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- Tim Pawlenty will probably never be president of the United States. But Tim Pawlenty could potentially run for President of the United States in a couple year's time, so for now we'll just quietly file away the fact that he refuses to denounce the "death panel" lie and thinks Minnesota could potentially avoid providing wider medical coverage by invoking the Tenth Amendment.
- I love Dave Weigel's reporting on the right wing, and his dispatch from the FreedomWorks DC tea party "Liberty Summit" does not disappoint. I don't believe these people are any sort of real threat to the country but the question which comes to mind is this: what is the trajectory, politically, of a loose coalition which holds up people like Glenn Beck, Joe Wilson and James Inhofe as heroes?
- Speaking of hero worship, The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb thinks the freshly-martyred Joe Wilson is something akin to "The Great Communicator." But what exactly did he communicate? His ignorance of the policy he was protesting? That the mere thought of treating illegal immigrants like human beings makes his blood boil? That the "honorable heritage" of the Confederate South is being marginalized by the Democratic majority and President Barack Obama? I could care less if Wilson is censured or ultimately loses re-election. He's far more interesting as the personification of the angry, red-faced id of the modern Republican party driven insane by a Democratic president they see as illegitimate.
- And Finally, Jonah Goldberg muses in an opinion piece that it is an "objective fact" that "the birther theory is a vastly more plausible theory than the truther narrative." Vastly! After helpfully pointing out that he subscribes to neither theory, he proves his hypothesis by observing that it is common for "politicians lie to advance their careers" whereas enormous government conspiracies to murder their countrymen are far rarer. I expected nothing less from the peddler of the vastly plausible theory of "Liberal Fascism." Relatedly, Goldberg also had a post today where he sung the praises of Glenn Beck, who he believes is a journalist in the great tradition of muckraking.
--Mori Dinauer
