Sam Rosenfeld's got a terrific rundown on the eternal frustration of the evangelical voter which argues, basically, that there will be no payback for the GOP footsoldiers, it doesn't poll well. He's right, of course. But I want to hone in on something he says midway through:

the atmosphere was suffused with a sense of anger and despair at the way the vast majority of Republicans they helped to put in power -- with the notable exception of a certain House majority leader locked in an existential bid to keep his career alive -- inevitably betray or ignore the religious conservative cause.

Read this in the Galbraith book and found it a remarkable example of "what might have been". You hardly need my commentary on it, the power of what this party could have meant is obvious on its own:

So Digby's tagged me on the book-meme thingie. Off we go:



You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be [saved]?

Since so many other folks have saved the Big Important Pieces of Serious Literature, I'm going with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. It all comes in one binding, so I think that's fair. And to lose Douglas Adams' literary contribution would break my fool heart.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Over at Dymaxion World, John has written an excellent rejoinder to "The Long Emergency", the Rolling Stone excerpt on the apocalyptic world an oil crash is about to bring. The oil crisis is bad enough without going into full on scare mode, so I highly suggest you read John's more balanced portrayal. For what it's worth, I've been looking into these things pretty heavily lately, and John's view strikes me as closer to the truth, but I'm still no expert, so take my recommendations with the proverbial grain of salt.