Author: Andrew Sullivan

David Frum preaches compromise:

Much of government is an exercise in choosing the least bad option. A movement that demands everything and punishes any politician who strikes a bargain that is better than the status quo but less than libertarian perfection – well, we’ll have our chance to see how much that movement achieves.

The Wyden-Bennett health plan that wrecked the career of Senator Bob Bennett would have been better from a conservative point of view than Obamacare.

TARP and the rescue of the banking system are better from a conservative point of view than a new Great Depression that would have involved a decade of massive government support of the private economy.

Some form of consumption or energy tax will be better from a conservative point of view than what we are on our way to getting instead: the lapse of the Bush tax cuts on saving, work and investment – and new payroll taxes to fund Social Security and Medicare.

People are responsible not only for their actions, but for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their actions.

And this engagement with the real world, with people who disagree with you, with reality, and not ideology, is temperamentally and dispositionally conservative as well. I think some of us were blinded by the radicalism of Reagan and Thatcher. But both inherited economies far more regulated than ours, far more highly taxed than anything Obama is suggesting, and in Thatcher's case, a country where the state owned vast amounts of industry. They were responding to the conditions of their time. Thatcher didn't need to compromise much because of a divided opposition; but Reagan dealt with the Democrats and would today, by raising taxes be seen as outside "acceptable bounds of Republican thought."

Conservatism if it becomes an ideology will suffer the fate of all ideologies. But if it becomes a fixed ideology – or, even worse, an unchangeable theology (as it has in America) – it has already abolished itself.

A reader writes:

Being a single twentysomething woman with sleep apnea sucks.

I'm overweight, so there's that, but then when I'm wearing my mask, I feel unladylike and mechanical. Not that I've ever been dainty and sweet and serene while sleeping, but that machine makes it look much worse. I tell myself that snoring isn't exactly attractive, but I'm nervous to even meet somebody. I wonder if anybody will wake me up with a smile and a kiss ever again.

It took me two years after diagnosis to scrape up the cash and the willingness to try a CPAP. When I was diagnosed, an old boyfriend – he of the morning kisses and smiles – and I were talking about getting back together. He warned me that he thought the CPAP wasn't "sexy." He was confused as to why I needed it because he had never noticed me snoring. I was too embarrassed to tell him that I never slept at all when I "slept" over. I was afraid I would bother him while snoring or that my difficulty waking up in the morning would annoy him. Mostly I would lie very still and let myself doze a little but never sleep.

That was college. I wouldn't do that now, but I'm still sensitive to the un-sexiness of the CPAP. A few weeks ago, I told a possible romantic partner about the machine and he said, "You don't wear it during sex, right? If you don't, I guess it will be alright."

Another writes:

Like you, my partner was clueless that he would cease breathing while asleep and couldn't figure out why he was perpetually tired. I had noticed that he would stop breathing during the night, although I didn't think it was complete cessation. I also didn't say anything to him about it for some time, because all it took was a gentle nudge and he would resume breathing. After a few years, it became more difficult to rouse him from apneic cessation and we both began to suffer from sleep deprivation. He from the apnea, and I from conditioning. His long periods without breathing trained me to sleep so lightly that I would jolt fully awake within seconds of an apneic cessation. At this point a gentle nudge, nay, even a violent nudge had no effect. Many nights it would take me straddling him, shaking him by the shoulders and shouting his name to get him to resume breathing.

After months of this, I did some research, told him I thought he was suffering from sleep apnea and begged him to see his doctor. Fortunately, he listened. The doctor prescribed a CPAP machine, which he wore for several months. To our dismay, the apnea continued even with the machine. I can't even begin to describe the sheer panic of thinking he had died when he would stop breathing while wearing the mask.

After several episodes of his awakening to the bedroom lights on, and me yanking the mask off of his face while desperately shouting his name, he saw his doctor once again. This time the doctor scheduled him for a sleep study – the results of which were not good. He stopped breathing 24 times in a period of only two hours.

Considering the results, the doctor recommended surgery, which my partner agreed to. It was rather invasive; they removed his tonsils, his uvula, some of the soft palate at the back of his throat, and much of his adenoid sinus tissue. The recovery was painful and lengthy, but to this day he neither snores nor ceases breathing. The surgery was a last-resort measure – a decision neither of us took lightly. However, the alternative was was not something either of us wanted to take a chance on.

If the machine works for you, keep using it. If it stops being effective, please talk to your doctor.

(Photo by Flickrite Vicky TGAW)

Charlie Cook looks beyond 2010:

The bigger the wave [this year], the weaker the class and the harder it will be to hold onto those seats. Democrats only have to look at their 2006 and 2008 classes for plenty of examples. What this means is that we will likely have our third wave election in a row this year, and the bigger this one is, the more likely that there will be a countervailing wave in either 2012 or 2014.

 (Photo: David McNew/Getty.)

Today on the Dish, Andrew commended Dafna Linzer's reporting on the blurred lines between classification and deception, and juxtaposed Rick Hertzberg's left with his right. Andrew called the Tea Party on their executive power hypocrisy, and a reader felt jettisoned by them in general. Andrew weighed in on Rand Paul's "anti-Christian" satirical brotherhood, O'Donnell didn't know her First Amendment, and the internet (and reader) moshpits went at it over Andrew's definition of "successful."

Will Wilkinson thought Obama might be sacrificing young voters on DADT and the drug war, but Scott Morgan disagreed. Chris Good inquired about commercial cannabis sales, California's major newspapers wimped out over Prop 19, and we looked at 46 tons of burning bud. Justin Logan challenged the Defending Defense people to a debate, early voting was under-developed, and Bush II wasn't ambitious enough. Carly Fiorina had a magical budget plan, we learned journalists can smear some groups and barely apologize, and Palin may have already peaked. 

