NFL Draft 2007

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I haven't been at my most prolific today -- blogging-wise, that is -- but that's because I spent much of the day paying attention to the NFL draft.

Notre Dame QB Brady Quinn's high-profile fall from the top of the draft to #22 was the big drama of the day, though he ended up on a good team for him (if not a good team yet), his close-to-hometown Cleveland Browns, who were awfully lucky that he fell so far -- and that Miami didn't grab him at #9, instead reaching for Ohio State's Ted Ginn Jr. and finding their QB of the future in BYU's John Beck in the early second round.

My close-to-hometown Buffalo Bills did extremely well, I thought, picking up California's Marshawn Lynch, likely the second-best RB in the draft, at #12 to replace the departed (and overrated) Willis McGahee; Penn State's celebrated LB Paul Posluszny in the second round to replace the departed London Fletcher, a steal given that prior to being injured last year he was projected to go much higher; and Stanford QB Trent Edwards in the third round, a QB of the future if the J.P. Losman experiment doesn't work out.

But of course my attention was focused on my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, who going into the draft needed to bolster their secondary, find a replacement for departed LB Joey Porter, consider a possible replacement for Pro-Bowler Alan Faneca at G, and maybe even locate a #3 WR to support Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes. And they did well, I think, to pick the raw but extremely athletic Florida State LB Lawrence Timmons at #15 and Michigan DE LaMarr Woodley in the second round, both of whom could turn out to be next-generation stars for the Steel Curtain, whether they end up switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3 or not. New coach Mike Tomlin evidently knows what he's doing. My concern is that they haven't yet -- and there is obviously much more of the draft to go -- found a possible upgrade for the secondary, which was why, before the Timmons pick, I was hoping they'd be able to get Pittsburgh CB Darrelle Revis (the Jets traded up to take him at #14). And I also wonder about their third-round pick, Minnesota TE Matt Spaeth. Why a TE? And why someone projected to go much lower? Anyway, holes remain to be filled, but that's what the second day of the draft is for.

As for the rest, check out SI's draft analysis for the first two rounds. Most teams seemed to do well with their first-round picks, but there were notable exceptions, like Green Bay and possibly San Diego, as well as Miami (for passing on Quinn, but still getting a solid QB). For the winners and losers of Day One, see here.

Peggy reflects on fear

By Libby Spencer

I tried to avoid reading Peggy Noonan all day, but I finally broke down and looked at her incomprehensible column. She's worried about the kids this week. We're creating a culture of fear she says and casts about for who to blame. She has no trouble pinpointing the problem.

It's the artists who depict history too literally. It's the media. It's the rappers. It's Rosie, and Imus and anti-smoking campaigns. It's the focus on global warming. She pines for the good old days of the 60s when all we had to worry about was communists. Duck and cover drills weren't as scary as this. According to Peg, we don't care enough about our children to stop warning them of the dangers they face in life. We need to shut up about politics to save them from their fears.

Oddly she doesn't mention the war on terror. Somehow she forgets that the administration she loyally supported for the last six years created the culture of fear for their own political gain and continue to play the politics of fear daily. The president she so loved until recently, speaks of nothing but 9/11 and the evil boogeymen that are out to get us. The same president whose lies and self-serving political machinations are only now being exposed.

To paraphrase Ms. Noonan: This is what paid punditry will be like in Purgatory.

The world has always been a dangerous place and kids have always suffered from their fears. The difference between now and the 60s is that now their parents are scared too. Ours weren't and we found our strength in them.

Our parents had reason to trust their government and to believe in the American dream. Our parents were proud of our country and believed in our might. Today's parents are proud of their SUVs and believe in the almighty dollar and little else. It's every man for himself. There's no communal concern in wedge politics and this mindset has been fostered and flourished in the last six years by the materialistic conservatives Noonan very much helped put into power.

If Peggy wants to know why our children are scared, I'd suggest she look in the mirror.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

Royal + Bayrou = ?????

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As I mentioned in a few days ago, François Bayrou, the centrist who finished a strong third in last weekend's first round of France's presidential election, has declined to endorse either neo-liberal Nicolas Sarkozy or neo-socialist Ségolène Royal. I suggested, however, that he seemed to be leaning to Royal. Well, he and Royal may be closer than previously thought:

French presidential hopeful Segolene Royal and defeated candidate Francois Bayrou have held a televised debate in which they vowed to seek common ground.

But both ruled out working more closely together before the final vote next month, stressing their differences.

