Chait calls Paul Ryan "a sort of mini-Reagan figure, frequently cited as credibility by others and never attacked."
I continue to think that the prospects of Ryan running are higher than most estimate, and that he would almost instantly attain front-runner status.
A reader writes:
I was watching Bill Maher continue to make fun of Anthony Weiner on "Real Time" last Friday, and his "new rules" were essentially poking fun at people who do cybersex or phone sex. Pathetic? Maybe. Easy targets for comedians? No doubt. But Maher went on to say how much he preferred having a real person to have sex with, to which I had two immediate responses: one, "duh", and two: "You know, asshole, not all of us are wealthy celebrities who can have sex pretty much on demand."
I'm 49, short, overweight, and while I'm not necessarily ugly, I'm far from drop-dead gorgeous. Worse, I'm broke, which you may be aware will overcome nearly every physical or emotional shortcoming. My wife, whom I loved more than anything else, died five years ago, and we shared a wonderful and passionate sex life. Now, I'm often depressed and always lonely, and I'm not a social person.
The obstacles to me having any kind of physical relationship with someone are nearly insurmountable. Even under the best of circumstances, it takes a lot of time and effort. So when I get horny, as I still do, being human, I'm pretty much shit out of luck. (And before you say it, no: even if I could afford one, I'm not going to seek out a hooker. Last thing I need is to get arrested.)
The online society is the best way I have of reaching out to people. In chat rooms my personality shows up much more positively than it would out in public, where I'm self-conscious and feel intimidated by stronger personalities. Sometimes I get to talk to someone on the phone or via Skype, but even that's pretty rare, as many people guard their identities pretty strongly. Me, I try to be the same person online than I am in person, or would be if I was as comfortable in a crowd as I am in the chatroom.
Would I prefer to have someone who I could fuck and get a blowjob from once in a while? Sure I would. Do I feel ashamed that I go online to look for people rather than go out and meet them face-to-face? Sometimes. But regardless of what Weiner did, I don't feel like I should be ridiculed for what I do.
Photographer Donald Weber captures confessions in a Ukranian interrogation room:
A range of people were brought in—alleged prostitutes, drug dealers, rapists, and thieves—some cool and collected veterans, others cowering in fear. Weber raised his camera when he sensed that the moment he was there to capture was imminent—when the suspects realized they would admit they were guilty, whether they actually were or not. Every one of them eventually did.
Mike Murphy suspects that last night's debate damaged Pawlenty's fundraising operation:
Right now there is a fierce underground battle being waged over high dollar campaign donors. If you can’t raise money now, before the voters care, you will not have the resources you need to communicate with them when they do tune in. … For lesser known candidates like Tim Pawlenty this can create a cruel feedback loop; you need money to buy your way up in the polls, yet without good poll numbers it is very hard to raise money. Early debates are important because if you get good media reviews, you can aggressively peddle those to old and new donors to raise money.
Bruce Bartlett encourages a "serious rethinking" on US military spending:
An examination of the latest NATO data shows that in 2010, the United States spent 5.4 percent of its gross domestic product on its military — twice as much as spent by Britain and three to four times as much as most of our NATO allies … A crucial reason for this gap is that the United States spends almost as much today as it did during the Cold War. Every other NATO country spends substantially less.
Somewhere, Eisenhower feels sadly vindicated.
Joe McGinniss has an entire chapter on the Trig controversy in his upcoming book, "The Rogue." It will be fascinating to see if the MSM can maintain their radio silence on the issue given the prominence of the book. In it, McGinniss's position is basically mine:
I’ve declared myself as “trignostic,” meaning I am skeptical about Sarah’s story of her pregnancy with Trig and his birth, but I am not yet certain that it could not be true.
I think that's the fairest assessment of the facts we now have. But McGinniss, in reacting to the humdrum emails Palin is receiving and sending while in labor with a child she is, in her own words, "overwhelmed" with "desperation" about, and noting her weird prescience that her pregnancy would be rushed along by God to appease Piper's impatience for a new sibling, has now shifted a little. Money quote:
I’m still not convinced (i.e. persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt), but recent close readings of the newly-released Palin emails by Jesse Griffin at Immoral Minority and Andrew Sullivan at Daily Dish bring me closer to concluding that Sarah’s tale is an absolute and utter fraud and that Trig, in fact, was not her baby.
Blodget also agrees that the new circumstantial evidence makes clearing this up even more important. And that remains my position. The medical records Palin has in her possession can more than dispense with this question. It's never too late or too early to release them.
Andrew Exum is worried about the resilience of Afghanistan's economy:
Gunner "Kalev" Sepp told me a few weeks ago that when the United States ended the roughly $8.5 million we had been giving El Salvador in the 1980s during their civil war, the unemployment rate there sky-rocketed to over 50%. (!) What is going to happen when we start cutting aid to Afghanistan's similarly conflict-distorted economy, which I and others have been urging we do for some time?
TDW features an innovative fellow:
"Fredrik “FreddeGredde” Larsson (of Epic TV Theme Medley and Epic Simpsons Medley fame) and his seven clones perform an epic cover of Queen’s “Killer Queen."
Obama is deploying drones over Yemen. Kevin Drum asks "what theory of military action allows President Obama to do this without congressional approval":
In practice, the theory seems to be that unmanned drones are somehow not as real as actual manned fighter jets. After all, does anyone seriously believe that Obama could send sortie after sortie of F-22s over Yemen and not have anyone complain about it? I doubt it. But as long as they're just drones, no problem. Given the inevitable growth of robotic warfare in both the near and long term, this doesn't bode well for the future.
Put drones in the hands of an executive who is empowered to do anything without any input from the other branches of government … and we have a problem indeed.
A reader writes:
I don't know what to make of excusing Weiner for "just" texting while male. I'm a straight male with a very healthy sexual drive, and much of what your last reader wrote (regarding the gap between male and female understanding of the male sex drive) rings true. And yet I just can't agree that that has anything to do with Weiner. Most of us have sexual urges, even strong ones. But just as your reader suppresses his urge to be open about his sexual life to his therapist because he thinks it will be judged inappropriate, so most of us adults suppress the urge to act on every impulse. To say that Weiner texted because he is a male with a sex drive is only half the story. He texted because he is a male with a sex drive who also was incapable of restraining himself from doing something that he knew would be judged wrong and inappropriate.
Another:
Are men helpless against their sexual urges, i.e. repeatedly tweeting body parts to various constituents knowing (1) that nothing on the Internet is private; (2) the political media is voracious; (3) the Republican party is vicious; and, lastly (4) you have a gorgeous pregnant wife at home? Oh, and btw, he was tweeting non-sexual messages to one constituent and sent a picture of his crotch to her as a "joke." Congressman Weiner has made one of the most idiotic political mistakes imaginable, yet he's a victim of "American puritanism"? Okay.
Another:
Really? How about "texting while a male adolescent." Or, "texting while a male idiot who has forgotten he holds office." I think you are raining calumny on adult men with even average-sized superegos who understand basically that 1) women don't actually get turned on by this sort of thing; 2) wives will always find out; 3) holding public office means you have to behave a little better than most because you are being watched more closely than most; 4) there are still a lot of puritans out there and they vote.
Reckless. Narcissistic in the extreme. Both of which make him unfit for office IMHO. If he is this dumb about how his behavior looks, what else is he dumb about?
My updated thoughts here.
The Dish 