Over at The Washington Post, Dan Balz has a slightly alarmist article on the leftward drift that Dean's chairmanship, and the party's new reliance on grassroots donors, might provoke. Standard stuf, to be sure, but he makes an interesting strategic point midway through:

As Dean takes the helm as party chairman, Democrats now face a competition between what might be called the Dean model and the Clinton model, between confrontation and triangulation. This amounts to a contest between a bold reassertion of the party's traditional philosophy that fits the polarized environment of the Bush presidency vs. a less provocative effort to balance core values with centrist ideas that proved successful in the 1990s but has since produced a backlash within the party.

Does anybody else think Ben Nelson sounds like he's one close election away from switching parties?

Would you ever consider becoming a Republican?

Somebody said not long ago that people don't always leave the party; the party leaves the people. So, recognizing that you never know what the future's going to hold, what might happen, you never say never. But am I considering it right now? No.



If you run for re-election in 2006, then, you're absolutely committed to running as a Democrat?

I have every intention, if I run again, to run as a Democrat.

Garance Franke-Ruta gets this exactly right:

Succumbing to faculty pressure, Harvard University president Larry Summers finally released the transcript of his controversial comments on women in the sciences, made at an MIT conference in January, proving rather conclusively that those who gave him the benefit of the doubt about the nature of his remarks were mistaken in so doing.

Read the rest of her post. I thought Summers was ham-handed and wrong before, now I believe he should resign.

This is Ezra writing -- thanks to Chris for doing such a wonderful job in my absence. He gets 50 blog points, redeemable for poorly constructed prizes at the counter.

Well, it has been fun.  I want to thank Ezra for the opportunity to make a fool of myself for fourty eight hours.  And, like every bad house guest, I stayed longer than expected, made a lot of long-distance calls and drank all the liquor.  Thank you, Ezra, and I'm sorry again for ever recommending you read Hugh Hewitt's book so you can make fun of it.

I think the current debate concerning the mainstream media entirely misses the point.  And yes, I’m about to channel Howard Beale.  I’m going to break this in three sections.

What’s missing?

We no longer have news coverage that actually informs our citizenry.