Big Mack

Connie Mack has passed on running for Mel Martinez's Senate seat. Too bad...after Jeb Bush, Mack was probably the best candidate the GOP had.

Anybody know Katherine Harris's number? Kidding, kidding! Unless the Florida GOP has a death wish, they should make it a capital crime to utter her name at any party convention from now until the sun burns out.

I just remembered something vaguely interesting I read a little while back. In 2000, Bush's second choice for VP--after Mr. Republican himself, Colin Powell--was Connie Mack III, father of the current Mack.

How would things have turned out if the ticket was Bush-Mack instead of Bush-Cheney? Well, first of all, there would have been a bunch of lame puns about "Bush smack." But puns are unavoidable in politics. It's not like the GOP is innocent--"Sore Loserman," anyone?

Mack probably would have been enough to deliver Florida; I also assume the rest of the the map would remain the same, because I somehow doubt Dick Cheney was the reason Bush carried New Hampshire.

No recount...no "Re-Defeat Bush" bumper stickers...no endless bellyaching about the electoral college...doesn't sound too bad. Throw in chocolate falling from the skies, and you might have a perfect world there.

Resistance is (Not Quite) Futile

Quick reaction to the passage of Obama's budget:

It's good to see that the GOP has finally decided to take the whole "loyal opposition" idea seriously. If there's a twelve-step program for parties recovering from irrelevance, the Republicans have just completed the first two:

1) Stop running around like a chicken with your head cut off

Done. It took a little longer then we might like, but what can you do?

2) Actually start fighting back

To win in politics, you have to be willing to engage your enemy. There's no dancing around that. Bipartisanship is nice, but in the end, somebody's knuckles are going to get bloody. Politics is boxing without the punching--unless you happen to be Cynthia McKinney.

To extend the boxing metaphor a little further: a prizefighter isn't going to win anything if he never goes into the ring. You might not ever lose, either, but what good is a perfect record when it's 0-0?

So kudos to the Republicans for finally standing up to Obama. The easy part is done. Now on to step three in the process:

3) Start coming up with good ideas

There are nine others after that, but this is pretty much the only one that matters. So--ideas! Anybody got some good ones? Not yet? Well, keep thinking. We've still got a year or two before we need to start worrying.

Stewart/Murrow

After reading Eric Alterman's article "Is Jon Stewart Our Ed Murrow?" I'd just like to ask: does Alterman think Stewart should be canonized now, or only after he is carried up to heaven in a flaming chariot accompanied by a chorus of angels?

Sheesh. The man is funny, but he's no Edward R. Murrow. Heck, even Murrow himself was no Edward R. Murrow. "Edward R. Murrow" is a fictional character, the man everybody holds up as the exemplar of responsible journalism. Did he really exist? Not really, no. But everyone has got to have their saints, and journalists are no exception.

Dress to Impress

Didja hear what Michelle Obama was wearing? Didja didja didja?

That, according to Howard Kurz, is how most papers are covering Obama's European trip. He offers some examples.

From the Huffington Post:

Will Michelle Obama wear sleeves to meet Queen Elizabeth II later this week? Flats? Perhaps a hat? Will she recycle a previously worn ensemble, as a nod to the global economy's perilous state -- which everyone blames on America -- or debut a dazzling new outfit?

Goodness! So many choices! I hope she chooses correctly--wouldn't want to get in a tiff with the queen!

Or how about this one, from Britain's Daily Mail:

Let's be positive and see Michelle Obama's wardrobe thus far as a metaphor for all the sparkling, bright change the G20 summit will effect. For however weighty the political issues on the agenda, Mrs O should be commended for the lightness of touch she brought to the breakfast table today.

To quote Benjamin Franklin: "Oh, barf."

Yes, Michelle Obama is a beautiful and stylish lady. That is undeniable. Also undeniable: the fact that there are many, many more important things going on at the G20 summit than Michelle's wardrobe.

Just like Obama was prematurely anointed the next FDR, Michelle is already becoming the new Jackie O. Well, good luck to her. But do we really need to hear about it non-stop for the next four years?

Tampering in Dodd's Domain

Edwin Edwards, former governor of Louisiana and frequent resident of the Bayou State's penal system, once remarked that the only way he would lose an election was if he were "caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl."

Something worse happened to poor old Chris Dodd--he got caught in bed with AIG executives. And now he's paying the price:

Dodd trailed former Rep. Rob Simmons (R) by a 50-to-34 percent margin in the Quinnipiac University poll. Simmons is considered the GOP's top contender.

Dodd also trailed two other Republican candidates in head-to-head match-ups in the poll. State Sen. Sam Caligiuri (R), who announced his candidacy Wednesday, beat Dodd by a 41-37 percent margin, while Dodd trailed Tom Foley, a former ambassador to Ireland who is expected to join the contest, 43 percent to 35.

Those numbers might ruffle even Dodd's perfect coiffure. To be down by sixteen points, more than a year out from the election, is not a good sign. It's not a bad sign either. It's a terrible, terrible sign, the sort that makes incumbents suddenly decide they want to "spend more time with their family."

Highlights of Obama's European Tour

April 1: Visit Queen Elizabeth; pump her about the secrets of the regal wave

April 2: Meet with Gordon Brown to discuss A) the world economic crisis and B) which nation's version of "The Office" is better

April 3: Take a trip to the suburbs of Paris to see how French handle young Muslim immigrants; see what the French do, make note to do the exact opposite

April 4: Hint to Sarkozy that we might be willing to slip a couple billion his way if he renames the "Arc de Triomphe" the "Arc de Obama"

April 5: Let's see...the Czech Republic? Who the hell put that on the itinerary?

April 6: Visit the grave of some Turkish guy who, according to your handlers, was sort of a big deal over there

April 7: Don't forget to pick up souvenirs!

The Bloody Twentieth

Political junkies, rejoice! It looks like the special election in NY's 20th congressional district isn't as over as we thought:

The too-close-to-call race in the 20th Congressional District between Republican Jim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy just got considerably closer.

Following a review of votes in Columbia County, Murphy still leads Tedisco — but only by 25 votes, 77,217 to 77,192.

That result peels off 127 votes for Murphy and 93 for Tedisco from last night's results.

Both parties, naturally, are claiming victory. But what else would you expect? Neither candidate is going to politely step aside and say "The seat is yours. Take it, I insist!"

It's rather ironic that one of the best exemplars of the gracious loser in American politics is Richard Nixon. Sure, he could have protested the 1950 election, but he decided that no good would come of prolonging the election.

What are the chances of Tedisco or Murphy pulling a Nixon? Slim to none. That means it's time to sit back, pop some popcorn and watch the partisan fur fly.

Just Plain Folk

God, let's make a deal. I've been a good Catholic all Lent. I've kept my promises; I haven't so much as glanced at a sports website--ESPN, SI, FoxSports, and all the rest--all through March Madness.

I ask only this in return. Please don't let Terry McAuliffe become Governor of Virginia. Please, please, please. Please.

If you're doubting me, God, I refer you to this Dana Milbank piece in the Washington Post:

Now McAuliffe, who speaks almost entirely in exclamation points, is applying that same zeal to being a man of the people. As part of his campaign, he has spent a day working as a busboy and a bartender. He plans to labor on a ship. "I've been an African American barber," the Irish candidate reported to his hosts at the landfill in Lorton yesterday. "You know, about three Saturdays ago, there was a grass fire out here," he told the workers at the waste plant. "You know who was on the firetruck to put it out? I was! I was a fireman that day. . . . I got those hoses out so fast, you would not have a plant today if I had not been on that truck. Saved your plant. Probably saved Northern Virginia."

I have to ask: why do Democrats get a pass when it comes to faux-populist posing? If a Republican stumped around the state like this, dressing up as a fireman or a barber, the media would laugh them out of town.

Yet McAuliffe does it and nobody bats an eye. How to explain it? God, that's my second request to you. Please illuminate this problem.

The David Brooks...OF THE FUTURE!

Politico provides an interesting profile of Ross Douthat, the conservative blooger and author taking Bill Kristol's place at the New York Times.

For those of you who care about my opinion--and if you've read this far, I'm going to assume you care at least a little--I think this is a great decision, both for conservatives and for the Times. The Grey Lady gets an articulate conservative who won't offend the paper's target audience. No Greenwich Village liberal is going to choke to death on their Zabar's bagel while reading one of Douthat's columns.

But that doesn't mean Douthat is wishy-washy, the kind of conservative writes things like "Barack Obama is the only real conservative in America!" or "I think conservatives ought to embrace big government!" I've read his blog for a couple months and can personally vouch for his conservatise credentials. That and a couple bucks will get you a nice Starbucks latte, but oh well. That's my opinion and I'm stickin' to it.

When David Brooks came to UNC, he compared his position with the Times to being like "the chief rabbi in Mecca." Well, now he's got some company in the synagogue.

Gloom and Doom in New York

Don't look now, but the New York GOP seems to be going the way of dinosaurs, the dodo and disco:

Even as Jim Tedisco plans an all-night sprint of campaigning leading up to tomorrow's 20th CD special election, Republicans are privately lowering expectations and rather gloomily suggesting that this could be the beginning of the end for them in New York. Again.

One GOP consultant who isn't working on Tedisco's camapign suggested this race could actually end up being a "perfect storm," leading to calls for the ouster of party leaders all the way up the food chain.

The Dems have out-raised, out-spent, out-organized, out-everythinged the GOP in this race. The 20th used to be a fairly safe GOP district, but there's no such thing in New York anymore.

