There are plenty of people offering theories as to why Mitt Romney’s quest for the presidency fizzled to an end yesterday, but two are particularly worth highlighting, for different reasons. RCP’s Jay Cost presents the circumstantial evidence that the general electorate, and a sizable minority of Republican voters, came to dislike Romney due to his negative attacks on McCain and Huckabee. At Newsweek, Howard Fineman argues that Romney failed because he

From Bender in the comments: The English One: Barry, that was an absolutely atrocious audition. Very stiff and karaoke. It made me wish I had Cat AIDS. The Fat One: Yo, for me, it was a little pitchy, dawg. I just waddn’t feelin’ it. Yo. Dawg. Paula Abdul: Smer durpity holifer doopter, shrablurpely. (Begins weeping) The English One: Exactly, Paula. It’s a “no,” then. Next! The English One: Hillary Clinton.

MSNBC’s program listings turn out to be more fair and balanced than the network’s actual programming.

British porn star Holly Wellin voted for Hillary Clinton in hopes of becoming a White House intern. Update:  Welcome HotAir folks!  BTW, she’s not interested in Bill.

At ABCNews, Jake Tapper had the temerity to round-up pieces from Kathleen Geier of TPM, Joe Klein of Time, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews — not exactly a vast right-wing conspiracy — all noting that enthusiasm for Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign occasionally slides over into a distinctly creepy, pseudo-religious fervor. Some prominent left-liberal bloggers had a conniption.  Will Bunch declared Tapper’s piece “the scariest thing I’ve read in a

Steven Aftergood: By now no one expects the Bush Administration to make itself accountable for its controversial and possibly illegal practices. But the next President will have a unique opportunity to reveal what has been kept hidden for the last seven years. Secrecy watchdog Steven Aftergood suggests a few questions for the presidential candidates about their willingness to disclose just what the current Administration has done. Well, I don’t have

With Mitt Romney suspending his presidential campaign, the clamor of pundits like Fred Barnes, Roger Kimball, Dan Henninger, Dinesh D’Souza, etc. that conservatives — and others — must “grow up” and support Sen. John McCain will likely intensify.  Indeed, McCain himself now speaks of the need to “just calm down a little bit and see if there’s areas we can agree on.” For some reason, I suspect that McCain refuseniks

And then there were 3 — the evangelical statist, the Maverick Progressive, and the neo-Nazi sympathizer with an isolationist foreign policy. Get your sweaters out, folks. Jimmy Carter is coming back to the White House. Whether it’s in a skirt or a blue suit is up to those of you who bother to vote for President come November.

From today’s Ann Coulter column comes this little gem: If Hillary is elected president, we’ll have a four-year disaster, with Republicans ferociously opposing her, followed by Republicans zooming back into power, as we did in 1980 and 1994, and 2000. (I also predict more Oval Office incidents with female interns.)  (emphasis mine) Ouch. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Update:  Interesting.  Not one comment on the part I highlighted. 

Nuke him from orbit . . .  Every day, scientists hoping to see an increase in solar activity train their instruments at the sun as it crosses the sky. This is no idle academic pursuit: A lull in solar action could potentially drive the planet’s temperature down, or even prompt a mini Ice Age. For millennia, thermonuclear forces inside the star have followed a regular rhythm, causing its magnetic field