Author: Andrew Sullivan

Today on the Dish, Andrew presented his first-year evaluation of Obama. Readers responded here and here. John Cole reviewed the president's record of promises while Steve Lombardo and Andrew analyzed his approval rating.

Sully also tackled Robbie George over natural law and responded to a reader's dissent on Gore. Sprung fisked Jane Hamsher on healthcare and worried about the future. Megan called out Harry Reid. Beck set off the red hathos alert while others on the paranoid right continued to retreat to the fifties. And their fearless leader tweeted some more on death panels.

The Dish revisited Jim Manzi's important piece in National Affairs and ran more commentary on gays in comics. More depressing Christmas songs from Roy Orbison and Dr. Elmo. Another VFYR update here. Ten more MHBs of the year here. And a spectacular viral skit here.

— C.B.

(Today's Wrap brought to you from the Chicago O'Hare Airport. Ugh.)

And a merry Christmas to all you geeks and hippies out there (you know who you are):

Great catch by Jim Warren:

When the dinner was over, "I don't think I'm dying. I go to sit down and nobody's meeting my eye. Only [the late journalist-turned-White House spokesman] Tony Snow comes over and says I'm doing a great job." Then Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came his way and told him he was brilliant.

"I said, oh, s-, don't let me like Antonin Scalia!"

Wondering what exit he should use, Colbert recalls being approached by actor Harry Lennix, whom he knew from their days at Northwestern University. Colbert indicated that he sensed some of the audience wasn't happy. "And he [Lennix] said, 'f- these people."

Indeed.

Dave Weigel makes a point the Dish has been banging on about for a year and a half now:

The problem is that Palin has put the political press in a submissive position, one in which the only information it prints about her comes from prepared statements or from Q&As with friendly interviewers. This isn’t something most politicians get away with, or would be allowed to get away with. But Palin has leveraged her celebrity — her ability to get ratings, the ardor of her fans and the bitterness of her critics — to win a truly unique relationship with the press. She is allowed to shape the public debate without actually engaging in it.

To be fair to Palin, she had every right to try and get away with this. But she couldn't have if the press had truly resisted together. They could have all refused to do one-on-one interviews until she gave a live, long, no-holds-barred press conference, answering any question asked. But they didn't. They each wanted their ratings-winning "get" more than they wanted to expose this person's ineptitude and cluelessness for the good of the country.

They've also lost their nerve, fearing that aggressive, adult but civil questioning of Palin would get them tarred elitist or condescending or all the other class warfare memes the GOP is now so adept at deploying. And so this farce of a candidate continues to plague us.

But, yes, Dave, it probably doesn't help to cite her Facebook nonsense. I just feel a responsibility to keep tabs on the lunacy, and have done since it began.

A reader submits Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Paper.” It centers on a homeless man:

Jim Cornette lets it rip against those, on both sides, who have resisted the opportunity to extend insurance to so many who don't have it or can't afford to get it. It's a TNC classic.

Someone needs to sign these guys:

(Hat tip: TDW)

A reader writes:

I agree that Obama has a chance to reorient American politics the way Reagan did, but I think he first needs to explain to the American public a comprehensive political philosophy.

Like Reagan, Obama ran against a political philosophy that was weakened by current events (2008 meltdown was to laissez-faire economics/deregulation as Stagflation was to Big Government liberalism). Reagan explained that government wasn't always the answer, and was often part of the problem. His subsequent tax and regulatory policies were consistent with his stated philosophy.

Obama's philosophy could be called "pragmatism," but the problem is that while pragmatism might reorient how things get done in Washington, it won't reorient the country's political philosophy because it won't connect with the public.

Voters knew where Reagan would come out on an issue, even if they disagreed with him. If voters ask themselves what Obama will do to address a problem, and the answer is "Whatever government programs/regulations he can get thru Congress," they will both disagree with him (he'll "betray" liberals and anger conservatives) and have no sense of what compromises he will make on subsequent issues.

In an age where government actions is needed, Obama needs to have a simple hook with voters to explain his philosophy, something along the lines of "Not big or small government, but effective governance." Following a period where regulators didn't regulate, because "the market" was never wrong, the public clearly believes that the markets aren't always right, but that government isn't much better.

If Obama can explain his philosophy as a shift from "markets vs. government" to "how to best utilize markets to create opportunity for the general public" has a chance to truly reorient the political landscape.

CPAC will be co-sponsored this year by … drum-roll: The John Birch Society! I think it's a prefect match for today's conservatism: paranoid, angry, convinced of a Jihadist-Communist plot, and deeply deeply populist and, er, white. Genius.