Priebus 67 (+11)

Cino 40 (+11)

Anuzis 32 (+8)

Wagner 28 (0)

1 write-in

Salon.com’s Steve Kornacki has remarked of the Palin speech that

There’s really not much to say about this. It’s classic Palin, a speech designed to draw her flock closer by refusing to give an inch to her opponents. Thus, we now have Josh Marshall from Talking Points Memoopining that “[t]oday has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she’s one of them.” And we have The National Review’s Daniel Lowry asserting that “Palin in gravitas mode like we’ve never seen her.” 

And you thought Rich Lowry and Dan Foster were forces to be reckoned with individually? Behold Daniel Lowry, a genetically-spliced, Palin-propagandizing pundit predator! You cannot stop it. You can only hope to contain it. 

The next step in the cycle is Jimiel Lowberguru, the five-headed beast that today slouched its way toward NRHQ to host the second-ever Balcony podcast, which you can listen to over on the homepage.

Seriously, thanks to Rich, Jonah, Ramesh and Jim for letting me sit in on the podcast. It felt like the first Thanksgiving where I got to sit at the adult table. 

Backs Cino

Fourth ballot:

Priebus 58 (+4)

Cino 29 (+1)

Steele 28 (-5)

Wagner 28 (-4)

Anuzis 24 (+3)

Write-in 1

Also, unconfirmed reports at this time that Michael Steele has withdrawn.

From Thursday night’s Fox News All-Stars.

On Democrats’ criticism that House Republicans should not bring up a vote to repeal Obamacare:

This is absurd. It is a way to exploit what just happened. Congress has to act. It gave it a week of delay as a sign of respect. There’s no way we’ll halt the business of the House because of the acts of a madman in Tucson.

I’ll be on Redeye tonight, 3 a.m. Eastern, hosted by NR cruise superstar Greg Gutfeld.

Live from the RNC elections, the third ballot is in:

Priebus 54 (+2)

Steele 33 (-4)

Wagner 32 (+5)

Cino 28 (-2)

Anuzis 21 (-1)

Thanks for the good response, Ramesh. I guess we have different understandings of “trying and failing.” The House budget resolution does not become law, regardless of what is in it. It also will not be adopted in the Senate—it will surely include various things that will prevent its adoption in the Senate, among them a repeal of Obamacare. In this divided Congress, it will serve as a statement of objectives, principles, and long-term vision (as the budget resolution often does). Surely entitlement reform deserves a place in such a statement. And without entitlement reform, the long-term budget projections in such a Republican budget would probably never reach balance—even in the long, long term. Would that be better than stating clearly that Republicans think we need to reform our entitlement system and have specific, practical, prudent ideas for how to do that?

Ramesh, John J., I’d like to remind  you that I have been arguing for a State of the Union presidential Facebook status update for a while now: “The state of our Union is strong. kbai!”

Undignified? Have you seen the man throw out an opening pitch?

Four states voted in 2010 to require votes for unions to be done by secret ballots. Today the National Labor Relations Board informed the state attorney generals that if they do not move to block the requirement from being implemented, the states will face lawsuits.  From the NLRB’s statement:

Under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, private-sector employees have two ways to choose a union: They may vote in a secret-ballot election conducted by the NLRB, or they may persuade an employer to voluntarily recognize a union after showing majority support by signed authorization cards or other means.

 The state amendments prohibit the second method and therefore interfere with the exercise of a well-established federally-protected right. For that reason, they are preempted by the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. …

The amendments have already taken effect in South Dakota and Utah, and are expected to become effective soon in Arizona and South Carolina.

Live from the RNC elections, the second ballot results:

Priebus 52 (+7)

Steele 37 (-7)

Cino 30 (-2)

Wagner 27 (+4)

Anuzis 22 (-2)

Much more ongoing coverage at RNC Watch.

I agree entirely with Peter Suderman.

Andrew Biggs agrees with me.

Ed Morrissey disagrees. One of his implicit questions, I take it, is: If President Obama is re-elected in 2012 and isn’t interested in any entitlement reform conservatives find palatable, then what? Answer: Then we’ve lost. His suggestion that standing for “bold” entitlement reform will help Republicans defeat Obama in 2012 is at least counter-intuitive. Remember: Not even self-described conservative voters are sold on such reform.

I don’t like being on the other side of a debate from (my sometime co-author!) Yuval Levin, either. But let’s head straight to the disagreements.

Yuval writes that “a strategy of taking no action and blaming Obama for inaction would be a little peculiar.” What’s peculiar about Republicans’ saying that they hope Obama moves on entitlements and stand willing to work with him if he does–and to work with his successor if he doesn’t? Yuval writes that he does not think that “Republicans should abandon entitlement reform.” I don’t either. I just don’t think that holding a House vote on a bill that won’t become law is the way to pursue it.

Yuval notes that 137 of the House Republicans voted for entitlement reforms in spring 2009, as part of their FY2010 budget. It should hardly need saying that the political situation is now completely different. Nobody was paying attention to Republicans’ policies then (including, I’d be willing to bet, a lot of the Republicans who voted for them). Republicans didn’t have the House majority. They didn’t have a lot of members from districts Obama carried. (Yuval says that I propose that Republicans “now backtrack.” A large fraction of the Republican conference has nothing to backtrack from, having never voted for entitlement reform or campaigned on it.) And there are good reasons for thinking that the electorate next time will be less favorable than the electorate of 2010.

Yuval again: “I don’t think it’s simply the case, as Ramesh suggests, that Republicans should only take risks for legislation they expect will be signed into law. That would argue for a do-nothing House.” I made no such suggestion. There are risks to opposing Obamacare (though they are much smaller than the risks of not opposing it), and repeal won’t become law–but as Yuval well knows, I favor moving on repeal. But I think taking on Medicare and Social Security would be a larger risk than Yuval allows. Take a look at this survey–of grassroots conservatives!–if you doubt me.

