Sorry, guys, but I feel like sh*t. Let me know if Friday or Saturday works for you. If anyone’s interested who hasn’t been, email me, vermontaigne-at-gmail-dot-com and I’ll give you links to get you up to date.

Dan McLaughlin at RedState: Democrats have a long history of constructing their own petards on which to be later hoisted, due to their inability to consider the consequences of their actions beyond immediate partisan advantage. For a classic example of this process at work, look no further than the current proposal for a banana republic-style “Truth Commission” to conduct show trials of the outgoing Administration for the offenses of (1)

In response to my post yesterday about the marginalization of conservatives who are both outside the GOP party’s cheering section and who aren’t also useful to progressives (and to “conservative” pragmatists, as examples either of dangerous idealists or godbothering theocons bent on setting up a national Church of the Holy Blue Noses), “Ted 360” writes: Don’t suppose you considered you were just dead wrong? You know, with all the deregulation

How about let’s have the de facto leader of the Democratic Party debate the de facto leader of the Republican Party? Seems some people haven’t gotten the message: Only 11% of Republicans consider El Rushbo their party’s leader. But, hey, what do they know? UPDATE: As McGehee notes in the comments, Limbaugh proposes the same.

Rick’s got a post up, analyzing how, in his view, Limbaugh is a political fantasist who is hurting the Republican Party and conservatism in general. I’m not going to reproduce bits and pieces of it here, because it’s longish and you really should go read the thing in its entirety to get the full flavor of Rick’s complaint. To gloss, though, he’s saying in effect that classical liberals such as

A new documentary that Daddy Blogger and friend of PW Robert Pedersen would like to have us plug here. I’m just going to let him speak for the moment: Justice O’Connor, speaking for the Court in Troxel v. Granville, 527 U.S. 1069 (1999): “The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no State shall ‘deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law.’ We have long recognized that

Obama forecasts gloom as Brown comes to visit. Ach, ‘e’s dour! Moe Lane wants to ask Sasha and Malia about a couple of classmates who won’t be attending their school next year, thanks to Dirty Dick Durbin. Christopher Hitchens on the binding UN resolution against “defamation of religion.” British Muslims enraged by documentary showing gay Muslims and representing their frequent maltreatment at the hands of their countries. Worth a watch,

A few quick thoughts as a follow-up to Dan’s post on the ever wrong — yet still ever presumptuous — David Brooks, who is just now beginning to realize that the halo he saw around Obama’s head during those 2 years of campaigning was the product of CGI and creative Hollywood lighting, not a function of political beatitude, manifesting itself through prisms of Iceland spar and Platonic Hope onto the

Everytime he opens his yap, they get bigger: Even though President Barack Obama has repeatedly pledged to ban congressional earmarks, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has 16 such projects, worth about $8.5 million, in the bill the Senate is scheduled to begin debating Tuesday. The earmarks include funds for a Chicago planetarium and a Chicago suburb. Obama has been relentless in criticizing the use of earmarks; in his

Toby Harnden at The Telegraph: The notion that there would ever have been a press conference scheduled in the Rose Garden at the start of March is, of course, faintly ridiculous. Mr Brown might be forgiven for thinking that his friend, rival and predecessor Tony Blair would not have been treated the same way by his bosom buddy President George W. Bush. After all, there are 132 rooms in the