Author: Andrew Sullivan

Gallup reminds Washington's journalist class of the bleeding obvious:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the best known and most positively rated of five possible contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Her 76% favorable rating among Republicans is higher than those for Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Bobby Jindal… Palin has the strongest name identification and positives among Republicans at this juncture. Only 4% say they don't know enough about her to have an opinion, and, by more than 3-to-1, those opinions are positive rather than negative.

It's her party now.

Virgina Postrel, picking up one of her old hobby-horses, compares feeling and being glamorous:

Real glamour requires a receptive audience. You can only be glamorous if others perceive you that way. Feeling glamorous, on the other hand, means that your mental picture of yourself is one that you would find glamorous. You become the audience for your own glamour, creating a image of yourself that veils your flaws. Defying the ultimate intimacy, you somehow manage to turn yourself into an alluring Other. As for actual others, they may see something different.

Two small points in response to a couple of guest-posts. First, I heartily endorse David's suggestion for a one-sentence summary of where conservatism should now be headed:

A reality-based, culturally modern, socially inclusive and environmentally responsible politics that supports free markets, limited government and a peaceful American-led world order.

My only quibble is somewhat with the last phrase. A "peaceful American-led world order" should not be interpreted as a policy of constant war in pursuit of an unattainable peace imposed unilaterally by a paranoid hegemon. That's what the last ten years have taught me. American global power should be calibrated to the relative strengths of other powers (right now, it seems to me to be almost absurdly over-developed) and to America's economic resources. I believe that will require a severe downsizing in the near-future, and that this will be a critical faultline between Obama's realism and the return of an utterly unreconstructed Bush-Cheney foreign policy under a president Palin or Romney.

And insisting on total US hegemony (with its comcomitant delusions) while barring the natural rise of other great powers with zones of regional influence is a recipe for more conflict – not less. In my view, there should be no project for a new American century, just a pragmatic attempt to defend America's interests within sustainable resources. I think Obama has done a good job of dialing back Bush's massive and unsustainable polarization and over-reach. But I think future GOP nominee Palin could reverse all this in an instant – and will, if she continues to ride her mendacious media-enabled ride to the White House.

And last week seemed to me to confirm that she is deadly serious, that the media is too afraid to tackle her, and that the last real way to get at the truth about her has been effectively silenced and bribed.

Yes, Levi, you caved.

And wasn't it staggering that much of the MSM simply reiterated the Palin line without any scrutiny whatever? Actually, not staggering. Utterly predictable. Take it away, Mark Halperin:

This week Johnston and Palin's daughter Bristol reannounced their engagement after months of estrangement, removing — with apparent serendipity — a blemish from her wholesome narrative.

"Apparent serendipity." The words of a weasel, not a journalist. At least the NYT managed this critical quote:

Michelle Church, who was active in local politics with Sarah Palin, said of the young pair: “They both learned from the best on how to be an opportunist. Everything’s a farce with this family.”

How much money did Jann Wenner pay them for this piece of Palin propaganda? Don't expect the "press" to find out.

More here. Money quote from LGF:

It should be pointed out (again) that the “Ground Zero mosque” these idiots are ranting about is actually a proposed community center with an auditorium, swimming pool, and restaurants, in addition to a mosque. It would be housed in an existing 13-story building that’s two blocks away from Ground Zero and has no view of the area; there are two very big buildings in between the proposed community center and Ground Zero. Here is an embedded Google Map in which you can clearly see that the idea of this being a “Ground Zero mosque” is a ridiculous paranoid fantasy.

This kind of deception really needs to be refudiated.

Chris Blattman worries:

The 1960s were a decade of hope for Africa. The 1970s were a decade of coups. The 1980s a decade of financial collapse. The 1990s a decade of civil war. The last ten years, hope has come back. Peace and prosperity are returning, and one easily envisions, twenty years from now, a host of nations with four times their current wealth.

Unfortunately, I fear the next decade could be remembered as the one derailed by the drug trade. West Africa is Europe’s foyer to South America’s drug trade.

The Economist provides a map.

The latest date for possible withdrawal from Afghanistan is leaked in Britain – with a caveat that troops will remain to train Afghan forces thereafter.

The periodic table of swearing.

Catching up on news from last week, here's Niall Stanage's criticism of Obama's new HIV/AIDS strategy:

[Obama] drastically downplayed the importance of race, referring to it not at all in his introductory statement to the strategy, and giving it only the briefest of mentions in his White House remarks.

This evasion verges on the indefensible. To speak of the HIV/AIDS crisis and not give due emphasis to the vast racial disparities that characterize it is absurd. African-Americans number around half the people currently living with HIV or AIDS in the U.S., despite representing only about 13 percent of the total population. Almost 40 percent of those who have died from AIDS in the U.S. have been black. The rate of AIDS diagnoses is approximately ten times higher among blacks than among Caucasians. A black man in the U.S. has a one in 16 chance of becoming HIV positive in his lifetime, compared to a one in 104 chance for his white compatriot. For women, the figures are even more shocking: one in 30 for a black woman compared to one in 588 for a white woman.

It was a lovely break, beautiful weather, a town full of hairy bearded men … and I came down with a bout of bronchitis. It always happens when I take a break from a long period of intense work: I get sick. My lungs are pretty useless and in this heat and with mold spores and pollen everywhere and my asthma kicking in … it was inevitable. Still, I did get some time to hang with a couple of great friends and managed a bike ride and a trip to the beach (all of which I probably shouldn't have done). My little garden – which was an overgrown jungle a month ago is slowly yielding to my labors. No one taught me the simple therapeutic joys of gardening. There's no going back now.

A mountain of thanks to David Frum and Dave Weigel who revealed why they are such stars of the Internet. I was amused at the blowback they got from even agreeing to blog in this space. Apparently, my views on Israel make me anathema to many (it seems no one can just disagree, they have to ostracize), and my determination to get some basic information from a public figure about a highly contentious episode in her life also renders me beyond the pale for many. I'll deal with Dave's Trig stuff tomorrow.

But for now, more thanks to Chris and Patrick who are the backbone of this site. As for me, it's great to be back, even though the lungs are still wheezing and the bears have all disappeared into that great, pudgy hairy expanse called America. But the beat goes on … 

See you tomorrow morning.