Back of the Envelope

Mark Steyn ain't exactly cheery these days (via Instapundit):

But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up.

For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

The real question is how much of that will hurt us. Do I really think things are going to be that bad? I hope not, but I just haven't seen a lot of reasons to hope recently. Glenn's covering the debate between the optimistic, the gloomy, and the really gloomy on Instapundit.

Dean Esmay says:

Someone asked me once why I criticized the U.N. instead of proposing how to fix it. I'll tell you why: the only way to fix it is to eject every non-democratic nation. Problem: a majority of the member nations aren't democratic.

So throwing them out wouldn't be very democratic, would it?

Jonah Goldberg doesn't think Deep Throat really exists:

Woodward and Bernstein have long promised that they will reveal the identity of this super-source on the occasion of Deep Throat's demise. Speculation and anticipation in Washington have been rising of late as the health of various potential candidates has deteriorated. Professional Watergate veteran John Dean recently wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times claiming that Mr. Throat is very ill and that his obituary has already been written.

Here's the first problem: Nothing is easier than pinning a crime on a dead man. Here's the second problem: I don't think Deep Throat exists.

I'm not alone. Recently, Fox News media analyst Eric Burns revealed that the late, great historian Stephen Ambrose had told him there never was a Deep Throat. Burns's evidence was secondhand at best. He said Ambrose had shared an editor with Woodward and Bernstein — the legendary Alice Mayhew — and she had told him that Deep Throat was a composite of various sources. Mayhew told Ambrose that the first manuscript of All the President's Men contained no references to Deep Throat and that she told them the book needed a stronger plot device. D.T. was the result.

This version corroborates that of David Obst, Woodward and Bernstein's former literary agent. In his memoirs, Too Good to Be Forgotten, he confirms that the first draft of the book didn't mention Deep Throat and that Bob Fink, the researcher who organized the reporters' huge pile of sources, notes, and articles into a workable manuscript, was stunned to discover the appearance of Deep Throat in later versions.

What do I think? Well, to be honest, I don't really care. I was born the year Nixon resigned, and I haven't thought a whole lot about it since. Okay, that's not precisely true, but that line was too good not to use. I've never been curious about who Deep Throat was, or about the particulars of the scandal. Nixon committed a crime, which I used to think was a big deal, but after Clinton, cover-ups no longer seem very important. Most importantly, I don't remember when I used to believe the myth of the courageous newsman. I'm not saying that there are no brave reporters, just that journalism, by and large, is not about courage. There are a few jobs which are: firefighting, law enforcement, the military. Reporters can, and sometimes do, show courage, but it's not a profession that requires it except in extraordinary circumstances, the same as most other jobs.

La Shawn Barber is looking for posts on the Religious Right and the libertarian/social conservative divide. I don't really have anything new to say on the topic, but I've said plenty in the past:

So Dean's going to be the new DNC chair, huh? — If Dean continues to lead the Democrats down the path of self-destruction, I suspect that in a few years the real debate in this country will be between the libertarians and the social conservatives.

The religious right: extreme minority? — Social conservative positions aren't as far out on the fringe as some people would have you believe.

Dr. Dobson and Mr. Squarepants — I find it irritating how quick libertarian bloggers are to join in the name-calling when it's a religious conservative being criticized. Since when do they consider The New York Times a reliable source on, well, anything?

Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism: A Primer — Here I try to explain the difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Not everyone agreed with my definitions.

Mark Steyn thinks Bush's trip to Europe is all tone and no substance:

"The change for the moment is more in tone than substance," wrote Alec Russell, reporting on President Bush's European outreach in yesterday's Telegraph. You don't say.

My colleague is almost right. In Brussels yesterday, the President's "charm offensive" consisted of saying the same things he always says - on Iraq, Iran, Palestine, the illusion of stability, the benefits of freedom, the need for Egypt and Saudi Arabia to get with the programme, etc. But, tone-wise, the Bush charm offensive did its best to keep the offensiveness reasonably charming - though his references to anti-Semitism and the murder of Theo van Gogh by a Dutch Islamist were a little more pointed than his hosts would have cared for.