Most of Americans' friends existed on television, and Adam Ozimek foresaw a future of computers connected to our brains. Homer and Bart were officially Catholics, and Limbaugh was officially a parody of himself. The Rent Is Too Damn High Party would let you marry a shoe, and The Social Network nailed every t-shirt Zuckerberg ever owned. Belgrade had a curious cure for homosexuality, and readers updated GLBT to the new and yummier sounding BLT. The jart touched many lives, humans played with bikes, the media made miners better men, and we compensated teachers in a crazy way. Pirates were winning, police didn't always appreciate whistleblowers, Sarah Palin hates puppies, and C-SPAN had a lovers' spat.

Quotes for the day here, here, and here. Yglesias award here, more responses to your CPAPs here, FOTD here, MHB here, VFYW here, and VFYW contest #20 winner here.

–Z.P.

A reader writes:

There is a contrast between Republicans at the state level – who actually have to govern under balanced budget requirements – and Republicans at the federal level, who don’t.  Because of this fact, I still believe there is hope for the Republican party. Here is how Mitch Daniels must attack Grover Norquist and others of his ilk if he is to survive a primary season:

1. Call out Grover Norquist as a phony, sunshine conservative.  Being a true conservative means advocating spending cuts.  Grover Norquist does not challenge Republicans to take any pledges for making spending cuts to match his desired tax rates.  Label him as an irresponsible phony.

2. Taxes are not beyond the pale if they are part of a negotiation with Democrats that lead to permanent cuts in entitlement spending.  Spending cuts are precondition to tax increases.

If Mitch Daniels can put together a stump speech like that and take the stance of an aggressor, then he has a chance.

Another writes:

I grew up in Indianapolis and was close with Mitch’s daughter.  We lost touch a few years ago when I moved away, but I knew him well in my high school and college years (late ’90s through 2004). 

As I was coming in to my left-of-center worldview, he was always willing and excited to engage in political and philosophical conversations.  My liberalism was probably based in a certain amount of naivete in those days, but Mitch was eager to hear to what I had to say.  He never condescended.  He listened, considered, and challenged on an intellectual level.  I knew then that he was smarter than me, but he never made me feel so. In fact, I always sensed that he wanted to learn from me, too.  He was a person unattached to his own ego and self-interests and he possessed an utter disdain for demagoguery.  Rather, his passion was for trying to understand the best way to do “what’s right.”  He often spoke of things that “make sense for all of us.” 

I fear that the Rush/Palin/Kristol/Grover machine can’t be beaten, but count me as a liberal hoping that Mitch runs for president.  Despite our history, I’m not certain I’d vote for him over Obama.  Regardless of who won, though, I suspect a campaign between those two would bring about real progress.  Imagine, an election that moves us forward.

I hope you’ll keep beating the drum.

We will. Because the Dish wants a sane conservatism to emerge from the ashes.

Matt Welch needles the California press for opposing Prop 19:

[T]he largest California daily to support Prop. 19 is no longer the Santa Barbara News-Press, but the 32nd-ranked Victorville Daily Press, which is part of the Register family. Interesting, though hardly surprising, that the two newspaper companies most sneered at by your average California journalist are also the only ones with the guts and basic human decency to back the most significant challenge to the Drug War in more than three decades.

Above, former Clinton administration U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders does what the editorial boards won't.

Not just the seething resentment of elites – strategy as well. Weigel handicaps the 35 Palin-endorsed candidates currently running for office:

When smart pundits make the case that Sarah Palin can win at the national level, they compare her 2010 political efforts to the efforts of Richard Nixon in 1966. That year, Nixon endorsed dozens of House and Senate candidates, some of them fighting to take back seats lost in the LBJ landslide two years earlier. The vast majority of them won, and so Nixon's prospects rebounded for 1968.

Palin's best-case scenario:

Some of Palin's endorsees are almost guaranteed to win, like Iowa's Terry Branstad, Oklahoma's Mary Fallin, and South Carolina's Tim Scott. Some of them are fighting tough races but were backed by the establishment before Palin got in, like California's Carly Fiorina. She can take credit for those wins, and the press will give it to her, but she'll really prosper if a half-dozen or so of the endorsees score upsets. If there are big wins by under-funded House candidates like Ray McKinney in Georgia, Ruth McClung in Arizona, and Morgan Philpot in Utah, credit will be paid to Palin for giving them free attention and branding.

The other obvious Nixon parallel is Fred Malek.

"I was eager to travel with [Palin] and interview her when she first got appointed by McCain. I think she's a fascinating figure in the history of politics. But I was immediately barred from their campaign planes by the same McCain aides Palin later 'escaped' from," – Maureen Dowd, responding to Palin's suggestion that Dowd should have met her before criticizing her in a recent column.

Scott Morgan believes that "the Obama Administration does everything it can to avoid aggressive anti-pot posturing":

Holder's actions don't exactly amount to the deliberate attack on Prop 19 that they've been made out to be. If he wanted to throw cold water on legalization efforts in California, he would have done so in dramatic fashion months ago, instead of waiting until his conspicuous silence began driving the drug warriors mad. After all, when Holder announced that he would respect state medical marijuana laws, he leaked the story on a Sunday night, kicking off a week-long news cycle of universally positive coverage and delighting a key segment of Obama's base. They know what they're doing.

“Good morning, Anita Hill, it's Ginny Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day,” – Virginia Thomas, wife of Clarence, in a voicemail message this weekend. Yes, this weekend.