didn’t think it was funny when security officials at Minneapolis-St. Paul International made them pawns in an April Fool’s prank.

Kate Burgess and her boyfriend were returning from Mexico when they had a two-hour layover at MSP.

As they placed their bags on the conveyor belt and went through security, Kate’s bag triggered a detector.

According to Kate, when the detector went off a Transportation Security Administration employee said, "That’s it, call police."

As more TSA employees surrounded her, Kate suffered a severe asthma attack.

That’s when a supervisor told her it was an April Fool’s joke.

"They scared me, but even worse they humiliated me…I won’t ever travel through Minneapolis again," Kate said.

In a statement, the Transportation Security Administration said, "TSA staff communicated with Ms. Burgess and expressed our regret. While our inquiry revealed no irregularities in the actual screening process, we do not condone or tolerate inappropriate remarks or behavior by our staff.

Via Michelle Malkin, who asks a question "for Congress or whomever: Why doesn't the zero-tolerance, no-joking rule apply to the chuckleheads at TSA?"

"They're running away with their little curly tails between their legs", writes Glenn Reynolds, adding, "It's a disgrace, but par for the course for this bunch".

Not at all a surprise, of course. But very far removed from how they were actually elected in the first place.

Update: Ed Morrissey explains what comes next:

The President will definitely veto this bill, and the Democrats do not have anywhere near the votes needed to override. That means that Congress and the White House will have to reach some sort of compromise, or else theoretically allow the troops to remain in Iraq but without the funds to either fight or come home. If the President doesn't veto it, he has to start retreating in four months, to which he will not willingly assent. It will take weeks to unravel, and in that time I believe that Congress will work on a much smaller supplemental to keep funding going while the negotiations ensue. Reid, however, wants to wait until after the spring recess to start even on the conference committee talks, which will drag out the event even further.

Undoubtedly, Reid won big by declaring defeat. No one really expected this to pass, but Reid managed to talk Hagel and Nelson into reversing themselves, when even the ladies from Maine remained steadfast. He and Nancy Pelosi made it clear that the last election had its consequences, even if it took them several variations on the defeatist theme to do so.

One thing is certain: Chuck Hagel can skip the exploratory committee for the 2008 race.

Elsewhere, Michelle Malkin explains Reason Number 9,327,235 why the 1970s will never end.

Another Update: "Not with a bang but a whimper".

Coming so quickly after Cathy Seipp's demise, this is dreadful news. As Mary Katharine Ham writes, "Keep Snow in your prayers".

(For all sorts of reasons, this sounds like a smart move by the HuffPost.)

"Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-TX) today asked Former President Bill Clinton if he would be available to testify at the Democrats' Thursday hearing on presidential pardon authority":

"Former President Clinton is no stranger to controversial pardons, most notably the pardon of Marc Rich on his last day in office," stated Ranking Member Smith. "I can think of no better person to address this issue."

At Thursday's hearing of the Judiciary's Crime Subcommittee entitled, "The Appropriate Use of the Presidential Pardoning Power," Democrats are expected to explore what is and is not the appropriate use of pardons, despite a president's plenary power to issue pardons.

President Clinton granted pardons or commuted the sentences of nearly 500 people, including fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose wife donated $450 thousand to the Clinton Library. Other pardons included a person accused of cocaine trafficking and a former Democratic committee chairman indicted on political corruption charges.

The Constitution gives the President the absolute authority to grant clemency, commutation, and remission of fines for offenses. Despite this absolute authority, presidents are not immune from criticism and even congressional attempts to restrict pardon authority.

"Mr. Clinton's exercise of his pardon authority would be of real interest to Members of the Subcommittee," concluded Smith. "I hope he will lend his expertise."

Cute. But something tells me that President Clinton will have another gym workout that he just can't get out of that day.

When someone tells you that he hates America, or that the U.S. deserved it on 9/11, read him this list.

Or as Patterico dubs it, "This is the Dawning of the Age of Inquirious".

Mary Katharine Ham writes, "Put your head between your knees, and kiss your next two years goodbye" as it's Subpoeana Showdown time in Washington:

Dean says Bush is itchin' for a fight, and this will all make the Congress look bad, since they'll be abandoning the war and other pressing matters for a witch-hunt. First, kudos to Bush for getting the word "witch-hunt" in there. It made the headlines and colored the issue his way for at least a news cycle.

Second, I'm not sure dragging this out makes Democrats look that bad. The media will continue to give them a pass, the American public won't know much except that they're tired of hearing about the varying definitions of "executive privilege, and it will blame both Congress and the president for that. Unfortunately for Bush, there have been too many complicated scandals (some legit, most not) pinned on him successfully, partially due to bad damage control at the White House, to suddenly convince people this is just a partisan witch-hunt, I think. And, also unfortunately for Bush, he earned the cronyism charges to some extent with the Brownie and Miers fiascoes, so that's hard to escape as well.

And speaking of the 1970s, it's a chance for the media's only two memes to finally merge this year: Vietnam and Watergate, Part XXXVIII

General Kenobi: I have placed information vital to the refinancing of your 30 year adjustable mortgage into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father in Paramus will know how to retrieve it.