As for this business about the House setting a bar for the presidential candidate: Is there an example of House Republicans trying and failing to enact unpopular legislation and thereby getting a president elected who supported it? I can’t think of any.

Finally, Yuval notes that time’s-a-wasting. True! But since neither of us believes it is likely that we get reform enacted in the next two years, I don’t see how the point is relevant to our friendly dispute.

So said Rush today (reports Kathryn Lopez) after our disagreement over the Tucson speech.

Now you know why I returned Rush’s volley on Fox last night: I’ve just saved that poor little girl a world of hurt.

Live from the RNC vote, first ballot results:

Priebus 45

Steele 44

Cino 32

Anuzis 24

Wagner 23

Cino is the surprise winner here: 32 is more than double her public count.

The Cino team says they were not expecting to do this well last night during their discussions. They are surprised by first ballot results, and assume most came from undecideds.

In a couple of speeches I’ve given on the topic since the controversial (by liberal standards) Citizens United Supreme Court decision last term, I have predicted that the decision would not open the floodgates of corporate money into federal elections. Most corporations don’t want to alienate half of the population by taking sides in a contested election. Target Corp. may have learned that lesson the hard way by funding a group that supported a, gasp, conservative candidate for governor in Minnesota. And whatever money is going to find its way into elections will generally find a lawful way around congressional roadblocks anyway.  (Hence the rise of so-called 527 groups).

Now, Ben Smith at Politico reports on a recent study showing that outside groups did not have an appreciably larger impact on elections in 2010 than in prior years: 

A new study from the Wesleyan Media Project found that while outside groups spent slightly more on ads in House and Senate races in the 2010 cycle proportionately to the total amount invested in the campaign, their contributions represented only a small increase from 2000.

Despite the heightened attention on independent groups over the course of the campaign, according to the study, candidates and campaign committees actually drove most of the spending. By the time the final campaign ad aired, candidates and parties paid for 85 percent of all ads in Senate races and 88 percent of ads in House races.

“The initial evidence suggests that while interest groups were aggressive players in the air war, their impact may not have been as negative or as large as initially predicted,” writes Michael Franz, the study’s author and an associate professor of government and legal studies at Bowdoin College.

Ramesh: I will see you and raise you. The president should return to the olden days, way back in history times, when the State of the Union was a written report submitted to Congress–not a televised spectacle. I gather that Washington and Adams delivered an oral SOTU; Jefferson halted the practice and it wasn’t until Wilson that it started again.

Given the hosannas heaped on the president’s speech from the likes of Charles Krauthammer, Rich Lowry, and Jonah Goldberg, there is every reason to think that it was a fine — and according to many, transcendent — moment for President Obama. But are we not right back where we started with this president? He has won some partisan legislative victories that his supporters celebrate — such as the passage of a health-care bill by an overwhelming Democratic Congress. But otherwise, his finest moments amount to spoken words, and little else. 

That is not to suggest that the speech won’t have a positive political impact on the president. It probably will. But the proof of a “comeback” will come in deed, not speech, however finely honed. 

Senator Mark Udall (D., Colo.) has gotten a very positive reaction to his suggestion that the parties sit together during the State of the Union address. I have a better idea: The congressmen should stay in their seats and listen respectfully to the president. No jumping up to applaud. No public displays of affection or alienation. It would be more dignified; more unifying than the partisan pep rally these addresses have become; and it would go by a lot faster.

Amid riots, the president of Tunisia has declared a state of emergency, announced that he will fire his government, and fled the country, turning it over to the prime minister. AP and Haaretz have reports.

On those rare occasions when I find myself not immediately agreeing with something Ramesh writes or says, I set out to discover why I am wrong and he is right, and usually I find the reason pretty quickly. But on the subject of his op-ed in today’s New York Times—the question of whether House Republicans should propose to take on entitlement reforms—I am still unpersuaded.

Ramesh argues that Republicans should stay away from proposing reforms to Medicare and Social Security unless President Obama proposes some reforms of those programs first. “Reform is impossible this year or next unless President Obama takes the lead on it,” he writes. “What’s more, Republicans have no mandate for reform, and a failed attempt will only set back the cause.”

Ramesh does not deny that we have to reform our entitlements to avoid a fiscal catastrophe; and I suspect he also agrees with the substance of the reforms that some conservatives in Congress (most notably Paul Ryan) have proposed. In fact, he writes that Republicans should pursue such reforms when it comes to Medicaid (transforming Medicaid into a defined-benefit system funded by federal block grants to the states), but not Medicare or Social Security. Reforms of those programs are surely essential, he writes, but the Republican House should not put them on the table, as the political costs would be too high. Instead, he writes, “reformers should blame Mr. Obama for the lack of progress and work to make entitlements a litmus-test issue in the Republican presidential primaries. The goal should be to nominate someone willing to make a strong case for reducing entitlement growth as part of a larger strategy to restore American prosperity.”

Given that goal, with which I very much agree, I think a strategy of taking no action and blaming Obama for inaction would be a little peculiar. Rather, House Republicans should themselves begin the work of making a strong case for reducing entitlement growth as part of a larger strategy to restore American prosperity. The 2012 House budget resolution, which will be proposed this spring, would be the ideal place to do that.

