Much has been written about the Clinton propaganda machine and, more recently, the Obama PR coup running up to yesterday's MSNBC debate. With all the hype you'd think John Edwards' spinmeisters are holed up in a podunk shopping center in North Carolina somewhere.

Actually, they are. And when an enterprising student in the University of North Carolina journalism school pursued a hard-hitting video report on the choice of that apparently affluent location to house The Man From Poverty's campaign, she witnessed the full wrath of his public relations operation:

[Professor C. A.] Tuggle said they threatened to cut off access to Edwards for UNC student reporters and other student groups if the piece aired.

"My gosh, what are they thinking?" Tuggle said. "They're spending this much time and effort on a student newscast that has about 2,000 viewers? They're turning a molehill into a mountain."

Behold the ruthless Edwards campaign. Ready to root out negative press, no matter how trivial or banal. No dicking around with glossy effluvia -- like men's fashion magazines.

Spain's a great place to vacation, even for terrorists. Remember the 2004 train bombings in Madrid? Via the AP:

This weekend Times piece was a PR coup. Getting a national newspaper to cover your candidates' decision to be stronger? Usually reporters don't go for that sort of thing. They prefer solid actions, so that when they tell their editors they have an article to write, they can say, "And he's done this, this, and this to prove it." In fact, Obama's PR group did a fantastic job of getting something that's not really big news into the mainstream. Look at this video from Reuters made available by The Wall Street Journal:



But his performance last night was hardly the fighting wonder campaign officials promised. Instead, Chris Dodd was far more successful in his swings, as was Edwards. My theory is twofold: Obama's claim to "get tough on Clinton" is an empty promise meant to get the press to attribute any harsher words he *might* speak to the "newer tougher Obama" so they can praise him for how strong he is. And that he's happy to use Edwards as his attack dog -- so he can remain "strong-ish" while not "dirty."

But boy oh boy, would it be great if he went dirty.

Q: Brian Williams, I'm curious, when can we expect the first commercial break during this MSNBC presidential debate?

A: We have built two or three rather short breaks into tonight’s program, this two-hour debate tonight. And we’re going to choose to take the first of them right now, mostly so everyone can take a breath, on this hot stage, on this otherwise cool night in Philadelphia. We will continue with our debate, from the campus of Drexel University in Philadelphia, right after this.

Q: Hot? As in Dennis Kucinich's wife?

A: This is what happens late at night in a hot room.

Q: Say what?

A: It'll be a hot time in the old town tonight.

Translation, courtesy of Extreme Mortman:

A: We’ll be right back after this break.

I thought this was a somewhat of a joke a few days ago when I read it. But hey, it is Halloween. Cranked.com gives 5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen.


Example: Brain Parasites
Parasites that turn victims into mindless, zombie-like slaves are fairly common in nature. There's one called toxoplasmosa gondii that seems to devote its entire existence to being terrifying.

How it can result in zombies?
Hey, did we mention that half the human population on Earth is infected with toxoplasmosa, and don't know it? Hey, maybe you're one of them. Flip a coin.

Take a deep breath. Relax. It's a joke right? Well, take a look around your office. Could some of your co-workers be infected? How would you know? Have some of them been acting stranger than usual? It could even happen to our favorite office co-workers:

That's enough Halloween posts for the day.

Writes Rob over at BigHeadDC:

Larry Flynt, editor and publisher of Hustler magazine, just told FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto that he’s “hoping to expose a bombshell” that will stand “Washington and the country on its head.” Within the next week or two, he says his magazine will expose a sex scandal of huge proportions involving a prominent United States Senator. Flynt refused to comment on the Senator’s political affiliation, but alluded that he or she is a Republican.

Little birdies are telling me that said prominent United States Senator will be none other than Mitch McConnell. Remember, kids: You heard it here first.

Happy Halloween!

In the spirit of this glorious holiday, I would like to introduce you to my two good friends, Travis and Johnathan. They represent red America. It is because of this type of voter that McCain changed his position on the DREAM Act, that The New York Times Magazine ran a full feature on the religious right, and why Mike Huckabee is surging up the polls.

Well, I have to say, I'm actually pretty disappointed in Bill O'Reilly. He had an opportunity to turn this interview with Richard Dawkins into one of his classic, ruthlessly entertaining shouting matches, and he instead approached it in a calm, rational manner that can only hurt his ratings. The topic, as it usually is with Dawkins, was God. Is there a higher power? Did he create humanity? Is he, perhaps, a flying collection of noodles and tomato sauce?

Dawkins and O'Reilly both managed to make some good points, although Bill slipped a bit when his argument against the validity of Zeus and Apollo was that he "just saw Apollo, and he's not looking too good." Gosh, I guess Greek gods just aren't built like Greek gods anymore.

This just in from the Department of Redundancy Department: Apparently, Congress is to blame for the whole waterboarding brouhaha. (Only the Democratic Congress, of course - I mean, come on, we all know that blame depends entirely upon which party you belong to.) See, the federal government is confused about how to handle waterboarding because Congress hasn't specifically said that we can't do it - so say Michael Reagan and Pat Buchanan, who apparently haven't heard of that whole "cruel and unusual" thing.

Why is that redundant? Because Congress already tried to do that, only to be blown off by the White House. After the passing of a bill intended to ensure that detainees would at least receive the same treatment as, say, convicted murderers, President Bush whipped out one of his All-Powerful Signing Statements in order to declare that he could ignore any restrictions on torture when doing so would "assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Lovely. Honestly, why bother even having a legislative branch anymore? I'm sure the Founding Fathers would agree that checks and balances were, like, so two centuries ago. Let's just text in votes for an all-powerful Decider in 2008, and tell Congress to come back when it can get answers out of terrorists in five screams or less.

As the Ron Paul phenomenon gains momentum among Nigerians everywhere, there have been a few complaints about the coverage he gets in the mainstream media. The majority of these complaints have been lodged against Fox News, which is about as surprising as a blonde lingerie model managing to screw up a suicide attempt. (Important questions: How is that even possible? Is any stereotype as unprotected by political correctness as blondeness? Was that story referenced for the sole purpose of linking to a very large and very scantily-clad picture of said lingerie model?)

Some people, frequently referred to by on-air talking heads as "Internet lunatics" and similar derogatory e-labels, believe that Paul's anti-establishment message annoys Republican leadership enough for them to actively pull the strings that will keep television coverage of the Texas Congressman twisted and minimalized. They seem to have a case - but, given what could at least be described as moderate levels of success by the Paul campaign, the motive for any underhanded reporting becomes a bit less clear. Is Ron Paul simply a nuisance? Or might Republican leadership be worried that a large chunk of its base could be attracted to Paul's decidedly different brand of politics?

The magical world of the Internets makes this sort of analysis much more interesting, because not only do sites like YouTube allow for inspection of every second of Fox News' broadcasts (and who doesn't want to spend hour upon hour looking at the masterpiece of human genetics that is Neil Cavuto?), but they can also spread moments that were never intended to be recorded - such as this discussion amongst Fox producers that Paul's supporters claim proves bias against treating his candidacy with any sort of legitimacy. Is it enough? Or might the reason behind the subtitled comments be much more mundane? We report, you decide.

Via Andrew Sullivan, Daniel Larson argues with Fred Kagan about Russia and Venezuela's democratic rejection of liberalism:

The authoritarianism in Russia and the populist demagoguery in Venezuela are both products of the very elections Kagan boosts. The fact is that liberalism has a small constituency in both countries (outside of a very few western European, Anglophone and North American countries, this has often been the case), and when put before the electorates of Russia and Venezuela liberalism fares very poorly. Some of this has to do with the fact that relatively liberal politics was associated with the wealthy elite and tycoons, and the effects of policies carried out in the name of liberalism were generally poor or even disastrous for the people who now back authoritarian populist leaders. There will be objections that Russian elections in particular are not fully “free and fair,” but against this I would note that even with fully free and fair elections the overwhelming majority would still want nothing to do with the Russian liberals. This is hardly surprising: in mass democracy, the politics of liberty tends to lose and lose badly, while one form of demagoguery or another (be it nationalist or revolutionary socialist) usually prevails.

You might be wondering, as L. Brent Bozell is, where all the negative coverage of Hillary is. According to a press release:

"New Book by Media Analyst Brent Bozell Shows How Journalists Refuse to Investigate Serious Charges or Report Clinton Scandals"

Okay kids. Sit down. Take out your notepads. We're going to have a little lesson on how to write a press release title. We're not even going to go further than the title. It would take too long and it's almost happy hour.

Rule #1: Make it interesting. The first interesting phrase in the release is "investigate serious charges." But it's almost at the end. Speaking of which...

Rule #2: Titles should be short. Not long. And definitely not crazy media-conspiracy-theory long like this one. If you're an organization that's into the crazy media conspiracy theories, you can look way more sane by following the "Brevity is the Soul of Wit" rule. It goes as follows: "Brief."

Rule #3: Make it timely (the "new book" angle isn't enough). I want to know why I need to go to Brent Bozell to get all of my Hillary-Gets-Off-Easy news. What is something she JUST DID that she got away with?

Rule #4: New book? Or new study? Because journalists love studies. They get goosebumps just thinking about them. You could write a study showing that the Jews really did make up the Holocaust, and I assure you, reporters will just wave you through, balancing the report by calling it a "controversial study." They can quote all the outraged people they want, they're still publicizing your work, and isn't that what P.R. is all about?

Anyway. I'm not impressed by the press release because I really want this point to go far and wide:

"The national media have flagrantly abandoned their duty as independent and dispassionate journalists," write Bozell and co-author Tim Graham. "When Republicans are investigated by the media, it is done with such tenacity it usually leads to a humiliating resignation or electoral defeat. When there is a hint of impropriety by the Clintons, the media react quite differently."

Voter turnout is abysmal in the free world. So P.J. O'Rourke will forgive me for quoting at length from a recent article of his in The Atlantic that addresses that very issue. I may be teetering on the razor's edge of a copyright violation, but I'm only performing a civic duty. So if posting this is wrong, then I don't wanna be right.

...do you know what causes low voter turnout in America? It’s the result of having the fate of our nation at stake. This began with the bitter presidential election of 1828, which pitted the education, cultivation, and puritan constraint of John Quincy Adams against the yahoo populism of Andrew Jackson, thereby deciding permanently whether America would become a shining city upon a hill or an overlighted strip mall along a highway. Voter turnout that year was 55.2 percent. A dozen years later, a small and unctuous incumbent, Martin Van Buren, the first professional politician to occupy the White House, ran against the vacuous William Henry Harrison, who would die from the pneumonia he contracted by giving an overlong inauguration speech in the freezing rain. Harrison’s platform consisted entirely of the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Van Buren’s platform was even less substantive. There were no issues of note. And voter turnout was 77.5 percent.

In 1860, when a vote for or against Abraham Lincoln meant deciding whether to fight a civil war, 72.1 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. In 1876, when a vote for or against Rutherford B. Hayes meant bubkes, 82.9 percent of eligible voters showed up.

In 1932, with Republicans and Democrats offering radically different political and economic responses to the Great Depression, voter turnout was 56.8 percent. In 1940, with the reelection of FDR a foregone conclusion, turnout was 62.9 percent.

Another way to guarantee that a lower percentage of eligible voters will exercise the right to their franchise is to guarantee their franchise rights. Voter turnout in the presidential election of 1916 was 61.9 percent. Then, in 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving the vote to women. Voter turnout in that year’s presidential election was 49.2 percent. The Voting Rights Act, ensuring access to the polls for blacks, was passed in 1965. Voter turnout went from 63.3 percent in 1964 to 62.5 percent in 1968. And after the voting age was lowered to 18, in 1971, voter turnout took a further dip, to 56.4 percent in the 1972 presidential election.

Extrapolating from the trend lines evident in Historical Statistics, we see that if one of the 2008 presidential candidates is a vicious moron (entirely possible) and the other is a beneficent genius (not as likely), and all life on Earth is threatened because al-Qaeda has discovered a way to poke every American with a sharp object simultaneously (could happen), and we extend the franchise to absolutely everyone, including preschoolers, citizens of the EU, illegal aliens, space aliens, and household pets (probably resulting in a better-informed electorate), we could achieve a voter turnout of zero.