A loss in the 20th would send shockwaves all the way to the top of the party. Foolish of Michael Steele, really, to hype this contest as a bellwether for the Republican Party.

Too late now, though. Expectations are like balloons; once they get high enough, there's no pulling them back down. I don't think a defeat in the 20th will end Steele's career at the RNC. But rest assured that, if Tedisco goes down, Steele's seat will get a good deal hotter.

Obama at Notre Dame

James Thunder talks about "The Destruction of Notre Dame," and he isn't talking about the football team--though as an aside, I think Notre Dame's failure to fire Charlie Weis is nothing short of blasphemy. But enough of that.

No, what has Thunder concerned is The One's visit to the college that, more than any other, prides itself as exemplifying the teachings of The Original One.

By giving Obama a platform, Notre Dame is just making itself one more stop in Obamafest 2008, Barack's nationwide pity party. His appearance on "60 Minutes" and Jay Leno aren't political strategy. Their a rather needy attempt to win back the public's love.

It's the equivalent of one of those notes passed around during high school, the ones that said "Do You Like Me? Check Yes or No." And Notre Dame, by inviting Obama, is giving him a big ol' check in the "Yes" box.

But that's their privilege, I suppose. The flipside of being a private institution, able to make your own decisions, is that sometimes your decisions will be awfully stupid. Count this as one of them.

With Friends Like These...

Though political junkies like myself are already droling over the prospect of an Arlen Specter-Chris Matthews matchup in the Pennsylvania Senate race, there's just one small issue. Specter might not even survive the primary:

Apparently paying a political price for his support of President Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan, longtime Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter trails former Congressman Pat Toomey 41 - 27 percent in a Republican primary for the 2010 Senate race, with 28 percent undecided, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

The rule of political thumb holds that, if an incumbent polls below 50%, he's in trouble.

If he polls below 45%, he's in dire trouble.

If he polls below 40%, he can apply for a spot on the endangered species list.

And if, as in Specter's case, he's below 30%...well, let's just say he might as well get started on his memoirs, prospectively titled "To My Constituents--F*** You!"

I'm not writing Specter off, though, because I'm sure the NRSC is going to throw its full weight behind him. That was enough to drag Lincoln Chafee across the finish line in 2006. And look how well that turned out! For the Democrats, I mean.

Review: The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008

It’s comforting to know that even in these economic times, some people are still managing to turn a profit. One of these lucky few is Paul Krugman: Princeton professor, Nobel laureate and economic guru-in-residence at the New York Times. The recent financial crisis gave Krugman an opportunity to dust off his 1999 book “The Return of Depression Economics,” add a couple tidbits about subprime mortgages, and rechristen it “The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008.” That, and a chance to add an extra $10 to the price tag.

Krugman’s book is a cautionary tale about how bad things can happen even when smart people do smart things. In fact, he argues that bad things often happen because of said smart people doing said smart things. Ever since the economic revolutions of Keynesianism and, later on, monetarism, we’ve gotten cocky. We think we’ve got all the answers. Writes Krugman in his new preface: “The kind of economic trouble that Asia experienced a decade ago, and that we’re all experiencing now, is precisely the sort of thing we thought we had learned to prevent.”

In theory, the recession of 2009 should have been easy to prevent. But the difference between in theory and in reality is as wide as the gap between going to California and going to the California Pizza Kitchen. One of the book’s recurring themes is that theory won’t always save us. If there existed a manual on “How to End a Depression,” and if you followed its instructions to the letter—increase spending, print more money, and so on—there would be no guarantee of success.

One might ask, then: if smart people can make such dumb mistakes, why should we trust Paul Krugman, the very epitome of the hyper-educated brainiacs who got us into this mess? First of all, the man has a Nobel Prize, and his book reminds us of that fact. Repeatedly. It’s mentioned on the front cover, the back cover, the dust jacket, the author’s biography—I expected the dedication to read “to my wife, my kids, and my lovely Nobel Prize.”

But there’s more to Krugman’s book than his shiny new medal. It overflows with fascinating stories of how booms lead to bubbles and how bubbles, inevitably, go bust. You think the housing market was the first time it happened? Krugman takes us on a world tour of economic crises, from the “Tequila crisis” that struck Latin America in 1994 to Japan’s “liquidity trap,” which devastated the island nation’s economy throughout much of the 1990s.

The book is more economic history than policy checklist; Krugman-the-professor pushes aside Krugman-the-pundit. But a final chapter, “The Return of Depression economics,” proposes a couple solutions. “What the world needs right now,” Krugman says, “is a rescue operation.” We need a jumbo-sized stimulus to jumpstart the economy; we also need a fresh approach to globalization. Very vague ideas, true, but give the man a break. It’s hard to solve a world crisis in just 191 pages. Even if you do happen to have a Nobel Prize.

Political Animals

Peggy Noonan asks whether Obama is a hedgehog or a fox. No, its not a racial thing; get that NY Post chimpanzee cartoon out of your mind.

The "hedgehog/fox" dichotomy, proposed by Isaiah Berlin, breaks people into two groups. There are the hedgehogs, who know one big thing, and the foxes, who know a whole lot of little things. Then there are the amoebas, who know only one little thing, but the less said about them the better.

So which is Obama? Noonan takes a look at his first few months in office and decides he's...neither, really:

In political leadership the hedgehog has certain significant advantages, focus and clarity of vision among them. Most presidents are one or the other. So far Mr. Obama seems neither.

That's the inevitable consequence, I guess, of being all about Change. Obama was going to Change Washington. He was going to Change politics. He would reach deep inside all of us an Change our hearts, Change our beliefs, Change our very souls.

His most fervent followers seemed to think that he wouldn't just stop there; he'd come to our houses and Change our kid's diapers and Change our kids linens and Change the oil in the car, which we'd been meaning to do for a while but never really got around too.

Well, Barack, you're in the White House now, and it's a lot harder to talk about Changing Washington when you are Washington. It's as if somebody told LeBron James that he wasn't allowed to dunk anymore. He would have to completely change his game.

So far, Obama isn't doing so hot at changing his game. He's switching from one persona to another like a speed-dating schizophrenic. Barack Obama, hard-headed realist. No, wait: Barack Obama, FDR redux. Wait, lemme try again: Barack Obama, optimist-in-chief. No, wait...

Until Obama figures out what he is he'll be neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He's a jellyfish: brainless, spineless, and drifting wherever the current takes him.

Panic at the White House

Fred Barnes thinks that Obama and his much-vaunted "brain trust" have hit the panic button. Obama was struggling even before the AIG kerfuffle came to light, but as Barnes points out:

What goes on in Washington usually comes across as background noise to the public, but not this time. Bonuses for AIG executives are like the infamous Bridge to Nowhere--an issue that's broken through outside Washington.

Obama's opponents now have a concrete issue, something tangible, something that they can grab hold of and clobber the president with.

The AIG issue is further proof that Obama is losing the image wars. With better PR, he could have turned the issue to his advantage: those greedy CEOs are at it again! I'm sure the American people would have been more than willing to take another whack at that long-dead horse.

Instead, it rebounded on Obama's head, and we're finally seeing Mr. Cool. During the campaign, we were told over and over again how "calm" and "levelheaded" Obama was, how he would never lose his grip in a crisis. John McCain was the crazy one, and Obama the cool one.

The crisis is here. Let's see if Obama can get back on his feet.

Whitman For Governor

Another hint for Republicans seeking to regain their old mojo. The GOP dominated politics in the late 90s and early 2000s because they had, in sports terms, a deep bench. They won a majority of governorships in the early 90s--including big states like New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas--giving them a nationally recognized group of leaders.

Governors like George W. Bush and Tom Ridge could put conservative policies into action at a statewide level; they could also produce new strategies, both in terms of politics and policy, and share them with their fellow Republican governors.

The GOP also benefited because they had a whole host of attractice, articulate spokespeople. Governors like Christie Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Jeb Bush in Florida could make the case for conservatism without looking like knuckledraggers.

Finally, by holding onto these governors after the 1998 election, Republicans were able to play a major role in redrawing congressional boundaries after the 2000 census. Republican gerrymandering swelled GOP ranks in congress; though they lost control in 2006, things would've been a lot worse without those favorable districts.

All of which means this is a good sign for the GOP. Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, is looking like a serious candidate for the governor of California. If she wins she instantly becomes the GOP's newest star. She'd become Pali, without all the baggage of 2012.

I know that the current governor of California is a Rpeublican. But Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Republican the same way Mike Bloomberg was. You always get the feeling that he wakes up in the morning and lies in bed wondering, "Let's see...I'm a Republican because...why?"

Whitman might be the real deal, even if she says she's running as a populist. She's got the money to run a statewide campaign in California, and she's going to need it; running for governor of California is an absurdly expensive proposition. Don't try it unless you've got money coming out the wazoo.

I look forward to seeing how Whitman runs her campaign. Even if she loses, there's always the possibility of running to replace Dianne Feinstein in 2012.

NoVa Surprise

When solving a problem, my grandfather always told me, begin at the beginning. OK, my grandfather never actually said that. But it's still a good piece of advice.

The Republican Party's problem is clear. For the past few years the party has been hemorrhaging support among middle-class, moderate voters. The suburbs around southern and western cities--Denver, Phoenix, Raleigh, Orlando--used to vote reliably Republican. Now they've turned a toxic shade of blue.