This is very good news -- for those of us who support Royal. Although Sarkozy continues to lead in the polls, and will almost certainly be the favourite going into next Sunday's run-off, the race is close enough that it could end up being decided by how Bayrou's 6.8 million voters cast their second-round votes -- even without a formal endorsement from Bayrou.

Royal, it seems, had been looking for "a possible centre-left alliance," which is what led to the debate. Bayrou has clearly ruled out a formal alliance, but informal support, of the kind expressed here (seeking "common ground"), looks like more and more of a possibility.

In other words, though he may not wish to align himself or even work closely with Royal, Bayrou seems to have given his voters a cue, an indication of his preference in the second round. Hopefully his voters will pick up on it and push Royal over the top.

More wingnut parody

By Heraclitus

Last fall I wrote a post here pretending to be an open letter to the GOP from someone concerned about the insidious influence on our national character of children's cereal characters. Although I'm usually ambivalent (at best) about what I write, I think it was pretty droll, and others seemed to agree. Anyways, it's been reposted or cross-posted now at the WAAGNFNP blog; if you missed it before or want to revisit it, you can read it there.

The plight of lesbian polygamists

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Did I get your attention? Then you'll want to know about this:

A Nigerian lesbian who "married" four women last weekend in Kano State has gone into hiding from the Islamic police, with her partners.

Under Sharia law, adopted in the state seven years ago, homosexuality and same-sex marriages are outlawed and considered very serious offences.

The theatre where the elaborate wedding celebration was held on Sunday has been demolished by Kano city's authorities.

Lesbianism is also illegal under Nigeria's national penal code.

Nigeria's parliament is considering tightening its laws on homosexuality.

No, no, I'm not going to make a case for polygamy, but the hypocrisy here -- men are permitted to have four wives, women are kept in bondage -- suggests that this is about sexism and homophobia, not polygamy. But that's what you get in a backwards society ruled by religious extremism.

Nigeria's a lovely place, isn't it?

Imaginary politics

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm not a fan of his work, on the whole, but Gerard Baker has a column up at The Times that is worth a read. It addresses the Fred Thompson phenomenon -- with unusual perception, I might add -- and what that phenomenon says about the current state of American politics. Here's a key passage:

[F]or all his real-world government service and his good conservative credentials, it is hard to escape the feeling that Mr Thompson is lighting up the contest at the moment because he is the Imaginary Candidate. Republican voters, demoralised by their present political condition and unenthused by their current field of candidates, are projecting their hopes and ideals on to a man that most still know best only as an entertainer. Much in his background remains unexamined -- it is not widely known, for example, that before he commanded fictional submarines and prosecuted make-believe criminals, he was a real-life Washington lobbyist, stained, it can be safely presumed, by some of the grime you have to wade through to do that job effectively.

And that's just part of it. What Baker fails to mention is that Thompson was also McCain's close ally in the Senate -- and we all know what the Republican base and conservatives generally think of McCain. Thompson was even a co-sponsor of McCain-Feingold, that hated piece of legislation that to the right restricts political speech but to the more sober and sensible was an effort to make politics more equitable. And there's muc more. At Slate, John Dickerson recently examined Thompson's other "problems": He was "soft on Clinton" -- Bill, that is). He's a federalist, not a nationalizing theocrat. Like John Edwards, he used to be one of those despised trial lawyers.

Thompson is no Reagan, in other words, but he nonetheless fits the mood of the electorate. Baker again:

The excitement around Mr Thompson reveals not just a dissatisfaction with the available Republican contenders, but a much larger escapism on the part of voters, anxious to flee the present-day horrors of real-life Washington. Barack Obama, suddenly now becoming the leading Democratic contender, may not have acted in any movies but his message of hope and change offers the same idealised blank slate for Democrats disillusioned by their own tired and uninspiring leaders.

And who can blame the American electorate for feeling this way? "President George Bush's ineptitude and increasingly bunkered immobilism makes Americans yearn for something new, even if it may not be wholly believable."

A fake, after all, is better than a failure.

A Shakespearean Bush

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What is Bush's "central, tragic flaw"? asks my friend Tim F. in a thought-provoking post at Balloon Juice.

There are so many from which to choose, but: "The president is psychologically incapable of examining an issue in depth, but he is also unable to tell disagreement from betrayal. Add together the ideological reflexivity and the gilded class demand of fealty in the place of what most of us would have called loyalty, and you have somebody who is both unable to make the right decision and incapable of revisiting it."