... Think you could check him out? I don't know him, or anything. He likes to collect butterflies, read radical texts and blow people up. A friend of a friend, really. Hope that narrows things down a bit:
"A friend of a friend of mine is a member of al Qaeda involved in a bombing in Bali," [Japan's justice minister Kumio] Hatoyama said, adding the alleged member of the terrorist network had gone in and out of Japan a number of times two or three years ago.

Later on Monday, Hatoyama held another news conference and tried to clarify his comments, saying, "I am not a friend of the terrorist and I do not know him personally."

According to Hatoyama, he does know a man in a butterfly collectors group he belongs to who said he received a message from a man believed to be involved with a terrorist organization.

It's been a tough month for us Swiss, countering (or, in my case, admitting the truth of) notions that our tiny nation's people are a generally insular, xenophobic lot whose demeanor is shaped more by the motherland's slowly melting glaciers than its abundance of sweet, succulent milk chocolate.

But it turns out they also happen to be extremely healthy. Finally some flattering news, confirming what I've insisted for years: Switzerland has the best darn health care system in the world. You wouldn't know that from Sicko, because the Swiss distrust their government almost as much as we do and prefer their health care delivered in nice, privatized packages.

Which is presumably why the Bush administration is sending Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt to see what's so great about the Swiss (and the Dutch, but we'll ignore them for now). He wouldn't admit as much, but Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care plan (and Arnold Schwarzenegger's in California) was heavily influenced by the consumer-based, private system that Switzerland boasts, and the basic ideas have been promoted on both the left and the right for some time. Now, of course, these ideas are the sole domain of the Democratic candidates for president.

It's almost the kind of development that makes you wonder if there's a consensus building in Washington.

You'd think with a widely publicized hunting trip on the horizon, and frothy-mouthed media mavens eagerly clawing for post-buckshot story material, that Dick Cheney's entourage would have at least scrubbed the Clove Valley Rod and Gun Club for controversy before his arrival.

Apparently Confederate Heritage Month came early this year in rural New York, as it often does, and Mr. Cheney's hunt-crisis-management office is again fighting an impending public firestorm after a photographer spotted a Dixie battle flag hanging in the gun club's garage. Can this story get any better? Darth Vader hates Muslims, eats babies and supports slavery!

No one so far has pointed out the obvious, which is that hunting folk north of the Mason-Dixon line don't tend to pine for the Lost Cause ... but then again, neither do wine-swilling Californians married to French imperialists.

The Reverend has something to say, though, and that means we have to pay attention:

"I am calling on Vice President Cheney to . . . denounce the club and apologize for going to a club that represents lynching, hate and murder to black people," the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement.

-Ah, the media: guardians of truth, defenders of the public trust. [CS Monitor]

-Dad called. He wants your allowance back. Also, your paycheck, your mortgage, your car, your savings, and the change in your wallet. [Weekly Standard]

-The war is your fault. [Foreign Policy]

-The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy goes viral. [The Nation]

-Fiscal conservatives are pissed at Bush. Out-of-work Republicans are pissed at Abramoff. Evangelicals are pissed at everyone else. [NYT Magazine]

-"Congratulations on your divorce!" and other tales of marriage in decline. Blame the gays! [Salon]

-The delicious, nutritious, and totally edible hipsters at Trader Joe's. [New York]

-The voices in my head made me do it! [Times UK]

-If you read one essay on Israel this year... [Foreign Policy]

-Rudy, the values slayer. [NYT]

-Rudy, the vampire.

Here are some of the best quotes from yesterday's talk shows...

Tim Russert informed Chris Dodd on Meet The Press that some polls were showing him at zero percent. Dodd explained:
"We've got a lot of room to grow....The more important question may be why aren't these leading candidates, who get all the attention every single day, why aren't they doing better?"
Good call Chris! When you poll at zero percent, there really is no place to go but up.

Mike Huckabee discussed his latest endorsement on CNN's Late Edition:
"I've got the endorsement this week of Chuck Norris. Now people are going to be afraid not to support me."
Insert your best Chuck Norris fact:
-[Mike Huckabee] does not sleep...he waits.
-The last thing you hear before [Mike Huckabee] gives you a roundhouse kick? No one knows because dead men tell no tales.

Last but not least, Laura Bush on Fox News Sunday:
"I'm looking forward to voting for a Republican woman, whenever that is, but I'll be supporting the Republican."
Wallace: "So the fact that she's a woman doesn't matter?"
Bush: "No, it doesn't matter to me. And I hope it doesn't matter to other people. I hope that people will choose the candidate that they think really has the views that they want, you know, that they believe in, and that represent them in the way that they want to be represented"
As always, Chris Wallace really gets to the bottom of issues.

In Lesley Stahl's segment with "Sarko the American" in Sunday's 60 Minutes, the French president smoothly deflected a question about his personal life ... by removing his mic, standing up and shaking the visibly flummoxed reporter's hand before walking off with his entourage. There was a time when American presidents were supposed to be the ones with bad manners -- but now, it seems, that most American of French leaders is beating us at our own game. See his performance in all its glory:

It's Monday and I damn well ain't happy about that, so what I thought I'd do is pick on long-shot candidates running pathetically laughable campaigns. That's how cranky I feel. Stay out of my way.

Here is Ron Paul throwing a tantrum. Gosh, he's so electable.



Here is Mike Gravel trying his best John Cage impression. Gosh, he's so hip -- not at all the mean, angry old man of campaign lore.



John Dickerson's fascinating Derridean deconstructionist meta-analysis of said video here.

Hide the kids! Dick Cheney is going hunting tomorrow at an unpscale hunting resort in New York. What is scarier than the idea of Cheney with a gun is The Clove Valley Rod & Gun Club where he is hunting. According to the NY Daily News, it costs $150,000 to join the club and there is an added cost for every bird that is shot. Whatever happened to never shooting a sitting duck? A few locals express their sentiments:

"I don't want him in my backyard," said Viva Ttanata, 63, a farmer whose land adjoins the exclusive upstate hunting ground where Cheney plans to shoot tomorrow. "He scares me."

"He'd better take a shooting lesson," he said. "I'll be keeping my dog inside while he's here."

"They keep cracking jokes about it while they're waiting for their sandwiches," said a waitress at the nearby Clove Valley Deli and Cafe.

"They keep saying 'Duck! Put your armor on! Don't turn your back on him!'"

Even if he did shoot another one of his friends, we probably wouldn't find out about it for a few days. If you remember, Cheney decided to not tell the sterling White House press corps until days later. Does anyone think that a reporter will ask the question, "Mr. Vice President, did you shoot anyone this time?"

Things are heating up in Wakefield, Massachusetts:



I don't know which is sillier -- the story of a priest banning Harry Potter from his school, or the way reporter Rhondella Richardson (an "investigative reporter") speaks truth to power:

"Parents are petrified to share their opinions... Only a handful had enough faith in their convictions to speak up."

"Let's say you have organic vegetables in a bowl of soup. And I happen to know that that broth has some poison in it. [Rowling] had a nice kinda series, ... but I have a problem with the broth she put it into."

Harry Potter may not exactly lead young Jimmy into a lake of fire, but it is not a reach to say that it could without guidance detract from the Church's message -- just as a child watching Desperate Housewives might get the wrong idea about what marriage is really like.

Looking over my shoulder as I post this from Brian Beutler:

"I think I'll have much more about this later, but in the meantime, feast your eyes on this GAO report about how, for seemingly no reason at all, we have a terror watch list with nearly a million names on it. I believe that all of al Qaeda is about one percent that size."

Ok. I wasn't born here. I speak French. And I was once detained at Miami International because I was caught reading Behind the Veil in Arabia for an anthro course (I placed the book face up at check-in and the TSA agent, noticing the book, secretly starred my ticket. Then I lost my dignity at security.)

I am totally going into hiding. Goodbye world.

After reading David Brooks's column today -- one of his periodic forays into amateur pop psychology, this time poking literary fun at all the confusing little gizmos that have irreversibly altered our lives -- I'm tempted to imagine his reaction upon discovering the Internet.

Was it a pleasant experience, inspiring him to write of this bold new frontier, a medium whose limitless possibilities will fundamentally define our character for this next American century? Or perhaps it disturbed him, prompting him to worry that we're in effect uploading our civil society where it can only be viewed through a Web browser, in a form that even Tocqueville, logged in through a prison computer, would never recognize today?

Whatever he thought then, his attention has since moved on to GPS systems and iTunes, and the idea that we're dependent on technology to the point where we rely on it not only to tell us what we want to know, but what we want. Wielding his well-worn rhetorical playbook, Brooks writes: "Wherever there is a network, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a TiVo machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a Times reader selecting articles based on the most e-mailed list, I’ll be there."

Well, he's there all right, sitting at #1 on the Most E-mailed list, just as he preordained. I'd speculate about whether Brooks is prescient, but unfortunately his predictive powers don't extend much further than the reading habits of New Yorkers.

Wow. For all the fervent denials Larry Craig throws out about his bathroom incident and subsequent sexuality speculation, there's never been evidence quite this vivid against him. David Phillips, a DC resident, claims to have slept with Craig some twenty years ago, and happily described the encounter down to every last latex-laced detail for Wonkette.

Phillips was recently in a bar minding his own business when he heard Craig’s voice on the television. “I went pale and nearly vomited,” Phillips says. It was the man he remembered from one of his creepiest sexual encounters twenty years earlier. “After a truncated meal I went back to my hotel room and began unwinding and jotting down the memories that the voice had opened. I recalled The Follies, the furtive groping and pawing there, the odd following of this man in my car….. Crap!”

One night, Phillips continues, “I followed [Craig] from The Follies to a Capitol Hill neighborhood, parking on the street no telling how far from his house. We walked up the alley and through the back door of a house, with him repeating several times, ‘You were never here. You don’t know me. Right?’ and me responding, ‘Right!’ in boyish submission. As we tiptoed from the back door to the stairs to the upper floor, as if somebody else was home, he turned to grope my crotch and brush my face with his hand.” The house’s decor led Phillips to believe that this was a married man: “The bric-a-brac with family pictures didn’t scream ‘old queen’ to me; it announced a woman’s influence. Still, we made our way upstairs.

You can either leave the rest to your imagination or click on the link, which would qualify as erotic literature to some. But if Phillips is to be believed, this is a first-hand account of a one-night stand with Craig, which makes the scandal all the more interesting, and, yes, entertaining. Craig's probable response? A pre-written denial which will contain a 3:1 ratio of denials of his homosexuality to denials of the actual event ever taking place.

Surgeon General's Warning: In case it wasn't already clear enough, the Wonkette's story is very graphic in nature.

Senators, take note: If you need an American hero to honorably defend the use of torture, call Jack Bauer. Next season on 24: truth, justice, the American way, and the vicarious thrill of mutilating bad guys! Check out the trailer (less-annoying YouTube version below), which, besides confirming that the show has officially jumped the shark (if it hadn't already), features a Congressional hearing that I'd love to see in real life:

I guess I'm just surprised that the show is again tackling the issue of torture. It's done it all before, to the point where the executive producer finally admitted last season that it was getting old. Is it just something that viewers don't tire of? Maybe -- whether and under what circumstances torture is acceptable is far from settled in this country. Ask Michael Mukasey.

You read and write enough articles that you get to a point where you can totally tell someone's trying to fill space. No one's perfect, but there's certainly a trend among journalists to write ledes that have nothing to do with the content -- that is, a journalist will tell you about the article he wishes he wrote, and then give you the article he had to settle for. All of this is fine if we had all the time in the world to read the news, but a tight piece is easier to read, let alone remember. So, with that in mind, let's look at something sent my way by Wonkette's briefing.

The piece has insight into the Romney campaign, sure, but it looks like someone was trying to write something that went three pages long. It was actually about how Romney has a lot of money and is using it in his campaign. But for some reason, Politico reporter Jeanne Cummings describes it as the extension of a clever business-minded strategy. It reeks of spin to me.