If we were to try to pinpoint where this trend began, we ought to start in Virginia. Virginia voted for Obama in 2008 because the suburbs of northern Virginia, especially in Fairfax County, voted so heavily for the Democrats that they swamped Republican majorities elsewhere in the state.

That's why Republicans should take some encouragement in this story from the Washington Post:

The narrow victory in Tuesday's special election to succeed former Braddock District supervisor Sharon Bulova, who became chairman last month, heartened Republicans, especially those who have argued that a pragmatic, centrist candidate focused on neighborhood-level needs could win despite the Democratic tide that has overtaken Northern Virginia.

"Fairfax County is competitive again," said former congressman Tom Davis, a moderate Republican who often clashed with his party's conservative wing. The county's voters "are smart people. They want pragmatic leadership."

Does this mean Republicans can start wooing back all those white-collar office park workers they lost during the Bush years? Maybe not right away. Nothing in politics is instantaneous.

But John Cook's victory should teach two important lessons.

1. The GOP ruled Washington for so long it lost sight of local issues. It conceived everything in national terms and forgot how to listen to its constituents back home. Cook's victory proves that Tip O'Neill's adage never goes out of style--all politics really is local.

That means there will never be a GOP grand strategy. If Republicans want to return to relevance, they can't expect some think tank in Washington, DC to spit out a study on "The Perfect Way to Win Elections." Victory will come from the grassroots.

2. The other interesting thing is how similar Cook's strategy looks to George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism:

Cook is among those in the Virginia GOP who blame the party's slide in recent years on a misguided embrace of divisive social issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage and gun rights. The approach, they say, has allowed Democrats to lay claim to such day-to-day issues as transportation and education.

Granted, since GWB's term in office, "compassionate conservative" has become an obscenity, the same way "neoconservative" has been permanently stained.

But there's still an element of truth to Bush's strategy. He refused to concede any ground to the Democrats; he tackled issues like education with No Child Left Behind, and healthcare with his prescription drug plan.

Everyone giggles when they recall Bush saying "I'm a uniter, not a divider." It's a punchline. It's a joke. It's like saying "Mission Accomplished." Yet if Republicans want to win again in suburbs like Fairfax County, they really do have to work on their uniting skills.

New York, New York

Things look awfully grim for David Paterson, New York's accidental governor. In fact, I'd venture a guess that if Eliot Spitzer had decided to hang on to the governor's seat, he'd be more popular today than Patterson is.

It's too early yet to dig Paterson's grave. But if this poll is accurate, we can at least start picking out a headstone:

Voters say by 55 percent to 20 percent that they would prefer another candidate if Paterson runs again in 2010.

When only one in five voters want you back in office...that sends a pretty clear signal.

Paterson got off to a bad start and has never really found his footing. So far, his biggest accomplishment has been to pick a fight with Saturday Night Live. Though the poll doesn't say, I imagine that "sticking it to SNL" ranks fairly low on a list of voter concerns.

To Be Perfectly Frank

What does Frank Rich do all week? He doesn't write theater reviews anymore, and I don't think he critiques books or movies, either. So unless he's started writing about the stock market, his only responsibility is writing his Sunday column.

If that's true--I feel very sorry for Mr. Rich. There are three things I can count on every Sunday--church, doughnuts, and a wretched column from Frank Rich. He never disappoints.

Rich has only two gears: "Bush/Republicans are horrible" and "Barack Obama is brilliant/Godlike." When Rich talks about Obama, he writes in the sort of starry-eyed, hero-worshiping style most people reserve for sports legends and cult leaders.

Well, Barack Obama has been looking significantly less brilliant and/or Godlike over the past couple weeks, so Rich has gone back to beating the dead horse of "Republicans are the spawn of Satan." Never mind that he's been beating that horse so long he's reduced it to a pulpy jelly.

Today's column is just another in a long series of interchangeable Frank Rich columns. Titled "The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off," Rich gloats that...what, really? I'm not quite sure. And I read it twice.

The gist of his argument seems to be that, because times are hard, people don't care about cultural issues anymore. That, Rich exults, means that pro-life, anti-gay marriage folks like Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins are out of business.

This fits in perfectly with Rich's longer-running argument, which he has swiped rather shamelessly from the similarly-named Thomas Frank. Those evil conservatives, T. Frank and Frank R. argue, have used social issues like abortion and gay marriage to hornswoggle Middle Americans to vote against their economic interests.

Conservatives do this because...they're jerks, I guess. That's never really fleshed out in Rich's column. Rich sees Republicans as cartoon villains along the lines of Snidely Whiplash.

Really, this column reveals why liberals like Rich will never win over Middle America. In his mind, ignorance is the only explanation for social conservatism. If only those hayseed flyover yokels read more of The New Yorker! Then they'd see the error of their ways.

The Franks miss the fact that, to many Middle Americans, social issues and economic issues intertwine. Their moral code isn't imposed on them by some nefarious outside force; it was created in their community, and their community sustains it.

Middle Americans "cling" to their social conservatism because it gives a little structure to their life. When they vote for Republicans, they might be voting against their economic interests, but they're also voting to uphold their social interests. Liberals have no interest in understanding this.

In conclusion: Frank Rich is wrong, and I hate him. Maybe not hate. Hate is too strong a word for an intellectual clown like Rich. Feel sorry for him, more like it.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Money

Grr. I know I'm probably in the minority here--and definitely in the minority among my fellow college students--but Jon Stewart really gets on my nerves.

Yeah, he's a funny guy. Tremendously funny. Outrageously funny. Roll-over-on-the-floor-laughing-until-your-appendix-ruptures kind of funny. We haven't had a TV comic this talented since Johnny Carson.

But being funny can't excuse being a pompous ass. Just because you're funny doesn't mean that every word that drops from your lip is a beautifully-shaped pearl of wisdom and truth.

Yet that's the way Stewart acts. He has set himself up as the Guardian of the Free Press, the Defender of Democracy, the Vigilant Watchman of the Fourth Estate. I don't know if things were different in the past, but now he takes himself more seriously than does, say, a bloviator like Chris Matthews.

His little spat with Jim Cramer is a case in point. Look, Cramer's an entertainer. He's just like Stewart, in that both guys set out to amuse their audience.

What gives Stewart the right, then, to get all huffy when Cramer criticizes Obama? Yeah, Cramer dishes out some lousy stock advice. If you followed his picks to the letter, you're probably sitting in a cardboard box somewhere.

But Stewart has the gall to try to crucify Cramer because of that? As I said only a post ago--do Cramer's mistakes invalidate everything he says from now on? Good God! If that was the standard we used, every television pundit would be worth less than their weight in lint.

Mark Hemingway of National Review does a much better job of summarizing my complaint than I myself can. Stewart bugs me. I can't quite articulate it yet. When I do, I'll be sure to let you know. And by "you," I mean my loyal reader, and by loyal reader, I mean my mother.

The Great Debate

P.J. O'Rourke is the last conservative I would have expected to come out as a champion of the pro-life cause. I always thought of him as the Republican Party's resident libertarian: always on hand to make some wisecrack or another about the dangers of the government meddling in our lives.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I read his latest column, a searing attack on Obama's stem-cell sophistry. Fatherhood turns even the most committed libertarian into a pro-lifer, I guess.

I don't really buy the first part of his argument, when he writes:

Let's look at the various things science has "known" in the past 3,000 years.

Lightning is the sneeze of Thor.

The periodic table consists of Earth, Wind, and Fire and a recording of "Got To Get You into My Life."

The world is flat with signs saying "Here Be Democrats" near the edges.

You can turn lead into gold without first selling your Citibank stock at a huge loss.

Hey, you leave science out of this, P.J.! Just because it's been wrong in the past doesn't mean we should ignore it forever. After all, if a politician lies once, does that mean we should assume that he's lying every time he opens his mouth thereafter?

Wait, I actually know how O'Rourke would answer that one.

But regardless. The strongest argument against Obama's stem-cell policy is that it's anti-science, that it's built on ideology and not on scientifically verifiable facts.

Obama ignores the enormous breakthroughs that have come about through research on adult stem cells. Instead, he prefers to stick it to everyone who believes that creating embryos for the sole purpose of destroying them is wrong.

Rand, Revitalized

Over at the Wall Street Journal, Yaron Brooks asks: Is Rand relevant? Yes, he says, but Brook is hardly an unbiased source; he is, after all, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. It's like asking the president of Kellogg what the most important meal of the day is. The answer's a foregone conclusion.

I wish I could offer my own two cents, but I confess that my knowledge of economics is pitifully, pathetically small. Like most college students, I learned about economics from two sources: my Econ 101 textbook and "Freakonomics." I've never read Rand--or Friedman, or Hayek, or Keynes or Smith or Galbraith or anyone remotely like that.

I have to say one thing, though. Rand fans always make me a little uneasy. Their love of "Atlas Shrugged" borders on religious reverence. God help you if you dare question their holy writ. I don't think it's healthy to be that devoted to anything--whether book, or person, or political philosophy.

Man of Steele

From savior to goat in less than a month? Rick Moran takes a look at the troubles bedeviling newly elected RNC chairman--and erstwhile savior of the GOP--Michael Steele.

What's wrong with Steele? Everything, if you believe Moran. It's not just the verbal gaffes, though they certainly aren't helping him. Apparently his efforts to shake up the structure of the RNC have led to mass confusion. Even worse, it seems a few skeletons might be lurking in Steele's closet.

