McCain: One of Us!
Liberals' secret feelings about the GOP leader.
Put these two thoughts together, and you reach the conclusion that Obama may soon want Hillary to stay in the race. ... Meanwhile, if Hillary now wants Edwards gone, and Sid Blumenthal's email is still functioning, that might give the Rielle Hunter story the MSM-busting oomph it needs. ... 1:21 A.M. link
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Friday, January 4, 2008
Is Ezra Klein young enough to be this pompous?
Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair. The other great leaders I've heard guide us towards a better politics, but Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves, to the place where America exists as a glittering ideal, and where we, its honored inhabitants, seem capable of achieving it, and thus of sharing in its meaning and transcendence
Actually, pompous isnt really the word for this passage. There's a sort of hectoring naivete, as if Klein's too inexperienced to know that "call us back to our highest selves" is a drained cliche. And why do the whippernsappers always have to lecture? ... P.S.: The whole post isn't this bad. It's actually worse. And pompous! ... [via Corner and reader N.B.] ... 9:19 P.M. link
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Mo' Iowa: 1) Polipundit suggests Obama may have benefitted in Iowa from a "reverse Bradley effect.' The open, public voting of the caucuses provided Democrats with
"a golden opportunity to show your next-door neighbors just how enlightened and progressive you are, by supporting the liberal black candidate."
On a secret ballot, Obama wouldn't do as well. If the Reverse Bradley Effect holds, then, Obama will do worse in New Hampshire than his Iowa triumph would lead you to expect, even if Hillary does nothing to change anyone's mind. ...
2) I haven't heard any MSM pundit mention another possibility a Polipundit reader mentions: that Romney may have done worse than the polls indicated because the Republican caucuses did use a secret ballot--and people who wouldn't tell a pollster they weren't going to vote against a Mormon in fact voted against a Mormon. This is not a reverse Bradley Effect. It's the regular ol' straight Bradley Effect;
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Photograph of Ann Coulter on Slate's home page by Brad Barket/Getty. Photograph of a wedding cake with two grooms on Slate's home page by Hector Mata/AFP Photo. Photograph of Princess Diana on Slate's home page by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images.