[His campaign headquarters has] an interior design reflecting the private-public partnership that runs through the Romney operation: the investors and businessmen who know Romney from his Bain Capital days who today are teamed up with the professional political strategists from Washington.

As in the private sector, the key to success is spotting opportunity early, sharply analyzing strengths and weaknesses, developing a blueprint for success, and having enough money to get the job done. Romney brought all those skills to the table.

So you know when you're standing in line at Chipotle and you get to the moment of truth: guacamole or none? Tough decision. Guac adds a whole nother dollar to the entire deal.

That choice just got easy. The wildfires that consumed 300,000 in Southern California have also incinerated a third of their avocados, pushing the price to two bucks a pop:

"The avocados are going to be over a $1.50 a piece -- around $2 -- because there's going to be a very high demand on avocados,” San Jose produce stand owner Nader Mechel said.

The problem, according to Mechel, is that avocados grow on trees.

Unfortunately, money doesn't.

That's right!

... Oh wait. No it's not. It's not right. They didn't do it. Even in the face of this. New documents were leaked to the press (and up on Drudge yesterday) that clarify that the editors conducted an embarrassingly big (and bungled) cover-up over a number of fraudulent "reports" TNR featured from a soldier in Iraq describing our own military as a group of sadistic thugs. When conservatives smelled a rat, they found one, and the author eventually admitted he made up the articles. TNR never made a retraction. For more background on the matter, read my article in Human Events. The documents include a transcript of a phone call among editors at TNR, as well as Army investigation files. Bob Owens goes into detail with the damning information -- here are the juiciest tidbits, but it's worth reading in full:

That there was a conference call between editors of The New Republic and their debunked author Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a disclosure that I made on my personal blog on October 9, roughly a month after the call was made. Now that we see Beauchamp’s side of the conversation amounts to a weasely "I will neither confirm nor deny what I wrote," it seems obvious that The New Republic should have printed a retraction almost immediately after the call.

...Instead, they chose to remain silent, even though they knew at the time that a formal U.S. Army investigation had determined the charges made by the author were false and that the author himself would not support his own stories, even under direct questioning by TNR editors.

...After getting off the phone with Centcom’s FOIA office just moments ago, I now know that there are a total of 58 pages of sworn statements that have been collected from Beauchamp’s fellow soldiers and are now on their way to legal review.

The Evolution of John McCain continued yesterday as the senator backed out of voting -- either yea or nay -- on the DREAM Act, which he had previously sponsored. He could have voted if he'd wanted to, of course; the New York Sun reports that he "rearranged his campaign schedule to return to Washington yesterday for a vote on a judicial nomination, but he did not stick around for a key vote just an hour later."

Why would a man who staked part of his presidential ambitions on defending a path to legal citizenship duck out of a fairly unobjectionable piece of that agenda? DREAM would allow illegal immigrants who came to America before they were 16 (i.e., with their parents) to apply for legal residency as long as they've lived here for five years and have been through two years of college.

The problem for Fred Thompson and the other immigration panderers in the Republican field is that people who'd benefit from the law are precisely those who don't fit the mold of the lazy Mexican who speaks no English and brings disease over the border.

It doesn't matter, though. McCain has proved, again, the limits of his principles in the face of competitive pressure.

SEATTLE -- The Washington State flag bears the likeness of our first president, a man who voluntarily stepped down from office in the hope that his seat would never resemble a throne. How depressing, then, that until this year the logo of King County (home of Washington's largest city) was a crown: George Washington, if he weren't already invincible, would be turning over in his grave.

Did Seattle come to its senses? Not really. Instead, the county decided to "rename" itself after Martin Luther King Jr., a man who had little connection to the area and whose civil rights campaign might as well have never existed for residents of the Northwest. Forget the crown: the new logo, unveiled this year, features Dr. King's face.

The Reverend now presides over a city with a colorblind school system.

(The Seattle Monorail and the Space Needle contributed research for this blog post.)

I hear a lot about the possibility that Hillary could blow out just like Dean. I'm not saying it isn't possible. But there's a big difference between Hillary and Dean. Howard Dean was viewed, at that time, as a radical left-wing leader of the netroots. His fall was due to the bursting of a bubble. If anything, the only candidate who resembles his credentials is Ron Paul, though obviously not policy-wise. It wasn't his anti-establishment credentials that got him where he got to be, it was the rabid support of the supposedly fringe elements of his party.

So how on earth does Clinton possibly compare? She's a former first lady, mainline establishment Democrat, who already has her husband's entire campaign machine working for her. There's no parallel. None.

But the idea that Obama is right out? I'm not sure about that. Read to what Gov. Deval Patrick says of Obama and himself:

"People made a mistake … by supposing, presuming, that our appeal would be in certain discrete corners of people who looked like us and thought like us," Patrick said. "The whole point was to reach across divides and invite people who had checked out to check back in. And they did."

Now try to read this article and try to find one thing positive from Clinton strategist Mark Penn (or anyone else) about Hillary. It could be that the reporter is biased, but not a single pro-Hillary quote emphasized her positive attributes. They only emphasized her ability to defend herself in the face of negative ones. That's hard to jump for. It's not good news that Penn, HER OWN EMPLOYEE, couldn't come up with a pro-Hillary quote that a reporter would find irresistible.

Worse news? In this article talking about Hillary's image, Hillary declined the interview. It might have been a smart move, but it implies a lack of confidence she can't afford in the face of... well, audacious hope.

When a matter as important as the next leader of the free world is up for debate, the most intelligent, rational thing to do would be to organize a rigorous analysis of the candidates' respective policy plans, histories, diplomatic skills, and general leadership abilities. But this is America. So instead, we're gonna focus on who has the hottest wife.

To be fair, it's pretty easy to find some eye candy this early in the primary game, when fringe candidates have yet to drop out and sultry spouses like giantess Elizabeth Kucinich still make TV appearances. But the afore-linked-to Top Five Countdown still has a few big problems - Jackie Dodd over Judith Giuliani? This relatively creepy picture of Michelle Obama? And where in God's name is the fantastic Mrs. Colbert?

Unfortunately, the most famous spouse of all had to be left off the list due to a Y chromosome. But how upset can Bill really be? I can't imagine he misses any Future First Ladies of America meetings when some of the other members look like this.

If you think you're excited now, just wait until the Bikini Contest.

Sure, the devastation, the human tragedy, all of these things bother me. What bothers me more? Sitting through the coverage. I felt like there was something a little gonzo about watching Geraldo Rivera wander around looking for grief-stricken families to get on tape. Is it opportunistic? Or is it compassion? I don't know. I'm actually in awe of the guy regardless -- it takes a lot of energy to face that kind of devastation, and then constantly emote with interviewees. There could be a sociopathic quality to it, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

But is there anything redeeming about it? Sure, actually. Coverage like this enables people to feel bad enough to donate money or volunteer. Gonzo or not, these people will benefit from the coverage. So I guess it's not all bad.

But according to some reports I'm seeing, the fire may have been caused by illegal immigrants -- possibly ones who came to America in search of work. Then, I see this:



Hopped up on some kind of flower-based drug, Mario Mario, an Italian-born plumber of questionable legal status is a suspect in the arson investigation. And in one strange twist, Mario Mario is Geraldo Rivera's evil twin.

So one makes the news, the other one reports it. Coincidence? I think not.

Rob explains how to make the BEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME EVER, OMGZ11!!1!



And if you're an interior designer (or at least so inclined this autumn season), consider this porch decoration with an exceptionally wide stance. Lolz!

Per Joe T.'s post on video games, I interviewed Jack Thompson once, and he was very engaging. The guys at Penny Arcade, amongst others, can't stand him, and frequently place him at the butt of their jokes. But Thompson represents a very real constituency in the country, and the reason he makes it onto the news shows isn't just because he's a good self-promoter. It's because there are lots of parents out there who are worried about their kids being exposed to The Wrong Sort Of Things.

Unfortunately, the segment precluded any kind of discussion on what Thompson meant by the fraud being perpetrated by the video game industry. I think he's saying that the industry isn't enforcing their own rating system -- as he did mention sending his son to do "stings" on Target and Wal-Mart by purchasing these games.

If you're not familiar, the ESRB is the video game industry's self-regulating body. They're responsible for the labels you see at the bottom of video games. The ratings look like this:



When you sell games, you agree not to sell games to kids that have labels that say not to. I don't know about the fines involved or if there are any. But parents that want to be involved in their kids' development benefit from this kind of guidance. Actually, there's an entire site run by a father ("GamerDad") that wants to make sure that his kids play fun, but not "bad" games.

I'm not entirely convinced that exposure to content doesn't have negative effects, which is why I wouldn't discount Thompson's message -- it seems unreasonable to suggest that watching violent film after violent film is unhealthy for kids. But I'm also not convinced that the games are primarily what's responsible for children doing incredibly insane things. I just think that at the point where your kids can be influenced by media to do evil, they've already fallen pretty far down the rabbit hole. If parents hadn't done their job up to the point where a child goes, "That's not a bad idea!" to a scene in Grand Theft Auto, then there's a bit of a problem.

Anyway, all of this was just me trying to work in a link to Zero Punctuation. Here Yahtzee discusses the original Manhunt game.

You want to know what an "oops" sounds like? Accidentally endorsing someone. That's a major oops. It's a good thing no one is silly enough to make such an error. Oh wait! Somebody did. A preacher. A Very Important Preacher.

The response from the Romney people:

"Rev. Wilton is a great leader in the community and we respect any decision he makes regarding his involvement with the campaign," campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said in an e-mailed statement.

Massachusetts legislators are on the brink of extending the "buffer zone" surrounding abortion clinics to 35 feet to allow women access without being bombarded by protesters. From the Boston Globe:

Supporters say the measure is a public safety initiative that would protect women from intimidation that they may face from protesters and would make it easier to prosecute violators. But opponents said the bill violates protesters' First Amendment rights by limiting their ability to distribute materials that could encourage women seeking an abortion to change their minds.

Now, there's a legitimate argument about abortion with serious implications to consider on both sides. Are we restricting free speech only to abortion protesters? Or, are we trying to protect women as they make one of the most challenging decisions of their lives? I tend to come down on the side of the former. There are only a few states that have restrictions on protests during funerals. If there are no laws restricting protesters at military funerals, should there be laws restricting protests at abortion clinics?

Whatever the answers to those questions, they're at least valid questions.

Our message board on abortion, however, is becoming completely ridiculous. A few choice quotes:

--"First of all, this is the 'philosophy' of Hitler and Stalin, who were amateurs compared to the millions more killed by abortionmurder. Whoever wants to prune back on the human population is welcome to jump off a cliff today, to demonstrate their sincerity. Being hypocrites, they have no sincerity and will not prune back their own part of the "excess" population by jumping off cliffs. This hypocrisy demonstrates the falsehood of this specious argument."

--"You obviously have a lot of issues. How does it make you feel to know that most of the pro-life people disagree with the pictures you have. You don't practice what you preach. You want unborn children to have rights yet did you have the permission from the dead baby that you have on your sign to put their picture on the street???? No you didn't, so you are exploiting that baby."

--"I suppose you would give the same advice to those who oppose slavery. 'Don't want a slave, don't have one. But don't tell me I can't have one.' Or those opposed to female genital mutilation. 'Don't want to mutilate your girl's clitoris, then don't. But don't tell me I can't.' What you and others who support abortion do not seem to get is that we are not against abortion because we think women should have no control over their lives or because we think every one should have the same views on sex that we do. We are against abortion because we believe that it is murder. It is a social injustice. It is evil. It is wrong."

--"God creates all people and He doesn't make mistakes....no baby is a mistake because he/she was created by God."

--"And he also created all the people who perform abortions and those who have them. So what do you have to say about that? If I take your statement literally then abortion is not a mistake because you say he makes no mistakes. If he doesn't make a mistake then people who get them and people who perform them are not making a mistake either because everyone was created by God and you say he is not wrong. So by you saying abortion is wrong you are saying that God is wrong then according to your statement."