But, in the broader sense vis-à-vis Europe, the administration is changing the tone precisely because it understands there can be no substance. And, if there's no substance that can be changed, what's to quarrel about? International relations are like ex-girlfriends: if you're still deluding yourself you can get her back, every encounter will perforce be fraught and turbulent; once you realise that's never gonna happen, you can meet for a quick decaf latte every six - make that 10 - months and do the whole hey-isn't-it-terrific-the-way-we're-able-to-be-such-great-friends routine because you couldn't care less. You can even make a few pleasant noises about her new romance (the so-called European Constitution) secure in the knowledge he's a total loser.

Me, I'm glad Bush didn't go to Europe to apologize, which seems to be what all the Leftists were hoping for. No, Bush is saying the same thing over there as he does here, even if nobody is listening. A few of them, expecting him to tone down his rhetoric, might be surprised, but I think most of them have gotten used to it by now. Whatever else you might think of him, Bush is consistent. He says what he means and he stays the course.

When Dean Esmay is supporting Terri Schiavo's right to live, you know it's not just a Religious Right cause:

From what I can see, Terri Schiavo is alive and, according to people who love her, she is able to respond to them in a way that a human vegetable would not be able to. They say that they're willing to care for her for the rest of her natural life, and they say they ask nothing of her husband except that he go away and leave them alone. They also say that she is not on "life support," but rather, that she merely requires a single tube to provide her with food and water.

All of that being the case, I see no reason to support a court order which says that she should die of thirst. Which is what her estranged husband (who now lives with another woman with which he has children) demands.

I think that about sums it up. If you're interested in helping out, read this letter from Terri's father.

From Fox News:

Iran and Syria on Wednesday said they would unite against any challenges or threats to their nations' livelihoods, a move that could raise the stakes in the ongoing international dramas involving both countries.

The announcement came on the same day that a large explosion supposedly rocked the southern Iranian city of Dailam, but details remained sketchy about what happened.

On the alliance issue, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, after meeting with Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari, told reporters in Tehran: "We are ready to help Syria on all grounds to confront threats."

Frankly, it's not surprising. They already had a de facto alliance, as there's evidence linking both of them to the ongoing terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. They are the two biggest state supporters of terrorism in the world. And they're both scared. Syria more than Iran, probably. It's a smaller country and it's surrounded by nations which are not friendly to it: Turkey, the new Iraq, Israel, and an increasingly restive Lebanon. In the event of an all-out war, Iran's help would consist of attacking US forces in Iraq, since it would have a hard time moving conventional forces to Syria through Iraq.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but as state sponsors of terrorism, I think there is sufficient casus belli, and it's more a question of whether it's worth the cost than whether it's right. But right now there is sufficient internal dissidence that I think that support for the democratic forces within and pressure on the governing tyrrany could bring regime change in both countries without any direct intervention.

Update: Oops, forgot the link. It's there now.

Well, technically, he never went anywhere, as he's been publishing columns all over the place. But now his website is being updated again, so it's much easier to find all his columns. Don't forget to read his Valentine's Day ruminations.

Howard Dean's outlasted all the competition, so it looks like he'll be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee. You know, I really thought they wouldn't do it. They rejected Dean as their Presidential candidate, surely they wouldn't make him their Chairman. The one thing I forgot, however, is that while the Presidential Candidate is decided by actual voters, the Chairmanship is decided by the Party insiders. Notice how Dean's now the presumed chairman without a single vote cast. If the Democratic nominee for President had been done this way, Dean would likely have run against Bush. And lost by a much wider margin than Kerry did, as he couldn't even fake taking the war seriously.

While this is good news for the Republicans, as they can look forward to more gains in the House and Senate, it's bad news for conservatism. As the Democrats move further to the Left, the Republicans do so too, to fill the void in the middle, and the country as a whole becomes less conservative.

I guess what I'd really like to see is the political landscape altered to such a degree that the two major parties represented a libertarian view and a social conservative view. I could see useful debate coming from that. Unfortunately, I just don't see the Democrats representing either one, as their libertine socialism just isn't compatible with either.