The budget resolution is a framework for authorization and appropriations bills, and it allows the Congress not only to establish specific spending guidelines for the year but also to lay out longer-term priorities and goals, and to sketch out a vision of how to contend with the country’s fiscal challenges. There was no budget resolution last year—the Democratic leaders of the 111th Congress, for the first time since the current budget process began in the 70s, chose not to produce one. But the year before, in the course of the FY 2010 budget debate in the spring of 2009, House Republicans proposed a budget resolution as an alternative to the Democratic majority’s budget, and in that alternative (which you can read here) they laid out some significant entitlement reforms, especially Medicare reforms. They proposed to leave benefits as they are now for people who are 55 or older—and so are either already retired or near retirement. For younger people, the structure of Medicare would be transformed into a defined contribution program which, rather than directly paying for services in an open-ended way, would give each senior a generous premium-support benefit (with additional help those who are oldest, sickest, and poorest) which they would use to purchase private health insurance of their choice. This would work like today’s prescription drug benefit, which has come in under budget and which is very popular with seniors. They also proposed some very modest Social Security reforms, which were not to take effect for decades. (Even the more ambitious reforms in Paul Ryan’s Roadmap are fairly modest—optional individual accounts, some means-testing of benefits, indexing benefits to prices rather than wages, and slowly raising the retirement age.)

137 Republicans voted for that resolution in 2009—including every member of the leadership and just about every Republican who was in Congress then and has returned in the 112th. But Ramesh proposes that Republicans now backtrack, and not include even such modest reforms in the first budget resolution they propose as a House majority.

I understand, of course, that the case he makes is a tactical one—it’s about how to maximize the ability of congressional Republicans to get things done in this congress, to make progress on the most important debates of the day, and to make further gains (hopefully also winning the Senate and the White House) in 2012. But I don’t think those tactical considerations in fact lead to the conclusion that Republicans should abandon entitlement reform.

The dynamics of a divided Congress (which we haven’t really seen since the mid-80s) mean that very little of what Republicans pass in the House will actually be enacted as-is into law. Rather than negotiate with themselves, they need to pass legislation that they believe would make for good policy and politics, and then negotiate with the Senate and the President. I don’t think it’s simply the case, as Ramesh suggests, that Republicans should only take risks for legislation they expect will be signed into law. That would argue for a do-nothing House. Rather, they should take risks for legislation that will define the Republican policy agenda, define the negotiations that must take place between Republicans and Democrats in the course of this congress, define the most important policy debates of the day, and define the party in the minds of voters in the years to come.

Moreover, they should take risks to pass legislation that will define the Republican presidential primary race in 2012. As Ramesh says, the next Republican nominee will have to present a real entitlement-reform agenda. The Republican House should make sure of that by setting the bar for such an agenda, rather than setting an example of excessive timidity on the subject. They should set that bar through their budget resolution—which will serve as a kind of vision document for the Republican agenda. Passing that resolution will not mean enacting entitlement reforms—the resolution does not become law, and surely the Senate Democrats will pass a very different budget anyway. But it will at least mean putting down a marker and committing Republicans to real entitlement reform.

Without such reform, there is simply no way to address the government’s fiscal problems. It is impossible to cut discretionary spending enough to balance the budget in the long term (and as the Democrats will find, it is also impossible to raise taxes enough to do so). The basic structure of our welfare state, and especially our Great Society health-care entitlements, is going to have to be changed. It can be changed in a way that keeps a robust safety net in place and does not disrupt people’s lives or plans yet still restrains the growth of government and makes these programs sustainable—and indeed, that uses them to bring our larger health-care cost problem under control rather than exacerbating that problem. But such gradual, sensible reforms are only going to be possible for a little while longer. If we let too much time pass, the fiscal situation of these programs will leave no alternative but harsh austerity. Entitlement reform must happen soon, and Republicans need to make it clear to voters that they have a set of well-developed, smart, achievable ideas for making it happen—that they have a vision of limited and effective government that will allow for economic growth, social mobility, and a safety net.

Are voters ready to hear that? I’m not sure. There is no question that putting such reforms on the table carries risks. But there has never been a better time to do so (because the crisis and the spending binge of the past few years has persuaded a sizeable portion of the public that something must be done to change the course we are on), and there may never be a better one (because we are nearing the point when a modest gradual solution will no longer suffice). Republicans have to prepare voters to hear that message in the 2012 election, and running away from that task after winning a large House majority does not seem to me like the best way to do so. Given the available options, proposing a general outline of entitlement reforms in the budget resolution does seem to me like the best way to do so.

My e-mail was buzzing last night about Krauthammer vs. Limbaugh.

Sigh.

Wednesday night’s speech in Tucson was the best of Obama’s presidency.  Fit between an odd invocation and hooting and hollering, he was — as is appropriate to a president — presidential and focused on many powerful images, and lives. But there were also things to criticize about Obama’s speech, and Rush did.

Perhaps because he went on too long, the president’s view of America came through. 

Rush Limbaugh doesn’t need a defense team, but “smart, articulate, or oratorical” in funeral oration only goes so far, when one’s record is what it is.

Anyway, Rush was giving his honest reaction. And listeners have come to expect nothing less from him. For three hours a day, a voice of reason and entertainment. A voice of solidarity and education.

Dr. K does the same — he gives his honest reaction to what he’s observing. He saw the commander-in-chief,  the young Hamlet, not fretting,  not demurring, not agonizing. And he said so. Gave him credit where due.

Rush couldn’t get beyond the surroundings, though, the buts (as Rush has put it) in his speech, and the reality of his presidency. And he wasn’t alone, if my e-mail is any indication.

Both are wise men with different perspectives, both on the side of the good and just.

One remains the Leader of the Opposition. The other, Critic-in-Chief. (As NR covers have told the tale.)

Rush wasn’t condescending. Charles wasn’t slobbering. I respect Charles’s opinion and always want to hear it. But I was glad Rush didn’t hold back about the big picture.

Good men, honest opinions. It’s a great country.