Actually, touché on that last one.

Is there any sensible middle ground on this issue? Why is it impossible to have a civil discussion on abortion without invoking Hell or Hitler?

Political operatives used to be content dredging up the dead to stuff the ballot box. Cold hard stiffs, however, aren't as useful when it comes time to raise cold hard cash. (Blame the death tax!) Fortunately, some especially fertile donors have hit upon a solution: writing checks for their young children.

The Washington Post, for instance, found a two-year-old generous enough to donate the maximum $2,300 to Barack Obama. ("Obama Baby" YouTube video forthcoming? Who wants to bet how long it'll take?) In completely unrelated news,

the amount written by those identifying themselves as students on contribution forms has risen dramatically this year, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. During the first six months of the 2000 presidential campaign, students gave $338,464. In 2004, that rose to $538,936.

This year, the amount has nearly quadrupled, to $1,967,111.

The Post explains why all this is happening:

Congress tried to outlaw political contributions from those under age 18 as part of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002, but the Supreme Court struck down that provision as an infringement on the constitutional rights of minors. With that ruling in mind, the Federal Election Commission wrote new regulations two years ago that tried to balance what it considered a legitimate desire among some children to make political contributions against the possibility that parents would seek to pad their donations by funneling money through children.


If you build a wall, they'll find a way around it. My brother's dog tends to lean Democratic, by the way....

The latest Dutch import to these shores is a Kurt Cobain lookalike who can levitate himself using the powers of his mind, or something. Watch what happens when he does it in front of the White House:

Can you figure out how he does it? And if the White House can play host to a flying, unkempt Dutchman, can bipartisan unity be far behind?

(Or is this all a distraction from more pressing domestic and international issues? Hey, worked for me.)

Fox News had an interesting little debate the other day over a particularly violent video game called Manhunt 2. The game has recently been banned in the UK for its graphic death scenes, flirted with the rare "Adult" rating from the ESRB, and has drawn the ire of people concerned about little Timmy coming home from school and slitting virtual throats. So why not have a shouting match about it?

This exchange is particularly idiotic thanks to the man defending the game's sale, who drags out the most tired cliches in the book ("I don't go kill people because I play video games") after starting his argument with the following question: "Which do you read more, the Bible or the Constitution?"

The world would be a better place if he had missed his interview due to a long game of HALO.

He was probably hoping for an endorsement from a paper with a daily readership in the double-digits, but Joe Biden will take whatever he can get, and today he gets the Storm Lake Times, a small publication in northwestern Iowa.

We have seen all the Democratic presidential candidates, except for two, up close and personal: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. Biden is our choice for the nomination for the powerful personal story he shares, for his deep knowledge of international affairs, and for his long record of exemplary service in the United States Senate.

Biden is astounding with his sheer command of world politics and conflict. He has distinguished himself by offering the only workable plan to get us out of harm’s way in Iraq. He advocates a loose federal system under which the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds would each control their own territory, somewhat similar to the notion of American federalism. He would remove American troops to a safe distance in friendly environs ­ Kurdistan and Kuwait, to name two ­ and let the Iraqis solve their own problems.

The article dramatically simplifies Biden's approach to Iraq, but it definitely nails his biggest selling point - his expertise in the international arena. So far, Biden has blown away his Democratic competitors in every foreign policy segment of the televised debates, and offers the attractive combination of being both an anti-war candidate and being able to intelligently describe just how he would get American soldiers out of Baghdad.

There's plenty of speculation that Biden is really in the race in order to position himself to be selected as Secretary of State, but if he's going to make a legitimate run at the Democratic nomination, he'll have to pull some surprising numbers in Iowa - and nothing says "dark horse" like the staff of Storm Lake.

It seems as though presidential candidates can’t get enough of the Boston Red Sox. Sorry Colorado Rockies, but your team doesn’t reside near an early primary state (not to mention it usually is best to back the winning horse). Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani pledged allegiance to Red Sox Nation. Sorry Rudy, we all know you own four World Series rings from the evil empire.

Mitt Romney should have tried to ride the coattails of the Red Sox, according to Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr. He is running so far from liberal Massachusetts that even flip-flopping back to the Red Sox would have seemed disingenuous for the former Massachusetts governor.

And then there’s Obama. He smartly played Red Sox politics saying,

"You don’t want somebody who pretends to be a Red Sox fan as president of the United States. You want somebody who is a principled sports fan. Even when his team is losing, he still stands up for them."

That's right! I want a President to be a principled sports fan! It's too bad they all can't be principled about the issues that matter.

It seems that the only other thing that gets Republicans and right-leaning independents more hopped up than the prospect of another Clinton presidency is immigration. It also might be where the Democrats are most vulnerable. In the special election for Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District, Republican Jim Ogonowski lost to Democrat Niki Tsongas by only 6 points. In a VERY liberal district (Kerry and Gore both took nearly 60 percent of the vote in 2000 and 2004), Ogonowski was able to use Tsongas support of illegal immigration against her. Sound familiar John McCain?

In an election cycle that looks to be a landslide for Democrats, could immigration be the GOP's saving issue? One problem: Ogonowski said he opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. Oh yea. Iraq.

Does the name Heath Shuler ring a bell? No? Well, ask any Redskins fans you know about him and watch them cringe. Shuler was a highly-touted quarterback when coming out of college, and the 'Skins drafted him in hopes that he would guide DC's home team to multiple Super Bowls. Instead, Shuler was a total bust, eventually getting laughed out of the league and being forced to find a new profession... namely, North Carolina Congressman.

Given his years playing the game (and playing it very well in college, even if he didn't pan out in the NFL), as well as his natural athletic talent, you'd think that ol' number 5 would be able to handle a pick-up game, right? Eh... maybe not. Shuler was chosen to be the quarterback of the Congressional team against the Capitol Police, and not only did he get shut out, but he threw two interceptions to the Hill's finest. Ouch. Hopefully he's better at picking apart legislation than he is at picking apart defenses.

Stephen Colbert is polling at 2.3 percent nationally among Democratic voters, good for fifth place ahead of Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel.

Meanwhile, in the Republican field, Colbert gets less than 1 percent of the vote - he's behind even Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul. In other words, Democrats are more likely to vote for Colbert than Republicans.

Does this mean that everyone realizes he's playing a character...or is it just that Democrats really want to see Larry Craig as veep? Discuss.

...well, if polls were everything, at least.

The love/hate relationship Hillary Clinton shares with the Democratic base has often featured an intense debate about just how liberal she really is. Astoundingly, she has been accused of being both too crazy-hippie-leftist and too sneakily-right-wing, a phenomenon that leads some to believe that, much like the Heineken draught keg girl, there are multiple robotic Hillaries campaigning in various pantsuits across the country.

Now, in the latest round of this argument, a libertarian chimes in to say that he sees plenty of similarities between Clinton II and Bush II.

For seven years, the left has been up in arms about President Bush's aggressive foreign policy, his secrecy, his partisanship, and his expansive claims on executive power. It's odd, then, that they're prepared to nominate Hillary Clinton to carry the party into the 2008 elections.

And judging by her political career and recent voting record, they should also realize that even if they succeed in electing Hillary Clinton to the White House, it's likely that the only real resulting change in Washington will be that come 2009, we'll merely have a Democrat pursuing the same misguided policies.

What's this? Someone finally noticing that the biggest difference between the incumbent Republican and the favored Democrat is their party affiliation? Gosh, it's almost like there's more to politics than which letter is in parentheses next to a candidate's name!

These criticisms of Hillary are more valid than many on the left want to admit. But the article's author left out perhaps the most glaring Bush-Clinton similarity of all - just like Dubya, Hillary is a notoriously polarizing figure. If she is elected, the country will again be faced with a bitter 50/50 split for at least another four years, one that would be much stronger than any possible partisan fallout after the election of, say, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. Those of us who are sick of nothing but bickering Red-Blue politics for the past eight years will be on suicide watch if Clinton, The Sequel makes it all the way to the White House.

And just think, after Hillary's run is over, there's always the chance of the next step in divisive, dynastic Presidential campaigns... Jeb.

...that will have absolutely no impact on the 2008 campaign:

1. Mike Gravel supports a woman's right to choose.
2. Ron Paul opposes all taxation of Social Security benefits.
3. Duncan Hunter has received a lifetime rating of 9 percent from the League of Conservation Voters
4. Tom Tancredo does not think there should be a Congressional Black Caucus.
5. Chris Dodd has a thick, lustrous head of hair.

Democrat Congressman Pete Stark apologized today after a censure resolution against him was tabled indefinitely. The resolution was lodged against him by House Minority Leader John Boehner for claiming that the war in Iraq was simply for the President's amusement (video below).



Interestingly, this isn't really being treated as a slam against the troops the same way radio show host Rush Limbaugh's comment was. (Media Matters accused Limbaugh of saying that soldiers who did not support the war were phony soldiers. Here's what Media Matters says, here's what Rush says.) Instead, it's being treated as a simple personal attack. So I'm going to open this up to the readers (Mom? You there?).

Do you think that Rep. Stark should be censured all the same? Do you think that the comment about "blowing heads off" maligns the military? Should Democrats use more moderated rhetoric about the war? Post in the discussion forums here.

J.P. is right on about Hollywood's supposed aversion to moral issues or Christian themes. Did anyone at the Values Voter summit see The Passion of the Christ?

Studio executives certainly did. Almost immediately after the stunning success of Mel Gibson's film, Hollywood began looking for the next big religious hit. Who wouldn't? We're a nation of Christians; why not try to cash in on the greatest stories ever told? (Answer: Historically, Hollywood has. The Ten Commandments ... It's a Wonderful Life ... The Greatest Story Ever Told....)

That's why The Nativity Story was rushed to screens -- amid several competing nativity scripts circulating around Hollywood -- in 2006. (It was generally considered a flop.) Philip Anschutz has been financing Christian-themed movies for several years, and while he might not be considered part of the "elite," you can bet they paid attention to the success of the first Chronicles of Narnia installment.

You can't even argue that only religiously themed movies with a "liberal" message get made (see: Gibson, Mel). Even mainstream, raunchy movies tend to have family-friendly messages -- and is that any worse than churches enticing kids with violent video games?

...is the answer to Andy's question. His Pulitzer-winning piece on New York was amazing. If you've never read it, do so now. I'll wait.

Giuliani should circulate this as a piece of campaign literature.

Look! Ice!

"It's in an area that we would rather not have it and discussions are under way" to figure out how much of a hazard the ice might pose to Discovery at liftoff, Launch Control said. An ice-inspection team rushed back to the launch pad for a better look with cameras and binoculars, as the seven astronauts waited inside Discovery for further word.

Before Stephen Colbert ever threw his hat in the ring, everyone's favorite childhood humor columnist had already announced -- via McClatchy Newspapers -- his intention to run for president. Shunning TV debates, Dave Barry is going directly to the people by answering questions from readers:

Q: When elected, will you by presidential mandate redesign the Food Pyramid? It’s a disgrace. The big part at the bottom contains radishes, broccoli and artichokes. All the good stuff such as cheese and butter only gets that tiny little triangle at the top.

A: When I am president we will have a Food Trapezoid, which will be at least 80 percent beer.

This all begs the question: Was Dave Barry ever funny?

One major theme of the Values Voter Summit last weekend was how Liberal Hollywood has destroyed our values. In general, there was a lot of martyrdom on stage -- from Giuliani's persecution at the hands of editorials from The New York Times down to the actors/directors/etc. working in the filthy, filthy water of the Left Coast. You can slake that stuff on at red meat conferences because people eat it up like liberals eat up jokes at the expense of George W. Bush. It's shtick.