Via Instapundit, two articles, one by Jonah Goldberg and one by Glenn Reynolds himself, reminding us that monsters are real. From Jonah's article:

A lovable monster is a very new concept because, first and foremost, monsters are about evilness. The original meaning of the word "monster" derives, via Old French, from a word for "divine omen or warning." The Latin monstrum comes from the verb monere, meaning "warn." A monster was a deformed person or animal that people mistook for a harbinger of evil or bad spirits. The idea that monsters were horrible creatures came later. It wasn't until perhaps as late as the 16th century when the literary notion that monsters were big slobbery dragons and beasts was well established.

So in sense it shouldn't surprise anyone that our understanding of what monsters are has evolved. The problem, it seems to me, is that not all evolution is synonymous with improvement. About a decade ago, Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco wrote an elegant book, The Death of Satan, in which he argued that America had lost the ability to speak in terms of evil. He called it a "tragedy of the imagination," and he was right.

For decades, a therapeutic culture of "understanding" was on the rise. Except for acts of racism and so-called homophobia, there was a mad rush to "understand" evil people. Were they victims of a racist culture? Were they abused themselves? Were they expressing their natural frustration with the patriarchal capitalist system? Blah, blah, blah.

The tragedy of the imagination was that we couldn't appreciate that evil is real and it exists. In a society where everyone is a victim and it's not right to "judge" others, there's just not much room left for real monsters, while society itself becomes monstrous. Hannibal Lecter became a charming rogue, the Grinch who Stole Christmas became the victim of the judgmental Whovilleans in the Jim Carrey movie, the ersatz Mayberry of Andy Griffith became a nest of fascists in Pleasantville.

Read them both.

Remember when I talked a bit about Dr. Dobson's actual claims, as opposed to the distorted accusations everyone has heard? I mentioned that I hadn't been able to find the pages that Dr. Dobson claimed had been removed, since, well, they'd been removed, and while I'm computer literate I'm not that Internet savvy. Well, some folks who are more Internet savvy than I have been using some Internet archiving tools to find a few things. Emily E. and Great Pursuits have both found plenty to confirm Dobson's version of events. I found both of these articles via the Christian Carnival, by the way.

If you were to read the newspapers, Bush's new budget contains "big cuts," "deep cuts," and "broad cuts." From the sound of it, Bush has taken a chainsaw to the budget, and he's not being too careful just to cut away the dead wood. But that's mostly from the Liberals. Conservatives are less impressed:

The good news is that this new budget contains proposed cuts and spending restraints — reforms that would save about $20 billion in fiscal 2006. The bad news is that the budget proposes to spend more than $2.5 trillion, and the White House never seems willing to stop Congress from adding even more money.

President Bush's previous budgets increased spending by a dramatic 33 percent in four years, defense spending increased by 44.7 percent while nondefense spending increased by 41.9 percent. The administration has been arguing that much of the increase in non-defense spending stemmed from higher homeland-security spending. However, the fact is that over half of all new spending in the past two years is from areas unrelated to defense and homeland security.

Ideally, the administration and Congress should find significant savings elsewhere in the budget if they want more security spending. Indeed, that's what the FY2006 budget will accomplish, mostly by virtually freezing of non-homeland non-defense spending in order to maintain national defense and cut the deficit in half by 2009.

But so much more could be achieved. The portion of the budget Bush wants to restrain, domestic discretionary, represents a ridiculously small portion — $389 billion — of the $2.5-trillion budget. In other words, the spending limits in the budget are rather meaningless. Until the administration is ready to significantly slash the mandatory side of the budget, its credibility will remain weak.

Me, I think some cuts are better than no cuts. I would like to see a surplus before Bush leaves office, which is possible due to economic growth, as long as spending is slowed down sufficiently.