Beyond a speech: I want to repeal Obamacare. Rush Limbaugh and Charles Krauthammer want to, too. I want Barack Obama to be a one-term president, defeated in the ballot box. Rush Limbaugh and Charles Krauthammer both want that as well.

There’s unity in that, too.

Incidentally, for all the divisions even on the right about Sarah Palin, I couldn’t help noticing that a lot of it faded — if only momentarily — among some conservative critics in my midst this week, as the Left really overreached.

UPDATE:  Rush’s on-air response, with a light hand: “I was going to name my first child Krauthammer, even if it was a girl. but no more.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) is well-known for packing heat when he is in his home district. But he’s far from the only congressman who carries a gun. “There are members out there who carry, who don’t talk about it publicly,” he tells us. “It’s for personal-security purposes or their own personal choice.”

When it comes to concealed carry, Chaffetz says, the House is a “reflection of what goes on in America — some people do, some people don’t. And some choose not to talk about it.”

In light of the tragic shooting in Tucson, Chaffetz says he will continue to carry a firearm to most public events back home. But when it comes to bringing a weapon to Washington, he disagrees with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R., Texas), who is pushing to allow members to carry guns in the District of Columbia and on the House floor.

“I don’t think there should be special laws or rules for members of Congress,” he says. He also has no desire to carry inside of the Capitol: “I’ve never carried in Washington, D.C. You have a virtual army of people here — it’s the number-one terrorist target in the world and you have a policeman steps away at any moment, panic buttons in every office.”

Friday links from Debby:

Beer Fridge Cannon Controlled by iPhone.

Ten Unforgettable Stories History Forgot.

Why Can’t We Walk Straight?

Scientists engineer flu-stopping superchicken.

Mosquitofish perform just as well as college students on a basic numbers test.

Man bites patrol car. Sort of related: Fox shoots hunter.

Movie Title of the year (so far): “Codependent Lesbian Alien Seeks Same“

The Definitive Classification System for T-Shirts.

Gallery: Vintage New York City.

Paula Deen recipe of the week — read the reviews.

A history of blatant product placement in movies.

The evolution of Batmobiles from 1948 to 2010.

Drunk scientists pour wine on superconductors and make an incredible discovery.

Woman recreates “Last Supper” with dryer lint.

Michelle Malkin condenses the long and ugly history of liberals blaming conservatives for lunatic killers.

Jonah Goldberg explores the failures of aid to Haiti — and their implications for the international-aid industry.

Mona Charen argues for accepting a sad reality: we cannot grant full autonomy to those of unsound mind.

David Kahane reminds you teabaggers that your existence brings death into the world.

Cliff May recounts the recent attacks on Christians in the middle east.

Matthew Shaffer speaks with Joe Bastardi about the case for global-warming skepticism. 

Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) tells National Review Online that he will introduce his gun-control bill within the “next week or two.” The legislation, which would prohibit firearms from being carried within 1,000 feet of high-profile federal officials, is nearing “its final draft.”

King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, tells us that he unsure about the amount of support behind the idea in the GOP caucus. “I recognize the reality,” he says. “It’s going to be tough.” But he remains committed to moving it forward. Later today, during the annual House Republican retreat in Baltimore, he will consult with his colleagues on the matter.

We have a low-level editorial position open. This is not glamorous stuff, in fact quite the opposite–comment moderating, capturing video, updating our social-media sites, etc. But it’s a chance to be a part of what we do every day and get great experience. Please send résumé, clips, and an engaging cover letter to nr.internship@gmail.com.

Good news for Generic Republican, who already has established himself as a legitimate contender for the White House in 2012: OPEC is not bailing us out. The oil cartel is making it known that it is cool with $100 oil and will not act unless prices move significantly higher and stay there. Oil, like most commodities, has been rising steadily as governments around the world keep their printing presses running to dump new money into the global economy.

Oil producers have a real good to sell, one with intrinsic value. They do not want to be paid in devalued currencies. Neither do producers selling precious metals, fertilizer, farm products, etc., which is one reason why wholesale food prices are going zoom, zoom, zoom.

Oil at $100 and unemployment ~10 percent is bad news for Obama’s reelection hopes, of course. (It should go without saying that it is bad for America, too, and that I do not wish for economic suffering to be visited upon my fellow citizens in order to hamper the Obama administration.) But you know what’s even worse than $100 oil? $150 oil, which the CEO of Gulf says would not surprise him. There will be tremendous political pressure put on OPEC and the other producers if that happens. But why would OPEC want to bail us out? What is in it for them? Devalued U.S. dollars? If the Obama administration will not get behind a solid dollar for sound economic reasons, maybe narrow political self-interest will be enough.

Read more.

You’d be following a hilarious vaguely humorous conversation about Cannibal Joke Punchlines I started.

The Washington Post today has printed today a very bad letter from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

The letter is in response to an article — no great shakes either, by the way — that the Post ran earlier this week about the Wake County, N.C., school board, which recently ended a policy of reassigning children away from the schools closest to them in order to achieve greater socioeconomic diversity in the county’s schools.

Duncan’s letter calls the move “troubling,” indicating that he has already prejudged the matter, which is the subject of a complaint that has been filed with his department by the NAACP and an ongoing investigation by his Office for Civil Rights. Strike one.

The reason he finds the move troubling is that it will assertedly lead to less racial diversity in the county’s schools, and Duncan further asserts that this will have bad educational and social outcomes. But social scientists disagree on whether greater racial diversity in public schools has any positive effects at all, and even if there are some marginal positive effects, school boards can legitimately conclude that the social and monetary costs of race-based student assignments outweigh them. Strike two.