It can also be an excellent sales pitch. As Andy pointed out, Giuliani did receive praise from The New York Times, though it wasn't because he did stuff that was liberal. But Rudy's not going to say that because it undermines his conservative credentials. And as Julian Sanchez notes, the inability of religiously themed films to find major distribution in the U.S. isn't because of liberal Hollywood's agenda to make the kids gay, but why not pretend? That way, people will feel obligated to see the movie, if only to stick it to all those lib-rawls:

"Major Hollywood distribution companies" never pick up little thoughtful foreign films like Bella. Independent distributors like Lion's Gate or quasi-autonomous niche distributors affiliated with one of the bigger companies do, as you can easily confirm by looking at the last dozen winners of that Toronto Film Festival People's Choice Award. An award, incidentally, which is suggestive of box office potential, but hardly dispositive: There are plenty of hits (Life Is Beautiful, Whale Rider, Hotel Rwanda, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, American Beauty), but also a fair number of misses: Tsotsi grossed just under $3 million in the U.S.; Zatôichi less than $900,000; The Hanging Garden, under a million. Even the successful ones, though, aren't getting distributed by Paramount.

Click to watch Colbert on Meet the Press.

Chuck Norris has endorsed Mike Huckabee for President. According to Norris, "I want a president who gets things done, but I first want one who has lived a life of integrity, commitment, truthfulness and respect. Mike is that man."

Apparently, he also likes the fact that Huckabee drives an ice cream truck covered in human skulls.

No matter what your political leanings, it was an exciting weekend for democracy around the world. Let's recap:

-- Poland forcibly tears apart its ruling Siamese twins -- former child actors the Kaczynski brothers, who grip both the presidency and the premier's office with their vindictive claws -- by ousting the prime minister and giving a plurality of seats to the free-market, pro-European Union Civic Platform party. Analysts expect warmer relations with Brussels and a ticket back to Poland for its 900 troops stationed in Iraq. (In related news, confused Polish grandmothers seem to have misplaced their ID cards.) (In other related news, Poland's youth is awesome. Instead of riot on the street to protest job uncertainty, they peacefully vote in a bunch of guys who want to cut taxes. And they steal their grandmothers' ID cards.)

-- Switzerland rediscovers its xenophobic roots, and junks its rule-by-consensus tradition, by awarding the anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party the largest share of any party in the lower house (which allocates seats proportionally) since World War I. "Foreigners" (as non-citizen residents are commonly called) should keep a leash on their children: if a new measure is enacted, entire families could get deported for the actions of their "black sheep" children. The party's other proposal is to ban the construction of minarets on mosques. Immigrants needn't worry, however; there are plenty of other European countries in which to seek refuge ... except France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Spain....

-- The United States of America (or, as much of it as could fit into the Washington Hilton) takes a straw poll and finds that Mitt Romney will be the next president ... if liberals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Wall Street Republicans all stay home next November, and if pro-Mitt religious conservatives can stuff the ballot online the week before.

-- The State of Louisiana discovers it's OK with funny-looking Indian-Americans, as long as they're conservative Republicans who support teaching intelligent design. Governor-elect Bobby (nee Piyush) Jindal's stellar credentials and policy smarts are another drawback for Louisiana's heartland, but at least he's down with the Confederate flag and tolerates Pentecostal revivals.

-- China's Communist Party adds four leaders to the Politburo Standing Committee, which is chosen by the Central Committee, which is chosen by the Party Congress ... or something.

The Onion reveals #1 voter issue in 2008 election:

In other Onion news, Fred Thompson has a new stump speech:

If you elect me as your next president, you will see this woman [Jeri Thompson] on TV nearly every day, jogging around the Rose Garden in tight Lycra shorts, bouncing all over the place with a figure that Americans of every stripe—from surgeons to truckers—will want to nail. Yours will be a first lady who is not only hot enough to appear in Playboy, but who might actually be willing to appear in Playboy. And if you choose me to be your next president, that is exactly what she'll do, in the November 2012 issue, guaranteeing me a second term once the public gets a good look at those truly incredible bazongas.

Thank you, and God bless America.

The old (and I mean old) face of teen pregnancy. Roar:

"Dinosaurs did pretty much what we do and what most other vertebrates do," explained co-presenter Andrew Lee. "If these species had waited until full size to reproduce, they would have had very few years in which to produce offspring."

Chris Albritton in Iraq responds to a USA Today piece on the increased air strikes in Afghanistan and Iraq:

1,140 airstrikes launched in the first nine months of 2007 compared to 229 in all of last year. Airstrikes are up in Afghanistan, too, with 2,764 bombing runs this year, up from 1,770 last year. Helicopter gunship attacks aren’t included in those numbers.

...They kill civilians, the moral wrongness of which seems to be lost in this story. Yes, it’s good to decrease reasons for locals to hate America, but not killing innocent people is a good unto itself, no? Am I the only one getting tired of seeing civilian casualties as something to be avoided for tactical reasons and not that it’s supposed to be wrong to kill innocent people?

1. It's probably being taken for granted by both the reporter and the military spokesperson, so this is mostly a point of bad PR. Its exclusion doesn't mean that our military is thrilled whenever they see children in bodybags, so why complain about it not being brought up? The point of the article was tactics, so it emphasizes tactics.

2. More troops does mean more air cover, but I find it interesting that no one's mentioning that Clinton's airbombing of Yugoslavia killed a buncha civilians and very few people piped up back then. But then again, Human Rights Watch put the number at around 500, if you want to believe them.

Iran jingoists get a wag of Fareed Zakaria's finger:

Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?
...
We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about.

But hey, when has that ever stopped us?

Our friends across the pond are cracking down on health care costs, and that means a rude awakening for rotund Redcoats. British schools will be sending letters to the parents of children as young as five if they are found to be obese when weighed on campus, a measure intended to counter the growing problem of growing poundage that, at current rates, will cause over 50% of the country's adult population to be obese by 2050.

The postal plan was approved by Health Secretary Alan Johnson, who claims that "it is in children’s best interest if their weight is brought formally to the attention of their parents." Johnson apparently believes that many British parents will go years and years without noticing the size of their children, only to wake up one day and startlingly yelp, "By jove, Henry, you're the size of Scotland Yard!"

What next? Well, there are always the rumblings of insurance companies moving to do to overweight people what they've done to smokers, but first the Brits might want to deal with those nasty wizard-caused metabolism problems.

-After 9/11, academics and politicians fell over themselves to emphasize that Islam is a religion of peace. Eeeeh, maybe perhaps not so much: NY Review

-Campaign finance reform is working soooo well: Columbus Dispatch

-Every campaign needs a strategy. Even a comedian's: Atlantic

-Drudge and his creepy, strange crush on Hillary Clinton: NYT

-Republicans and their creepy, strange crush on Hillary Clinton: Fox News

-Kids today. They get their news from Jon Stewart and their commentary from The Onion: Reason

-What we can learn about urban politics from HBO's "The Wire" : New Yorker

-Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz sits in prison for attempting to reveal the names of the 551 men imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. Irony: NYT Magazine

-Blackwater was hired to fight in Iraq because the Pentagon and the State Department were too busy fighting each other: WaPo

Hi Kids! Some of you 18- and 19-year olds are voting in your first election, and have probably never paid attention to a political campaign until this point. So I thought I'd fill you in on a few of the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Republican candidates go out of their way to prove how conservative they are by saying the word "conservative" over and over.

Democratic candidates go out of their way to prove how non-liberal they are by never mentioning the word "liberal".

Republican voters often base their votes on values such as faith and family.

Democratic voters tend to vote for whoever their local abortion doctor tells them to vote for.

Republican candidates don't hold back from attacking each other in primary debates, going right after each other.

Democratic candidates refrain from attacking each other, much as they would refrain from attacking terrorists who threaten America.

Enjoy the campaign, young'ns!

HBO gives Bill Maher the freedom to do things he's always wanted to do on a political talk show: Curse. Make sexual references. And go into the audience to physically take on an obnoxious heckler.

Now this is great television. The only thing missing was a high-pitched, "Don't tase me, bro!"

Warning: This video includes language that may not be safe for work, or little kiddies on your lap.

Once upon a time, the Republican presidential race was really a contest for anti-terror bragging rights.

But that's so last summer. Fall style is all about burnishing your anti-Hil street cred. Slate's Chris Beam has the details on the new War On Hillary:

If the GOP debate in Michigan earlier this month was the Fred Thompson debate, last night's was the Hillary debate. (Click here for a transcript.) No matter what the topic, talk kept reverting to the Democratic senator from New York. Just take a look at the number of Hillary references, compared to other mentions:

Hillary Clinton: 28
Mitt Romney: 17
Rudy Giuliani: 15
Ronald Reagan: 11
"terrorist": 3

Andrew Sullivan, one of those delightful conservatives who is nearly as non-stereotypical as they come, has been spending some time thinking about just who the big parties represent in modern American politics, and who they will represent in the coming years. It's an interesting question - while the die-hard Red State-Blue State vendetta has been hyped ad nauseam, there's a sizable (and rapidly-growing) section of the population that's become disenfranchised with both sides. Or, as Joe Lieberman put it in 2006, "The fastest growing political party in America is no party."

We may be on the verge of a real realignment. I'm a refugee right now, the kind of refugee who sees Ron Paul and Barack Obama as the harbingers of a new politics.

Paul and Obama, of course, are lagging far behind the front-runners of their respective parties in the polls, which may call Sullivan's hypothesis into question. But the email that prompted his ponderations made some excellent points:

I've met a fair number of people who would ordinarily be pretty far to the left who are fans of Ron Paul. They love his opposition to the war. I've been trying to think about what that means.

I know this sounds crazy -- that some new conservative coalition would incorporate this radical left wing view of cold war american foreign policy. But really, I don't know if it's any crazier than some of the lefty types I know swooning over Ron Paul. I think these are strange times, and that interesting things are possible now.

Interesting, indeed. And perhaps not as implausible as many might think, given what the traditional "conservative" approach to foreign policy has been - essentially the complete opposite of what the Republican Party has come to support since 9/11. Remember when Republicans would rail against the lack of an exit strategy in a Democratic foreign intervention? Remember when Bush (yes, the current one) emphasized that he wouldn't use our troops for nation building? Oh, and remember when Democrats were the party of big government?

The times, they are a-changin'.

I was glad to meet Joe Carter during the Washington Briefing this past weekend, but he raises a point that started to raise my eyebrows:

Right-leaning bloggers are out of touch with a large portion--if not the majority--of conservatives in America.

... the semantic distinction between "social conservatives" and "fiscal conservatives" presents a false dichotomy. Conservatism is rooted in principles (transcendent moral order, social continuity, prudence, etc) that naturally have implications for economics. If you are a conservative you are conservative about matters of society and thus likely to espouse economic policies that are fiscally conservative as well. But conservatism cannot begin with economic or fiscal issues as the primary concerns, much less push social issues to the periphery. Anyone who thinks tax reduction is essential while abortion and marriage are secondary or unimportant cannot rightly be considered to be "conservative", at least not by the standards of the American conservative tradition. Currently we don’t have a label for people whose primary philosophical concern is their pocketbooks. It is becoming increasingly apparent, though, that we can simply call them "Republicans."

Jim Geraghty is having a fit, so happy is he with the Republican candidates' performance. My friends at the AmSpec are also pleased with the performances overall. I have nothing to add, but for one thing: Jonah Goldberg at NRO asks "Who's we?" to Ron Paul's sentiment that the Republicans have historically won on their non-interventionist approaches, citing Eisenhower and Nixon.

What electoral analysis is Paul getting wrong? Republicans want America to win wars when she's in them. That doesn't mean Republicans like getting into them, though. Harding and Coolidge were elected to avoid joining the League of Nations. Ike's New Look was about avoiding large-scale wars by more efficient methods of fighting the Ruskies. Nixon's platform was based on effectively managing our enemies (and in some cases, accommodating them). And Reagan was most certainly eager to use American might to destroy communism, but his efforts in Latin America, the Middle East, and Europe were about stymieing the Soviets, not bringing democracy to foreigners, something we can see in Reagan's reaction to the Beirut bombing. When Clinton wanted to bomb Yugoslavia or invade Haiti, Congress was very skeptical.

I'm not saying that I agree with Paul about the war, but to suggest that non-interventionism didn't play an important role for Republican leaders is to ignore a hefty amount of history. Jonah, if you want to take a stab at it, I might have missed something, but there's definitely a middle ground where some concessions can be made to the Constitution-obsessed candidate.