I say give the guy a chance. Conservatives have always been too willing to devour their own. Though Steele might turn out to be a dud, it's hard to judge anyone after one month in office. Give him half a year. If the GOP's still in disarray, and if Steele still sticks his foot in his mouth at every opportunity, then we can talk about kicking him out. Not until then, though.

Mayor Ensign?

First, a disclaimer. I know that Washington, DC politics--by which I mean the actual business of running the city of Washington--is pretty obscure stuff. Most Americans don't get hot and bothered about gun rights or school choice in our nation's capital. Washington, DC might be the capital, but it's still a fairly dinky city, and it will never draw much media attention.

That being said...it's interesting to read this article about how Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, is taking the lead on issues relating to the administration of the city.

It got me thinking: could Ensign be setting himself up as a presidential candidate in 2012? He has the resume. He's from a swing state--Nevada. He has governmental experience, but not so much that he seems like a creature of the establishment. He looks presidential, certainly, having perhaps the best head of hair in politics.

It's only a thought. Perhaps there's nothing to it. But I'll be interested to see how Ensign handles himself over the next few months. If he joins conservatives like Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn in leading the charge against Obama, it might hint at his own ambitions to the Oval Office.

The Times, It is a Changin'

Bill Kristol is out; Ross Douthat is in. George Packer of the New Yorker muses on what it all means, and speculates as to what sort of columnist Douthat will be.

Packer's prognosis: better, at least, then most of those other clowns on the NYT's editorial page. As he rightly notes, most of the Grey Lady's columnists have lapsed into self-parody. Week in, week out, it's always the same. Allow me to offer a one-sentence summary of each writer:

Thomas Friedman: America needs to be more competitive and needs to use more green power.

Maureen Dowd: I watched a movie this week that really reminded me how much I hate George W. Bush.

Frank Rich: I watched a movie this week that really reminded me how much I hate Republicans in general.

David Brooks: Barack Obama is trying to do too much, too quickly; also, I really like Edmund Burke.

Paul Krugman: Barack Obama is not doing enough, and not doing it fast enough; also, I really like John Maynard Keynes.

Nicholas Kristof: Bad things are happening in Africa, and you should be concerned about it.

Bob Herbert: Bad things are happening in America, and you should be concerned about it.

Gail Collins: Who?

The Image Wars

Ouch! There's no pundit half--nay, a quarter--as vicious as Camille Paglia when she gets worked up. Her newest polemic is aimed at Obama's advisors, those "clumsy, smirky" guys she thinks are dragging down the president:

First it was that chaotic pig rut of a stimulus package, which let House Democrats throw a thousand crazy kitchen sinks into what should have been a focused blueprint for economic recovery. Then it was the stunt of unnerving Wall Street by sending out a shrill duo of slick geeks (Timothy Geithner and Peter Orszag) as the administration's weirdly adolescent spokesmen on economics. Who could ever have confidence in that sorry pair?

A bit over the top, certainly. It seems a bit juvenile to mock Geithner and Orszag because they look like geeks. They are geeks. That's why Obama put them in charge.

Paglia has always been more concerned with style and image rather than substance. In tis case, though, she makes a good point. Even if Obama's programs are working, he, or at least his advisers, seem awfully tone-deaf when it comes to making their case to the public.

Confidence is the most important thing right now. The Obama White House isn't projecting it. That's why Paglia picks up on.

Putting Your Mouth Where the Money Is

Mark Sanford has declared he will reject some--some, not all--of South Carolina's share of the stimulus. Is it a political stunt? Of course! Everything a politician does is a political stunt; this one just happens to be stuntier--pardon the neologism--than most. If Sanford were 100% sincere in his beliefs he'd turn down all the money, no questions asked.

But that, of course, would make the citizens of the Palmetto State howl with outrage. And even when you're a second-term governor trying to cater to your party's right wing, it's never wise to tick off your constituents. It sort of decreases your value as a presidential contender, don't you know.

Sanford's action shows the quandary the GOP is in. They hate the stimulus, but they can't produce any alternative. Intellectual atrophy has left the Republicans idealess. All they can do is shout "No!" While that might be part of a winning strategy, it's not a strategy itself.

So if Sanford really wants to take on the mantle of Republican leadership, let's see how he performs over the next year. Can he create a "second way," a new program for Republican governance? Or is he going to keep shouting "No" until his lungs give out?

An Evangelical Collapse?

This piece by Michael Spencer just overflows with gloom. It’s titled “The Coming Evangelical Collapse"—and that’s the optimistic part! Spencer foresees an end to evangelical Protestantism as we know it. It’s coming fast, and it’s coming soon.

Evangelicals, Spencer writes, have made a deal with the devil—pun mostly intended. In this case, read “the devil” as conservatism. Evangelicals have traded in religion for politics. By focusing on issues like abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research, they’ve lost sight of the real, transcendent nature of religion. The evangelical church isn’t a church anymore; it’s a political institution.

The megachurch movement is a symptom of the disease. Like giant vampires with jumbotron eyeballs, they’ve sucked evangelical Protestantism dry of any religious content. Sorry, that metaphor sucked. I apologize. Megachurch pastors like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen are more “life teachers” than shepherds of the faithful. They’d rather talk about global warming than the gospels.

So ends the modern evangelical movement. Evangelicals have failed to pass on their religious beliefs to the next generation because they don’t have beliefs anymore. Evangelical Christianity survived for decades thanks to the personal bonds it created between churchgoers and Christ. Now that connection has been replaced by petty politics. And who wants to spend Sunday morning getting a lecture about congressional policy?

Or at least, that’s what Spencer thinks. I disagree. And because I’m the one writing this blog post, I’m going to give myself the last word on the subject. Evangelical Protestantism isn’t going to collapse into nothingness overnight, or even in the next five years. It’s too big to fail. Evangelicals aren’t suddenly going to jump ship and become Catholics or Greek Orthodox or Wiccans or whatever. Their culture is too strong for that.

But I also think Spencer identifies one important future trend. He says:

Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

Will the next five years see the secularization of religion? Oxymoronic, I know, but bear with me. I think religion, especially evangelical Protestantism, is going to take on a more worldly flavor. We already see it in ideas like the “Gospel of Wealth,” which proclaims that God wants you to prosper and grow rich.

Churches might—might—become more like social clubs than houses of worship. Pastors would cut back on the orthodoxy and instead offer self-help talks, political lectures, and financial advice. The actual religious content would be made more and more ecumenical so as to not offend anyone. Jesus would take a back pew in these new churches.

Of course, all this is only possible. I mean, if I can’t predict who’s going to win Best Actor, I’m certainly not qualified to predict the future of American religion. Who knows what the future holds?

Go Go Joe

I'm forced to nod sadly in agreement with Patrick Ruffini's piece about the "Joe the Plumberization" of the GOP. I didn't think much of Joe when he first arrived on the scene, and, to be frank, I think even less of him now.

Joe's whole appeal was that he was completely apolitical. He didn't have any agenda or ideology; he was just a reg'lar guy, standing up for the interests of other reg'lar guys like himself. He was anti-politics personified.

Now, though, he's become the symbol of what Mark Halperin would undoubtedly call "freak show politics." He is a self-perpetuating phenomenon, the Paris Hilton of politics. He's not a working class hero anymore, but just another political pundit, one more talking head.

Oy. Is this the best conservatism can do? If it is, the movement's in deeper trouble than anyone realizes.

Liberalism and Human Rights

Michael Barone condemns the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton, and Democrats in general for failing to speak up on the issue of China's human rights violations. True, George W. Bush wasn't exactly a crusader for the rights of Chinese dissidents, but Barone charges that the Obamanistas aren't even trying:

It is one thing not to press a tyranny very hard on human rights; it is another thing to come out and say you're not going to raise the issue at all. It is a kind of unilateral moral disarmament. One arrow in the quiver of American foreign policy has been our pressing -- sometimes sotto voce (as in the Helsinki Accords), sometimes in opera buffa ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!") -- tyrannical regimes to honor human rights. Hillary Clinton has put that arrow over her knee, broken it in two and thrown it away.

He goes on to argue that Democrats have been criminally lax regarding human rights around the world. When Bush called for spreading democracy around the globe in the 2005 inaugural, Barone recalls how liberals "guffawed and groaned and jeered." Their reflexive Bush-bashing has led them astray from liberalism's long-time commitment to spreading democracy abroad.

Or so Barone says. I'm inclined to agree--mostly. Though even some of Bush's former supporters now say that the president's worldview might have been a bit too simplistic, he at least was willing to call for a change. And by freeing Iraq, he struck the greatest blow for democracy worldwide since the fall of the USSR more than a decade before.

The issue of human rights has become so much more complicated since then, because the world has grown much more complex. During the Cold War, our policy could be guided by asking a simple question. Would it help us defeat the Soviets? Now we ask, Will it help us defeat the terrorists? The first question is much, much easier to answer, not least because of the difficulty of defining "terrorist."

Does the United States have the responsibility to export democracy? One blog post isn't big enough to list all the pros and cons; one book isn't big enough. Several books, Oxford English Dictionary Style, probably wouldn't even be enough.

But I think Barone is right when he accuses liberals of dereliction of duty. Exporting democracy doesn't necessarily mean doing it by force, though those two ideas became tightly entangled during the Bush years. Instead, it means you're willing to speak up for those who can't speak for themselves. When Clinton glosses over China's human rights problems in one sentence, she's silencing the voices of those who deserve to be heard.

