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- Massachusetts Senate race roundup: Interim Senator Paul Kirk's expiration date is to be disputed; I'm not convinced that the election is a "referendum" on health-care reform; Scott Brown has dabbled in birtherism; temp workers and out-of-staters are assisting the Republican's campaign; and will the libertarian candidate in the race be a spoiler?
- "The frustration on the left with Obama -- and with healthcare reform specifically -- was almost inevitable," writes Kevin Drum, before asking whether "liberal revolt, in the end, strengthened liberalism or conservatism." This does not paint a very flattering picture of liberal activists, and neither does the possibility of them targeting vulnerable Democrats with negative poll messaging. But in the end the choice is binary: a frustrating, disappointing Democratic party with the potential to be reformed or an increasingly radicalized Republican party who cannot be trusted with power.
- E.J. Dionne throws cold water on the notion that the public is specifically rejecting liberalism, and hence Obama, without making the more honest observation that the economic conditions are going to punish the party in power regardless of ideology. But what's truly interesting about Dionne's column is his identification of the disturbing resilience of the conservative narrative of economic booms and busts -- and especially the denial by conservatives of their own culpability in bringing about the Great Recession.
- Indeed, when liberal hawks clumsily try to articulate the desirability of the democratic peace theory, they inevitably make the case that the United States needs to be engaged with all of the "totalitarian" regimes on the planet, regardless of public support, the national interest, feasibility or precedent. It is also insulting because it takes the extremely ahistorical position that democracy is something that can simply be rendered in the absence of authoritarianism, rather than evolving slowly over centuries.
- Weekend Remainders: The Republican National Committee never wastes an opportunity to unconvincingly associate itself with legendary civil rights leaders; the tea partiers aren't the only ones looking to scam the discontented; soon you'll be able to tell your children about a time when The New York Times online was free; Howard Fineman makes a good case for the real leader of the GOP; I don't know why Evan Bayh considers himself a Democrat; a U.S. weapons manufacturer helps advance the cause of jihadists; and does anyone care what Hugo Chavez thinks?
--Mori Dinauer
