The Senate in One Sentence

“We have to have a little back-and-forth every once in a while or this place would be boring as hell.” — Orrin Hatch, to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, after being shushed by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy for interrupting Kagan.

Things That Are Related

Sarah Palin’s Twitter praise for a Thomas Sowell column comparing the BP escrow fund to the political roots of the Holocaust, and this.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Heaven Forbid Journalists Report Facts

Barrett Brown wrote a lengthy and hilarious post over at Vanity Fair about conservative reaction to Michael Hastings’ blockbuster Rolling Stone piece that brought down McChrystal. Couched in an attack on National Review (too easy!), it’s a rather damning indictment of the media in general. To wit:

Unlike many of this country’s most respected commentators, Hastings did not spend the better part of a decade repeating conventional wisdom about our allegedly unprecedented success in two wars that have already proven to be abject failures, and thus he has no reason to simply take the word of some or another confused presidential administration that everything is under control, or will be after some additional expenditure of blood and treasure.

Another taste, for color:

I myself am a subscriber [of National Review] and find myself constantly distracted by the ads, many of which are written to look like articles and which routinely conjure up dubious global financial entities in order to convince the publication’s readers to buy coins in exchange for some unspecified number of payments in order that they might also receive a free safe. Advertisers know their audience, naturally.

Read the whole thing.

More Important Considerations Than Personnel

What the hell were McChrystal and co. thinking? I don’t know. (Yes I do: they were drunk.) But this much I know to be true: their complaints about the civilian leadership are a hell of a lot less important than the actual on-the-ground success of their strategy in Afghanistan. Matt Yglesias makes the necessary point:

Back in the real world it seems obvious to me that the Obama administration’s actual McChrystal-related problem is simply that the situation in Afghanistan is deeply problematic. The hoped-for improvements in governance and the credibility of Hamid Karzai’s regime have not emerged. The population in much of the country remains pro-Taliban, anti-Karzai, and anti-ISAF. This is a big problem. And the portrait that emerges in the Rolling Stone article is of a military command that knows it’s not really making progress but doesn’t see the door open to any alternative policies. It’s a huge problem—much bigger than the question of what to do or not about one general.

What you have to remember here is that McChrystal is the architect of the bold and controversial Af-Pak strategy announced last December. The outcome of the months-long “strategic review” was buy-in to his vision. And that vision is failing. However, I don’t think that if McChrystal does leave, as is looking increasingly likely, this affair will occasion any change in strategy — the basic underpinnings of the current strategy are time and patience, after all. There’s still a year to go until the July 2011 deadline, nearly six months until the December review. Obama cannot be seen as capricious in this. But it does seem clear that McChrystal, brilliant strategist though he may be, is not the man for the job.

“A Gaffe Is Any Impolitic Statement”

Jonathan Chait limns the important difference between gaffes and honest (if misguided) expressions of ideology:

The interesting micro development of the last two years is that the [Republican] party is starting to be infiltrated by figures who come out of smaller and even more ideologically radical subcultures — candidates like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle. (Jason Zengerle has a fantastic story in TNR on Paul’s ideology.) The news media is doing a poor job of explaining this trend, in part because it insists upon viewing this new brand of radicalism through the lens of a “gaffe” — Rand Paul won’t support the Civil Rights Act! — rather than explaining it in ideological terms.

Interesting stuff to think about in light of the recent controversy stirred up by Helen Thomas. In contrast to the “W.H. Crone“ (classy!), it seems unlikely that Carly Fiorina’s recent remarks about Senator Barbara Boxer’s hair result from any passionate personal philosophy of coiffure, so I think it’s safe to call that a gaffe.

Proud Moments In American Twittering

Posted without comment: John McCain is now referencing “Jersey Shore” on Twitter.

All Your Election Results, Outsourced

The big news is that Blanche Lincoln survived the Arkansas runoff. Yay? Eh. For a great rundown of all the results, see Chris Good.

Never Stops, Never Stops

One million more states are holding primary elections today. Each one is wackier than the last. I’m not going to summarize them all, because I don’t care to think too much about places like South Carolina (even though it’s got the juiciest story).

Here, however, are the four marquee races to watch:

• Nevada Senate: Harry Reid, in the thankless role of Senate Majority Leader (think Tom Daschle), has been polling terribly at home all year, and everyone seems to agree that he’ll go down in November. But the emergence of a true Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle, as poll leader on the GOP side has Democrats hopeful — Reid polls best against her. In a fun twist, Sue Lowden, the early GOP favorite and fundraising leader, lost her significant lead after she made some bizarre comments about solving health care costs by bartering with chickens. If Angle wins, Reid may survive.
• California Gubernatorial: Two strong female candidates in California have run, so far, two terrible campaigns. Yet they will live on to fight in November! Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO and Mitt Romney advisor, suffers from her old boss’s inability to take a firm position on any issue, but she’ll still probably get the GOP nod for Governor. Despite spending a fortune of her own money, Whitman trails Democratic former Governor Jerry Brown in the general election polls. Why anyone would want to be Governor of California at this point defies logic, but it should be a feisty (and expensive) campaign.
• California Senate: On the Senate side, the conventional wisdom holds that, in this anti-incumbent climate, Barbara Boxer is finally vulnerable. Maybe, but if the laughably incompetent Carly Fiorina wins the Republican nomination, as she should, I wouldn’t count on it. Fiorina has already released the most memorable ad of this campaign season, and continues to show her thin grasp of the issues by calling climate change “the weather.” I wouldn’t expect much from a fired Hewlett Packard CEO and economic advisor to the McCain campaign (how’d that work out for you?), but Fiorina’s bumbling campaign continues to surprise and delight. She’s within striking distance of Boxer, but if the primary campaign is any indication of how she’ll manage her messaging in the general, I wouldn’t bother dreaming of “Carlyfornia.”
• Arkansas Senate: Senator Blanche Lincoln’s political future hangs in the balance of today’s primary runoff, and Lt. Governor Bill Halter has all the momentum. Lincoln had Bill Clinton campaigning for her at the finish line, but it doesn’t matter: the GOP nominee, Rep. John Boozman, looks to trounce either Halter or Lincoln in the fall.

Stay tuned, sports fans.

Political Journalism, Inside Out

Chris Beam had an astonishing little piece on Slate that exposes the ragged, ugly seams of contemporary political coverage. Read it and weep.

Weak Tea

I only have 4 things to say about the results of yesterday’s elections:

1. Buh-bye, Arlen. You won’t be missed. (But this should be a fascinating general election campaign.)
2. It’s great that Bill Halter has forced a run-off in Arkansas, but D.C. Morrison’s votes should break for Blanche Lincoln, since he ran to her right. But really, who cares? Whoever wins the nod is going to get trounced by John Boozman.
3. Rand Paul’s win may be a great victory for the Team Party over the Republican establishment, but it could well turn out to have been a Pyrrhic one, as Paul seems too extreme and angry to win a general election in even deep-red Kentucky. Notice also that both Democratic candidates received more votes than Paul, and nearly 50% more Democrats voted than Republicans, in a year in which conservatives should naturally be the far more energized wing.
4. Mark Critz’s 10-point margin of victory in the PA-12 special election is astonishing, but it’s important to remember that this is one special election in a single Congressional district. Don’t let’s make too much of it. That said, I think Daniel Larison has by far the best analysis.

Okay, one last thing: the most heartening piece I’ve read all day is Larry Kudlow’s characteristically cocky take on the midterm elections, because that asshole is always wrong.