We're sticking with the Union Leader, as the other New Hampshire papers I can call up online don't seem to have op-ed sections linked on their web sites. The downside of this is that the Union Leader is more conservative than your grandpa after two hits of scotch and a local news spot on inner city crime. The upside is that I can do this from my pajamas, in the true blogger way. Joseph W. Quaid: Quaid is the publisher of the Union Leader, so he gets a middle initial and, I imagine, wears a bow tie. And he's correctly inveighing against ABC's decision to exclude a bunch of lesser known, but plausible, candidates from Saturday's debate. But it's a bit odd to hear anyone say, "With Iowa's caucus process involving a ludicrously small percentage of that state's voters, it will be up to New Hampshire to make the first really representative determination." Really representative of who, kemosabe? Your neighbors? White people with a high cold tolerance who live in idyllic New England? George Will: Charlie Rangel is a good on taxes. A "Reaganite," even. The column had the potential to be a bit of a hatchet job, but it's actually pretty fair, and if it paints Rangel as a bit more of a fiscal conservative than he is -- I don't think, for instance, Will really realizes the import of Rangel asking "How much money does it take to run the damn government?" -- it's useful in actually reporting on what's going down in the Ways and Means Committee. It's almost as if there's stuff going on unrelated to the presidential primary... Robert Novak: The problem with Hillary Clinton's campaign is that she didn't propose Medicare-for-All. Seriously. That's what Novak writes. Or pretends to write. Of course, Novak doesn't believe Hillary would've done better with a more aggressively left-wing agenda. What he's actually doing is relaying an "unnamed consultant's" criticisms of Mark Penn and triangulation -- which is to say, getting ahead of the crowd in blaming Hillary's potential loss in Iowa on Penn. And look, I don't like Penn, but it's just not the case that Clinton spent a lot of time triangulating this primary, at least not on domestic issues. Indeed, the example Novak offers -- health care -- showed Clinton moving to the Left, and Obama triangulating. This, incidentally, is why they call Novak the Prince of Darkness. He's actually got me defending Mark Penn. Deroy Murdoch: Romney once raised taxes to pay for things. Somebody get a stake, and some burnin' wood.