Or is that the Post Office is taking Jonathan Last's beneficent Empire contrarianisms just a bit too seriously? In any event, it's a reminder of something else Jonathan wrote on the topic: what an utter failure the recent trilogy has been to develop characters anywhere near as iconic as the original movies.

In the L.A. Times, where Jonah Goldberg performs somewhat of the same role that David Brooks did at its east coast counterpart before they buried him under the TimesSelect firewall, Jonah writes that "Unity Is Overrated":

It has become a central ritual of our times for Beltway priests like the Washington Post's David S. Broder to lament the coarseness, acidity and all-around ickiness of our polarized political culture. They're not absolutely wrong. All I need to do to appreciate the toxicity of the political culture is check my e-mail each morning.

Indeed, since at least the election of Ronald Reagan, the left and the right have grown ever more snappish with each other. Each feels entitled to take the wheel without suffering any backseat driving. Each side feels the other is illegitimate in some way, which somehow justifies their nastiness. That can be a shame, but really, it's not the end of the world.

We've seen worse. For example, in his 2004 book, "The Two Americas," Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg proclaimed: "Our nation's political landscape is now divided more deeply and more evenly than perhaps ever before."

This might strike some — say, anyone who's seen the scene in "Gone with the Wind," in which all those Civil War dead and wounded are laid out like cordwood — as a bit of an exaggeration. Call me crazy, but such bloodshed seems like a deeper sign of division than a bunch of partisan bloggers sweatily pounding their keyboards, or liberals and conservatives watching different cable news networks.

Read the rest.

Of the recently concluded "Scooter" Libby trial, Mark Steyn writes:

So much of the current degraded discourse on the war -- ''Bush lied'' -- comes from the false perceptions of the Joe Wilson Niger story. Britain's MI-6, the French, the Italians and most other functioning intelligence services believe Saddam was trying to procure uranium from Africa. Lord Butler's special investigation supports it. So does the Senate Intelligence Committee. So Wilson's original charge is if not false then at the very least unproven, and the conspiracy arising therefrom entirely nonexistent. But the damage inflicted by the cloud is real and lasting.

As for Scooter Libby, he faces up to 25 years in jail for the crime of failing to remember when he first heard the name of Valerie Plame -- whether by accident or intent no one can ever say for sure. But we also know that Joe Wilson failed to remember that his original briefing to the CIA after getting back from Niger was significantly different from the way he characterized it in his op-ed in the New York Times. We do know that the contemptible Armitage failed to come forward and clear the air as his colleagues were smeared for months on end. We do know that his boss Colin Powell sat by as the very character of the administration was corroded.

And we know that Patrick Fitzgerald knew all this and more as he frittered away the years, and the ''political blood lust'' (as National Review's Rich Lowry calls it) grew ever more disconnected from humdrum reality. The cloud over the White House is Fitzgerald's, and his closing remarks to the jury were highly revealing. If he dislikes Bush and Cheney and the Iraq war, whoopee: Run against them, or donate to the Democrats, or get a talk-radio show. Instead, he chose in full knowledge of the truth to maintain artificially a three-year cloud over the White House while the anti-Bush left frantically mistook its salivating for the first drops of a downpour. The result is the disgrace of Scooter Libby. Big deal. Patrick Fitzgerald's disgrace is the greater, and a huge victory not for justice or the law but for the criminalization of politics.

Read the whole thing.

Jonah Goldberg writes, "lo and behold, the Democrats are behaving as if Iraq is Vietnam all over again. But it is only now dawning on the Democrats that the Vietnam War wasn't exactly their finest hour":

The Democratic pickle is exquisitely simple: In the past election, they ran as the anti-war party and promised to bring the war to a close, but, like the dog who finally catches the car fender, they're at a loss about what to do now. As Virginia's Rep. Jim Moran says of his fellow Democrats, they "want to make sure this is still President Bush's war," but the only way they can end the war is to take possession of it. The Democratic base thinks that'd be fine. But, one gets the sense, someone in the party's leadership understands that might be a problem.

Long-lasting myths

The Democrats are incapable of escaping the gravitational pull of the Vietnam myths they've nurtured for decades. At the same time, the liberal memory of the Vietnam War has become so gauzy and saccharine with nostalgia that they're unprepared to grapple with the downsides of their own all-purpose analogy. All that seems to matter is proving that the Iraq war not only has been lost but must be lost, lest the Vietnam worldview be invalidated. As my colleague Rich Lowry said in regard to Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha's effort to sneakily thwart the Bush surge: "It used to be that the war had to end because it was a failure; now it must fail so that it can end." For example, Massachusetts' Sen. Edward Kennedy ridicules the notion that a withdrawal from Iraq would have grave humanitarian costs.

"I heard the same kinds of suggestions at the time of the end of the Vietnam War," Kennedy told NBC's Tim Russert, mocking the notion that we'd have a "great bloodbath" with more than 100,000 dead. "And for those of us that were strongly opposed to the war, (we) heard those same kinds of arguments."

