The Republican Party has been since the 1870s the party of white, Protestant America. Such people are still a majority in huge swaths of the country, and that is not likely to change any time soon. McCain was not wiped out like Goldwater, not even close. With an idiot in the White House with a 27% approval rating, two failed wars, and a failed economy under his belt, the Republicans still got 46% of the vote. That doesn't sound like a party on its last legs to me. They still have the unswerving support of religious zealots, the extractive and defense industries, most of the officer corps and senior NCOs, many wealthy doctors and lawyers of the county club sort, and the anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-black crowd. Their appeal to blood and soil American nationalism (see Victor Davis Hanson) and free market idolatry (see Alan Greenspan) stilol strikes a cord with millions. Reports of the republican's death throes are highly premature.

I taught C. Wright Mills' Power Elite in one of my courses this semester. One of the things I advised my studetns to do was check the bios of the people the next President appointed to high government offices and as his "court" (you know, the White House Councils, Chief of Staff, Special Advisors). If Mills still holds water, then these should be rich retreads from previous administrations or from major corporations and retired military types. I argued that irrespective of party, the good old Power Elite were likely to stay clenched like rabid hyenas to the positions that count. The verdict is still out on President Change We Can Believe In, but is anyone really hopeful at this moment?

Gladwell is an entertaining light or middlebrow intellectual. Some of his ideas are useful and/or smart. His essay on the SUV is a classic. But what may be a bit pernicious in him is the way he dodges certain issues. "Blink" was an ode to our instincts, but Gladwell knows all too well that our instincts are usually racist and xenophobic, so he tries to eat his cake and have it, too. Likewise, we all would really like to know why Jewish Americans were so successful, making such huge contributions to the cultural and intellectual life of the nation, and why other groups didn't do so in proportion to their numbers. As one historian of science once pointed out, there are 25 times as many Jewish American Nobel Laureates in the sciences than their should be given their numbers in the population, and 20 times fewer American Catholics--why should that be? And why are Asian Americans kicking Anglo ass in math and science? We want to know, but we dare not raise the questions. It is considered beyone bad taste, hell, racist, to do so. So Gladwell, no dummy, finds us a safe, uplifting answer, and we all go home happy. That, in the end, may be his genius.

First, how many American-style cars and trucks and hybrids can we really expect to sell in a year? I know, it's only a guess, but I'd use that guess, identify those plants that produce those autos across the industry, amalgamate them into one company, close down all other plants, dissolve the big three, buy out the redundant workers, cut loose those who've made more than $250,000 a year with a "have a nice day", and bring in some European or Japanese managers to temporarily run the damn thing until we find some Americans with common sense. Very radical, but less radical than kissing the auro industry goodbye. Maybe worth a try?

Man alive, you guys can pick a peck of cherries with the best of them. Does anyone alive who watched Seaver or Carlton or Randy Johnson for a decade look at Mussina and say, "Gee, he's just like those guys"? Does anyone believe that if Mussina had pitched for the 1967-77 Mets, he would have emerged from that mess with Hall of Fame credentials? Or, like Carlton, won 27 games on a team that won, what was it, 59 games ('72 Phillies, look it up if you don't believe me). Mussina was a very good to excellent pitcher for most of a long, successful career. Do the words "great" and "domiant" spring to mind when one hears the name Mike Mussina? If they don't, and if he doesn't compare to other bona fide Hall of Famers, then he should not be in the Hall of Fame. The problem is (and Bill James has demonstrated that this has been true since the Old Timers screwed up in the 1940s) once the first batch of bad choices are let in, they allow you to make the the "If X then Y" arguements that avoid the question of quality in favor of the question of "fairness", in the vein of "if Joe Schmoe is in, it's not fair that Abe Ass isn't, too."

All this stimulus nonsense is just that--nonsense. Spending money on goods not made here for companies not based here may be defined by dopey economists as economic growth, but that is meaningless drivel. That is why giving the rich money a la Bush is also so stupid. They can then blow it on German cars, French wine, vacations in Bali or Switzerland, and Italian stone floortiles and backsplashes. Great for the rich and foreigners involved in those transactions, worthless for schmucks here in the USA. If the money doesn't stay here, isn't invested here, then it does no damn good. This fact seeems to always be missed in mainstream discourse on these issues.