More fundamentally, if the now-rescinded policy was used with an eye toward achieving particular racial results, that would raise serious problems under the federal civil-rights laws that Secretary Duncan is supposed to be enforcing. Such race-based student assignments would also be inconsistent with the American “core values” and “racial equality” that he cites. Strike three.

In sum, Secretary Duncan’s letter indicates that he believes that children should be assigned to schools on the basis of their skin color, in order to achieve a particular politically correct racial balance. This is racial discrimination, and it is quite at odds with the dream of Dr. King — the memory of whom Duncan ironically invokes — that children not be judged by the color of their skin.

Well, even though I completely reject astrology as superstitious nonsense, I refuse to accept my new Zodiac-sign-change. I am an Aries and will remain an Aries. Although, I must say, it’s been cool how ever since they said I’ve become a Pisces I’ve been able to breathe underwater.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints has certified a miraculous cure through the intercession of Pope John Paul II, thus clearing the way for the late pontiff’s beatification on May 1. Using the word “miracle” in a broad sense, however, the greatest miracle of John Paul II was to restore a sense of Christian possibility in a world that had consigned Christian conviction to the margins of history.

In 1978, no one expected that the leading figure of the last quarter of the 20th century would be a priest from Poland. Christianity was finished as a world-shaping force, according to the opinion-leaders of the time; it might endure as a vehicle for personal piety, but would play no role in shaping the world of the 21st century. Yet within six months of his election, John Paul II had demonstrated the dramatic capacity of Christianity to create a revolution of conscience that, in turn, created a new and powerful form of politics — the politics that eventually led to the Revolution of 1989 and the liberation of central and eastern Europe.

Beyond that, John Paul II made Christianity compelling and interesting in a world that imagined that humanity had outgrown its “need” for God, Christ, and faith. In virtually every part of the world, John Paul II’s courageous preaching of Jesus Christ as the answer to the question that is every human life drew a positive response, and millions of lives were changed as a result. This was simply not supposed to happen — but it did, through the miracle of conviction wedded to courage.

Then there was John Paul’s social doctrine which, against all expectations, put the Catholic Church at the center of the world’s conversation about the post-Communist future. In 1978, did anyone really expect that papal encyclicals would be debated on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, or that a pope would rivet the world’s attention in two dramatic defenses of the universality of human rights before the United Nations? No one expected that. But it happened.

To make Christianity plausible, compelling, and attractive by preaching the fullness of Christian truth and demonstrating its importance to the human future — that was perhaps the greatest miracle of John Paul II, and his greatest gift to the Church and the world.

— George Weigel is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and biographer of John Paul II. His second volume on the life of the pontiff, The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II — The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy, was released this fall.

I have no doubt that there are  flaws with this poll of elected officials (the sample was only 165 respondents — a subset of some 30,000 surveyed — and I’d guess most weren’t elected to federal office). But still, this ain’t pretty:

Only 49 percent of elected officials could name all three branches of government, compared with 50 percent of the general public.

Only 46 percent knew that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war — 54 percent of the general public knows that.

Just 15 percent answered correctly that the phrase “wall of separation” appears in Thomas Jefferson’s letters — not in the U.S. Constitution — compared with 19 percent of the general public.

And only 57 percent of those who’ve held elective office know what the Electoral College does, while 66 percent of the public got that answer right. (Of elected officials, 20 percent thought the Electoral College was a school for “training those aspiring for higher political office.”)

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach:

Despite the strong association of the term with collective Jewish guilt and concomitant slaughter, Sarah Palin has every right to use it. The expression may be used whenever an amorphous mass is collectively accused of being murderers or accessories to murder.

The abominable element of the blood libel is not that it was used to accuse Jews, but that it was used to accuse innocent Jews—their innocence, rather than their Jewishness, being the operative point. Had the Jews been guilty of any of these heinous acts, the charge would not have been a libel.

Ooof. Joe Morgenstern no likey.

“The Green Hornet” may not be the end of movies as we know them, though the people who made this atrocity were certainly in there trying. The question—which rises to the level of an industrial mystery—is, trying to do what? Turn a dumb concept into a smart entertainment? Save a dim production by pouring a fortune into stupid effects? (The budget was reportedly as high as $130 million.) Kill the special-effects industry by doing a parody of its excesses? The effect of those effects, and of the cheesy 3-D process pasted on as an afterthought, is simply numbing. The film’s only unqualified success is the end title sequence—because it’s genuinely stylish, because it looks like it was shot in genuine 3-D and, most of all, because it’s the end.

The media coverage of the shooting in Tucson raises the question of why the media so badly misreported the objective facts of the event — so badly that the president himself had to sternly admonish the media that vitriolic political debate “did not” cause the shooting.

Let me be equally clear. I am not arguing that the shooting caused the media to be recklessly irresponsible and wrong in its coverage of the cause of the shooting. It did not. But, separate from the Tucson shooting incident, now is a time to pause and publicly discuss the degraded state of mainstream media reporting and its effect on the health of our democracy.

Because even though the Tucson shooting did not cause the media irresponsibility — this time — continued media misreporting and bias is now so ingrained that such dangerous behavior could be triggered by any number of future public events.

Now is the time for us all to pause, and consider how the working members of the media can live with their biased liberalism — yet not allow it to permeate their work and undercut the political dialogue and political process that is the foundation of our democracy.

Indeed, it may well be the case that the now institutional failure of the mainstream media to do its job with reasonable objectivity may itself be the cause of the incivility in political dialogue. Without an objective umpire in the political debate, the players are forced to shout louder and louder so that their interpretation of the state of play on the field can be heard by the fans. But political incivility is a topic for some future discussion. Now is the moment for the nation assembled to try to come to terms with the tragic failure of the media to report objectively about political incivility.

will be beatified in May, the Vatican announced this morning. 