The Future of the GOP...

...Is Mitt Romney. Or that's what CPAC says. Second is Bobby Jindal, followed by runners-up Sarah Palin and Ron Paul. Note: CPAC's straw poll contained an unusually large sampling of college students, explaining the good doctor's strong showing.

Newt Gingrich picks up a couple votes, with Mike Huckabee trailing behind. The article, by the way, quotes Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher. I wonder: how long before we see a presidential boom for Joe? The man clearly has his sights set on higher office, and I'm not being facetious. I wouldn't be surprised if he entered the Ohio Senate race and competed against Rob Portman in the primaries.

Paper Cuts

I confess--I'm a killer. Not the really bad kind of killer, I hasten to add. I've never killed another person. I am, however, complicit in the death of a whole industry, specifically the newspaper biz.

My first semester at UNC, I got myself a subscription to the New York Times. It wasn't done out of love for the Gray Lady, though. One of our professors wanted us to read the NYT everyday so we could become "more cultured." If that wasn't incentive enough, we also had to write a paper on an article we found.

My subscription has long since run out. Now, I only see an actual newspaper, in the paper-y sense, when I come home. The NYT is always worth reading--I'm getting "more cultured," after all--but the local Raleigh News & Observer is a little less...quality. The only culture you get from reading the N&O involves NASCAR. I'm no elitist snot. But I can't help thinking that if the N&O put as much effort into the front page as they did the sports page, their articles might be a little more readable.

There's my dilemma. I'm of two minds on this whole "crisis of newspaper issue." Part of me sneers, "You want more readers? Then make a better product!" This nasty side believes that the papers only have themselves to blame. They got fat and complacent, started losing readers to the internet, and only now are beginning to realize their mistake.

My other half is a little more sympathetic. That part of me recognizes that even high-quality newspapers like the NYT and the Washington Post are struggling. It's not just the local penny-savers that are going under; it's journalistic institutions like the Rocky Mountain News.

Newspapers do play an important role in our society, though maybe not an absolutely irreplaceable one. Critics of the business say that papers are dinosaurs, that we can get all our news off of the web. But in most cases, the best internet reporting is provided by...the websites of the papers themselves. If the papers die, their sites fold with them.

So my nicer half wins out. We need to keep newspapers around. They provide well-written articles--the good papers do, at least--and a little extra. They add a little flavor to life. Forgive the pretentiousness of the following statement, but I can't imagine a Sunday morning with a thoroughly disemboweled NYT spread out over the kitchen table. It'd be like going to a circus and not seeing any elephants. Yeah, you don't need the elephants, but they're part of the experience.

How to save newspapers, then? Over at Reason, Cathy Young proposes a few solutions. Surprisingly, given Reason's libertarian bent, she offers more than "kill 'em all and let the free market sort 'em out." I'm not sure about this whole "news by the slice" concept, but I wasn't sold on iTunes either. And look how that worked out.

Packer on Brooks

George Packer of the New Yorker defends Barack Obama 'gainst the slings and arrows of David Brooks, whom Packer calls "one of the best critics the Obama administration will have."

He argues that recent history has made Brooks' worldview obsolete. Used to be, conservatives were the pragmatic ones, and liberals were the starry-eyed dreamers. That's the tradition Brooks draws on when he writes:

I fear that in trying to do everything at once, they will do nothing well. I fear that we have a group of people who haven’t even learned to use their new phone system trying to redesign half the U.S. economy.

Obama is going too far, too fast, and as such he's doomed to fail.

But is Brooks setting the bar too high? Packer certainly thinks so. According to him, it's liberals who are being pragmatic and conservatives who are the ideological ones. Conservatives like Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor aren't opposing Barack Obama because they're concerned he's pushing too far; they rejected the stimulus bill because they stubbornly refuse to let go of their discredited philosophy.

I think both Packer and Brooks are taking it too far when they turn the battle over the stimulus into a Grand War of Ideologies. Capitals necessary, because that's how much importance they give it.

Both conservatism and liberalism have always mixed pragmatism and ideology. The difference between them isn't that one side is realistic and the other idealistic. Conservatives and liberals disagree because they are idealistic about different things.

Liberals hold cherished notions about equality, humanity, and brotherhood. Conservatives get misty-eyed talking about tradition and history. They're both guilty of being over idealistic. Neither one can claim the mantle of pragmatism--at least, not without lying through their teeth.

So when Brooks accuses Obama of being too grandiose, or Packer claims Republicans are slaves to their dead ideology, both are wrong. Politics has always mixed the two. That's the way it's always been and always will be.

A Surfeit of Democracy

It's not a good time to be a Republican in Kentucky. I know things are bad for the GOP everywhere, but the situation in the Bluegrass State is even worse. Mitch McConnell, the state's senior senator and GOP leader in the Senate, is getting slammed by bloggers and talk radio for failing to stand up more to the Obama administration.

But McConnell's troubles are nothing compared to the woes of Senator Jim Bunning. For the past couple years, Bunning's been cultivating his reputation as the most clueless member of that remarkably clueless institution. Back in 2004, he made headlines when he said his Democratic opponent looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons. He won the race, but it was a close-run thing.

Now he's making headlines again, and once again, he's making Kentucky Republicans reach for the ibuprofen. Bunning's latest--and possibly greatest--gaffe was to predict that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would die before the year's end. Needless to say, this hasn't gone over too well.

Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics grouses about Bunning's stupidity. But he makes a thought-provoking point, mostly unrelated to Bunning:

This is one big reason I do not understand why partisans on both sides suffer the primary process. It has become one of many mechanisms that effectively guarantee incumbents will be on the general election ballot. What this means, in turn, is that the party usually has to tolerate guys like Don Sherwood, Stevens, and Bunning. There is no "low cost" way for Republicans to hold their incumbents accountable, which means only the Democrats do. And the same goes with Democrats when their incumbents behave badly.

Very interesting. When you take this in conjunction with George's Will recent column, I wonder if we might be seeing the start of an anti-populist backlash.

For years, we've been taught that the solution to all problems is more democracy. It's been that way since...oh, at least the early 20th century. That's when progressives like Hiram Johnson in California and Robert La Follette in Wisconsin enacted a series of reforms intended to give the "common man" more say in the political process.

The reformers gave us the referendum, the initiative, and the recall. The people could now make their own laws; they could approve or reject bills from their state legislature; and if they disliked one of their politicians, they could yank him off the stage. Most people have accepted this as a good thing. America's a democracy, right? Certainly, we trust the people to make the right choices, especially when compared to those conniving politicians.

But these reforms have completely screwed up the balance of power. Before, authority was divided between legislative, judicial, and executive branches. Along come the reformers, and they add a new branch: the popular. There's no checks on them, no balances to less their power. The initiative, referendum, and recall give them the final word on everything.

This leads to all sorts of problems. For years, the California legislature tried to raise taxes, only to see their efforts rejected in repeated referenda. Now California's facing the mother of all budget shortfalls. I'm not usually a fan of raising taxes, but I can't help thinking the state would be better off today if a few of those hikes had gone through.

But maybe I'm seeing ghosts. Maybe Cost and Will are outliers, and maybe everyone else accepts that more democracy is always a good thing. Who knows? These are strange times. Anything is possible in politics, now more than ever.

Way Out West

There was never much hope for the GOP in Washington State, and this poll ought to slam the door on any serious challenge to Senator Patty Murray in 2010. Murray, if you'll recall, made a rather boneheaded statement in 2004, saying that Osama bin Laden's support in the Arab world came in part because he was out there building "roads and preschools."

But she still survived a stiff challenge from Rep. George Nethercutt in '04. Nethercutt was a strong candidate, running in a good GOP year, and still got whupped by double digits. The poll in question indicates that Murray's position has only gotten stronger since then.

She leads the two strongest Republicans, Rep. Dave Reichert and state Attorney General Rob McKenna, by 13% and 16% respectively. I'd be interested to see how two-time gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi would fare against her. Not much better than Reichert or McKenna, I would guess, but perhaps he'd run a bit closer.

Shoot the Messenger?

In keeping with the last post, let's ask ourselves: what's the problem with the GOP? Is it the message, or the messenger? Are the party's policy's flawed, or is it marketing them in the wrong way?

The latter, says Daniel Larison of American Conservative Magazine. He questions the notion--made by more than a few bloggers in the wake of the 2008 election--that all Republicans have to do is work on outreach a little more.

Writes Larison:

The track record of GOP outreach efforts in the past, as I have said before, is not reassuring as a matter of politics or policy. In principle, expanding a voting coalition is the right idea, but I have yet to see a proposal along these lines that does not sound like a call for a new marketing strategy, which fundamentally misunderstands why the GOP does not win the support of these voters.

Ouch! That's harsh. Larison doesn't propose any alternatives, but then again, he's writing a blog post and not a manifesto for a new party.

In terms of marketing, the GOP has made a couple big steps forward in the past few weeks. The election of Michael Steele as head of the RNC was one. The fairly well-coordinated opposition to the stimulus plan was another. The first showed the GOP was at least going to make an effort to reach out to minorities; the second, that the party wouldn't be outmaneuvered by the Obama administration in the PR wars. We'll see if they can keep up the trend, or if they'll end up earning the moniker of "the Stupid Party" all over again.

Newt-wit

Interesting question, posed by David Corn in Mother Jones: "Will Gingrich lead the GOP out of the wilderness?" I know one person who definitely thinks so--Newt himself. For the past couple years Newt's been setting himself up as a the GOP's "idea guy." Sure, his supporters say, some of his ideas might seem a little crazy, but at least he's thinking. That's more than can be said for most other GOP bigwigs.

