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- I don't think the conservative movement is quite ready to accept Kevin Williamson's article in National Review that challenges the wisdom of supply-side economics. The only response to the piece at The Corner was from Veronique de Rugy, who offers the libertarian endorsement; otherwise, silence (this doesn't count). Regardless of how this fits into the "epistemic closure" debate, I think the consensus for intellectually honest conservatives ought to be, as Ross Douthat puts it, that this is "an extremely important issue for the future of conservative governance." In fact, it's the preeminent issue. Republicans have largely lost the ability to craft policy or compromise with Democrats because the conservative movement has pushed them into the position of accepting ludicrous ideas, the most pervasive of which is the fairy tale that tax cuts pay for themselves.
- It's probably futile to critique an opinion piece that asserts in its opening paragraph that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a terrorist, but like the John Bolton saber-rattling we looked at yesterday, this bellicosity wrapped in the austerity of an argument must be confronted. The author, Bret Stephens, repeats the idea that the Iranian state and its leadership are irrational rogues who "do not calculate costs and benefits in a manner similar to the United States" and suggests that Iran could provide nuclear material to terrorists. Because of this, "we will live more securely" if a potential nuclear terrorist "knows exactly what we intend to do next." And this in an op-ed that is supposed to be about the failure of nuclear deterrence!
- The main problem in this otherwise competent Politico piece on The Washington Post's recent moves to beef up its online presence is that it frames the hiring of Greg Sargent, Ezra Klein, and David Weigel as a "leftward shift." A better way of describing it is that each of them excel in the fields they cover and that their ideological preferences, while transparent, are irrelevant. As Klein suggests, the Post is simply figuring out how to accommodates bloggers into traditional news reporting, something I have long thought to be inevitable.
- Looking over data that puts the campaign contributions of the rich overwhelmingly on the Democratic side of the ledger, Kevin Drum wonders why Republicans even bother supporting the rich, when the relationship is hardly reciprocal. Of the theories he floats to explain this, the most important is that the data might simply be bad, given that it only looks at the richest zip codes in the country. At any rate, I've always found it more fitting to depict Republicans as the party of business, not necessarily the rich.
- Remainders: Turnout remains a major problem for Democrats; Michael Steele, voice of the people; Fox News would prefer if its viewers didn't have to think about stuff too much; either God or guns will protect churchgoers in Louisiana; and almost every Democrat in the Senate supports ending the cowardly anonymous hold practice.
--Mori Dinauer