There you have it.

Joe Lieberman is clueless

By Michael J.W. Stickings

And delusional.

Consider the last line of his horrendous op-ed in yesterday's increasingly rightist WaPo:

To me, there is only one choice that protects America's security -- and that is to stand, and fight, and win.

Fantastic. And how exactly will this lost war be won? It's the McCain argument: We're there, give Petraeus a chance, the surge is working...

But the evidence would seem to undermine Lieberman's flimsy case, which means that all he really has is hope. But hope is not a strategy.

Ah, but it's a war against al Qaeda? Right, which wasn't in Iraq before the war but which is there now. Go figure.

But it's not all al Qaeda. This is how defenders of the war defend the war. By linking it to the larger war on terror. If we pull out of Iraq, the terrorists win -- and will bring the war to America's shores. This is their justification for endless war, an endless war that can't be won.

And if you're not with him, if you're not for the war as Bush wages it, you're with the terrorists.

This is an "increasingly anachronistic tune," says Ezra Klein. "What sets Lieberman apart from the pack is not his support of Bush administration policies," says Scott Paul, "it's his adoption of its fear-based rhetoric, his intentional simplification of a complex situation into victory versus surrender, and his demonization of those who hold alternative views." "And speaking of doing exactly what al Qaeda hopes we'll do," asks the Anonymous Liberal, "what do you think we were doing when we decided to invade Iraq in the first place? Is there any conceivable course of action we could have taken that would have done more to advance al Qaeda's cause?"

Perhaps not, but Joe Lieberman doesn't get that, just like he doesn't get so much else. The war is not and never has been what he thinks it is, the world has passed him by, and yet he still has some prominent media soapboxes from which to spew the latest warmongering talking points from the GOP.

Fantastic indeed.

The will of the people

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Rasmussen: "Fifty-seven percent (57%) of American voters now favor either an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq (37%) or a firm deadline for their withdrawal (20%)":

Underlying these attitudes is pessimism about the War itself. Just 29% of American voters believe the troop surge launched earlier this year has made things better in Iraq. Twice as many, 61%, believe the surge has either made things worse (43%) or had no impact (18%). A separate survey found that just 33% believe history will judge the U.S. mission in Iraq a success. Fifty percent (50%) believe it will be viewed as a failure.

Heckuva job, Dubya.

The liberal interventionist

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Tony Blair, that is.

See this revealing piece on the soon-to-be ex-PM in The Guardian by Timothy Garton Ash.

Being something of a liberal interventionist myself, I've always been sympathetic to Blair -- I've even considered him one of the world's leading and most credible statesmen -- even if he'll largely be remembered for his unflinching support for the Iraq War. Which is what he deserves, perhaps, but which is also rather unfair. Consider his -- and Britain's -- leadership on such issues as Kosovo, Darfur, global warming, and poverty.

There has certainly been much more to him and his premiership than "froth and miasma".

I rarely agree with Christopher Hitchens, but...

By Michael J.W. Stickings

...he's right about "the national orgy of mawkishness that followed the Virginia Tech shootings" -- see here.

War and political theater

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I won't comment much on this tonight -- I'll have much more to say in the coming days -- but here's what happened:

The Senate today approved an Iraq spending bill that would force troop withdrawals to begin as early as July 1, dismissing President Bush's veto threat even as party leaders and the White House launch talks on the next phase of the increasingly high-stakes war debate.

The 51-46 vote was a triumph for Democrats, who just weeks ago had questioned the political wisdom of a veto showdown over Iraq with the commander-in-chief. But Democrats are hesitant no more. And now that withdrawal language has passed both houses of Congress, even Republicans concede that Bush won't get the spending bill with no strings attached as he has demanded.

Bush is expected to veto the bill early next week, but in the meantime, bipartisan negotiations have already started on phase two.

That's right. A veto is inevitable -- Bush will not allow himself to be constrained by an enemy Congress, as he sees it -- but the Democrats' firm stand also means that compromise is likely. Just so long as it's the right compromise. I don't think that meeting Republicans in the middle on Iraq is the way to go. (What would that even mean?) But if the compromise includes benchmarks, for example, rather than a firm timetable for withdrawal, then it might just be acceptable. Besides, I'm not so sure that a timetable is a great idea. Given that Iraq could descend into chaos and genocide post-withdrawal, even with some U.S. forces still there, a timetable would likely ensure that Democrats would end up taking much of the blame for making Iraq even worse than it is now, even if they don't deserve it. In other words, this is one battle the Democrats may not want to win.