Late last year, I talked to George Weigel about the pope’s legacy. 

CBS News, seizing upon the zeitgeist, one supposes, had a new poll out Tuesday night which I’ve just seen now. In it they ask respondents whether they think there is a right to violent action against the government. The question is phrased thus:

“Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to take violent action against the government, or is it never justified?”

Then, of course, the responses are broken down by party affiliation. Surprise: while just eleven percent of Democrats and eleven percent of independents believe it is ever justified to take violent action against the government, fully 28 percent of Republicans do. It doesn’t surprise me that there would be a poll trying to put the smell of blood in the water given the climate of the last week. But what does surprise me is that 76 percent of respondents, including 64 percent of Republicans, think it is never right to take up arms against the government. Ever.

What about if the government canceled the next election and started seizing first-born; or arbitrarily disappearing whole classes of citizenry; or summarily abolished private property and confiscated all our belongings at the tip of a bayonet? Not even then? Gosh, even Hobbes thought you had a right to violently resist a state that was trying to kill you. What could these 76 percent be thinking? (Even worse, eight percent of respondents were unsure! You’d better know what you believe by the time you hear the jackboots round the corner.)

I’m a Union man to the marrow — Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable — and I think as much as the next Union man that the question of whether there is a right to violent insurrection, for political purposes, against the duly-elected government was settled for all time at the courthouse at Appomattox. But when in the course of human events — hell, you know the rest.

So I guess I’d be among that 28 percent. But then, so would Hobbes, and Edmund Burke for that matter. Even Louis XVI would probably put himself down as an “unsure.”

Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) will have a lot on his mind when he delivers the weekly Republican address this weekend. He spoke to National Review Online from Tucson, Ariz., this evening, where he recently attended a funeral service for Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old girl killed in Saturday’s tragic shooting. “It was a heartrending experience,” he said.

Last night, he attended the televised memorial service at the University of Arizona, which some had criticized for its “pep-rally” atmosphere. Flake said that while the event was “certainly different than most memorials,” he didn’t think the criticism was completely warranted.

“The people of Tucson have been through a lot the past couple of days, and I think it was what a lot of them felt that they needed to do and needed to hear,” he said. “It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I think for those who were there in the community it was cathartic.”

Flake praised President Obama for his “somber” and “appropriate” tone at the service, and a speech that was “one of the best I’ve ever heard him give.”

“I was very moved by it and I know a lot of people were as well,” Flake said. Indeed, Obama’s speech received near-unanimous approval from commentators of all political stripes.

Earlier today, Flake joined Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl on a hospital visit to meet with the dozens of victims still recovering and their family members. The group was unable to visit Giffords, who Flake said was on “quite the schedule now” in regard to her recovery, which has been reported to be nothing short of miraculous.

Flake was reluctant to comment on the politics of the past several days, but did address some of the rhetoric directed at his home state. He half-laughed, half-sighed when told of Tom Brokaw’s remarks on MSNBC’s Morning Joe earlier today: “I would be nervous about going into a bar or restaurant in Arizona on a Saturday night, where people can carry concealed [firearms] without permits.”

“Arizona has always been different,” Flake said. “Everyone here has a bit of an independent streak, and that’s what so endearing to those of us who have been hear and to those who are coming,” he said, noting the state’s rapidly growing population (25 percent increase over the past decade).

Flake said he thinks the events of the past few days ought to change some people’s opinions about Arizona. “Out of this tragedy, I think the examples of bravery and heroism and everything else you saw just far, far outweighs the act of one lone gunman,” he said. “And I think people outside the state have witnessed that, like they did last night [at the memorial].”

As for the activity of his colleagues back in Washington, where a number of lawmakers have lined up to introduce legislation in response to the shooting – from stricter gun-controls measures to ramped up security details — Flake called it a “natural reaction, just as there’s a natural reaction to try to ascribe motives to the killer.” But he didn’t think such proposals would get very far. “It’s too soon,” he said. “We’ll see what things look like in a couple of weeks.”

In his address on Saturday, Flake said he would pay tribute to the victims of the tragedy and discuss the inspiring nature Giffords’ recovery and the heroism of individuals like Daniel Hernandez, whose actions may have saved the congresswoman’s life, in the hope that a lasting “spirit of cooperation” can be achieved.

“There plenty of things that we’ll debate on and have really partisan differences on, — and that’s appropriate,” he said. “I think this is a great example of a time when, where we can and should get along and cooperate, we do, and hopefully this kind of tone will continue.”

We asked Flake about the suggestion floated by the independent group Third Way and endorsed by Sens. Mark Udall (D., Colo.) and Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), as well House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), that lawmakers sit together – not separated by party – during President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union address. He’s all for it.

“I think that’s a great idea,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s anything that needs to be promulgated or asked. I think it’d be a good idea if members were to just do that on their own.”

Since last Saturday’s murders, the pundit class has buzzed with calls to “tone down” our “incendiary rhetoric.” But is the political class doing anything about it?

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, Rep. Louise Slaugther (D., N.Y.) said that the FCC is “just not working anymore.” This was after she connected the Tucscon shooting to Sharron Angle’s words, “Second Amendment remedies,” and “incendiary” rhetoric more generally. She said, “What I’d like to see is if we could all get together on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, and really talk about what we can do to cool down the country.” She added, “Part of that has to be what they’re hearing over the airwaves.” This has been widely interpreted as a call for a revived Fairness Doctrine, or something similar.

But while Slaughter framed her proposal as a response to the murders, the Fairness Doctrine has been one of the foci of her career all along. As she told Bill Moyers in a 2004 interview, her first act after being elected to Congress in 1986 was to attempt to organize others to override — this gets complicated — President Reagan’s veto of Congress’s vote to codify the Fairness Doctrine (the vote was intended to override the FCC commissioners’ abolition of the rule). She has been a noted supporter of attempts to exert more control and political balance over the airwaves since.