UPDATE: Andrew Cline asks if Romney mentioned the Sox, and how it might have been nice if he acknowledged their fight for the pennant. What? Why? So he could reemphasize to the midwesterners and southerners most skeptical of him that he's a northeasterner?

Apparently, NBC never liked the Grumpy Old Men movies. Mike Gravel will not be allowed to participate in the next Democratic debate, scheduled for October 30th in Philadelphia. NBC News political director Chuck Todd, a man whose two first names are rivaled only by Ron Paul, explained that Gravel did not meet the polling or fundraising requirements necessary for the forum, which is unsurprising given that the former Alaska senator might not even have enough money for the plane flight to get there.

As much as we'll all miss Gravel's flippant comments and general curmudgeonry, at least this will allow him to spend more time chasing children off his lawn with a cane.

Chess master, author, Russian Presidential candidate. Garry Kasparov does a little bit of everything, and after listening to him for just a few minutes, it's easy to see why. As you might guess of anyone who can beat chess supercomputer Deep Blue, Kasparov is massively intelligent in the way that his native country is just plain massive. Now, he's attempting to use his strategic mind to fix the plethora of problems facing the still-fledgling democracy in Moscow - if he's not killed first.

Kasparov has been making the rounds on late-night talk shows here in the States, and he's been quite clear about the political climate in Mother Russia. He refers to Putin's tight grip on the country as a "police state," and suggests that Bush and Cheney could enjoy the same high approval ratings that the KGB-spy-turned-President does if they had as much control of the media as the Russian government. I guess Fox News is losing its touch.

A recent spot with Bill Maher gave Kasparov a chance to wax political about everything from oil to the mindset of the Russian people - but Chris Matthews made perhaps the best point of all, when afterward he asked, "Can you imagine one of our guys talking in a foreign language at that level of sophistication?... He was sophisticated, he was intelligent, and our guys talk down to us." Or, to continue the board game theme, "Do you ever get the feeling that they're playing chess and we're playing checkers?"

And I mean, *really* bombed. Huckabee got 51%. Romney got 10%. That's second, but there are miles between Huckabee and Romney. So Romney failed to inspire, at least the hardcore folks willing to show up, particular in comparison to Huckabee's blow-out (and again, it was a solid speech).

Except, I did sit next to one guy who voted prior to coming to the conference -- unfortunately, there's no apparent means to figure out how these people went.

Maybe it's just because their support was supposed to be a given, but there's no mention of the war on the list of issues that are most important to voters. But given the surprise of Ron Paul in third place in total votes, maybe there's more to it. I asked the FRC officials why the war wasn't included in the poll. The answer? "We asked questions that we work on primarily." But that's a poor calculation -- the war was important enough to be discussed by most of the speakers as was immigration, yet neither appeared on the list.

Uh. K.

Apparently there were about 600 people who voted offsite and showed up at the summit. That means the sample is a little difficult to figure out who the most hardcore of the voters were. You can't just look at who voted onsite to determine how many hardcore people were here, and how they voted.

UPDATE: By the way, I followed up, asking whether the exclusion of that issue would necessarily bias the survey against a particularly pro-national security candidate. But they disregarded the comment since national security isn't one of the issues that FRC deals with.

Oh yeah?

It's an ironclad rule of politics that every movement loves to parade its converts. For this crowd, even a Spanish-speaking actor from Mexico can be embraced ... as long as he embraces Jesus.

Religious right, meet your favorite man from down under: Eduardo Verástegui, star of the movie Bella.

Here's the breakdown of the straw poll:

1. Mitt Romney: 1,595 27.62 %
2. Mike Huckabee: 1,565 27.10%
3. Ron Paul: 865 14.95%
4. Fred Thompson: 564 9.77%
5. Sam Brownback: 297 5.14%
6. Duncan Hunter: 140 2.42%
7. Tom Tancredo: 133 2.30%
8. Rudy Giuliani: 107 1.85%
9. John McCain: 81 1.40%

UPDATE: The poll was taken between August (through secure online voting among FRC Action members) and today -- meaning that those who came out of the speeches had a very different impression than those who voted early. If you look at the totals for onsite, look at how people were moved by speakers (I'll only do the top five):

1. Mike Huckabee: 488 51.26%
2. Mitt Romney: 99 10.40%
3. Fred Thompson: 77 8.09%
4. Tom Tancredo: 65 6.83
5. Rudy Giuliani: 60 6.30%

I'm surprised to see that Thompson placed fourth in the Values Voter straw poll. I'm even more surprised that Ron Paul finished ahead of a top tier candidate billed as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Sure, Paul's been doing very well in polls taken after presidential debates, but that's because his tech-savvy bloggy base of supporters knows what an SMS is and how to send one. But there was no text message spam going on here -- the shoddy cell phone reception at the Hilton actually makes that physically impossible. So unless these ballots were stuffed, I could see Thompson (lazy and stupid by some accounts) dropping out soon.

No surprise that Huckabee finished second, but why did Romney come in first? It's a clear indicator that Romney has managed to effectively deflect criticism that he's a flip-flopping, abortionist Log Cabin sympathizer. With that no longer a hurdle, Romney's newfound Values Voter friends could imperil Giuliani's candidacy (who did not even place in the top four).

As a side note, according to the poll, the issues that matter most to Values Voters are, in ascending order: life/abortion, sanctity of marriage, tax cuts, permanent tax relief for families. Note the absence of war or terrorism from this list -- Giuliani's flagship issues.

Out among the various exhibitors here at the Washington Briefing (the usual suspects: Exodus, the foundation for sexual orientation rehabilitation, was "out" in full force) stands a lone man selling the lessons of his life. He grew up in Baltimore County and has a message about conservatism that he hopes will galvanize poor blacks to take control of their lives -- and join the Republican Party, of course.

This is not a message too many people will be receptive to, but I had a nice conversation nonetheless with David S. Higgins, the author of Poor, Black, and Conservative. He told me about what he sees as a correlation between liberal policies and the eroded social fabric in cities such as New Orleans and Baltimore. (It wasn't an especially rigorous analysis, but he showed the zeal of the convert, and who can argue with that?)

So I had to ask: What does he think of HBO's The Wire? Higgins said it was an accurate picture of the social and political conditions of inner-city Baltimore ... and the failure of liberal governance to solve its problems. This view isn't shared by the show's creators, self-professed liberals all, but they likely harbor the same cynicism toward grand reformational schemes.

When I asked Higgins how conservative policies could solve the problems of a place like East Baltimore, he talked mainly about the beneficial effects of a strict justice system on crime. I think a closer look would reveal, as The Wire dramatizes, that just such a system -- like the war on drugs -- perpetuates the cycle of poverty rather than helping people lift themselves out of it.

Laura Ingraham: "Remember that scene in Moonstruck where ... ?"

No, Laura. I do not remember that scene in Moonstruck.

I forgot to tell you about Mitt's speech last night. Why? Because it was like every other Mitt speech. He got a lot of cheers and hoots, but despite the fact that he is in perfect alignment with social values of this crowd, it didn't seem like people were excited for Romney.

Is it the Mormon thing? Maybe -- if it would count against him anywhere, here would be it. But I think it was his stiffness... and his slickness. His lines seemed canned, and when compared to Giuliani, disingenuous. That's not because Giuliani accused him of changing positions all the time, either (painting Mitt as the new Clinton, perhaps?). It's because Giuliani seemed to spill his heart out, while Mitt seemed like he was performing a show.

The straw poll is coming up, so we'll see, but I think Giuliani will see a surprisingly high number here. Maybe not enough to overtake Mitt, but enough to show that he did well enough.

In this crowd, the success of a speech is measured in the number of standing ovations it garners. Hunter, Huckabee, and Brownback all received one. By this yardstick, Mitt's speech was a failure. People liked his views on social issues, but weirdly, didn't go nuts for it.

Okay Value Voters: Explain something to me.

Sometimes, it's awesome to listen to music that lifts your spirits. Sometimes, marches do that. But why, during the start of every speech, do they have to play marching music? I've had the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" stuck in my head for the last 45 minutes. Kate Sheppard at The American Prospect mentioned to me that some Bob Dylan played briefly before someone cut it off. Good thing too -- don't want to get anyone's blood up.

"Please know this: You have absolutely nothing to fear from me," Mayor Giuliani tried to reassure the values voters. Liberals are emphatically not comfortable with him, he claimed. "If you think that, just read any New York Times editorial while I was mayor of New York City."

What, you mean like this one ("Mr. Giuliani should be applauded for talking about workfare seriously")? Or this one ("Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has engineered a constructive first step toward deficit reduction")?

Romney's running against his state, Rudy against his city. The mayor's problem, though, is that more liberal New Yorkers than he'd care to admit privately believed he was doing necessary work to clean up their city -- enough New Yorkers, as it happens, to elect and then re-elect him. Even that perennial flogging horse, The Times, hasn't hesitated to point that out.

Lots of excitement in the room about Mike Huckabee whose appearance raised hoots and hollers several times. In fact, his opening was comfortable, probably one of the most comfortable of any set of remarks I've seen so far. He was especially strong with this line: "I don't come to you… I come from you."

In fact, he has received consistent standing applause throughout his speech. He also looks presidential -- he's comfortable in front of the audience, which is more than one could say for Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson. And when it comes to discussing religiosity, Huckabee couldn't be beat. He went on a riff about what he was taught to believe, referring to Daniel and the Lions Den, David and Goliath, Jesus and the Blind Man -- frequently casting himself as the underdog.

But it wasn't just the religiosity. It was the passion with which he spoke -- he knew how to deliver a line and rile up an audience. The question is whether he can do that without resorting to religious argument. And I think that's what's going to be the difference between his ability to go from the second tier to the first tier, and in particular, his ability to go up against a democratic candidate.



The Values Voters go nuts for a guy who'd be a great president for a country composed entirely of Values Voters.

We're here at the Values Voter summit, where attendees are fond of pointing out that Democrats are no friends of the family. I dunno about that, but I will say this: Chris Dodd is certainly no friend of his family. The Democratic candidate, best known for consistently polling at 1%, is uprooting his entire family, kids and all, and moving them to Iowa because he thinks it will win him the primary.

Uh, Chris? Reality check: it won't. I admired your steadfast dedication to a pipedream until it forced lil' Grace and Christina to change kindergartens and make all new friends. Think of the children!

The schizophrenic nature of conservatives' attitude toward the media was on full display this morning during a panel called "Spin City: Countering the Media's Primetime Bias" at the Washington Hilton. Are the journalists dutifully covering the summit "remarkable professionals," as one announcer enthused, or are they just part of the "lame-stream media" (John Fund, showing off his best one-liner, apparently).

The event itself is largely a show for the media. Organizers rely on it. Yet the way to get the base riled up is to simultaneously rip on the media. It's more accurate to say that they love the conservative media and hate the MSM, but we're at the point where it's become a tic rather than a coherent criticism. All a panelist has to do is mention "The New York Times" or make a derisive sneer about the "mainstream media" -- which, like clockwork, sends the audience into fits of applause.

Kind of like the Hillary jokes, which still, some 10 years later, apparently provide speakers with well-worn (and well-received) material to be recycled, over and over, in the most environmentally conscious of ways. Mike Huckabee just came on stage and delivered possibly the third Florida ballot joke in the past hour. I guess it's kind of like liberals and O'Reilly and/or Bush bashing.

Rudy Giuliani gave a remarkable speech earlier this morning. It's a bit jarring to hear "America's Mayor" speak in such overtly religious terms, but there he was, talking about "my belief in God and my reliance on His values" and describing Christianity's foundation as "the most profound act of love in history."

He had to pull off a tricky balancing act before the "values voters," and he did as well as anyone could have expected. The pitch was clear: He cleaned up Times Square, got rid of the pornographers and made New York a safe city to visit. He and the religious conservatives may have differences on the legality of abortion, but they all want the number of abortions to decrease, right? An "80% friend" doesn't make him a "100% enemy," he said.