Yes, but those arguments were right. Our withdrawal from Vietnam did contribute to a great bloodbath. More than a half-million Vietnamese died at sea fleeing the grand peace Kennedy and his colleagues orchestrated. And more than 1.2 million Cambodians died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, thanks to the power vacuum created by our "humanitarian" withdrawal. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a presidential candidate, insists that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq can't make things any worse. In 1975 he took a similar line: "The greatest gift our country can give to the Cambodian people is peace, not guns. And the best way to accomplish that goal is by ending military aid now." Someone rent Dodd a DVD of The Killing Fields.

Of course, the costs of defeat in Vietnam were hardly just humanitarian. America's loss at the hands of a small, comparatively weaker nation arguably prolonged the Cold War and has long served as an emboldening example to enemies eager to believe Uncle Sam has a glass jaw — from Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden.

In the wake of 9/11, Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's lieutenant, warned: "O, American people, your government is leading you to a new losing war. O, U.S. people, your government was defeated in Vietnam and fled scared from Lebanon. It fled from Somalia."

The Democratic Party itself — once the leader in vigorous internationalism — has since Vietnam been perceived as fundamentally unreliable on foreign policy by many American voters. Indeed, someone in the party recognizes this, which is why Democrats are working so hard to avoid being seen as the primary authors of U.S. defeat in Iraq, the way they were perceived after the Vietnam War.

Read the whole thing.

Two prominent conservative radio hosts describe the crossroads the movement currently finds itself. Of the verdict in the Scooter Libby trial, Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners:

The libs here are poking the hibernating bear and they're going to wake the bear. You're mad. Everybody that's called me today is fit to be tied over this. This can do more to revive a hibernating conservative movement than anybody else could, plus the liberals and the Democrats own defeat with the US military and so forth. So don't cash in the chips. It's way too soon to do that. That's not even an option. I don't want to hear about it.

But the recent Coulter kerfuffle should also be a wake-up call, as Michael Medved notes:

In the run-up to the fateful election of 2008, conservatives face a clear-cut choice: we can rebuild our movement as a broad-ranging, mainstream coalition and restore our governing majority, or else settle for a semi-permanent role as angry, doom-speaking complainers on the fringes of American politics and culture.

We can either invite doubters and moderates to join with us in new efforts to affirm American values, or we can push them away because they fail to measure up to our own standards of indignation and ideological purity.

In short, we must choose between addition and subtraction: either building our cause by adding to our numbers or destroying it by discouraging all but the fiercest ideologues.

No political party or faction has ever thrived based on purges and insults and internal warfare, but too many activists on the right seem determined to reduce the conservative cause to self-righteous irrelevance.

* * *

Republicans need to return to the open, expansive conservatism of Ronald Reagan: more concerned with bringing in newcomers than driving out dissenters, more committed to winning elections than to scoring points in arguments, more determined to steer the government in the right direction than to sit at the sidelines carping about inevitable decline. We should make skeptics feel welcome as Republicans and urge them to fight the issues inside the party where they can have the most impact.

Every major event, every potential speaker, every resolution, every specific approach, deserves evaluation in terms of effectiveness in party building—winning new adherents to the cause.

We should ask a crucial question before we speak or act: will this draw people to conservative ideas and ideals, or will it serve to turn them off and push them away?

"I appeal to my colleagues in Congress to step back and think carefully about what to do next".

The proverbial picture that's worth a thousand words--and a trillion or so dollars.

Forget Al Qeada--Congressional Democrats are urging President Bush for a surge against his vice president:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday phoned President Bush to air her complaints over Vice President Dick Cheney's comments that the Congressional Democrats' plan for Iraq would "validate the Al Qaeda strategy."

Pelosi, who said she could not reach the president, said Cheney's comments wrongly questioned critics' patriotism and ignored Bush's call for openness on Iraq strategy.

"You cannot say as the president of the United States, 'I welcome disagreement in a time of war,' and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of the House and in a manner that says that person in that position of authority is acting against the national security of our country," the speaker said.

If that sounds familiar, it's not the first time that a prominent Democrat has asked the President to Make. It. Stop:

Early in 2004, after winning the nod as the Democrats' candidate for the presidency, John Kerry boldly shouted to President Bush, "BRING. IT. ON." But in August of 2004, Kerry ended up personally asking President Bush to...Make. Them. Stop--make the Swift Boat Vets stop attacking him. And you could argue that it was at this moment that Senator Kerry lost the election, because he couldn't bother to defend his record in the wake of his former colleagues reminding modern voters of Kerry's early 1970s duplicity while in the Naval Reserves. Instead, Kerry ended up whining about the Swift Vets' opposition to his candidacy to his primary opposition, the incumbent president, inadvertently increasing President Bush's stature as a result.

It's also reminiscent of the reactions by the left to one of Karl Rove's speeches in 2005, in which he said:

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.

As Glenn Reynolds wrote back then, the left's high dudgeon responses "just provide an excuse for Republicans to repeat every single stupid or unpatriotic thing that every Democratic politician ever said. And there are a lot of those". And that list has only grown since exponentially.