I haven't been following the debate between columnist Jonah Goldberg and Middle-East studies professor Juan Cole. But I just read Jonah's summary of it:

Anyway, to sum up the substance of our own spat one more time: He predicted that these elections would be a disaster. After they weren't he dismissed the Iraqi election system as if it was especially flawed or undemocratic even though he seemed to support that system a year ago. Moreover, he deliberately concealed the fact such systems are used widely around the world including in South Africa in 1994. Does he think Nelson Mandela was undemocratically elected? He won't say. He oddly dismissed the election as being more like a "referendum" as if referendums are somehow alien to democracy. This is even more odd when you consider this election wasn't seen as a referendum on a bond for a sewage-treatment plant, but a referendum on Iraqi democracy itself. He suggests I'm a gruesome human being for supporting the war even though he pretty much did too. While dodging the issues he claims I'm unqualified to address the issues because I don't have his credentials. This is simply an extension of the chicken-hawk logic. Without the right paperwork, my ideas cannot be sound. Period.

Admittedly, that's a bit one-sided, so I'll give Cole's initial argument as well:

Jonah Goldberg knows absolutely nothing about Iraq. I wonder if he has even ever read a single book on Iraq, much less written one. He knows no Arabic. He has never lived in an Arab country. He can't read Iraqi newspapers or those of Iraq's neighbors. He knows nothing whatsoever about Shiite Islam, the branch of the religion to which a majority of Iraqis adheres. Why should we pretend that Jonah Goldberg's opinion on the significance and nature of the elections in Iraq last Sunday matters?

Remember my pet peeve, about people, especially experts, stating opinion as fact? Cole's argument seems to be a variation on that. It'd be helpful if his argument were as factually-based and well-reasoned as Goldberg's.

This is important, but liable to be overlooked except by those who want to use it to score political points. President Bush is proposing to cut farm subsidies, and this is a good thing. I'll quote Glenn Reynolds:

But the truth is, farm subsidies do more harm than good. They keep a few people on the land in places that would otherwise be emptier (as the song says: Bribin' us to take the place of Sioux and buffalo) but since most of them wind up going to big agribusinesses, not the "family farms" of political sloganeering, they don't even do much of that. (Bush's program is designed to cut subsidies to big agribusinesses the most, by capping payments). They generally either raise prices for poor people in the United States, or hurt sales by poor people abroad. Still, they're hard to avoid because the beneficiaries have a lot of political clout, and other people don't tend to care much.

Agricultural subsidies are one of the main reasons why the third world remains the third world. Every year at the economic summits (the WTO, for example), nations from Africa and South America beg the industrial nations to cease the practice. Agriculture is one of the few areas where the poorer nations can offer a competitive product on the world market, and if they were allowed to compete on an equal footing, the economic condition of those countries would improve drastically. Instead, we keep our subsidies, most of it going to big agricultural concerns so they can undercut foreign prices. It's may be argued that it keeps grocery prices lower, but since the money to do so comes from American taxpayers in the first place, it all balances out, and who it really costs are truly impoverished farmers in South America and Africa.

Mark Steyn, as always, shows us what's wrong with the world and what's right with Bush:

In Margaret Thatcher's heyday, she'd tell the naysayers, "There is no alternative" -- a phrase she used so often British Tories abbreviated it to "Tina." In fairness to her opponents, they did have alternatives: It was just that Mrs. T thought they were hopeless and unworkable. But Bush's detractors are literal Tinas: They have no alternatives at all. This week's U.N. report on the Sudan nicely captures the alternative to Bush-style climate change. After months of expressing deep concern, grave concern, deep concern over the graves and deep grave concern over whether the graves were deep enough, Kofi Annan managed to persuade the U.N. to set up a committee to look into what's going on in Darfur. They've just reported back that it's not genocide. Phew, thank goodness for that. It turns out it's just 70,000 corpses who all happen to be from the same ethnic group; could happen anywhere. But it's not genocide, so don't worry about it.

That's the transnational establishment's alternative to Bush dynamism: Appoint a committee that agrees on the need to do nothing. By happy coincidence, that's also the Democrats' line on Social Security. In a sense, these two issues are opposite sides of the same coin. It was noted in the chancelleries of certain capitals that, in a speech aimed in large part at a global audience, the president didn't even mention Europe. Why would he? One reason why the Continent is in no position to make any kind of useful contribution to the war on terror or reform of the Middle East is because of its inability to get to grips with the looming disaster of its own state pensions liabilities.

