The Dish

The Guardian breaks with its past and endorses Clegg's party. The main reason: electoral reform:

Proportional representation – while not a panacea – would at last give this country what it has lacked for so long: a parliament that is a true mirror of this pluralist nation, not an increasingly unrepresentative

two-party distortion of it. 

The Guardian has supported proportional representation for more than a century. In all that time there has never been a better opportunity than now to put this subject firmly among the nation's priorities. Only the Liberal Democrats grasp this fully, and only they can be trusted to keep up the pressure to deliver, though others in all parties, large and small, do and should support the cause. That has been true in past elections too, of course. But this time is different. The conjuncture in 2010 of a Labour party that has lost so much public confidence and a Conservative party that has not yet won it has enabled Mr Clegg to take his party close to the threshold of real influence for the first time in nearly 90 years.

This time – with the important caveat set out below – the more people who vote Liberal Democrat on 6 May, the greater the chance that this will be Britain's last general election under a first-past-the-post electoral system which is wholly unsuited to the political needs of a grown-up 21st-century democracy…

Surveying the wider agenda and the experience of the past decade, however, there is little doubt that in many areas of policy and tone, the Liberal Democrats have for some time most closely matched our own priorities and instincts. On political and constitutional change, they articulate and represent the change which is now so widely wanted. On civil liberty and criminal justice, they have remained true to liberal values and human rights in ways that the other parties, Labour more than the Tories in some respects, have not. They are less tied to reactionary and sectional class interests than either of the other parties.

The Liberal Democrats were green before the other parties and remain so. Their commitment to education is bred in the bone. So is their comfort with a European project which, for all its flaws, remains central to this country's destiny. They are willing to contemplate a British defence policy without Trident renewal. They were right about Iraq, the biggest foreign policy judgment call of the past half-century, when Labour and the Tories were both catastrophically and stupidly wrong. They have resisted the rush to the overmighty centralised state when others have not. At key moments, when tough issues of press freedom have been at stake, they have been the first to rally in support. Above all, they believe in and stand for full, not semi-skimmed, electoral reform. And they have had a revelatory campaign. Trapped in the arid, name-calling two-party politics of the House of Commons, Nick Clegg has seldom had the chance to shine. Released into the daylight of equal debate, he has given the other two parties the fright of their lives.

A newspaper that is proudly rooted in the liberal as well as the labour tradition – and whose advocacy of constitutional reform stretches back to the debates of 1831-32 – cannot ignore such a record. If not now, when? The answer is clear and proud. Now.

Abbas Milani takes stock of all the behind-the-scenes progress and planning within the Green Movement in Iran.

McArdle says I'm wrong about the auto bailout. I think the context of a spiraling depression scenario justified it – and am relieved that the results seem far better than I'd expected.

Tom Schaller sprinkles grains of salt on Gallup's latest poll. I think he's a little too sanguine myself.

Butters sounds like Nick Clegg:

You say, let’s do border security this year. The problem is the Hispanic community sees this as a slight. And I’m sympathetic to that thinking. Border security has been used in the past as an excuse for not doing comprehensive immigration reform. My advice is that securing the border now gives a guy like me who wants to get to comprehensive reform the credibility to get there. But if you bring up immigration in this climate, you’ll divide the country further. You’ll get a huge vote for border security and interior enforcement, but when it comes to pathway to citizenship, you’ll break down big-time. That’s where the politics get hard, when you realize we’ve got 12 million people who can’t just be deported and we need to give them a reasonable way to stay here.

E.D. Kain agrees.

You want to cover her speech to a pro-life group? You gotta contribute:

Restrictions: Heroic Media will try to prohibit video and audio recordings of Palin’s appearance, and news organizations wishing to cover her speech must buy a ticket, the proceeds of which will go to Heroic Media.

The pattern of avoiding the press – enabled by the press – continues:

Denying media access has become Palin’s standard operating procedure. After the debacle that was her interview with CBS’ Katie Couric during the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin made sure she wouldn’t step into any embarrassing interviews — often demanding that reporters submit their questions “ahead of time” to guarantee a one-on-one. And as a private citizen, the former Alaska governor requires that any questions asked at her speaking engagements be pre-screened. Just last week at an event in Eugene, OR, media were “not…allowed to ask her questions and take still pictures… [or] videotape or record it in anyway.”

Carlos Santoscoy highlights one section of Reid's immigration proposal:

The measure would allow gay Americans to sponsor an immigrant partner for citizenship.

“Today's inclusive framework is an historic step forward for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender binational families,” Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a group that lobbies on behalf of binational gay and lesbian couples, said in a statement.

It is a huge deal for gay and lesbian rights. And it's a testimony to the great work of Immigration Equality (on whose board I sit). Thanks to Senator Schumer as well. No other major Western democracy treats gay couples as strangers to one another in immigration the way the US does. If Aaron and I were to move to Britain our relationship alone would give him "permanent leave to remain" in the lovely phrase of Britain's immigration services. Here? We have been warned not to travel together in entering America. A stable relationship with an American citizen will make you more likely to be subjected to scrutiny from border guards.

If you care about this, please get involved. Immigration Equality's website is here. We need your help and support and money.

Jonah Weiner lauds episodes 200 and 201:

The last time South Park took on the depiction-of-Mohammed issue, in 2006, it did so with a far heavier hand: In one subplot, Americans afraid of violent al-Qaida reprisals for a cartoon of the prophet literally buried their heads in sand, and the script featured several speeches about the slippery slope of censorship. This time around, Parker and Stone take an inspired, show-don’t-tell approach: The episodes vibrantly illustrate the idea—fascinating both in its political and philosophical implications—that a U-Haul van, a bear suit, and a “CENSORED” bar can themselves come to represent precisely the thing they were meant to obscure. And Parker and Stone do this in a way that thumbs a nose at censorship itself, demonstrating that Comedy Central’s skittishness actually made South Park‘s representation of Mohammed more “offensive”: In 2001’s “Super Best Friends,” Mohammed was a hero. In “200” he is stuffed into a piece of moving equipment. Which representation is more sensitive?

A glimpse into an abyss:

Tony Blair's appearance in Harrow West may indicate how worried Labour has become as a batch of polls show that Brown is in third place and heading for a worse result than the "longest suicide note" election of 1983, under Michael Foot. Harrow West, being contested for Labour by the international development minister Gareth Thomas, is 179th on the Tory target list.

A Tory victory in this seat would hand Cameron a majority of 84 – almost double Margaret Thatcher's majority in 1979. Labour would have 205 seats – four fewer than the number Labour won in 1983, the year when Brown and Blair were elected to parliament.