Howard Kurtz on Algore.

Glenn says Algore is half right, but misunderstands (go figure):

But while grousing about how things have gone downhill since the Good Old Days has its pleasures, it won't win elections. A savvy politician might take note of these changes, as evidence of public preferences that were concealed by the biases in the old, monopolistic media but that are now revealed by the more competitive market of today, and adjust his positions accordingly. Gore, on the other hand, seems to have moved to the left, introducing new policy proposals like national health insurance that seem tailor-made for old-style establishment-liberal media. It remains to be seen whether his views will be rewarded by the political market.

Jim Pinkerton on Algore.

David Frum:

If you were a Democrat, wouldn’t you just want to shake Clinton? Here’s what I’d be saying: “Hey Bill: You decided not to retaliate forcefully when Saddam Hussein tried to murder your predecessor, our 41st president. You decided that the right way to stop North Korea from getting a nuclear bomb was to lavish them with aid – and then you decided to ignore the evidence that they were cheating. You issued the rules that crippled our intelligence agencies.”* You decided that your top priority for the military was to social engineering, not fighting. You refused to take custody of bin Laden when he was offered up to you. You decided to fight terrorism by, as President Bush 43 so vividly put it, by firing million-dollar missiles at $10 empty tents and hitting a camel in the butt. And now you tell us that we lost the Congress because we’re seen as soft on national security. Ooooooooooooh.” It does make you wonder why there isn’t a word for chutzpah in Arkansan.
...
I have this theory about politics: when a political party offers the voters ham and eggs, and the voters say no thanks, its first instinct is to say, “OK then – how about double ham and double eggs?” It’s as if defeat liberates parties to say what they reallythink – and what the Democrats really think is that the voters are just as bored with the whole subject of national security as they are and would really prefer to drop the whole subject. It often takes two elections – and sometimes three – to teach a party to stop talking about what matters to itself and start talking about what matters to the voters.

There's a solution: The Counter-Clinton Library.

Tony Woodlief finds a mole in NPR:

First, I suspect there is a secret campaign to revoke the 26th Amendment, and that its primary strategy is to put microphones in front of twenty year-olds. Perhaps a cultural anthropologist reading this can enlighten me, but I'm not sure if there has ever been a case where a society with language has morphed into a society without language, and I'm curious to know whether ours will be the first.
...
Right. Little Johnny isn't busting caps in the 'hood because he had no father or mother or preacher or teacher worth a darn, no, he's slinging slugs because Ronald Reagan sent troops into Grenada. Johnny may not be able to spell his own last name correctly, but he's socially conscious.

(via Instantman)

Lileks

I’m picturing Jesus outside the Temple, waving a placard:
VERILY VERILY LO LO, MONEYCHANGERS HAVE TO GO.

Michael Kinsley.

"Violence broke out"

Colby Cosh says schools are old-fashioned. (Via Joanne Jacobs.)

Warblogger's Manifesto. This before the big de-linking hoohah. Teapot. Tempest.

Smart Genes, Garrison Keillor fallout.

Best of the Web, satire, I swear

The roots of Muslim Rage. Oddly enough, I found this article in hardcopy in the back room a month ago.

James Lileks.
Lileks

Fritz Schranck, on Cardinal Law being against the war: "If you lost credibility in one major area of responsibility, what makes you think you kept it elsewhere?"

Michael Kelly, Wishful in Defeat

The Second Letter of John to the Idiotarians.

Al Barger was not pleased with the funeral pep rally.

Slashdot.
Dammit, why can't the FBI deal with stuff that MATTERS?

The Donks stole two Senate seats and it still wasn't enough.

Algore still doesn't get it.

EVERYBODY laughs at Al Gore.

Instantman about the Libs costing the 'pubs in SD:

Well, the solution is for the Republicans to avoid the big-government intrusiveness that alienates libertarian-leaning voters. But are they smart enough to realize that? The push on the Homeland Security bill, and Trent Lott's comments about reopening the abortion issue, suggest that they're not.

Kim duToit on the Republican Agenda.

Advice to the 'Pubs.

David Frum:

Myth #4 America doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks
...for 50 years, via Nato, America risked nuclear suicide to guarantee the nations of Europe against attack. Sure, America benefited from the arrangement - but it benefited less than Europe and paid much more.

Then, paradoxically, the first Nato nation to be attacked turns out to be America. America invokes Article V - and where are the allies? Britain is there, and God bless you for it. Australia, though not in Nato, is there as well, and bless Australia, too.

But the others? Where are you? Where are the Germans whom America defended at their hours of maximum danger - the Berlin crises of 1949 and 1961? The French, the Dutch and the Belgians?

Europe aspires to become a great power and world leader alongside America. Well, what are Europe's obligations to listen to its friends in their hour of need? Or do the obligations run one way only?

An argument between Steven and Bill, in which I think Steven is right.
Patience, grasshopper, indeed.

Swen also thinks the Iraq thing is soon to happen.

Steven DenBeste:

Think of it as the "Blackhawk Down" strategy. Unfortunately, as recently as 1993 it actually worked. The locals in Mogadishu were actually willing to suffer 25:1 dead in a small battle and did indeed scare off the American president of the time.

Of course, that was Clinton.

Peters himself seems to suggest that he fears this. His nightmare scenario is that America's leaders loses heart and gives up in Iraq. Were Clinton still president this would be an extremely valid concern. But Bush isn't that kind of man and he is now Commander in Chief, with all the legal authorizations, domestic and international, that he needs to prosecute a war he clearly intends to fight and finish.

Peters fears we'll defeat ourselves. Ultimately the only man who can let that happen is President Bush, and he won't.

Why we lost, Zell Miller:

why in heaven's name can't our party be for real tax cuts? In the middle of a recession, the Democrats once had a president who passed a massive tax-cut package. His name was John F. Kennedy. Today, in the middle of a recession, we should be a party advocating for more tax cuts, not less. But we aren't.

America is the most tax-averse country on earth. Our own revolution started with people tossing tea off boats in Boston Harbor because of high taxes! Being a party that opposes tax cuts is not good politics, anywhere, any time. Like it or not, that's what we've become.

Instead of arguing that Mr. Bush's tax cut goes too far, we Democrats should be arguing that it doesn't go far enough.