LINES IN THE SAND.The New York Timeseditorializes about the "ridiculous" push for a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning -- "an issue that exists only for the purpose of pandering to a tiny slice of voters." Though the Times is correct that this is not a high-salience, top-priority issue for most voters, it should be noted that banning flag-burning actually commands majority support in opinion surveys (support for a constitutional amendment to do so is always lower, though usually still above 50 percent).
DERBYSHIRE SELLS OUT.John Derbyshire has some odd reflections on his Party of Death review in which he recants nothing, but nonetheless says he regrets letting spirited controversy get in the way of collegiality.
GRADUATION 2006: SEND YOUR DAUGHTERS TO WORK DAY. Today is Harvard�s graduation day. While the politicians and pundits exhort the lucky few to lead their nation and give back to their communities, no one mentions that many of them will do nothing of the kind.
If current trends keep up, half of the graduates who are women are not going to lead the nation. They�re going to stay home and raise their babies. Harvard degrees and all. Many don�t want to wind up homeward bound. Often, social forces -- discrimination in the workplace, the long hours that top jobs require -- discourage them from trying to have family and career.
TIME AND AGAIN (AND AGAIN!)K-Lo with an assist from David Pryce-Jones unleashes a dispatch from the Gamma Quadrant: "He calls Zarqawi�s demise both a 'collassal morale boost' for all of us but says it also has 'big operational significance.' 'When you get rid of a leader, it�s very hard to replace him.' The Israelis have proved this time and time again."
TURNING POINT! TURNING POINT! Look, it's great that Zarqawi's dead, and it's certainly too bad the Bush administration chose not to kill him when they had the chance years ago, preferring to keep him alive since it was useful to bolstering the set of deceptions they used to launch a war in which tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed, but let's not kid ourselves here. Zarqawi's importance to the tactical situation in Iraq has always been overstated, and I doubt he has any significance at all to the strategic situation.
TRIUMPH OF HOPE OVER EXPERIENCE. I'm really eager to be convinced that Jacob Weisberg is right and that the gay marriage issue won't work for the GOP this time around. But man oh man am I not convinced by his reasoning:
WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED? What's that you say? A covert CIA operation backfired and accomplished roughly the reverse of what was hoped for? Stuff like that never happens. Except, you know, it happens all the time. For some reason, though, nobody ever seems to catch on to the idea that the odds of success in these kinds of efforts are just very, very, very low.
LIBERTARIAN DEMOCRATS. On the eve of YearlyKos, Markos himself has penned possibly the first full account of his personal political philosophy. He is, he says, a "Libertarian Democrat." It's a style he's stealing from the Western Democrats like Brian Schweitzer, Jon Tester, Jim Webb, and Paul Hackett and hoping to popularize as a "progressivism for a new century" in an upcoming book.
COURTING THE BLOGS -- PARTY AT THE STRATOSPHERE. Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner will be the main attraction at the first ever Daily Kos convention, Yearly Kos, that will be held in Las Vegas this weekend, and he's got plans to welcome the bloggers with open arms. Warner is one of several possible '08 presidential candidates speaking at the convention; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack will also make appearances. So will some Democratic leaders: Former '04 presidential contender Gen. Wesley Clark, DNC chairman Howard Dean, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Barbara Boxer, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