Although conservatives certainly have a right to be upset by Slaughters’ implicit connection of Loughner to right-wing talk radio (all available evidence says there is in fact none), it’s actually extremely unlikely that Slaughter will be able to do anything about it.

 The Fairness Doctrine or a similar policy could be revived in one of only two ways: either a vote by a majority of the FCC commissioners (which would only effect the public airwaves), or an act of Congress. The FCC has not taken serious steps to revive the Fairness Doctrine, and is unlikely to: it would immediately embroil itself in controversy and lawsuits and the likely result would actually be less power for the FCC. Congress — especially with the new Republican House majority — is infinitely unlikely to vote a new Fairness Doctrine into law. 

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has caused a GOP district chairman in Arizona to step down. Anthony Miller, a black Republican who was chairman of Legislative District 20, told the Arizona Republic that his support of John McCain had made him unpopular with district Republicans who favored J. D. Hayworth.  

“I wasn’t going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday. I love the Republican Party but I don’t want to take a bullet for anyone,” said Miller, saying that verbal attacks and internet posts had alarmed him regarding his family’s safety.

A person from Miller’s district who is familiar with the events told National Review Online that at one point an angry person had made a hand gesture in the shape of a gun and pointed it straight at the back of Miller’s head. Miller’s wife witnessed the gesture and was “very, very upset.” After the shooting on Saturday, she told Miller that she wanted him to leave politics.

In addition to Miller’s support for McCain, some were angry and viewed him as corrupt because the first vice-chairman, Roger Dickinson, had moved recently and was no longer allowed by the rules to be the first vice-chairman in that district. Miller told the Arizona Republic that he informed district members he would deal with the matter after the holidays.

The American Center for Law and Justice, which represents New York City firefighter and 9/11 survivor Tim Brown, is continuing to work on preventing the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero. Yesterday, ACLJ filed a motion asking that the mosque developers refrain from any building or demolition at the site.

ACLJ filed a lawsuit last year, arguing that the city’s Landmarks Preservations Commission had acted improperly in coming to the decision that the building currently on the site owned by the mosque developers was not a historic landmark worthy of preservation.  A Freedom of Information Act request made by ACLJ led to the city releasing e-mails, which showed that city officials had been working with mosque developers behind the scenes. At one point, a city employee even drafted a letter for the mosque developers to submit to the community board that needed to approve the mosque.

However, the city has not yet released all the relevant e-mails, which form the basis of ACLJ’s claim in the lawsuit that there was an inappropriate cooperation between the city and mosque developers.

“In our affirmation to the court filed today, we cite the Respondents’ failure to answer its petition in a timely manner.  The affirmation also cites two complaints to the Department of Buildings noting unauthorized work without proper permits at the mosque site and the developers’ application for $5 million in public funding through the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation as an indication that project is moving forward,” the group said in a statement.

ACLJ expects the filing could result in a court date as early as next week.

We have a low-level editorial position open. This is not glamorous stuff, in fact quite the opposite–comment moderating, capturing video, updating our social-media sites, etc. But it’s a chance to be a part of what we do every day and get great experience. Please send résumé, clips, and an engaging cover letter to nr.internship@gmail.com.

Vanderbilt has backed away from its abortion-training mandate, in the wake of this week’s controversy (mentioned yesterday here).

Vanderbilt University has changed language in its nursing residency application, after two complaints were filed with the Department of Health and Human Services alleged Vanderbilt was in violation of federal abortion law.

The school sent out an update to its applicants Wednesday about changes to the application and a clarification of policy.

At the Live Earth Concert at Giants Stadium, one of the non musical acts, Robert Kennedy Jr., shouted himself hoarse. He called those people who doubt either that global warming exists or that  it is man-made or that it matters traitors and that they should be dealt with as such. “Get rid of all these rotten politicians that we have in Washington, who are nothing more than corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company,” shouted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “These villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of American interest and ahead of the interest of all of humanity. This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors.”

It has been reported that Judy Clarke will represent Tucson gunman Jared Loughner in court. Clarke has previously represented the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and other grim figures:

Judy Clarke is known in legal circles as “the patron saint of criminal defense attorneys” and “the One-Woman Dream Team.”

Now, the nationally known criminal defense lawyer is adding Tucson mass shooting suspect Jared Loughner to an already long list of high-profile defendants that included “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and South Carolina mother Susan Smith, who drowned her two sons…

The Asheville, N.C., native, with more than three decades of criminal defense experience, is considered one of the nation’s leading experts on death penalty cases. A fierce opponent of the death penalty, Clarke has helped several high-profile defendants avoid death row, including Kaczynski, Smith and Rudolph.

On balance I think that it is a good thing that Jared Loughner will get the best possible defense lawyer. The first point is that if the death penalty is imposed, there will be greater public confidence in the verdict if Loughner is represented by the strongest possible lawyer.

The second point is that in these cases, the issues on criminal responsibility do not only concern the issue of whether the action was done, or even whether it was done with an intention to kill. Considering both the act and mind requirements (actus reus and mens rea), the case is pretty straightforward. The level of planning was too thorough to deny either of these elements. And Lord knows there are enough witnesses. But the criminal law allows for all sorts of other defenses by way of mitigation, including those which go to the level of the capacity of the defendant. In addition to the acquittal by way of insanity, there are also mitigation defenses based on diminished capacity. In general today there is vast hostility toward outright acquittal on the insanity defense. But there is some wiggle room on the diminished capacity defense, and that could easily lead to the judgment that the death sentence is inappropriate.

