I agree with Conason, but the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is not playing ball. They are calling in all their very substantial chits to see that Alcee gets the job. If they had any sense, they would fall on their sword on this one. But their support of the Democratic party has been unwavering and if they stick to their guns, it's hard not to give them their man. Coalition politics comes with pluses and minuses.

Another rumored compromise was that Pelosi might name Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.) who, by virtue of being Hispanic, was thought to be more acceptable to the Congressional Black Caucus. However, I have not heard that rumor in a few days, so that may be out of the picture. My bet is that Melvin Watt (the Chair of the CBC) sticks to his guns and Hastings gets the job.

Well, Bush's daddy certainly was a failure as a President on the domestic front, but I do think that you have to say that he did a reasonable job of managing foreign policy. It must be extraordinarily painful for him to watch the complete fiasco that Shrub was made in the foreign policy arena. He's almost going to certainly join, if not supplant Herbert Hoover, Warren G. Harding, and Andrew Johnson in the list of those who get prime consideration when History majors debate the worst President of all time over a few beers.

But it is good to see Bush Sr. have his nose rubbed in it a bit. I think that the elitist who run the Republican foreign policy establishment don't fully realize just how far out nation's stock has fallen on account of their foolishness. I suspect that he truly was taken aback because he is so out of touch with the real world. Remember how surprised that he was to see a laser grocery store scanner and asked "When will this really be in stores?" about five years after then had been in stores.

Finally, as a practical matter, he cannot break with his son in public over matters of policy. His loyalty to his son is such that such is not possible. And I'm not so sure that you can fault the man for that. For not matter how foolish, misguided, and dunderheaded his son may be, he must still love him.

I haven't seriously studied Friedman since I was an undergrad at SMU where I majored in economics and I have no personal knowledge what, if anything, he wrote on the subject. The SUM economics department was heavily laced with Chicago school profs, however, so I can perhaps make an educated guess on how you can reconcile a Chicago school belief with a moral view on global warming.

Those who pollute and cause global warming are imposing external costs on the rest of society. I think it is consistent with at least some brands of free market economics to acknowledge that one of the legitimate roles of government is to internalize external costs. The Coase theorem (named after Ronald Coase who certainly fits in the Chicago mold) suggests that absent transaction costs, it makes not difference who we place the burden on to pay the external costs, that the parties will nevertheless negotiate the most efficient outcome. Of course, in the real world there are transactions costs, so you cannot ignore them. Therefore an enlightened Chicago school disciple who believes that the government should internalize external costs would look and see which party has the lowest transactions costs to fix the problems. Here that is the party creating the pollution. Therefore, one would adopt regulations having that person mitigate the deleterious effects of their polluting activity.

However, I do suspect that rather than mandating a specific method of mitigation, a Chicago school solution would allow the polluter to choose from a range of mitigation options (e.g. quit polluting, install pollution reducing equipment, buy out another polluting firm, plant a million trees, buy a rain forest and protect it from being cut down, etc.).

An interesting issue that you raise, and one that has, I suspect, been written on more thoroughly and more thoughtfully that I have done here. But quite interesting.

Yes, I think Bush's plan -- to the extent that he can be said to plan at all -- is to muddle along long enough to drop this problem in the lap of a Democratic President so that the Republicans can blame someone else for their failure.

But the level of denial that this administration is in is remarkable. And to see John McCain to be as deluded is striking, too. It become more clear with each passing day that the Iraqi government and the Shiite majority has no real interest in internal stability in Iraq. They are playing out the string waiting for the day that the U.S. will finally leave so that they can impose their grizzly will on the Sunni minority. But the administration and McCain keep talking as if it's only a matter of more time and more trained Iraqi security forces. Why is no one talking about the absence of desire for stability on the part of the government (and probably even a significant percentage of the Shiite majority of the population)? Absent that desire, all the kings horses and all the kings men cannot put Iraq back together again.

Carville has a point. Six million dollars could have done a lot of good in a lot of races, although 50 seats seems to be a bit of a stretch. But $500,000 per race would have made a big impact in a dozen races. Party building activities need to be done, but not at the expense of going to candidates who are in viable races in a very favorable year.