— Which, that’s kind of strange for such a slam dunk candidate — a guy backed by Chris Christie and Ann Coulter and the near entirety of the GOP establishment (well, those who haven’t joined the great Huntsman juggernaut, I mean) don’t you think? Why, it’s almost as if most GOP voters simply don’t want to vote for the guy. This despite the following rather remarkable factoid, courtesy Matt Moon

Precedent? Tradition? Collegiality? Procedure? Posh. It’s good to be the King. (h/t JD)

Cynicism squared: An administration Dec. 29 memo declares that illegal immigrants may have to be held until they’re convicted in local courts before the federal government will begin deportation proceedings. The declaration “means lots of criminal aliens will be released if the locals don’t have the resources or inclination to prosecute, or if the [suspect] is found not guilty because of a technicality,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center

Sometimes you have to break a few eggs if you want to whip you some ungrateful Visigoths. After all, if the opposition is dead set on opposing, progress is by definition necessarily halted. And we’re all about the progress and its, well, progress. For your own damn good. So shut up and thank us.

I have been off for a while, lost and confused and exactly where the TOJAP(1) wants me. We’re losing in a slow motion train wreck, I can see it happening right before my eyes, and I can’t seem to do anything to stop it. I find myself in grudging admiration of Team Prog, fifty years of planning and working and dreaming and lying and organizing and taking tiny incremental steps,

Thus spake Will: Although they have become prone to apocalyptic forebodings about the fragility of the nation’s institutions and traditions under the current President, conservatives should stride confidently into 2012. This is not because they are certain, or even likely, to defeat Barack Obama this year. Rather, it is because, if they emancipate themselves from their unconservative fixation on the presidency, they will see events unfolding in their favour. And

A: I don’t know, and yes, it will matter, provided Mitt Romney wins — because he’s the only really electable candidate, and we need to start getting behind him. Otherwise, no, it won’t matter, and we’ll see lots of columns from establishment GOP opinion leaders in the next few days explaining to us how Iowa is hardly a decent predictor of a candidate’s viability in the long term — and