Throw in a few slightly veiled jabs at Mitt Romney ("I'll always be honest with you"), some references to Ronald Reagan and a strong verbal commitment to Israel and the war on terror, and his entreaty to social conservatives was complete.

Giuliani delivered it with what appeared to be genuine sincerity, but speaking so openly about God obviously makes him feel uncomfortable. He referred continually to written notes -- a sign that this was not his typical stump speech -- and spoke about being raised in an "environment" in which religious beliefs were expressed privately. The problem with this crowd, however, is that they won't buy a candidate who claims his upbringing some four decades ago made him reluctant to express his love for God in public today. And the most stirring, religiously inspired speeches come from the heart, not prepared talking points.

At the end of the speech, Giuliani earned a standing ovation. But at the end of the day, there are other candidates who can offer similar assurances on Israel and terrorism -- and the conservative social agenda -- without the cultural baggage.

The reaction in the room to Giuliani's speech was clear: It was a personal speech, one that makes it comfortable to have Giuliani in the party. But not one that will have the values voters beating down the door to vote for him in the primary, no matter how much he talks about how Christians have to be inclusive.

In fact, the whole speech was a strange nod -- but genuine, and compelling all the same. Pinn being raised in an environment in which religion was considered a private matter

But that wasn't the point. The point was for Giuliani to get on camera in front of Christian voters and showing that he was comfortable in the environment, so that the less hardcore, the more moderate conservatives who don't have a religious litmus test, will see his ability to reach out.

As such, he did so masterfully. Though he flubbed his line on abortion ("I've worked to increase the number of abortions-- I mean, adoptions…") he made a number of attacks on Romney's supposed flip-flopping. Of course, record-wise, Romney didn't do much flip-flopping, and, as he highlighted last night during his speech, was even awarded for his pro-life work.

Odd though -- Giuliani made no time available for media outlets following his speech. Possibly because he knew that he'd be slammed with tough questions from Christian media outlets. But you know what? The speech could have been a lot worse, especially if he addressed women's rights.

I just received this promotion for Man From Plains:

"Man From Plains is an intimate, surprising encounter with President Jimmy Carter. Following the path of Mr. Carter's recent controversial book tour for Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, Academy Award© - winning director Jonthan Demme reveals a complex individual who, with the gusto and determination of a youngster, criss-crosses the country to get his message across, even as that message creates a media onslaught in which his credibility and judgment are called into question. Man From Plains explores both the private and public sides of Jimmy Carter, whose intense sense of justice compels him to pursue, with undiminished energy and hope, his lifelong and deeply spiritual vision of reconciliation and peace." [emphasis mine for the purpose of pointing out how not to send out a press release]

CNN reports:

"Nobel laureate biologist James Watson was suspended Friday from his longtime post at a research laboratory and canceled his planned British book tour after controversial comments that black people are not as intelligent as white people."

The source of the controversy is a Sunday Times interview in which Watson was quoted saying, "All our social policies are based on the fact that [African] intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."

Watson has since apologized, claiming that he "cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said."

Just kidding! L0Lz0r$! They're coming out as *conservatives* in Hollywood!

The gist of the Jonathan and Deborah Flora's talk: conservatives have avoided the movie industry and that it's risky, professionally, to come out as a conservative in Hollywood. Jonathan is a producer at Disney, and Deborah is an actress. As a result, liberals have dominated -- prime example? Brokeback Mountain's "attack on the iconic symbol of manliness, the American cowboy."

Okay. This gets me upset, and I want to be as clear as possible.

THEY WERE SHEEP HERDERS.

Was the movie actually an attack? I don't know. But I'm reminded of something an editor once told me. The author of the short story upon which the film was based explained that she got the idea for the story when she was at a bar in Montana (I think). She noticed a man looking lovingly at some younger men playing pool. She started thinking about what he was feeling, and based on that, wrote the story.

When my editor heard the story, he shook his head. "Typical liberal," rolling his eyes. "Why didn't she just walk up to him and talk to him?"

White African American Rabbi Daniel Lapin on the homosexual agenda, emphasis on the s's: "...ssssspreading a ssssordid ssstain of sssecular sssocialism."

Very good, rabbi. Sssuch a sssophisticated grasssp on the isssues you have.

After the jump, a brief walkthrough on how to create your very own agitprop, entitled "How to Write an Anti-Secularist Pamphlet." Or as I like to call it, Clever Humor Through Photoshop.

Here's the original:



And here it is, spelled out.

NOW GO! Use your knowledge for good!

I doubt anyone would have predicted that Ron Paul could deliver more applause lines than late-entrant Fred Thompson. Yet the physician from Texas delivered a tough, crowd pleasing stump speech to the base of the Republican party.

Paul's campaign, which began as a quixotic quest to end the Iraq War and end the reign of central banks in America, is now reaching out beyond its antiwar base in order to grab small government social conservatives.

His recent ad-buy in Iowa reflects the same desire As my TAC colleague, Daniel Larison notes, on his blog, the ad

"manages to tie in Rep. Paul’s medical career with health care and allude to his pro-life stance without dwelling on it and it pitches a constitutionalist, libertarian message without talking about the war.This ad makes me think that Paul is now really trying to expand his base of support. The days of the symbolic protest campaign definitely seem to be over."

Thompson, meanwhile, spent the morning flubbing his lines. When he referred to "so-called late-term abortion" he managed to echo the rhetoric of social liberals and the mainstream media. This seems to confirm the suspicion that he is a neophyte on social issues.

While Paul has little chance of winning the nomination, he has earned the respect of many of the attendees and convinced many that he is "on of us." Thompson came into this race, showered in praise. Richard Land described him as a "southern-fried Reagan." Unfortunately for Fred-Heads, today the former Senator looks more like second-rate Hollywood, than the voice of the Heartland.

Michael Brendan Dougherty is an associate editor at The American Conservative

It's almost refreshing, isn't it, when a public figure makes a boneheaded comment and then refuses to apologize for it? That's how I feel about Pete Stark, who was given a chance to say he was sorry about claiming that Republicans were sending sending American soldiers “to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement" and instead stayed on the attack. Day after day we read stories about people apologizing for saying stupid things that they obviously believed when they said them (James Watson, anybody?) You have to respect someone who just says, "Screw you, I know what I said and I'm not the least bit sorry!"

Maybe I just feel that way because I'm such a wuss. The other day I gave a homeless man a dollar and actually thanked him. I suppose if he had vomited on me I would have had to apologize.

This is one of the weirdest/most depressing things to mention in a speech. Describing the effects of abortion, he mentioned an anecdote of a doctor delivering a 2 pound fetus: "They placed the baby in a basket, and pretended not to hear it, and let it die." Everyone groaned in pity.

Is this really the most effective way of hammering in a solid pro-life stance? I'm skeptical. In fact, I'm creeped out. I'm not sure, but I think he also mentioned that he had seen this with his own eyes.

A note on Paul's appearance -- he seems to finally be wearing a jacket that fits him. Oh c'mon. Don't say you didn't think it looked a little silly.

His riff on the war received some polite applause, but you can tell that his religiosity doesn't do much for him with this crowd. The Values Voters appear more concerned about the war, and I don't think they buy the argument that our borders are out of control because our soldiers are abroad (something he's arguing in his speech).

In fact, as he rails against the loss of individual liberty in the face of national threats, people listen respectfully but don't quite go along with him. He only regains his audience once he calls for the abolition of the Department of Education. In fact, maybe this is a signal -- should we get a Republican president (...) maybe we know who the Secretary of Education ought to be.

Duncan Hunter is making a killing right now, getting more cheers and hoots from the audience than most of the other speakers. He was a bit dry when talking about his time in office though, but of course, it's the most Christian credential he has -- fighting for the Mt. Soledad Cross to stand in San Diego.

But Hunter also had a lot of cheers over his "seal the borders" stance. Bragging about the fence he constructed in San Diego along the border: "If you get over my fence, we send you to the Olympics immediately." He then promised to build a fence along the entire border within months of coming into office as president.

Others will disagree I am sure, but frankly, I was surprised at how Hunter sounded -- he certainly sounded the most presidential I've heard, definitely more than Thompson or Tancredo. And he was far more popular.

In case you happened to be distracted by trash-tossing vikings while you were at the pump today, the price of crude oil just passed 90 dollars a barrel. Naturally, the response to this ridiculous robbery has been the same as the response to virtually any other type of bad news - blaming someone else. Could President Bush be the culprit? Perhaps runaway global inflation? Or maybe just a jinx by this guy?

Actually, if you wanted to single out one factor above all others, it'd probably have to be China and India turning into the gas-guzzling Hummers of the oil consumption world. But no one wants to talk about that - it's boring, and completely lacks any sort of political kindling that would allow for the burning of gun-toting right-wingers or baby-killing liberals at the economic stake.

What would be positively lovely, however, would be to hear a few of the Presidential candidates give anything more than lip service to America's complete dependence upon foreign oil. Not only would it do wonders for our economic future, but it might finally give us the freedom to deal with that particular Middle Eastern country that Osama wistfully calls home.

Where'd everybody go?

Oh, must be the Focus on the Family Action Luncheon, where the action promises to be wholesome, humble, and -- unfortunately -- private.

Our intrepid livebloggers will have to settle for catching Tom Tancredo gorging on Mexican food or perhaps Sam Brownback straining to enjoy a victory lap.

For now, then, a preview of who might offer this afternoon's most interesting thought-fodder: Rep. Ron Paul, that populist libertarian who managed to out-fundraise John McCain last quarter by tapping his grassroots base of exotic dancers and unemployed capitalists.

Paul is arguably unique among modern presidential candidates as an advocate for federal restraint and constitutional checks and balances. This should be music to conservatives' ears, especially the values crowd that shares his views on abortion, gay marriage and immigration. But that's where it gets unpredictable: where a Tancredo or a Hunter would advocate federal measures to enact their moral program, Paul separates his personal views on social issues with the procedural barriers erected by the Founders.

So even if he believes marriage should be restricted to a union between a man and a woman, he'd never support a federal amendment saying so. Similarly, he believes abortion should be left to the states.

Beyond that, social issues don't seem to fire him up the way, say, the gold standard does. Does this mean he'll be met with skepticism when he speaks later today? Or will he be lauded for wanting to bring debates over morality back where they belong -- with individual communities and families?

Depends on what the values voters really want. If Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law is any indication, they're more concerned with religious fealty than adherence to the Constitution. And there's those exotic dancers to worry about.

The New York Times reports today about conditions on the ground that could send Sen. John McCain lapsing into post-traumatic flashbacks:

With its early date, Southern location and reputation for road testing conservative credentials, the South Carolina primary is a proving ground for any Republican who longs to be president.

But as Mr. McCain seeks the Republican nomination again, the state is also a painful symbol of the brutality of American politics, the place that derailed his 2000 bid and, ultimately, helped reshape him into the candidate he is today.

While he may be all God and family at today's Washington Briefing festivities, McCain is haunted by the notion that many of these social conservatives are the same people who smeared him as an unpatriotic, gay father of illegitimate children as he fought Bush for the GOP nomination.

He would do well to remember the lessons from last time the Straight Talk Express descended upon that perilous territory, bogging down the campaign and spitting out his volunteer troops like so much 'baccy. Without an exit strategy or a plan to secure the region, McCain was reduced to a whimpering, shell-shocked mess.

This time he'll come prepared, and I'd recommend he borrow from another Southern Strategy that once proved so brutally effective: scorched earth. General Sherman, meet General McCain.

He sure is folksy, that Thompson. But his opening story? Lame. He talked about how a little girl wanted to stand in the limelight with him throughout his speech during a campaign spot. In a way, that story seems to reflect how Thompson is doing -- he's enjoying being in the limelight, but he doesn't seem to have much to say.

Of course, his campaign is quite different. I was just handed a paper from the the Friends of Fred Thompson, which looks like it was pieced together at the last minute. It hits Romney and Giuliani with short quotes pulled from interviews and campaigns in previous years.