Dean Barnett notes that saying Massachusetts' Deval Patrick "has stumbled out of the gate as governor would be an understatement":

First, Patrick decided that the modest Ford Crown Victoria that Mitt Romney tooled around in for four years was beneath him. Rather than lease another Crown Vic or remain in the one that Romney used right up until his last day in office, Patrick opted to lease a $46,000 Cadillac. Actually, it would be more accurate to say he opted to have the state lease a $46,000 Cadillac. None of the funds for the gaudy new ride came out of Patrick’s pocket, even though the new governor doesn’t lack for means.

Then Patrick compounded the tin-eared politicking. When the local media challenged him for this excess in a time of fiscal austerity, Patrick defended it as a necessity because Ford had discontinued the Crown Victoria. There was only one problem with this story – Ford hasn’t discontinued the Crown Vic. Patrick later ascribed his mistaken assertion to a misunderstanding with the State Police. Since the Staties lease only about 80,000 Crown Vics a year, it’s understandable how they could make such an error.

Heh.

Meanwhile, in a City Journal essay titled "Steamrolled", Steven Malanga writes that unlike his eventually much-maligned predecessor, "Governor Spitzer loses his first Albany battle".

Ezra Klein writes:

We spend a fair amount of time talking about detainee treatment and Guantanamo. But there is no greater, or more common, human rights abuses in America than those occurring in our overcrowded, constantly expanding, jails.

It never seemed to bother California's former attorney general of course. But then, he had issues of his own to work out. Maybe his successor will do better on this issue, but while it may increase my CO2 emissions, I'm not holding my breath.

Joe, we hardly knew ye!

Update: Meanwhile, Biden's original target, before he shot himself in the foot, carries some pretty extensive baggage of his own, apparently.

More: Will Al Gore jump into the fray on Oscar night? That's what Donna Brazile, his former campaign manager is speculating.

Another Update: Betsy Newmark asks:

Now that Drudge has picked up on this interview, I have to wonder if the media will pay half as much attention to this gaffe by Biden as they do to Republican gaffes. Will the Washington Post run as many stories on it as they did on George Allen saying macaca? Will every story about Biden and his resolution against the war have comments about Biden, the man who spoke so demeaningly of Barack Obama? Will this be taken as some sort of verbal expression of what Biden really thinks about blacks? Will reporters tie together these other racist-tinged gaffes that Biden has made and draw some grander generalization? Or will it be laughed off by all the reporters who just think that Joe Biden is such a nice guy?

As Betsy adds, "I think we know the answers to these questions". Sadly, yes.

According to SurveyUSA, Jim Webb's statewide approval ratings in Virginia are 42% approval, 47% disapproval. My Election Analysis adds, "Approval ratings are below 50% in all geographic areas of the state, 45%-44% approval among independents. This stands in stark contrast to other members of Webb’s freshman class, all of whom are still basking in the afterglow of their recent election".

Maybe it was the tacit suggestion to nuke Iraq in his rebuttal to the president's State of the Union address that did it...

In between offering helpful tips to harried air travelers, Robert Bidinotto links to this quote by David Frum:

The day will come, and probably soon, when American liberals and the American left will wake up to the fact that...on domestic issues Bush was "one of us." Much as they disliked Bush's foreign policies, cultural style, and political methods, he actually had more in common with them on domestic issues than he did with his own political base.

Wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

Michael Medved writes that brevity is the soul of wit, especially when it comes to the SOTU (note our use of four-letter acronym as time-saving gesture, only slightly offset by pedantic time-wasting quip afterwards!):

Let's face it: Most SOTU speeches are snoozers -- even when delivered by first class orators like Reagan and Clinton. All the departments of government contribute their own ideas during the preparation period, and expect some nod from the president. These stately, lumbering addresses provide pomp and grandeur and lots of opportunity for partisan applause, but only rarely can anyone remember what the president actually said.

If Bush kept his remarks to less than a half hour (including applause) rather than the customary hour-or-more, he'd throw the opposition and the media (often the same thing, by the way) utterly off balance. Rather than listing all his hopes and plans in the speech, he should sketch out broad visions -- and simultaneously release to the press and Congress far more detailed plans and proposals.

Speaking of throwing the opposition and the media utterly off balance, a couple of weeks ago, Hugh Hewitt asked a great question of White House Press Secretary Tony Snow: why are transcripts of key speeches released beforehand? Why not keep your opponents guessing as long as possible?

Ed Morrissey notes that the speech President Bush is giving tonight will be an attempt to achieve a Schwarzeneggerian triangulation with a suddenly left-leaning Congress--but at the strong risk of alienating Bush's conservative base, much as Arnold has already done in California.

Meanwhile, Jules Crittenden writes the speech that President Bush would never give, and more's the pity.

(Sorry for the lack of posting. I'm in the midst of quite an interesting project that, if it pans out, should be lots of fun. More details when and if things reach fruition.)

