Allen may have lacked McCain or Guiliani"s name recognition, but he was the darling of the Right Wing political insider establishment. He had the religious code words. He'd run a homophobic race for governor 10 years ago. He'd convinced people to vote for him because his Daddy coached the Deadkins (what non-native DCers call the local, somewhat phony football team that considers the thoroughly phony Dallas "America's Team" Cowboys its main rival). He'd been a lackluster governor who foisted deficits off on his successor. Allen had a certain cunning. but like a good many recent Virginia Seanators (Robb & Warner, in particular), he was basically ineffective, with the added bonus of being somewhat dumb and very lazy as a legislator. In otherwords, he was the second coming of W. The "Macaca" moment set in motion an examination of this empty suit that the local media (e.g., Washington Post) had managed to avoid through multiple election cycles as Allen moved to the statehouse and then the Senate.

There was an episode of "Sex & the City" where Carrie had "sex like a man", but one eopisode did not define a character. OTOH, there wasn't a "flaky" on one that show, but there was a smart one. Dawn had her many years of sex (and it sounds like some of them may have been post-Christian) and now she wants to judge someone else who does. She's no role model for someone who goes through adolescence feeling she should be doing what she imagines other girls are doing. Indeed, her endless marriage fantasy (both during the "Madonna" and "whore" years) seems like the antithesis of getting control of her identity and her life. She seems like yet another screwed-up person telling the rest of us what to do and how to live a stable fulfilling life, all the while reinventing herself. In a way, it's instructive to have all someone do a core dump of their ludicrousness, but Salon could have probably found a better use of the bandwidth.

Interesting chronology of events. The one thing that worries me is the time that was taken by those incremental moves by Congress. Bush needs a bigger push. The Democratic victory seems to have freed the Republicans from having to move in lockstep, which may make something substantive possible, which is one of the few reasons for hope.

As for McGovern--his dovishness, per se, wasn't the problem. He simply was a disaster as a national candidate. He began with some of the remains of the RFK organization and had a committed set of grassroots organizers that took over the rules for the '72 Democratic convention. McGovern did well because he ran agains the likes of Humphrey & Muskie in the primaries. People wanted something new (shades of Hillary Clinton's likely downfall in 2008).

McGovern, though, was characterizing as getting mnore applause at the beginning than at the end of his speeches. He had to backtrack on proposals such as his guaranteed national income and then there was the botched Eagleton nomination (for VP), which set mental health back decades. The idea of McGovern was always more attractive than the man and by Labor Day, the idea of McGovern was spoiled, too. Over time, he went from being someone different to being a newer, wimpier version of Humphrey. He really didn't define a way out of Vietnam and he never reminded people of his own heroic war effort (whereas Nixon played cards in a rear echelon post). McGovern was a primer on everything to avoid in a campaign. I was semi-glad that I was too young to vote for him. It was obvious that he was finished after the convention, in terms of his campaign and his poll numbers.

The Dems have to avoid fielding an ineffectual politician like McGovern in 2008 and I mean politician in the best sense of the word. In the meantime, the war can only end if people fight to end it, trot out generals, war heroes, etc. to end it and show the kind of determination that got us into this mess in the first place.

Broder's chat was actually less awful than usual. He often condescends through everything as though he's slumming. His response to Glenn's comments had a whif of that, but it wasn't as bad as his usual response to emailers. I think he may have been taken with the response to his column--99% negative. Some of it was juvenile, but not all of it.

Glenn is right about the importance of this gasbag--he's widely respected, the column is widely circulated and he has built up a certain amount of capital with a lot of readers. Personally, he seems to be recycling stuff that was annoying 20 years ago, but not everyone has that perspective.

I suspect that WaPo knows that he, Krauthammer, Samuelson, and various other columnists have been phoning it in for years, but they make a bundle syndicating them. They won't be motivated to notice the obvious until it's clear that there's a cosntituency for something else and that they have to retire one or more these drones.

What's worth remembering about Hume is that he got his start with Jack Anderson, of all people. This was back when Anderson was at his most populist and Hume shared the byline for awhile. In a sense, that may account for his willingness to both claim "objectivity", but also feel comfortable doing this outside the bounds of mainstream media. OTOH, he probably hasn't done anything resembling real journalism in a couple decades.