20 Most Annoying Liberals of 2002 (again, because it goes with this Lileks piece):

But why do they think their opinion carries weight? Because they know they’ll suffer no consequences. Yoda could give an interview and say “Had the right idea, Hitler did” and we’d still all trot off to Episode 3.
...
And speaking of Germans - well, Austrians - it’s notable that among the few Hollywood non-leftists, the most cheerful, popular and successful of the batch is an Austrian immigrant. Makes you wonder what he knows that we don’t.

(He also took Gnat to see Santa)

Also, speaking of Annoying Liberals (he made it to the top of my list, but to be fair, the list was written before the latest Clintoon dump)
Peggy Noonan writes:

You could almost see Mr. Clinton's mind whirling as Jonathan Karl interviewed him. Hmm, I could be high-minded and speak thoughtfully during what amounts to a public crisis, or I can play gut-ball politics and slam the enemy. No contest. Way to go, Bill, and happy holidays from a grateful nation.

YAY!!

Robert Prather, Neolibertarian News Portal, is a native of Pascagoula

William Kristol

Krauthammer:

True, if Lott is ousted, he might resign from the Senate and allow his seat to go Democratic, thus jeopardizing Republican control of the Senate and undoing the great Republican electoral triumph of 2002.

So be it. There is a principle at stake here. Better to lose the Senate than to lose your soul. New elections come around every two years. Souls are scarcer.

Instapundit is reminded of Gollum. He quotes Andrew Sullivan likening Lott to the "I'm not dead yet!" knight.

I just want these things, Lott going, the war in Iraq, to happen RIGHT NOW. ("Late next month?" I wanted mid-November!)
Stephen answers this, unknowingly.

Yay! One down, Lott's resignation. Now, for the war, which might actually be going on, anyway.

Via Bill Quick, 20 Most Annoying Liberals of 2002. Only 20?? So many to choose from...

John Fund

Bill Clinton angered many Democrats when in 1998 he was found to have lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but almost every congressional Democrat decided that having a president forced out of office would reduce the party's chances of holding on to the White House. As it turns out, the Democrats might have prevailed in 2000, if Mr. Clinton had resigned and handed the keys to the White House to Al Gore. Instead, Mr. Clinton stayed as a visible reminder of the many scandals surrounding his presidency, and left Mr. Gore with conflicted feelings about defending the Clinton record.

John Poindexter's data profile. Excellent.
.

Robin Goodfellow. On War as evil.

Glenn calls this another dropped ball. Grumble.

"A Walking Pinata"

Christopher Hitchens on resignations.

Mark Steyn:

For the best part of two centuries, the Democrats have been the party of race: In the 19th century, they were for slavery; in the 20th, for segregation; in the 21st, for the neo-segregation of ''affirmative action,'' ''hate crimes'' and all the other paraphernalia of the modish trickle-down apartheid determined to make racial categorization a permanent feature of the American landscape. In fairness to the Dems, this evolution represents a significant century-on-century improvement: There's no reason to believe that one day, come the 24th or 25th century, they won't have reached the position that American citizens should be treated as freeborn individuals, rather than as chorus members of their respective identity-group kicklines. That's what the Republican Party stands for: Condi Rice is an effective, black, female National Security Adviser but she holds that position not because of her blackness or her femaleness but her effectiveness; she's better than the white males who were up for the job.

Glenn:

I've heard some folks say "I'd rather lose the Senate than keep it with Lott as Majority Leader." I think that's right

Rod Dreher:

I don't want to be part of a party that says, "Our guy, right or wrong." I think a principled politician wants to hold power to do something, not just for its own sake. The Clinton affair revealed that many Democrats were happy to sell out their own professed views on women's rights, sexual harrassment and suchlike, for the sake of raw power. That was disgraceful, and I don't want to see the GOP act the same way.
...
The party should be about principle, not personality. Granted, it's easier to say this because Lott doesn't seem to have much personality, but the point still stands.

Gene Callahan makes his point:

That's not what I meant to say. It's more like this: Let's say we're in Germany circa 1938. It comes out that Hitler likes to torture frogs. Suddenly, all these people who had been pretty quiet about him explode with fury: "The frog torturer must go!"

Now, I'm against frog torturing. But, with everything else he was doing, my response would be, "And you're upset over THIS?"