Dean Barnett notes:

In my Saturday post on Peggy Noonan, I wrote that I agreed with Peggy that the President’s “frequent inability to communicate and his constant inability to persuade” was both an irritant and a major problem. For some reason, many commenters and a certain hysterical blogger seemed to miss that paragraph and thought that I declared criticizing the president to be strictly off limits – such people will have to learn to read more closely or others might begin to question their intellectual rigor and honesty. Regardless, the fact that the President at this point in time can’t get through to the American people is hardly debatable. However history remembers George W. Bush, it won’t be as The Great Communicator II.

Sadly, I agree--for a quick comparison, check out this clip of the Gipper in the early 1960s.

But Winds Of Change writes that on the other side of the aisle, today's media lacks the ability to communicate as well, except in shop-worn cliches that lack any sort of context:

Words like "neo-conservative," "civil war," WMD," "democracy," "treason" inhabit the core of the public discussion about Iraq -- and no two people who use them daily can agree on what they mean. Are 20-year-old Sarin gas artillery shells WMDs? Is Dick Cheney a neo-conservative? Is Iran a democracy?

Every 100 deaths in Iraq is a "grim milestone," by fiat of the media. It is the most overworked cliche of local journalism since, "Rain couldn't dampen the spirits/enthusiasm of _____ graduates of _____ high school during last night's commencement ceremony as they looked to the future and pondered the past."

It requires no thought or reflection. It treats round numbers as the definition of reality. This has been a media trope since the first shots were fired ("After days of intense searching by ground and air, U.S. forces on Saturday found the bodies of two soldiers missing north of Baghdad, as the toll of American dead since the start of war topped the grim milestone of 200 ..." -- Associated Press, June 29, 2003). I doubt anyone who wrote any of these headlines could explain to you why death number 3,000 was enormously more significant than death number 2,997. Certainly not to the parents of number 2,997.

Does it help you to know these numbers divorced from context? Are there not many Americans who would consider, say, every 1,000 abortions nationwide a "grim milestone?" Even if you set 1,000 battle deaths (not the AP's preferred 200) as the benchmark for "grim milestones," you had a grim milestone every five days during America's involvement in World War II with nary a "grim milestone" headline to show for it.

As Winds Of Change writes, "Orwell, thou should'st be living at this hour".

Update: Hugh Hewitt grades Tim Russert's performance on Meet The Press yesterday:

Tim Russert is by far the best of the MSM hosts, but that's just not saying much. Not asking four senior senators about Iranian forces in Iraq and Iranian weaponry killing Americans, and to leave largely unexplored the real possibility of post-withdrawal blood-letting on a scale that dwarfs the violence today and which returns Iraq to the violence on a scale of the worst days of Iraq is media malpractice. Imagine interviewing Stanley Baldwin in 1936 and finding time for one or two questions about Hitler, and then following with four MPs and discussing only Spain and Ethiopia, and not Germany.

The MSM is fixated on Bush, and not the war or our enemies. A decade from now --or even sooner-- the collapse of the media's responsibility to at least mention to the public the scale of the looming danger will be obvious.

Just think of it as the news they kept to themselves.

More: Related thoughts, here.

Meanwhile, AP illustrates Winds Of Change's charges perfectly, on a story that doesn't even involve Iraq (unless you're Alec Baldwin, of course).

Power Line's Scott Hinderaker writes:

It is difficult to comprehend that Martin Luther King, Jr. was only 39 years old at the time of his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968, or that the prospect of his death weighed so heavily on his mind. He seems too young to have accomplished so much, or to have maintained his judgment under such trying circumstances.

Meanwhile, Star Parker writes that she's "Thinking About Iraq on King Day":

The characteristic of greatness - whether we are talking about a great man or great art - is that it transcends time and place. It dips into that which is universally and eternally true and applies those truths to a particular moment and a particular place.

Re-reading, after many reads, Dr. Martin Luther King's words of Aug. 28, 1963, the famous "I Have a Dream" speech, his greatness rings clearer than ever.

Because King did indeed touch the heavens on that day and pull down kernels of eternal truths about freedom and the condition of man, those words of 40-plus years ago have relevance to our struggles today. They can serve as guidance in these difficult times.

Am I saying that King's message from 1963 can guide us in today's conundrums _ about our embroilment in Iraq, about the Middle East, about America's role in the world? Yes, I am saying this.

Read the whole thing.

Tammy Bruce links to a Bloomberg article which quotes a freshman Democrat from Indiana:

Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Joe Donnelly, a freshman Democrat from Indiana, has a blunt message for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Stick to a ``middle-of-the-road agenda'' or their party's control of Congress may last just two years.

If Pelosi "goes too far one way or another, we're not coming back,'' Donnelly says. He sees his party's victory in the November elections as less an endorsement of its agenda than a rejection of Republican rule: ``People just got real tired of this bunch, and they fired them.''

Donnelly's view reflects those of many of the 30 House Democrats elected in districts previously held by Republicans. Their fragile hold on their seats means they'll be pushing their new speaker, who represents heavily Democratic San Francisco, to limit confrontations with President George W. Bush and the Republicans over taxes, the war in Iraq, stem-cell research and abortion.

Sounds like a wise suggestion to me, but overreach by Pelosi and Reid seem, initially at least, to be the far more likely scenario.