There is little doubt that the sentencing phase of this case will be far more controversial than the earlier phase dealing with responsibility. The positions on the death penalty vary from those who think that it should never be used to those who think that it is underused on both moral and deterrence grounds. Those philosophical differences will be aggravated by what is likely to be a very contentious set of factual disputes. Remember the prosecutor could well find evidence showing that the motivations make the crime even more heinous than we now expect. 

There will also be larger discussions about gun control. For a perceptive view as to why those reforms will not work, see Steve Chapman’s excellent column this morning in the Chicago Tribune.

From the New York Times (where else?): 

Conventions change. A woman no longer earns a scarlet letter for having a child out of wedlock; divorce is not synonymous with scandal; and it is no surprise to find, when a marriage comes apart, that a third person was involved. But even in a sexually liberal culture, the home is still usually off-limits, as if protected by an invisible force field. And the marriage bed — a phrase that in itself seems quaintly out of date — remains a sacred object.

All but one of 18 marriage counselors and divorce lawyers interviewed for this article said they saw at-home adultery rarely, if ever, although the divorce lawyers saw it more often than the therapists. When it does happen, however, the consequences are usually dire: affairs are painful in a marriage, but affairs that take place in the marriage bed can be lethal.

In an informal, unscientific survey conducted at the request of The New York Times by the Web site CafeMom.com, which draws young married women, more than half of approximately 500 respondents said their marriages would “definitely not” survive if their partner made love to another person in the marriage bed. By contrast, less than a third of approximately 700 respondents to another question said that their marriages would “definitely not” survive an affair outside the home.

“It would hurt no matter where it happened,” one anonymous respondent wrote. But “if he did it in my own home,” she added, “it would feel more like a slap in the face.”

Few marriages survive such an affair — and even fewer marriage beds.

Richard Roane, 52, a divorce lawyer in Grand Rapids, Mich., said he had seen a dozen such cases in the estimated 2,200 divorces he has handled. He jokes that he always tells clients that at a minimum, they’ll have to get a new bed.

If that wasn’t clever enough advice, our lawyer offers another insight: 

Mr. Roane said he also had a case in which the wife never found out that her husband, who was his client, had been cheating on the living room sofa — something Mr. Roane himself learned during a property settlement negotiation.

“The husband whispered in my ear: ‘She can have the sofa. I don’t want it,’ ” Mr. Roane said. “He was taking some pleasure in giving the sofa where he made love to his girlfriend to his wife. The wife didn’t know it, but he did. We see a lot of bad behavior in divorce.”

No kidding. 

has hired a political director and a pollster. It’s like he’s determined to give me another bad prediction on my record.

Fred Upton (R., Mich.), the new House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman, nails it. According to The Hill:

Upton was critical of the report in a statement Tuesday, although he offered that the findings will be considered as lawmakers seek to prevent another offshore disaster.

Upton said he was disappointed that the commission “left unanswered the fundamental question of what went wrong.”

“Rather than clearly identifying the root cause of this unprecedented disaster, the commission’s report is limited to general assertions about the enforcement agencies and industry as a whole,” Upton said. He warned: “Neither this nor any investigation should be used as political justification for a pre-determined agenda to limit affordable energy options for America.”

“Without clear and specific evidence of what went wrong with this isolated well, unlike the tens of thousands that have never experienced similar failures, we will not learn the lessons needed to ensure a disaster like this will never happen again,” Upton said.

Upton sounds like he’s ready to govern with respect to deepwater drilling, rather than stage circuses for the media like the Waxman/Markey leadership team did. There are many qualified petroleum engineers and scientists able to dissect BP’s well plan and compare it, straightforwardly and point by point, with the hundreds that didn’t fail, as well as to industry best practices. In fact, I would be surprised if most oil companies haven’t already prepared such reports for internal use. That this approach eluded House Democrats and the commission speaks volumes about their intent.

 — Lou Dolinar is a retired columnist and reporter for Newsday. He is currently working on a book about what really happened in the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Lost in all of the squabbling about the use of the term “blood libel” is an under-appreciated fact. Palin’s statement yesterday was actually the most robust, unapologetic defense of vigorous democratic debate and the American system we’ve heard from any politician since Saturday, and that goes for President Obama’s speech as well. I don’t fault Obama by saying this. Obama was speaking at a memorial service (or at least that was his plan).

Palin did exactly what her detractors claimed she both must do and couldn’t do: give a grown up, mature statement. The timing was arguably ill-considered, given that it was bound to be overshadowed by the president’s remarks last night. But such criticism is hard to take from people who demanded that she speak up and then denounced her for doing exactly that. Likewise, the objections that she “injected herself into the story” are hard to take seriously from the same people who insisted she was the cause of the story in the first place.  If she had waited a day and released her statement today, she would have been twice as vilified for re-opening the “wound” Obama the Healer had mended.

Still, the timing invited too many “who is more presidential” comparisons. I think the president was more presidential, in no small part because he is the president. Palin’s video statement was something else because she is not the president. And the criticism that she should have turned the other cheek and not defended herself at all strikes me as beyond absurd.  The woman was being accused of being a willfull co-conspirator in murder. It is just unfair and flatly dishonest to expect her not to address that.

As for the “blood libel” flap, I’ve decided to ratchet down my already very modest objection to the term. While I still think it would have been better had she not used the phrase, so much of the criticism of it is in bad faith. Her intent was honorable and her point was right. Moreover, she’s hardly the first person to use the term outside the bounds of discussions of anti-Semitism. She wasn’t even talking about “the blood libel” but warning against the creation of “a blood libel,” which is exactly what Krugman, Olberman & Co. were doing. The “controversy” was a red herring and little more.