Gates to stay on as SecDef

Unintentional admission: "My one problem with this is that it sends the message that Dems can't do Defense...I have no obvious eligible candidates for the job."

To be fair, he suggests the ineligible Wesley Clark. Still, that's one riot of a turnaround in two sentences.

Treacher is pissed off

Hit his main page for everything, but this one and this one jumped out at me.

And he really goes for the throat here, and in the process, I believe he nails it.

Obama is the victim, no matter what. That really is how he sees himself.

I'd like to think I've been smart enough to sense that all along without expressing it. It sure feels like I have. It would explain a lot of his political, professional, and personal associations: if someone as cool and messiah-like as he is is a victim, then everyone must be.

Civics 101 and democracy

I think we walked away from Civics learning different lessons.

There is no more important aspect of democracy than the minority accepting the will of the majority.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. These are not trivial matters we are discussing. This is not a case of the Philadelphia Phillies potentially losing and saying "Oh well, it wasn't our year. Maybe next year!" Our rights are being put up to a vote. And if the "will of the majority" gets me in its sights, I'll be damned if I'm "accepting" it.

What it means is that where what he proposes to do is reasonable and doesn’t conflict with our principles, he should expect our support.

I can guarantee you that every single action he will take will be in conflict with my principles, with the possible exception of ending the prosecution of terminally ill patients who toke up occasionally. (I realize that there are some who will think this is not enough of an end to the Drug War, and I do agree with their point; I'm being generous here).

Equally laughable from the comments (#3):

Good column Rick. It never ceases to amaze me how the lemmings are so willing to jump off the cliff.

And to think I used to believe that liberals had no sense of irony.

Agreed with Will

Divided government. Hope we get it.

And, oddly, it's the fairest liberal site out there

Jeralyn Merritt briefly discusses the rules at TalkLeft:

There's a limit on those that express opposition to the Democratic ticket and support of the Republican ticket...You are welcome to express your different opinion, up to four times a day. I think that's more than reasonable.

The issue is not whether the policy is reasonable. If you own your own blog, you can allow or disallow whatever you want. It's just a little...pathetic.

Nonetheless, TalkLeft is one of the fairest partisan Democrat sites out there. A lot of partisan Republican sites could learn a lesson from it.

I guess that rules out McCain and Obama

Be a constitution voter!

Jeralyn, in the comments:

[W]hose policies better support it? Who will be worse for the Constitutional rights and values? It's not even close.

This is where I split with liberals. I do not see the right to have an abortion and the right to free health care in the Constitution. Whether or not those things are good ideas are separate issues.

Snark of the week

Billy Beck: "What...was Nuremberg booked that week?"

Fits this blog's theme well.