John Hawkins presents "The 21 Most Annoying People On The Right In 2006".

For the most post, I'd say those who made the list richly deserved it. Of Michael Savage, John writes:

Savage is so habitually obnoxious and over-the-top that I'd be tempted to think that he is a liberal pretending to be a conservative in order to make right wingers look bad if there weren't so many people who actually like listening to this clown.

He's not the first to come to that conclusion.

(The flipside of the list is here.)

As this editorial in Opinion Journal notes, Gerald Ford arguably did as a good a job as possible, given the astonishingly weak hand he was dealt in the mid-1970s. As the Journal notes, the 1970s was the decade of "America's Suicide Attempt", as historian Paul Johnson dubbed it:

It is true that Ford was something of an accidental President, the only one in U.S. history never elected as either President or Vice President. Before Nixon picked him to replace the disgraced Spiro Agnew as his Vice President, Ford had been contemplating retirement from his Grand Rapids, Michigan, House seat. But like another unlikely President from the Midwest, Harry Truman, he had reserves of honesty and fortitude that served him well.

He made a particular contribution in pardoning Nixon, though he knew Nixon's enemies would accuse him of a quid pro quo. The decision cost him dearly in the polls and may have cost him the election in 1976, but it also spared the country from years of division over a criminal trial that special prosecutor Leon Jaworski seemed determined to pursue.

Congress had trampled over a weakened Nixon, and another Ford contribution was restoring some measure of executive authority. Far more than Nixon, he used his veto pen (66 times in 895 days), blunting liberal excesses after Democrats picked up 46 House seats in 1974. He also deserves credit for resisting the isolationism that was rampant as the Vietnam War wound down. It was a rare period in postwar U.S. history when the public favored spending less on defense.

Democrats exploited the mood in early 1975 to block Ford's funding request for our allies in South Vietnam, as the North began its offensive. Ford pleaded with Congress that "American unwillingness to provide adequate assistance to allies fighting for their lives could seriously affect our credibility throughout the world as an ally," but to no avail. Saigon fell by April, and the boat people and massacres in Southeast Asia soon followed. Thus one irony of this week's praise for Ford as a unifying President: At the time, he was mocked as clumsy and dull, and he was vilified for blocking Congressional priorities. Any of this sound familiar?

Yes--with the exception of villifying Richard Nixon (whose paranoia helped furnish his own noose), the playbook of the left for attacking Republican presidents has changed little since the days of Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, and certainly since Ike in the 1950s.

And incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is living up to it; apparently he'd rather be exploring Inca ruins in South America than attending a former president's funeral. And Jules Crittenden writes:

Last night we saw that Wonkette couldn't wait for the funeral to start bashing Gerald Ford.

Here comes Bob Woodward, who can't wait until Ford is cold to start using him to bash Bush.

Not entirely surprisingly, Thomas DeFrank of The NY Daily News has a different take on Ford's opinions of Bush and Iraq than "the boring fabulist", as Peggy Noonan recently dubbed Woodward.

Update: On the other hand, "Even if [Reid's absence during Ford's funeral] is deliberate, look at it this way — it gives Republicans cover to skip Dhimmi Jimmy’s canonization when that day finally rolls around".

More: And speaking of the seventies and suicide!

Meanwhile, it's probably time to call Ghostbusters--or at least Maceo Parker--as another seventies icon also disapproves of the Iraq War immediately after his death this week.

As always, Mark Steyn is spot-on:

So much of what ails us dates from the Seventies: It was the decade when the Continent fully embraced the social-democratic cosseting that's enfeebled its citizenry and the mass immigration necessary to keep it affordable, the decade when the petro-dictatorships of the Middle East realized the west would do anything to keep the oil flowing, and the decade which gave us the twin templates through which the media, the academy and the other American elites fit all major events, domestic and foreign - Watergate and Vietnam. Though it was a war he inherited from his three predecessors, it fell to Gerald Ford to preside over the final retreat from Vietnam and to bequeath to history the great emblematic image of American weakness and failure: the scrambling choppers over the US embassy in Saigon. As was plain then and is plainer now, the left saw American defeat as its own great victory. They enjoyed the pain the "long national nightmare" inflicted on national self-confidence, which is one reason they love to revive it at every opportunity. (See Pinch Sulzberger's pathetic self-regarding commencement address from last year.) Understanding the enduring damage Vietnam and Watergate would do to the body politic, Ford attempted to lance the boils. He failed, but it was an honorable effort by an honorable man. Rest in peace.

Update: Tammy Bruce looks at Ford through a gimlet eye: "yes, I know he died, and I'm sorry for him, and his family. But there will be no Love Letter here". Read the rest--while I do think Ford was a good man, he was an exceptionally weak president, and as Tammy writes, Ford's ineffectiveness led directly to Jimmy Carter's dire four years malaise.