Read the whole thing

I must be working too hard. I didn't even know about the State of the Union until I read about it on the blogs Wednesday night. Oh, I knew that the State of the Union speech was supposed to be sometime around now, but I didn't know exactly when. You know, I just don't think I can keep up with the news well enough to be a politics blogger. Oh, I'll still blog about politics when I get a chance, but mostly it'll be about technology, which I have professional reasons to keep up with, religion, where staying current happens on the decades scale, and fiction, which happens when it happens. Anyway, enough with the whining about not being able to keep up--I better focus on the State of the Union. I read through it last night after finding the transcript.

The first thing I noticed was the amount of time he spent on Social Security, explaining why there's a problem. He offered his own solution, the personal retirement accounts, but he also mentioned a lot of harsher methods: raising the retirement age and reducing benefits. When he did so, he quoted Democrats, which I think was a smart move, but he finished with the conclusion that all these things are on the table. Sure, but he's not running for re-election. Well, Bush wasn't afraid to talk about Social Security when he was running for election either, but I wonder whether Congress is feeling so bold.

He promised a bunch of little programs, although he also promised to cut a lot of programs. It will be interesting to see if and how this balances out, and whether the budget deficit is really cut in half. I'd be happier with a surplus.

The war stuff was saved for the end. He did say that the US isn't going to knock down tyrannies for the fun of it:

The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life. Our aim is to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures. And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace.

I find that slightly disappointing. Does that mean we can't knock off Syria, Iran, and North Korea now? On the other hand, active support of terrorism should be sufficient casus belli:

To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act — and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror — pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.

Yes, exactly. It is much, much better if democracy comes from within, and one of the best ways for the US to encourage that is simple moral support. With a bit of more material covert support on the side, I hope. As for Iraq, the most important thing Bush said was this:

Recently an Iraqi interpreter said to a reporter, "Tell America not to abandon us." He and all Iraqis can be certain: While our military strategy is adapting to circumstances, our commitment remains firm and unchanging. We are standing for the freedom of our Iraqi friends, and freedom in Iraq will make America safer for generations to come. We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq, because that would embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out. We are in Iraq to achieve a result: A country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself. And when that result is achieved, our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with the honor they have earned.

Exactly. In other words, we don't have an exit strategy because we don't need an exit strategy. We intend to win. US forces in Iraq will begin to decrease in the next few years, but I suspect we'll have bases there for a while yet, maybe even decades. The Middle East is where we need to be, and with Iran and Syria the major threats in that region, having bases in Iraq makes a lot of sense. The terrorist threat won't go away entirely for decades, even with regime change in Syria and Iran.

It was a very good speech.

Jonah Goldberg is beating on those liberals who are beating on a dead parrot:

The year is 2456. The human colonies on Mars have been invaded by giant, laser-visioned tree sloths bent on crushing humanity and forcing the survivors to work as slaves in the massive dung mines of the planet Slothnor. In a last-ditch effort to save our species from extinction, the brave humans launch a counterattack on the Sloths' home world. Le New York Times (headquartered in Paris since 2018) blares in a bold holo-headline "Disturbing Echoes of Vietnam Conjured by Earth Aggression."

O.K., I'm kidding. It would probably take a few weeks before the Times actually invoked Vietnam. Perhaps they'd wait until we got bogged down in the actual marshes of Slothnor to start bleating about "quagmire." Who knows?

All I can say for certain is that I am no longer capable of being shocked by the Left's and the mainstream media's capacity to shove pegs of any shape into the round hole of Vietnam. A recent New York Times headline blared, "Flashback to the '60s: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam." A cursory search of the Nexis-Lexis database shows that the words Iraq and Vietnam have appeared together nearly 800 articles in the last year — and that's just in the New York Times. The Washington Post: 764. The LA Times: 683. The Chicago Tribune: 526. Time magazine, a weekly publication, ran more articles mentioning Vietnam and Iraq (70) than it put out issues in the last year, and that doesn't even include letters to the editor.

