"Thatcher did not make Labour electable, as John Major amply proved by defeating Neil Kinnock in the post-Thatcher election of 1992.... Tony Blair made Labour electable by rejecting the worst of Labour's policies and promising not to undo those Thatcher reforms that had succeeded."

Hogwash.

In fact, the bottom fell out of Conservative support in the currency crisis of August, 1992, and it never recovered until recently. (It was Kinnock's tough luck that the 1992 election was in the spring instead of the fall.) In 1994 Blair inherited a huge Labour lead in the polls, and he didn't manage to blow it. Blair became leader of his party at a very lucky time, like David Cameron today.

It also bears pointing out that in the 2005 election Labour under the "electable" Blair got a lower share of the popular vote than they had under the "unelectable" Kinnock in 1992. The government only survived because the Liberal Democrats grabbed a big chunk of the former Conservative vote. And that isn't likely to save them next time.

Labour's only real chance of preventing a Conservative return to power is introducing proportional representation to the House of Commons. The Liberal Democrats would then have the balance of power, and there really isn't much difference between them and today's Labour party.

But that would require real imagination, something New Labour is allergic to.

"We've fed the heart on fantasies,

Our heart's gone brutal with the fare,

More substance in our enmities than in our love..."

One word: Rationing.

Not a good sign.

BTW, I'll bet that making Costner's hobby pottery was a reference to Luis Bunuel's black comedy THE CRIMINAL LIFE OF ARCHIBALDO CRUZ, about a Mexican potter who wants to murder one woman after another, but they keep dying just before he can get the chance.

Consider "She's Leaving Home." The album's most underrated song, it expresses a sense of melancholy comparable to "Eleanor Rigby," and belies her claim that the album is SO not "emotional." It also belies her assertion that the album is completely missing the generational strife of the time.

"... there've been a lot of books written about 1968 and 1969 -- those are really the seminal '60s years." Years of semen ;^)

When Arabs attack Israelis, it's "unprovoked aggression"; when Israelis attack Arabs, it's a "pre-emptive strike."

Why do progressives expose Israel's "underdog" status as a myth again and again? Because it's a myth that refuses to die (like the myth of the Us as an "innocent" nation).

The one where Tony put the muscle on a Hasidic Jew. The Jew told him the story of the Roman siege of Masada, concluding: "And the Romans--where are they now?" Tony: "You're lookin' at 'em, a**hole!"

Unfortunately, being "smug and self-satisfied" isn't limited to the Romans. (Witness Ronald Reagan and his worshippers.)

Cullen Murphy should know a bit about Rome and the Middle Ages: he used to help write the comic strip PRINCE VALIANT.

Oh yeah, "mini-Eichmanns."

Was the US in the Cold War really a "beacon on the hill of freedom"? Tell that to the people of Chile, East Timor and Central America.

"A decade ago, Blair's political gifts... were crucial in making the Labour Party electable again."

In fact, it was the Tories who'd finally become unelectable. If Labour had been led by Stalin, they'd probably still have returned to power.

It's painfully obvious that bloggers own less than a controlling interest in the Democratic Party. The real question is, Does the Democratic Party own the bloggers? Wait a year until the progressive solidarity police are once again dictating that you mustn't even think of voting for a third party in November.

IMHO the plunging international approval for the USA reflects cumulative alienation. These figures wouldn't have changed so quickly if the second Bush administration were simply seen as an aberration in an age of "moral" US government; rather, many people see a disastrous perpetuation and worsening of past aggression and hypocrisy. In past years they were willing to say that America was good overall despite the Vietnam invasion and the Reagan cabal's unpunished war crimes. But the long-term pattern is now telling, and the Iraq occupation is the "last straw" for millions. For decades America has been living on credit morally as well as financially, and default time is here.

BTW, those who see the Cold War as a World War II-style "good war" for the US misunderstand it strategically as well as morally. "Reagan was right when he called the USSR evil - it was a totalitarian nightmare, and opposing it; keeping it in check, was the moral thing to do." Hitler also called the USSR evil and tried to keep that totalitarian nightmare in check--did that make him right? (Sorry, I forgot that the American empire was the "lesser evil" and therefore a moral champion. Just like John Kerry.)

In 1886 President Cleveland married his late law partner's 21-year-old daughter, who had been his ward after her father's death. (This is the same president whose love-child prompted the rhyme "Ma! Ma! Where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, hahaha!")

If Camille Paglia truly despises glibness, how can she look in the mirror?

In the April 2005 issue of HARPER'S Bill McKibben published "The Cuban Diet," a report on agriculture in Cuba today. Seems that the loss of Soviet subsidies forced Cuban farmers to start using mostly agricultural methods, and they've learned this way well enough that production levels haven't suffered.

As engineering goes, Harley-Davidson can't hold a candle to its Japanese competitors. But it sells because of its "badass" lifestyle hook.

In the opening credits of MARCUS WELBY MD, didn't they show assistant James Brolin commuting on a motorcycle?

How to tell British music videos from American ones: in the British videos, people riding motorcycles ALWAYS wear helmets; in the US videos, they NEVER do.

Isn't it spelled "nanometre"?

Last time it was progressives not taking a side that resulted in the Democrats choosing the wrong man. (Or do any of you still insist that Kerry was more "electable" than Dean?)