I'm in the Admiral's Club at D-FW waiting for my flight back to San Jose, California; watch for regular blogging to resume tomorrow. In the meantime, Betsy Newmark and Pajamas have lots of thoughts and links regarding President Ford's death at age 93, and Hugh Hewitt has a devastating Socratic evisceration of the Wall Street Journal's anti-Blogosphere Joseph Rago, who fits Virginia Postrel's definition of a Stasist to a T.

John Hawkins' round-up is here.

Meanwhile, with plenty of material to choose from, Times Watch selects "The Worst Quotes of the Year from The New York Times".

Update: Speaking of worst quotes of the year, get a load of this AP piece from August:

When outsiders think of Cuba, it’s often the lack of political freedoms and economic power that comes to mind. Cubans who have chosen to stay on the island, however, are quick to point out the positives: safe streets, a rich and accessible cultural life, a leisurely lifestyle to enjoy with family and friends....For all its flaws, life in Castro’s Cuba has its comforts, and unknown alternatives are not automatically more attractive....Many foreigners consider it propaganda when Castro’s government enumerates its accomplishments, but many Cubans take pride in their free education system, high literacy rates and top-notch doctors. Ardent Castro supporters say life in the United States, in contrast, seems selfish, superficial, and — despite its riches — ultimately unsatisfying.

— Associated Press writer Vanessa Arrington in an August 4 dispatch, "Some Cubans enjoy comforts of communism.""

More 2006 MSM idiotarianism, here.

Pajamas Media has made public the Inspector General's Official Report regarding Sandy Berger and his theft and destruction of classified national security documents.

Hey, Congressman! Yeah, you in the navy blue flannel Brooks Brothers suit! Big test coming up? Say, an interview with Jeff Stein of The New York Times? Or simply taking over the House Intelligence Committee? Then this is the crib sheet for you. Pass it on when you're done.

James Lileks writes, 'John Bolton is out as U.N. ambassador, and many folks are singing hurrah: Our long international nightmare is over!"

Bolton didn't realize the rules of the game, it seems. The object of the U.N. is not to advance U.S. interests. The object is assure a steady flow of money and excuses to various illiberal regimes, to issue gravely worded statements of concern when a member nation starts slaughtering its citizens in numbers that require two commas, and to condemn Israel.

The last point is particularly important. Israel's mulish refusal to remove itself from the map is a particular affront to the finely tuned sensibilities of the diplomats, and requires weekly condemnatory resolutions, if only to keep the moral faculties limber. Russia could annex the Baltic states and it wouldn't evoke the same ire produced by a civilian casualty in a Gaza raid.

To paraphrase Stalin: One death is a tragedy; a million will be referred to the permanent subcommittee on statistics.

No, the U.S. ambassador must realize that the U.S. is the problem. It was the goody-two-shoes U.S. that didn't play along with Oil-for-Food. It was the U.S. that cruelly tricked the U.N. into putting sanctions on Iraq; it was Bolton who attempted to build international consensus opposing Iran's Atoms-for-Peace program, which was undertaken solely to heat dove nurseries. The man was a pain, and the international community is glad he's gone.

So who would they like to see in his stead? Let's consider the candidates.

Read on. And don't miss Ed Morrissey's thoughts on Kofi Annan's farewell address to one his most important constituent groups, the editors of the Washington Post.

Daniel Henninger writes, "Baker-Hamilton won't stop Beltway bloodshed":

Before this Sunday's talk shows use the Baker-Hamilton bulldozer to bury alive the Bush Doctrine and the "neoconservatives," let us suggest there is an alternative version of the Iraq narrative--one that is less a collapse of doctrine than simply the result of bad, possibly fatal, decisions the administration made in 2003.

The years 2003-05 don't exist in the ISG study, which is almost wholly about the horrors of the past year. But in the war's immediate aftermath, from May 2003 onward, Baghdad was rebuilding, notwithstanding continued violence. Retail commerce came to life. A strong real-estate market emerged. New cars filled the streets, and Iraq's universities reopened. But it was also in May that someone in the Bush administration made the worst decision of the war, as described on this page in June by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in an interview with our Robert Pollock.

"The biggest mistake, honestly, if you go back," said Mr. Zebari, "was not entrusting the Iraqis as partners, to empower them, to see them do their part, to fill the vacuum, to have a national unity government."

It sounds like Richard Perle would agree with that assessment.

"When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich - convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand."

--Jeane Kirkpatrick at the 1984 Republican National Convention.

Kirkpatrick death at age 80 was announced today; Commentary has reprinted her landmark "Dictatorships & Double Standards" essay that brought her to the attention of Ronald Reagan in the late 1970s. and would eventually lead to her appointment by President Reagan as United States ambassador to the United Nations.

Two words: Bolton Resigns.

Tammy Bruce adds:

Make no mistake--this is not a casualty of the new Dem majority, the loss of Bolton is due to the incompetence and cowardice of the previous Republican majority. And they wonder why they got fired.

And the sad thing is, by and large, they probably really do.

Not sure how things are in Darth Vader's neck of the woods, but down here, Pajamas writes that a dueling battle over orbital defense is coming to planet Congress next year: "Democrats to Gut Missile Defense / Bush to Announce 'Orbital Battle Station'".

Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi tabs Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, for the job. As Mary Katharine Ham writes:

Well, it ain't Alcee Hastings, which is kind of a downer when we're talking about entertainment value, but a major plus when we're talking security of the country. I'll take security in that choice.

Indeed^TM. She also has some thoughts on his voting record--and nepotism. As MKH writes, "Funny how we never heard much abou this stuff until after Dems took control".

Go figure.

In a pair of his trademarked FAQ lists, Dean Barnett looks towards the future, both near term and far. He explores the not-so-rosy future of The Baker Commission; and the legacy of President Bush--of which the jury's still out.

James Webb, class all the way:

The Washington Post reports that at a recent White House reception for freshmen members of Congress, Senator-elect James Webb tried to avoid President Bush. He declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the president. Eventually, however, Bush found him and asked him how his son, a Marine, was doing. Webb responded, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President." Bush said, "That's not what I asked you; how's your boy?" According to the Post, Webb "coldly" replied "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President."

The Hill adds this charming detail:

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

Kudos to President Bush for making the extra effort to seek him out, knowing that the ill-tempered Webb would more than likely self-destruct. But Power Line notes that Webb's more than willing to change his mind about a president, should the situation require it:

Webb seems to get off on disrespecting presidents. In 1997, he said:

I cannot conjure up an ounce of respect for Bill Clinton when it comes to the military. Every time I see him salute a Marine, it infuriates me. I don't think Bill Clinton cares one iota about what happens in a military unit.

However, when Webb needed Clinton's help, he brought the man whose administration he had called "the most corrupt in modern memory" to help him raise funds. Webb explained his about face by claiming that 9/11 had wiped the slate clean.

Thus, if Bush cared, he could take solace in the knowledge that if the wind changes, so too will the attitude of the erratic opportunist from Virginia.

Allah writes that he's just tossing the base some red meat to momentarily placate them:

Smells like something Webb’s people planted in order to give the Kossacks something to moon over before, in a gesture of scorn and contempt, he spits out their collective schwanz and goes maverick on them.

Jim Webb: the Joe Lieberman of 2012!

Me? I'm just happy he didn't ask for his rifle, as another rootin-tootin' reactionary ex-vet did a couple of years ago before meeting the president.

Update: George Will has some further thoughts.

Allah writes, "Fox News just broke in to say that [Alcee] Hastings has confirmed he won’t lead" the House Intelligence Committee. The Professor writes, "That's bad news for the GOP, but good news for the Democrats, and the country".

We're still in the preseason, but that's O for 2 for Speaker-to-be-Pelosi, incidentally.

Update: In a post titled with a variation of Mickey Kaus's great "Alcee Ya!" pun, Paul Mirengoff of Power Line writes, "Pelosi reportedly is still resolved to deny the chair to her adversary Rep. Jane Harman, who was in line for the position and (for a Democrat) would not have been a bad choice. So Pelosi still has an interesting decision to make."

Meanwhile, Alcee has his "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more" moment.

Thomas Sowell writes, "This country needs to be able to draw on its best people from every walk of life and from every part of the political spectrum. But the nation is not going to get them if going to Washington means seeing the honorable reputation of a lifetime dragged through the mud just because someone disagrees with you on a political issue":

But the nation is not going to get them if going to Washington means seeing the honorable reputation of a lifetime dragged through the mud just because someone disagrees with you on a political issue.

Our confirmation hearings for federal judges have become a circus and a disgrace. Nominees who have fought for civil rights, even in the days when that was a risky thing to do in the South, have been pictured as "racists" just as a political ploy to keep them from being confirmed.

Washington has become a political meat grinder where character assassination is standard procedure. Clever and glib people say "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen." But the far larger question is whether the country can afford to repel people who are desperately needed but who may have too much self-respect to let political pygmies smear their character.

We need to attract allies abroad as well as Americans at home. Yet too many in the media are as ready to trash our allies as they are to trash Americans whose politics they don't like. It is a great game to some. But it is a dangerous game to play when the country is facing unprecedented threats.

Washington, and by extension, the mainstream media, is a world of endless payback for past aggressions, and the cynicism of those who play the game most aggressively increases exponentially daily. If 9/11 and Saddam Hussein couldn't stop that cycle, I don't know what can.

In an article for The American, his own dramatically retooled magazine for the American Enterprise Institute, publisher James K. Glassman writes of James Webb, "Billed as a moderate, the new Virginia senator sounds more like an old-school leftist":

Webb was widely portrayed as a centrist in a race in a state that has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1964. But such terms--left, center, right--mean less and less. Virginia Postrel, in her superb 1998 book The Future and Its Enemies, distinguished between dynamists, who, with realism and enthusiasm, welcome the opportunities of a new world of technology and global exchange, and advocates of stasis, like Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan, who fear and rail against the changes.  Writing in the journal under the headline "Class Struggle," Webb reveals himself to be a member of the latter group--a chip-on-the-shoulder populist whose framework of analysis is an obsession with class and power relationships.

Or as Jacob Weisberg recently dubbed them, "The Lou Dobbs Democrats".

Read the rest of Glassman's essay.