And I don't mean to trivialize the evil of Jim Crow. But, as I pointed out, it's pretty clear that Lott is not actually trying to re-institute Jim Crow. The very worst interpretation of his remarks is that he misses it but isn't trying to do anything about the fact. And my question is, "What have we come to when eviscerating the Constitution [e.g. USA-PATRIOT, Total Information Awareness, resolutions authorizing a Presidential decision to use force as opposed to declaring war, e.g. - UO] is a matter for polite discussion but this bad -- but absolutely meaningless to any policy -- remark creates a tempest and calls for resignation?"

(via Unqualified Offerings).

Frum on Gore:

But why would Gore – of all people – suddenly wish to eschew a focus on the past? During the ’02 campaign, he talked of little else but. He roused partisan crowds by asking them to remember where they were and how they felt when they heard the Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000, counting on that anger to mobilize Dems and especially black Dems.

He miscounted. And in the aftermath, Democrats are coming to recognize the 2000 defeat as a strategic catastrophe, a defeat that gave Republicans their best political opportunity since 1952. Maybe they once thought, “Poor Al was robbed.” Now they think, “Bonehead Al robbed us.” 2004 was shaping up to begin with a long, long dissection by Democrats of every misstep and mistake Gore made in ’00. Gore did not dread that the general election would “focus on the past.” He was terrified that the primaries would – and that Democrats would want to repudiate that past.
...
Of course, there’s another strong national Democrat with an eager eye on ’08: Hillary Clinton. And quite a lot of the psycho-drama of the next six years in American politics will be watching these two strange beasts try to do each other in. And the most exciting part of the psycho-drama will be watching the most popular and prominent of all national Democrats, Bill Clinton, decide which of these people he dislikes more.
...
This Lott business has been painful and dangerous for the Republican party. Yet Republicans have nevertheless insisted almost unanimously on accepting that pain and danger in order to hold their leaders to a moral standard. If Democrats felt the same way, the impeachment of Bill Clinton would have had a very different ending - and Al Gore would very likely be president today rather than a disgruntled author bitterly tabulating his sales. Honesty after all is still the best policy.

Sullivan on Gore:

After a while, even the most insulated, cocooned politician can tell if almost no-one wants him to run. The latest opinion polls showed that Gore had a 19 percent favoribility rating - in the Nixon-resignation basement. In any polled match-up, Gore would lose to Bush in a landslide. Of course, Bush is still buoyed by wartime ratings - but his persistently high showing suggests something deeper: that the American public have bonded with this president, like him, trust him and feel immensely relieved that he won the presidency two years ago. On a very basic level, Americans know now what they think of Gore and Bush. And it would take something truly epochal to shift their views.
...
Other Democrats, off the record, even suggested they'd like Gore to run, but only because he'd be a great person to beat in the early primaries in order to give their own campaigns a lift. This has got to hurt. For a month of campaigning a touring, it was as if Gore kept pulling every lever for political lift-off, while staying firmly, fixedly on the ground.

Lileks goes shopping.

Daniel Drezner on carriers.

Gregory points out It's not just our politicians:

David Ahenakew, a senator with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN), says Hitler did the right thing in "frying" six million Jews. His comments have to be read to be believed:

"The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war," Ahenakew said in an interview.

"That's how Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn't take over Germany or Europe.

"That's why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world. And look what they're doing. They're killing people in Arab countries."

Dear God.

Instantman:

Nigeria's film industry is taking over Africa, beating out the rival Ghanaians and even cutting into the Bollywood market share. That the industry is located in the South, and strongly Christian in its interests, is likely to have impacts throughout Africa, where there's something of a religious Cold War underway.

Not that cold, considering the Miss World Riots.

Yet Another Roundup.

comment:

Because we all know that if Lott were a Dem - the Dems would have hooked arms, formed a circle and sung Kumbaya.
Also, they would have suggested that the press was to blame because this is Trent's personal life and what the man does at a party for his friend is nobody's business.

The Democratic Black Caucus would have screamed that this is a non-issue because "they" know better and if "they" aren't offended nobody else has a right to be...

(Rosemary Esmay)

Novak on cardinal Law:

Third is a laity in very large numbers living in open dissent and rebellion, and encouraged in this by many clerical voices — even among their own pastors — first on many small things but gradually on many increasingly large things, too. In fact, one can hardly be certain, listening to them parade their utterly self-confident convictions, why they don't become Congregationalists (and elect their own pastors), or Baptists, or Unitarians, or, at least Episcopalians

John Farrell on good priests.