I'm skeptical that Newt is The One, though. First of all, let's not kid ourselves. He's not presidential timber. Is it unfair to say he doesn't look presidential? Forget fairness, then--he just doesn't look the part. Then there's the reality that the name "Gingrich" stirs up unpleasant memories for most Americans. Vague memories, but unpleasant ones nonetheless. To bring back Gingrich would be to take a dip in one of the sleazier eras of American politics; do we really want to put Bill Clinton and Monica back on center stage? Like it or not, Newt, but that's what you're associated with.

Then there's the ideas themselves. Judging from Corn's pieces, Newt is trying to remake himself as our first Web 2.0 Politician. Take a listen to some of his proposals:

Case in point: American Solutions. Its myriad projects include good-government initiatives, such as an effort to identify and connect all 513,000 elected officials in the United States so they can share best practices; its Solutions Academy features a video lecture by Elaine Kamarck, a one-time Al Gore aide, on how to modernize the federal bureaucracy. Last year, Gingrich sent American Solutions' director of Internet strategy, David Kralik, to Silicon Valley to set up an office and start mining the tech world for ideas. "There's an awful lot we can learn from the people who brought us Google," Kralik says. Referring to the explosion of user-review sites, he asks, "What if we could Yelp the federal government or local dmvs?"

The man wants to make government a mix of the best parts of Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Minus, hopefully, the hateful comment forums.

Is this the way to go? Undoubtedly, the government is going to grow more technocratic in the years to come. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Newt's ideas came to pass, albeit in a slightly changed form.

Maybe we won't have a forum connecting "all 513,000 elected officials" in the country. That plan seems a little too cumbersome, and a little too cute, to be real. What sort of benefit would we get from, say, a Senator from Iowa being able to communicate instantly with a San Diego city councilman? The advantages of inter-connectedness aren't unlimited. On a smaller scale, though, I think it would be a great idea.

The problem is that these are matters of process, not policy. And voters just don't care about process. Remember how much traction McCain got in 2008 by complaining about media bias? Things like electoral reform, government transparency, and legislative ethics just don't stir the blood the way economic, social, and foreign issues do.

So while Newt is going to be an invaluable resource to the GOP, we shouldn't stake all our hopes on some brilliant technocratic solution. The party is going to have to either go back to its core issues, or recreate itself a la the British Tory Party. We won't win by creating a national Twitter service.

TV Land

If you'll allow me to get down off my political soapbox for a moment, I'd like to point you to an interesting piece in the Atlantic--ooh, I feel so sophisticated writing that! Now all I need is a pipe and a copy of the New York Review of Books, and my intellectual bona fides will be assured.

Anyway, the article is about the transformation of television. Long story short: expect more reality shows like "Survivor," more variety shows like "American Idol," and fewer serialized, lavishly-produced dramas like "Heroes" or "Lost." As more viewers get their television fix over the internet, "big" shows like "Heroes" become too much of a gamble. They can still turn a profit, sure. But the network stands to lose millions if things start going south. The one golden rule of television is that things will always go south after a little while.

TV--or at least network TV--is going to undergo a radical shift in the next few years, according to the article. The content will be cheaper, faster, and more disposable, throwaway trash like Jay Leno. The quality programming will migrate to paid services like HBO and Showtime. A few blockbuster shows might survive on the networks, but they'll be in the minority.

I don't know what to think about all this. I used to be a devoted watcher of "House" and "24," but it's been nearly year since I've seen a full episode of either. It's not that I'm watching on my laptop, though; I just have stopped watching in general. Am I bizarre, freakish case? Or am I some kind of trend-setter? Given my track record, I'd put my money on the first option.

Tax and Spend, Spend, Spend

With his latest column at the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley adds his name to the ever-growing list of Stimulus Semi-Skeptics. Others include David Brooks, whose Friday op-ed is a concise summary of the SSS creed.

Stimulus Semi-Skeptics favor the stimulus, but feel guilty about doing so. It just doesn't seem right to them. I imagine that every time they type something in favor of the billion-dollar national bailout, they get a queasy feeling in their stomach or hear a whistling in their ear.

For years, SSSs like Kinsley and Brooks have looked askance at government spending. They weren't exactly libertarian budget-slashers, but they did advocate for fiscal prudence. And now they're facing a nasty paradox. Just when they've been proven right, they find themselves forced to swallow their words.

Stimulus Semi-Skeptics argue that the stimulus is 1) completely unfair and 2) the only way out of this whole mess. As usual, Kinsley puts its best:

We're going to need a second stimulus package, probably a third chapter of the bank bailout, more for the auto industry and others. It's all going to cost at least two or three trillion. If it works, it will be money well spent. If it doesn't work, that means we should have spent more.

I agree, sort of. Kinsley seems to be saying that as long as we're spending money, we're on the right track. But doesn't it matter what the money is being spent on? If a wild spending spree is the best way out, why don't we load up a dozen 747s with dollar bills and have them jettison their cargo at 40,000 feet up?

Doesn't anybody care where this is going? Doesn't anybody realize this money might be gobbled up with no effect whatsoever? Who's in charge, anyway? That, I think, is the question Stimulus Skeptics--no Semi for them--want answered. And so far, they've got nothing.

How Steele Did It

I didn't pay much attention to the race for the chairmanship of the RNC; I was too busy re-adjusting to life at UNC. I did pick up enough, though, to be surprised when Michael Steele won. I knew right-wing bloggers were crazy for Steele, but I thought it was just a passing craze. I didn't think he could translate that into actual votes. After all, it's the party insiders who pick the chairman, not the properieter of http://conservativecommentaryandopinions.blogspot.com. Note: not a real blog. Yet.

Politics magazine looks at how he won. Let's see...he exploited a desire for change, utilized new technology--particularly the internet--to rally supporters, and staffed his campaign with young, eager talent. Boy, where have I heard that one before? No, I don't think it was the McCain campaign...hmmmm...can't quite put my finger on it.

Republicans everywhere will be thrilled to read these lines:

Steele carries three Blackberries and is prone to flurries of past-midnight emails, and he made a convincing case that he would bring the GOP’s campaign technology into the digital age.

That's a welcome change, especially when the last public face of the party admitted he barely knew how to use a computer. Granted, using a Blackberry doesn't make you a technical wizard. That's like saying heating up a Hot Pocket makes you a cordon bleu chef. But it's a start, and that's what the GOP needs right now--a little push to get them going. Well, maybe more than "a little" one.

Two for the Senate

From Politico comes good news for Republicans on two fronts. On the east coast, it looks like George Pataki might run for Hillary Clinton's old Senate seat. If you've forgotten--and I can't blame you if you have, what with everything that's happened since--that seat is now held by former representative Kirsten Gillibrand.

Pataki is going to face an uphill fight, but he has a better shot at winning than any Republican not named "Giuliani." He certainly will do better than Peter King, the OTHER prospective GOP candidate. King is a conservative congressman from Long Island. And while he's managed to win re-election in an increasingly blue district, I doubt he can translate that success into state-wide victory. New York is blue, blue, blue. Anyone to the right of Pataki doesn't have a prayer of victory.

And in the heartland state of Missouri, Republicans have found a formidable candidate to fill the seat of retiring Senator Kit Bond. Roy Blunt, formerly House majority whip, wants to move on up to the Big Chamber. I guess being a backbencher isn't as fun once you've had a taste of power.

Holding the Mizzou senate seat is going to be crucial for Republicans. Missouri is coming dangerously close to being the next Colorado; in the past four years, Democrats have bagged both the governorship and one of the Senate seats. McCain won in 2008, but it was a narrow thing. The fight for Bonds' seat will give the GOP a chance to regroup and counteract the Democratic tide running in the Show-Me State.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Looks like Roland Burris might have the shortest-lived career in Washington this side of William Henry Harrison. I doubt even the toughest politician could survive something like this. I'm not going to say Burris was living on borrowed time, but he came into office under a real cloud. And now the cloud has burst and the deluge is on its way. Good luck riding out the storm, Senator.

President's Day Picks

Happy President's Day! It's the one day every year when I can ask people, "So who's your favorite president?" and not get strange looks in response. Well, I still get a couple of those, but a lot less than usual.

Of course, we've all been stuck in that awkward situation where someone asks, "Who's your favorite president," and all you can do is stammer, "Uh...Washington, or Lincoln, maybe." Or maybe that's just me. Regardless, it's always good to have a few names on the tip of your tongue.

Washington and Lincoln are the safe bets. No one--other than the occasional nut job--is going to snarl and say, "What? Are you crazy?" It's hard to go wrong with FDR either, especially nowadays. If you want to go a little further out on a limb, try Theodore Roosevelt or Thomas Jefferson. You'll look adventurous without looking stupid. Is anyone going to argue Teddy WASN'T a great president?

Of course, maybe you don't want to play it safe. Maybe you want to be the person who gets weird looks, the kind of guy who says things like "Washington was our most overrated president" or "Benjamin Harrison--now there was a great president?"

If you're that guy, may I recommend Grover Cleveland? Poor Grover was regarded as an utter failure in his own time. His party repudiated him at the 1896 presidential convention, voting down a motion that affirmed his presidency. Now, though, people see him as the proto-Harry Truman, the man who stuck to his guns even as his allies turned on him. Plus, there's that mustache.