To Liberals, every war is Vietnam. I'm hoping, desperately, that once all the Vietnam-era liberals die out that that will no longer be the case, but I'm not betting on it.

Scrappleface is conservative political satire, and it's very, very funny. I was checking out the article on the GI Joe doll's rescue by the President Bush doll, when I noticed the next article, "Dean Likely DNC Chief, Rove Denies Involvement":

As the news broke, White House political advisor Karl Rove released a statement denying any role in Mr. Dean's election as DNC chairman.
...
Asked to explain how the opposing party could rationally choose a man who dropped out of the White House race after one of the earliest primaries, Mr. Rove said, "It's not like they have a slate of winners from which to choose. Dean's probably the best candidate and he may do a good job if he can overcome his name recognition."

The DNC chairman is primarily responsible for transferring millions of dollars from wealthy Democrats and labor unions, to advertising agencies, political consultants and delicatessens. The chairman also does frequent media interviews explaining why Americans overwhelmingly support the ideology of candidates who lose elections.

These days, the satire practically writes itself.

Now this is an intriguing story, first brought to my attention by La Shawn Barber:

A Web site's claim that a U.S. soldier was being held hostage in Iraq is probably a hoax, senior Pentagon officials told FOX News on Tuesday.

The claim, posted on an Arabic Web site frequented by militants, was first cast into doubt when a military spokesman in Baghdad said the kidnapping claim and photo could not be verified, and that "no units have reported anyone missing."

Then later, a toy manufacturer said the figure in the photo resembled one of its military action figures, dubbed "GI Cody."

It is feasible the claim was posted in Iraq, since "Cody" is sold at U.S. bases in Kuwait.

Pentagon officials, who launched an investigation when the abduction claim came to light, believe the image of a hostage on the Web site is actually little "Cody."

The posting included a threat to kill the purported soldier if Iraqi prisoners were not released.

"God willing, we will behead him if our female and male prisoners are not released from U.S. prisons within the maximum period of 72 hours from the time this statement has been released," said the statement, signed by the "Mujahedeen Brigades", a group that has claimed previous kidnappings.

See, these are the sort of stories I miss when I'm at work! I was blissfully unaware of the whole thing while the blogosphere was having a field day. Anyway, if the terrorists are reduced to this, then they've gone beyond pathetic.

On his other blog, Glenn Reynolds wonders why the Democrats aren't claiming credit on Iraq:

And it occurred to me that the "root cause" crowd ought to be celebrating along with them. After all, we've heard for decades that Arab terrorism resulted from Arab despotism, and that if we wanted to end terrorism we ought to quit supporting Arab despots and work for democracy. But it was all talk until one brave man in the White House stood up for Iraqi freedom.

That man was Bill Clinton, who signed the Iraq Liberation Act back in 1998. That Act called for "regime change," and the replacement of Saddam with a democratically elected government. And that's what we're about to get! Nor was Clinton alone.
...
What's hard to understand is why so many Democrats -- including big-name Democrats like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry -- have taken such a different stance today. Kennedy declared the war lost and the elections a failure just last week. Kerry was churlish and negative on Meet the Press yesterday. Mickey Kaus blames the Internet for this attitude, and there may be something to that. Jim Geraghty thinks it's the 2008 primaries already. But I don't think either of these explanations hits the mark.

I think it's jealousy. Bush-hatred has become all-consuming among a large section of the Democratic Party, and they can't stand the thought of anything that reflects well on him, even if it's good for the country, and if it's something that was their idea originally.

The question is whether the Democratic Party -- which ought to be cheering events that vindicate Clinton's policies -- will do itself fatal damage by giving in to envy. Such small-mindedness doesn't suggest a party that's ready to govern.

Glenn's a smart fellow, and to be honest, sometimes I think his MSNBC blog is better than Instapundit. It was the first blog I ever read, before I had even heard the term blog. And in it, we get to see Glenn as a thinker, while on Instapundit, he's a linker.