The fight for the nomination is the fight to prove who's a real conservative, obviously, but what Tancredo said earlier is entirely wrong -- conservatism exists in a number of flavors, and its possible to be a conservative and not place social values at the center of your campaign.

I'm not a Mitt cheerleader, but I did think he made a fantastic point during the debates when he noted that he didn't like being attacked on the basis of who was pro-life first. Even if it might have been a little disingenuous on his part, wouldn't it make more sense if conservatives looked at their ideology as an evolution of thought and beliefs? In fact, they call liberals reactionary, so conservatives must be thoughtful, and willing to put ideas against eachother.

Everyone has their pet issues in the conservative movement. But prioritizing some issues over others shouldn't be a disqualification.

Which is why, watching Thompson, I'm convinced he's got a solid stance on a lot of issues. Unfortunately, it's more of a slouch. He repeats a line that hardly resonates, the fact that "we're at a crossroads in this country." What are the crossroads? How are they any different than '04? He's got people clapping on his issues, but he's throwing away his big, inspirational lines. If this summit continues as a checklist of conservative principle, rather than a moment for inspiration, then it won't have been a summit so much as a swan song for a conservative winner of the '08 election.

**UPDATE** This is just what I mean. Fred Thompson's two standing applauses were: Being introduced and promising that when he gets into office, the first thing he'd do is pray. Standing, roaring applause. That's as good as it gets at this talk folks. I think praying is important, but you've gotta be kidding me that this is the Fred Juggernaut.

So far McCain, Brownback, and Tancredo have had it relatively easy preaching to the choir. No surprises there. The question on everyone's minds here is what kind of red meat can Giuliani throw this conservative audience when he takes the podium tomorrow?

The two problems this crowd has with Giuliani is that he's pro-choice and has gay friends. Since he can't gain any ground with social conservatives on those issues, he'll have to point to the accomplishments under his belt that do appeal to value voters. His line so far has been that conservatives shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and that he's on the right side of the issues that matter most (9/11! 9/11!):

"There are always some differences. But that I ask you to look at the whole candidate and the whole picture of what we face in 2008 and going forward...The idea is going to be that there’s enough for us to agree about and enough that we’re facing in terms of the outside world, meaning foreign threats and domestic problems in terms of spending and everything else, that may just be [when] they think about it that I’m the best candidate and we’re certainly not at odds."

But there are a few social issues on which Giuliani can legitimately claim a conservative victory. Jim Geraghty has the details from a source close to the campaign:

"Getting rid of porn shops in Times Square - I think people may have forgotten what Times Square in 1992 was like" - his efforts against the dung-painting of Mary at the Brooklyn Art Museum exhibit, his creation of the Administration for Children's Services and the drop in the abortion rate. "He can say, 'here are some tangible things I can point to. Now ask the others, 'what are the things you can point to?''

The New York Daily News reports that Obama masks are outselling Hillary and Giuliani masks at Halloween costume shops. My question is, what kind of person buys any of these masks? Who in their right mind would be like, "I just came up with the best Halloween costume idea! I'm going to be Barack Obama! All I need is a suit and a Barack Obama mask! It's gonna be sweet!" Of course this is coming from the guy who usually just throws on a bunch of random crap at the last minute and goes as either a hobo or "That Guy", so please take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Jim Geraghty wonders why Brownback didn't mention anything about his departure during his speech here at the summit. It's probably because being introduced as a "former presidential candidate isn't as nice as "current presidential candidate." Besides, if there was any place he could make his point to a receptive audience, it's here.

Geraghty also spoke with Brownback's staff and found out some interesting lessons learned from the Brownback campaign, but I think the one thing missing was that he never seemed like a frontrunning candidate. I think his religiosity was valuable and genuine, but probably didn't resonate because it was so focused on one (albeit important) issue.

His jokes are going over well -- "We need a leader because our enemies are psychopaths and our allies are the French." And something about converting on the road to Damascus and not the road to Des Moines. And he threw in a little Spanish lingo too! He says he prefers to call Bank of America the "Banco de Las Americas," thanks to its illegal alien-friendly policies.

Tancredo still seems a little bewildered, though.

In fact, when he says, "Enter the breach with me!" as a call to arms among conservatives, it sounds more like he's afraid to go in himself...

Tancredo announces that he is an unapologetic conservative. His poor wife.

An uncharacteristically vibrant and funny (yes, funny!) Tom Tancredo has just declared war on hyphenated conservatism, blaming Rovian neologisms like compassionate conservatism for nightmares like No Child Left Behind. He explains, "When conservatives run on principles, we win. When conservatives run away from principles, we lose."

He does, however, have a weakness for "unapologetic conservatism." That line drew wide applause. So do all his lines, come to think of it. Tancredo is wildly popular with these folks.

I need a drink.

After a witty take on his experience being a second tier candidate (a cab driver didn't believe he was running for president) he pointed out that he didn't buy all the so-called conservative takes of other candidates. "I don't have to spend millions of dollars to show I'm a conservative. I have a lifetime ... to prove it..." He even refers to "common sense" conservatives as "nonsense." (But he still talked to the NAACP? Seriously?)

"Since when is conservatism not enough?" He asks. Good point, although Tancredo forgets that most conservatives *are* concerned about the kinds of conservative they're being presented with. After all "compassionate conservatism" hasn't been a favorite among the hardcore Republicans.

Well, it's not like Sen. Brownback was ever uncomfortable talking about his faith, but he certainly has a friendly audience here when he talks about an "authentic faith." While it sounds genuine, it is also a good bludgeon to use against the Dems. Brownback's departure from the race would mean that only Huckabee can talk in this kind of way about faith.

"There are two victims: the wounded and the dead."

...of the Republican presidential race, the hopefuls of which congregate today at the Value Voters Summit in Washington. Politalk will be covering it all day. McCain just wrapped up his speech and Brownback has taken the stage. He's saying something about religious voters, something about The Children, and something else about "carrying the cause on forward." But I'm not listening. I'm waiting for two words: "I quit."

From the state that brought you America's devastating map shortage, the National Socialist Movement proudly presents the dark horse that will take the country by storm next November... John Taylor Bowles, the Nazi candidate!

When City Paper first heard of Bowles’ presidential bid, like the fireman in the Capitol Café, we too thought it was a joke. Worse yet, we thought it was a sick one. Was the guy for real? When was the last time the National Socialist Movement even made headlines? Weren’t they, like the Klan, long washed away by the tides of progression, intellectualism and cultural tolerance? Apparently not. And judging by a CNN article just this month and a recent analysis by MSNBC, both the KKK and the NSM are coming back in style after the lull and disenfranchisement they suffered in the ’90s. Why then this sudden propulsion in the zeitgeist for extremist white supremacy groups? How about this for an answer: Illegal immigration. More so, Bowles says, it’s the refusal for either the Republicans or the Democrats to adequately deal with the problem. (Republicans don’t want to address illegal immigration because they want the cheap labor and Democrats don’t want to do anything about it because they want the vote, he says.)

Apparently, the Nazis have come all the way from conquering vast stretches of the Old World and committing genocide to tackling one of the hot-button issues of the 2008 election. But don't worry, all you white supremacists out there, the party's sticking to its roots (which may have something to do with these roots). In fact, its message of Caucasian control might have already made its way to a burning cross near you if Bowles hadn't suffered an unfortunate early setback:

In December 2006, John Taylor Bowles announced his candidacy for president on the NSM ticket with William Hoff as his running mate. The following day Hoff was killed in an auto accident, but Bowles plans to move forward with the campaign anyway.

God, if only we were clever enough to make this stuff up.

Maine's King Middle School has decided to make birth control pills available to girls as young as 11, causing an asexual uproar in a state oh-so-close to our nation's Puritanical roots.

The decision was made after local middle school girls were hit with "an outbreak of pregnancies," a description that makes pregnancy sound more like the result of a biological weapon than of fifth-grade fornication. There had been 17 pregnancies in Portland's three middle schools during the past four years, not counting any miscarriages or abortions that went unreported.

This "outbreak," however, may not be enough to convince some skeptics, who believe they have identified the true goal of the program: teacher-student molestation.

"Shouldn’t this behavior be discouraged rather than encouraged? Yes. But don’t tell that to liberal social engineers. They enjoy having sex with children."

Clearly, what those dirty Communist perverts up in Maine need are some good, ol'-fashioned purity balls.

A couple of weeks ago, a knife-wielding veteran from Reno named Jim Broussard made headlines when he went all apeshit outside a Mexican restaurant while its owner stood hilariously nonplussed, watching the patriotic drama unfold. The offense? Flying the Mexican flag above the American flag, an act that Broussard deemed illegal. Is it?

Eeeeh, not exactly. According to U.S.C. Title 4 Chapter 1 §7:No other flag or pennant should be placed above or, if on the same level, to the right of the flag of the United States of America, except during church services conducted by naval chaplains at sea, when the church pennant may be flown above the flag during church services for the personnel of the Navy.

Yes, it's written in the U.S. Code, but our trusted sources at Wikipedia helpfully point out that: Although the Flag Code is U.S. Federal law, there is no penalty for failure to comply with the Flag Code and it is not widely enforced—indeed, punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Passage of the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment would overrule legal precedent that has been established in this area.

So why do I bring all this up? Because a one MomentaryLapseOfReason has been posting all over the Politalk message boards about his own message board site, dedicated to and inspired by none other than Mr. Broussard, "the real patriot".

Given all that, was Mr. Broussard's reaction appropriate? You be the judge.

So Chicago's Cook County has cooked up a sinister plan to raise property, gas, parking and sales taxes in order to make up for the budget shortfall. It's an old story. But one brave soul, speaking up in our message boards, just ain't gonna take anymore:

"It truly saddens me that ComEd, CTA, Daley, Stroger, and other companies continue to raise taxes without legitimate reason! They raise taxes and costs so that they can meet their budget which tells me that they are mismanaging the funds they collect throughout the year, which in turn hurts the citizens of Chicago. I don't understand why we don't have a voice of reason speaking up for the citizens. Most of us live our lives check-to-check and yet we manage. We are not a common concern for Daley or the rest of them, as long as they get their money. I believe they are truly mismanaging the funds and I wish someone would stand up for the citizens of Chicago and put an end to all of these tax hikes! It just doesn't make any sense." -ConcernedCitizen1

I'm not really sure what he means by companies raising taxes (companies generally being in the business of creating value while taking it away from others would be the government's job) but his heart is in the right place. And it warms mine. Yes, warm and fuzzy feelings of civic commiseration all around.

Sarkozy is getting a divorce. Rudy, don't get any ideas. There are better ways to get a bump in the press, especially prior to the Value Voters Summit.

I'm going to miss Brownback. Why? Because of the fact that he was the only True Believer (update: with decent economic sense, re: the flat tax). I'm not going to argue that I agreed with him on anything, nor that I found him to be much of a candidate. But at least he was the go-to guy for the Christian base.

I've seen others suggest that this is a perfect opportunity for Fred Thompson to take his place. I don't see why -- because he's got a Southern accent? It seems more likely that Christian voters (those that are voting their religious views) are divided on the guy.

Gary Bauer likes him, but James Dobson doesn't. But Dobson's points seem a bit more salient, particularly that there's nothing to identify Thompson as "one of theirs." And if Bauer is suggesting that the only reason to vote for Thompson is to defeat Hillary, then there are plenty of candidates claiming they can accomplish that (*cough*Rudy*cough*).

So, in tribute:

1968 - Pat Paulsen, former "Smothers Brothers" cast member, first runs for President. I'm pretty sure this means something to my Dad.

1980- Richard Pryor states his intention to run for Governor of Illinois. Unfortunately he is freebasing cocaine at the time and states his intention to a ficus plant.

February, 2007 - Al Franken announces that he is running for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota. Franken's chances of getting elected look slim, seeing that he is not a steroid-abusing ex-professional wrestler-turned-XFL announcer.

October 16, 2007 - Stephen Colbert announces that he will seek the Presidency in 2008, but only from his home state of South Carolina. Hey, it almost worked for George Wallace.

October 18, 2007. Sam Brownback drops out of the Presidential race. Wait, he was serious?