You want more? Then I suggest you check out National Review's symposium on the greatest presidents. I would like to note two things:

1. Libertarians don't have a lot of jokes. One of their standbys, though, is to say that William Henry Harrison was our greatest president. It never fails to get a laugh--among libertarians, at least. No less than two people make that joke in this article.

2. One person seriously argues that Warren Harding was our greatest president. This validates what I would like to call Schultz's Law of History, which is that no opinion is so stupid that it is utterly without backers.

So browse, and enjoy.

Full disclosure: I think Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president, followed by Washington, TR, FDR, and Eisenhower. I also admit to having a soft spot for William McKinley and James K. Polk.

The Thousand-Years War

In his weekly column, conservative pundit Rod Dreher argues that the culture wars aren’t over—that they’ll never be over, as a matter of fact. Despite what some people seem to think, Barack Obama isn’t blessed with a magical power to heal our divisions and bring us together to hold hands and sing. Writes Dreher:

Will Barack Obama end the culture wars? He couldn't if he wanted. In America, the culture war will never die, only wax and wane across multiple battlefields. When you live in a large, diverse, pluralistic democracy, it comes with the territory.

It’s become fashionable to bemoan the culture wars as the worst thing to happen to America since smallpox. Everybody hates the culture war. Liberals hate it, because they think it distracts from more important issues, things like health care and education. Conservatives hate it, because it signals a challenge to American traditions. Moderates hate it most of all, because they’re sick of being whipsawed between two equally zealous bunches of sign-waving, slogan-chanting crazies.

I admit the culture wars aren’t pleasant. They’re bitter, nasty, and divisive. There’s no easier way to lose a friend then to talk about cultural politics. They can also get awfully repetitive. How many gallons of ink—both real and electronic—have been spilled out on the abortion issue alone? Yet we’re not any closer to solving that whole mess than we were in 1973.

But I think Dreher’s right. The culture wars are as American as apple pie, if slightly less tasty. If we’ve learned one thing in class, it’s that America is a diverse nation. The statistic that “80% of Americans are Christian, and 90% believe in God” conceals an incredible richness of opinion. Two people can be exactly the same—same race, same religion, same age, same education—and still hold completely different opinions. Multiply that by a million, and you’ve got America.

That means there are always going to be debates over culture, and they’re always going to be nasty. If people aren’t arguing about abortion, they’ll argue about gay marriage. If not gay marriage, then they’ll talk about evolution. That’s just the way opinions are. If someone holds a belief very deeply, they’re naturally going to be passionate about it.

This is especially true where religion’s concerned. Conservative Christians aren’t against abortion because they hate women. They’re against it because they think it’s barbaric. Liberal Christians aren’t in favor of gay marriage because they hate the family. They just think all couples should be treated equally.

Those who say, “Stop! Enough already! Let’s have a truce!” ought to be careful what they wish for. We can end the culture wars. It’d be easy, really. All you need to do is get rid of opinions that make other people uncomfortable. If nobody talked about abortion, or gay marriage, or school prayer, then we wouldn’t have a culture war anymore. There’d be no need to get upset, because there would be nothing to get upset about.

You would kill the culture wars stone dead. You’d also be killing America. The culture wars express the diversity of American belief. Neuter that—declaw it—defang it—and you have nothing left but a gray, mushy middle. I’ll take a culture war over that any day.

Leftward, Ho!

Over at the conservative Catholic journal First Things, law professor and Jesuit priest Edward Oakes bemoans the “liberal creep” taking over society. Oakes, judging from this piece, is a rare breed—a true conservative. Not “conservative” like John McCain, or even like George W. Bush, but “conservative” in the original sense. He’s an Old World conservative, a believer in tradition, hierarchy, and mother church.

Oakes writes that liberalism has swallowed our political system whole. There’s no more diversity of thought. There are no radicals and conservatives anymore, just Conservative Liberals, Radical Liberals, and countless Liberal Liberals. He says:

With the exception of libertarian candidate Ron Paul and the radical-liberal Dennis Kucinich, all the candidates ran on the “Liberal Liberal” platform. This became glaringly obvious to me last September when the Republicans in Congress, after initially balking at the bailout package for the nation’s financial system, soon signed on to it, at least in enough numbers to ensure its passage.

But his real concern isn’t economics. Like any good conservative, he’s worried more about America’s soul than its pocketbook. If “liberal creep” continues, he argues, America will be headed to Hell in the mother of all handbaskets. Traditional values will erode, dissolved in the acid sea of modernity. Gay marriage and abortion are only the first step. Who knows what comes next?

I sympathize with Oakes—a little. Socially, America has been lurching leftward. Toleration for gay marriage would have been unthinkable two decades ago. Remember what happened to Clinton after “don’t ask, don’t tell?” If you don’t, let me fill you in: he took a thumpin’ in the 1994 midterm elections. And support for gay marriage will likely increase as the younger, more tolerant generation grows up.

But is this really “liberal creep”? I see it instead as a sign of American pragmatism. We’ve never been an ideological country. America has never embraced radical liberalism, libertarianism, utilitarianism, or any other –ism. We’ve always believed in live and let in, in doing your own thing, in different strokes for different folks. Accepting gay marriage is just the latest expression of our hands-off philosophy.

I’d like to ask Oakes: if you want “real conservatism” in America, where is going to come from? The Roman Catholic Church? Not when Catholics sit right in the middle of the political spectrum. Evangelical churches? Maybe, if they could ever agree on anything. A new American aristocracy? I don’t think we’ll be getting dukes and duchesses any time soon.

I think I’d be a little more open to Oakes’s arguments if he wasn’t so quick to cast all his opponents as damnable heretics. Even Reagan isn’t pure enough:

Not only did he not abolish the Department of Education, as he promised on the campaign trail, he also ran up budget deficits of $1.5 trillion over eight years.

Wow. You’re not a real conservative if you can’t eliminate the Department of Education? Those are pretty harsh standards. Oakes would sentence every Republican president since…Coolidge, I guess, to the lowest level of conservative hell, where there’s nothing to read but Noam Chomsky and nothing to listen to but Barbra Streisand.

Still, though, it’s worth hearing him out. It’s a nice reminder that America isn’t politically homogenous. There are a few minority thinkers out there, including old-fashioned conservatives like Oakes. And if we really are a pluralist, pragmatist society, we’ll listen to them now and then. Even when they think we’re on the highway to hell.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

The Washington Post takes a look at how Barack Obama’s religious policy is taking shape. To sum it up in three words: inclusion, inclusion, inclusion. In the new Obama administration, everybody’s got the president’s ear:

The last administration showed no interest in talking to a large chunk of the religious community," said Melissa Rogers, director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. "We're already seeing change. . . . This administration, so far as I can see, is not making a similar mistake.

But the Religious Left is already getting antsy. Shouldn’t Obama be, you know, on their side? So what’s he doing cozying up to people like Rick Warren? At the same time, the Religious Right is watching Obama for the slightest misstep. They’re OK with him for now. They’ll bolt, though, at the first whiff of secularism.

Trying to appeal to both the Religious Right and Religious Left is a dangerous game. It’s like walking a tightrope. Over a pit of alligators. While juggling. And there’s no tightrope. Conservatives and liberals are intractable enough when it comes to politics. If you throw religion in there too, compromise isn’t just improbable, it’s nearly impossible.

My guess is that, as the warm and fuzzy afterglow of the Obama honeymoon wears off, the president will turn more and more to the socially activist Religious Left. The Religious Right has never been his friend. Despite plenty of talk during the election of Obama-voting evangelicals—or “Obangelicals,” if you will—McCain still won white evangelical Protestants 74%-24%.

Obama isn’t going to spurn a major part of his base in favor of a group that never supported him and most likely never will. We already got a hint of that with Obama’s repeal of Bush’s abortion gag rule policy. It was one of the first acts of the Obama presidency, and it got the expected reaction: pro-lifers howled and pro-choice groups cheered. Clearly, Obama’s not going to spend a lot of time catering to the Religious Right.

That doesn’t mean he’ll be doing the bidding of Jim Wallis and other leftist evangelicals, though. I think his move on abortion was less a slap at the Religious Right, and more of an investment in the Religious Left’s favor bank. He knows, at some point, he’s going to disappoint them. And when they come storming into the Oval Office, he can point back to that act and say, ‘See? Who said I never did anything for you?”

For now, though, he can afford to flirt with both left and right. They’re going to catch on eventually. But which of them would have the bad manners to spoil his honeymoon so soon?

Clean Up Duty

At first, I was going to file this Al Hunt column away in the cabinet in my brain labeled "REFLEXIVE BUSH-BASHING: DO NOT TAKE SERIOUSLY." But then I gave it another look, and though it certainly is Bush-bashing, it's anything but reflexive.

Whether or not you think history will vindicate 43--I'm of the mind that it will, but hey, what do I know?--its undeniable that right now, he's the second most unpopular person in the country. The most unpopular being, of course, his right-hand man Dick Cheney.

That set the bar awfully low for Obama. Could that be Bush's greatest failing? If he had been a bit more fiscally responsible, and if he had made his government a bit more transparent, I think the American people would be less willing to give Obama a four-year honeymoon.

Impromptus

The only author I always--always--take time to read is National Review's Jay Nordlinger. Even when I don't have time to the assigned reading for classes, I always try to squeeze in his Impromptus. And he never disappoints, especially not today.

