As long as we're recounting the "THE math" quote and the earlier quote about the Bush doctrine, shouldn't we begin placing the justly famous Ron Suskind quote about "the reality-based community" right where it belongs--in the mouth of the Mayberry Machiavelli?

No one else in this administration has that particular combination of insouciance and unbridled arrogance.

...which is how much Rove's urgings entered into the decision (in early 2002) to do the Iraq war. Rove did want a short, decisive, prominent war, a quick victory, "mission accomplished" and a hero candidate. That dovetailed neatly with a lot else that was going on in the WH, but how important was the political calculus in the decision? Maybe the memoirs will disclose this eventually--or we may never know.

Have him http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/ co-author all our posts/op-eds etc.

Defintely higher testosterone than Michael Ledeen etc.!

...and quite possibly long after: Do you have any idea where I can get that bumper sticker? It puts into 8 words much of what you've been saying.

It doesn't explain the whole problem, but...

If your employer has sent you out, at considerable expense, to cover Iowa/New Hampshire etc., traveling with __________, and you have no real story to file, because the only thing you saw all day was ______________ giving the exact same stump speech six times, are you really going to do that, file nothing, and trying, with no story, to convince readers that there was nothing to cover, nothing going on, nothing new here etc. etc.? I wouldn't...

There's a news hole to fill, a column to file. And in the absence of any real news being made in the endless parade of gymnasiums, you start reporting on what those around you (also on the bus) are saying, thinking, buzzing about.

Hilary and Romney get bad press. But they can't have had no role in making their press relations bad.

I agree heartily with everything you said.

I also remember being a Political Science major (a year ahead of Podesta at the same school), and how revelatory I found Timothy Crouse's 1974 book Boys on the Bus. The only differences I can see, a quarter century later, is that the bus/plane is now co-ed, and filing stories is (electronically) easier.

That's all I have to say.

I have given several hundred dollars to Obama--through his webtools and because I support him.

I work for a railroad. This paragraph has, really, nothing to do with the one that preceeded it.

But when I make a donation, I must, under FEC regs, identify my occupation and employer. Then, FactCheck, or Center for Responsive Politics can sift the data, and attribute my contribution to the railroad industry.

I'm not saying that industries don't target contributions for influence--they do. But not all the dollars have that motivation.

...after Frodo was Edward Levi. What we got was Gonzo with a better resume.

Glenn,

IF this gets to the recess unpassed, the ad strategy then urgently needs to be changed.

At that point, the goal would be to get x more votes in the Senate opposing cloture--with x being 40 minus the February cloture vote.

Instead of kicking Hoyer and his like to show that there is a penalty for doing crap like this, the idea would be to gently stiffen the spine of the not unfriendly, build support in their states for them to oppose cloture, build pressure on them from their constituents to do so--you get the drift.

is that Joe Conason is just jealous because Sarah! went to more colleges than he did!

against the history-making aspect of the first 11-10 game in recorded (NFL, 12k+ games) history?!?

Personally, I was gobsmacked at the outcome!

...we're just going to have to get you (and your spouse) invited to more of the Washington glitterati's soirees. Then, you too can be co-opted, and then you won't see that there is any problem whatsoever with any of what you wrote above. Instead, you will recognize it as the natural order of the universe, and harmony will be restored.

I really find it incredible that this current bit of conservative idiocy is being given wide currency. The people in the know, at the time, indubitably thought otherwise--and I can prove it.

U.S. House, 1934 election, Dems +9 to 322 (!) seats; 1936 election, Dems +12 from that 1934 number (Republicans had 88 (!!) seats left, 20.2%). It wasn't until the 1938 election, after Roosevelt began to look hubristic with his court-packing plan and brought on another recession by trying to return to balanced budgets that a more normal partisan balance (60.2% to 38.8%) was restored. If the New Deal was such a failure, why did the voters, the American people, contemporaneously reward the Democrats time and again, in 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936?

I also find this current bit of conservative idiocy incredibly insulting. Don't they think that there is anyone who remembers anything, or, if younger, can look anything up? Even in my childhood more than 2 decades later (in the 1950's), if there had been googlebombs, "miserable failure" would have linked to a picture of Herbert Hoover--NOT FDR!!

OTOH, the "most historians" point IS correct, since they limit that group to Amity Shlaes, herself and alone.

why I just renewed my membership with the ACLU (after Madoff made off with all their funds!).

Even though I was an Obama super-volunteer (as it is now called), there is NO reason to assume that all will be well and good on this front. Two contrary points: first, Bill Clinton taught constitutional law too, but I never saw his administration as particularly cherishing of civil liberties; and, second, the FISA support battle during the campaign should have taught everyone that Obama is (OMG!!) a politician.

Wasn't there someone who once had a sound bite about Eternal Vigilance and all that?