The Dodd story is based on a posting on ABC's The Note, which, characteristically, ignored Lieberman's problems to concentrate on the Democrat. Even they couldn't quite make it stick, however; they admit that, unlike Lieberman, Dodd has no opponent with a 79% approval rating -- in fact, he has no opponent at all. The last two (now-ex) Connecticut Republican Congressmen have been asked and apparently said no.

A few more points Koppelman forgot to include: "Despite the extraordinarily popular Republican Gov. Jodi Rell, Connecticut, like many Northeastern states, has become solidly Democratic territory in recent years which bodes well for Sen. Dodd." And this: "In each of his last two Senate races, he beat his Republican opponent by a 2 to 1 margin and he has never had a margin of victory less than 10 points." And this: "...during the 2007-8 presidential cycle he got to develop some political muscles that he hadn't been utilizing of late -- fundraising, debating, etc. . .."

Unlike many politicians, Dodd doesn't come from a moneyed family, hasn't gone after the perks Daschle-style, and has two children under the age of eight. (He says he's the only member of Congress who gets mail from AARP and the PTA.) That puts him in the same relative position as much of the rest of America. His constituents have a right to be upset, but it doesn't take much to realize that his skills and his record will pull him out, especially in the absence of credible opposition. Conn. voters' biggest worry should be that he'll decide not to run at all and make some actual money for once. Wouldn't blame him if he did, but he's never been needed more, and would make a far more credible Majority Leader than Reid. That's why the RSCC is going after him through The Note; Koppelman just went along. Thanks Alex.

It's Iowa. It's 96% white, and most of the rest are Hispanics.

But he is running for reelection, without an opponent so far but with a record that has a lot of making up to do. Grassley would do Iowa and the country a favor by going the seppuku route over his destruction of bankruptcy law and his attempt to do the same to Medicare.

But it's trash like this that gets him through. Iowans think he's fearless and picturesque, John Wayne or Ronald Reagan (one an Iowa native, the other got his start on Des Moines radio) in pinstripes and wingtips. Of course, some of them think the same of Steve King.

Must agree with Goedel; it wouldn't be a Leonard Cohen concert without him singing "Our State Fair is a great State Fair, don't miss it, don't even be late/It's dollars to donuts that our State Fair is the best State Fair in our state."

Seriously, I just started playing guitar again after a hiatus of over twenty years. Two of the first songs I went to were "The Partisan" and "The Story of Isaac:"

You who build these altars now

to sacrifice these children,

you must not do it anymore.

A scheme is not a vision

and you never have been tempted

by a demon or a god.

You who stand above them now,

your hatchets blunt and bloody,

you were not there before,

when I lay upon a mountain

and my father's hand was trembling

with the beauty of the word.

Thanks Gary, you brought back some great memories and rekindled a little faith in the present. Some good memories of the old Salon, too.

Never been a fan of Tennis (as a writer, and for insights, he's not the Keillor of old), but this is by far the best I've read by him.

And then he blew it in the last three paragraphs. Oh well.

I've posted this to my estranged (and very estrange) wife, who's written on End Times plays and movies. There's an immense industry out there, invisible to the rest of America, devoted to making megabucks by scaring the crap out of their/our children. Think of it as Mel Gibson-style child abuse, beyond the reach of the law. Tennis gives the best prescription for recovery, but his conclusion is erroneous: it's not inevitable, and it certainly doesn't have to happen. It just does, and there's nothing wrong with blaming the perpetrators. If the LW has unlimited funds, it would be amusing and emotionally profitable to track down the makers of that movie and sue their asses off for intentional affliction of trauma.

Okay, put this together with Aravosis' Obama-bashing article, and what have you got? There's no one like Hillary, then, now and apparently forever. Edwards is right, his positions pushed Hill and O farther toward the social left than they would have gone by themselves. That they don't quite deliver now may be seen as proof. We could use a little Edwards now -- thank Howard that Dr. Dean and the DFA are still around.

"The so-called cultural wars over abortion and prayer in the schools and pornography and gays, most of it instigated by shrieking ninnies and pompous blowhards, did nothing about anything, except elect dullards to office who brought a certain nihilistic approach to governance that helped bring about the disaster in the banking industry that ate up a lot of 401Ks, and all thanks to high-fliers in shirts like cheap wallpaper who never learned enough to let it discourage them from believing that they had magical powers over the laws of economics and could hand out mortgages by the fistful to people with no assets and somehow the sun would come out tomorrow."

Yeah. Take that, Twitter.