Why do I like reading Nordlinger so much? Can't say for sure, really. You can chalk it up to a short attention span; one of his impromptus is "long" if it goes for more than three paragraphs. Whenever I read another columnist, I always find myself feeling guilty if I skim, or if I stop reading before the end. Not so with Nordlinger!

But I'd like to think there are nobler reasons for liking him. His style, his grace, his way with language. The way he refuses to take politics seriously. That, I think, is one of the defining traits of a conservatism: a sort of elegant detachment from everyday politics. Maybe that's why we lose so much. But hey, I suppose it's worth it.

If you haven't got my message yet, let me repeat myself. Go read Jay Nordlinger. I'd say he's the new William F. Buckley, but he's rather up there in the years himself. So...let's say he's more like Buckley's twin brother.

Gloomy Prediction

I don't want to bring anybody down, but this doesn't bode well for the GOP. Unless Bunning either gets his act together, or does the sane thing and decides to retire, he's going to lose this race. Mongiardo almost beat him last time, and that was when he was running as a complete unknown.

Now Bunning's six years older and, sad to see, seems to be six years further down the road to senility. And that's never a good thing when you're running for the Senate, unless your name happens to be Strom Thurmond.*

*Cheap shot. Sorry.

Mini-Review: The 10 Big Lies About America

Michael Medved’s “The Ten Big Lies About America” is an ambitious book. Medved, a conservative radio host, sets out to single-handedly undo two decades of revisionist history. He is an anti-iconoclast, intent on restoring a little bit of America’s lost luster. He comes, not to bury America, but to praise it to high heaven.

The book’s pugnacious subtitle, “Combating Destructive Distortions Our Nation,” sets the tone early on. Medved heaps scorn upon what he calls the “America bashers,” who peddle a message of “victimhood, powerlessness, guilt, and decline.” There’s plenty to be proud about in America, Medved writes, and he sets about proving it by debunking the titular ten myths.

There is little rhyme or reason in Medved’s books. He jumps from myth to myth willy-nilly, without any kind of clear organizing principle. One second, he’s attacking those who claim that “The founders intended a secular, not a Christian, nation.” Just a few pages later, he’s fulminating against the myth that “The power of big business hurts the country and oppresses the people.”

Then again, the book is not about the big picture. Medved is more concerned with the nitty-gritty details. He marshals an impressive list of facts to counter each and every myth, drawing on sources ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Drew Carey. Every chapter is loaded down with facts and figures, all bolstering Medved’s thesis that America is a uniquely great nation.

He begins at the beginning. The first myth on his hit list is that “America was founded on genocide against Native Americans.” Not true, says Medved. It was smallpox that wiped out the Indians, not bloodthirsty pilgrims. Having absolved America of its original sin, Medved then proceeds to tackle an even bigger challenge: the myth, as he puts it, that “The United States is uniquely guilty for the crime of slavery.”

That chapter showcases the greatest strength of Medved’s book—and its greatest weakness. On the one hand, Medved persuasively argues that America was hardly the world’s only slave nation. He cites numbers to show that our nation imported far fewer slaves than did the sugar-growing nations of the Caribbean and South America, which chewed up boatloads of imported Africans.

Now for the weakness. At times, Medved gets carried away. He interprets any criticism of America as a myth, no matter how valid it might be. Yes, America was certainly far less guilty of slavery than, say, Brazil or Cuba. But does that completely wash away the sin of slavery? No, Medved writes, but he says it only grudgingly.

It’s hard to criticize an author for being overly passionate, though. Medved clearly believes combating these “destructive distortions” is a noble cause. America, he reminds us, is the “last, best hope” for the world. Rehabilitating America’s image is not just a matter of historical bookkeeping. It’s a sacred cause. America is indeed that “city on a hill,” and Medved is its self-proclaimed guardian.

Senator Gillibrand

Politics, like sports, is always going to have its winners and losers. When you think about it, that's really what most pundits do: they crown the winners and damn the losers. And while I'm on that topic...Chris Cillizza takes a look at the winners and losers in the Curious Case of Caroline Kennedy.

Among the losers is--surprise!--Caroline Kennedy. What a flubbed opportunity for her; she seemed all set to become a US Senator without breaking a sweat. Then it all fell apart. It'll be interesting to see if she rebounds from this disappoint and stays involved in politics, or if she withdraws back into private life.

Gerson on Obamamania

The Washington Post's Michael Gerson takes a look at Obamamania (or should we use the shorter, punchier, Obamania?) and likes...well, half of what he sees. The phenomenon has its good parts and its bad parts. First, the good:

The first kind of enthusiasm concerned Obama's racial background. It was reflected in the untethered joy of the Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction -- the joy of victory against centuries of racism, violence, cruel humiliation and stolen labor.

Got to agree with Gerson there. While I don't think Obama should be commended just because he's black, I don't think there's anything wrong with celebrating the election of a black president.

Of course, I also agree with Gerson when he points out the nasty side of the Obamanon (that's a combination of "Obama" and "phenomenon," for those of you following at home):

Some wish to interpret the Obama victory as a big push in the culture war -- as an opportunity to attack their intellectual and cultural "inferiors." Most of us have witnessed this attitude, usually in college. The kids who employed contempt instead of argument, who shouted down speakers they didn't agree with, who thought anyone who contradicted them had a lower IQ, who talked of "reason" while exhibiting little of it.

As a college student myself, all I can say is: Amen, brother! The utter, seething contempt a lot of my classmates felt towards McCain, Bush, and (especially) Palin was almost frightening at times.

I recall an incident in one of my Poli Sci classes last semester. One student, who shall remain nameless because I don't know his name, was theorizing as to why Sarah Palin did poorly in her debate with Katie Couric.

Said this junior psychoanalyst, paraphrased: "It's not like she didn't know the answers...it was like she didn't understand the questions." Translation: Sarah Palin is totally retarded.

Will Obama's victory deflate some of this intellectual arrogance? God, I hope so. Otherwise, my last year at Carolina is going to be intolerable.

Here Comes Change

That was fast. Obama's been in office for less than a week, and he's already overturned the abortion "gag rule," one the first acts of the Bush administration way back in 2001.

It probably won't get much play outside of the pro-life community. But they're going to be up in arms about it, I imagine. They were one of the most vehemently anti-Obama wings of the GOP, and this confirms their worst fears.

There will be plenty of Republicans urging moderation and conciliation, at least for a few months. Pro-lifers won't be among them. With this executive order, Obama must know he's declaring war on anti-abortion activists.

Kyl in 2012?

Does Arizona's junior senator harbor presidential ambitions? Or was John McCain just thinking aloud when he floated Jon Kyl's name?

Kyl was on the list of "25 Presidential Possibilities" I drew up after the election, but he was pretty far down. I don't know if rank-and-file Republicans are in the mood to nominate another Arizona senator. They've been burned once before.

Quick Reaction to the Inaugural

First, I didn't see most of it. I started watching it in my Politics & Religion class, only to have C-SPAN go on the fritz just as Aretha Franklin launched into a no doubt soul-stirring version of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." I ran over to the Student Union in time to catch Obama taking the oath of office and to hear the inaugural address. And I caught a few snatches of the after-speech invocation in the fax center.

So what did I think? Of Feinstein's speech, not much. She's a decent speaker, but nothing special. She wasn't helped by the fact that her topic has been worked over so many times that its been mashed into a soft, squishy pulp. Yes, the election of an African-American president is tremendously historic. But we don't need Feinstein to tell us that. The millions of people crammed onto the lawn were testament enough.

Warren's prayer, like Feinstein's speech, was nothing special. Sitting here, ten hours later, I can't remember a thing he said, other than his peculiar over-enunciation of the names of Obama's daughters. Oh, and he ended with the Lord's Prayer, but he gave it a rather unremarkable reading. It sounded less like a heartfelt plea to God the Father than an elementary school recitation.

Because of the crowd around the TV set, I wasn't able to see who it was who flubbed the Oath of Office--Obama, or John Roberts. I think I'm on safe ground, though, when I say that this is going to be a minor bone of contention between the left and right for the next couple days. Conservatives will say Obama caused the mix-up. Liberals will blame Roberts. So it goes.

Obama's speech itself was...oratorical. Always, it seems his style swallows up his content. You get so focused on his voice and delivery--both of which are magnificent--that lose any sense of what he's saying. It just becomes background noise, like the sound of traffic rumbling past your house. You hear the noise, not the words.

But if you did listen to the words, and I was able to pick up a few lines here and there, you couldn't help being both 1) impressed and 2) depressed. Impressed by Obama's command of language. He delivered a stirring tribute to self-sacrifice without veering into platitudes. He summons up memories of Lincoln and FDR, without being derivative of either.

Depressed, because today was the day Obama officially abandoned all pretense of "Hope" and decided to concentrate solely on "Change." Any glints of optimism were ruthlessly rousted out of the speech and cudgeled to death. It's going to be a long, grim couple years, was Obama's message. Maybe that explains why the crowd in the Student Union seemed so somber.

And lastly. I loved the line in the post-speech prayer about how "the yellow will be mellow...the red man can get ahead, man." I don't know if my appreciation was ironic or not, though. I guess that's one of the perils of being a college student.

Ohio Polls

Well, while we're considering the future, why don't we look a year further ahead? New polls out today from Ohio show that the race for George Voinovich's seat is going to be a dogfight, a barnburner, a knockdown brawl, or whatever metaphor you want to apply. According to PPP, Republican Rob Portman leads, but only by the slimmest of margins.