It seems to me that a better approach would be to press for phased withdrawal alongside firm benchmarks -- and to wait for the next president, hopefully a Democrat. This would force both the White House and the war's Republican supporters to defend a status quo strategy that isn't likely to make much of a difference and that almost certainly won't succeed -- and this is precisely what Bush, McCain, Giuliani, and others are doing. Indeed, while Democrats in Congress, along with some of their Republican sympathizers, are looking for an alternative to Bush's failed policies, the White House continues to look as if it doesn't have a clue either about the situation in Iraq or the clear preferences of the American people. And, in desperation, and with nothing else to fall back on, the rhetoric coming from the warmongers is increasingly extremist. For example, White House mouthpiece Dana Perino today called the bill "defeatist legislation that insists on a date for surrender". This is the key Republican talking point -- we've already heard it from DeLay and Giuliani, among others -- but it won't have much traction, not if the Democrats play this properly. And that means providing both leadership and an alternative course of action without demanding so much that they themselves could end up being sucked into the vortex of blame in response to this lost war.

They hate gays in Poland

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From the BBC:

The European Parliament has called on Poland to stop public leaders inciting discrimination against homosexuals.

The resolution follows a statement by a deputy education minister that Poland was drafting a law to punish teachers who "promoted" homosexuality.

Poland's PM later said there would be no discrimination against gay teachers.

But MEPs repeated an appeal to EU anti-racism experts to look into "the emerging climate of racist, xenophobic and homophobic intolerance in Poland".

Some parts of Europe, it seems, still have a long, long way to go.

Life after Imus

Guest post by Edward Copeland

As I feared with the departure of Don Imus from my morning wakeup routine, there is even less worth watching than there was before. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't in it for the nonsense, I was in it for the interviews. There are few places, if any, that offer 15 or 20 minute interviews with a single person anymore that actually allow for more than superficial discussions. The exit of Imus happened to coincide with CNN's new team for American Morning. Not that Soledad O'Brien and Miles O'Brien were anything to write home about, but the new pairing of the once-respectable John Roberts and Fox exile Kiran Chetry seems to have slipped even further down the notch toward the nonsensical blather that makes me unable to turn on the network morning shows.

MSNBC seems to be searching for some way to preserve the Imus format, which would be welcome if they found someone who could pull it off. The first week, they had David Gregory pinch-hit, and while the interviews were fine, they also saddled him and anchor Amy Robach with painful would-be comic banter. Not only did it fall flat, but it really did a bit of a disservice for Gregory. It was fine if he was being silly with Imus on a comedy program, but now he's back to being a "respectable journalist" as White House correspondent and it seemed really forced. This week, for the first three days, they moved in Philadelphia talk radio host Michael Smerconish to fill the seat, but his interviews are all really short and don't seem to get very deep.

Meanwhile, CNN has apparently decided to abandon thorough news coverage in exchange for becoming a YouTube shill. For two days in a row (and this was only by random flipping, not leaving the network on), it featured stories and interviews with some guy who posted his cell phone number on YouTube and was getting a lot of phone calls (Again, purely by accident, I caught that CNN was talking to this guy again, this time on Paula Zahn in prime time). How did The New York Times miss the story?! Of course, that was thoughtful and provocative compared to what they did Wednesday morning, endlessly hyping that they had new, exclusive footage of a piano-playing cat. (I shit you not.)

Granted, maybe some folks prefer it light in the morning, but not everyone does. Many of us would like to know what's going on in the news. It seems that someone should try to grab that niche instead of trying to imitate what everyone else does. It's depressing. Of course, it's not just television that's abandoning principles (if it ever had any). Some newspapers are fast becoming just as bad, as the death of Boris Yeltsin got less play than Anna Nicole Smith's death did. Who knew that Anna Nicole had a bigger impact on world history than Yeltsin? Have they added her to high school history textbooks yet?

Testicular Democrats

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Rudy Giuliani -- playing the partisan, as top-tier presidential candidates reaching out to the base tend to do -- said this week in Hampshire that "[t]he Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us" and hence that the country would be better off with a Republican in the White House after '08, preferably the mayor himself.

The message was clear: Democrats are not to be trusted with protecting the homeland: "I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense." (Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bush was in office before 9/11, was he not? No matter. Giuliani here is at his most viciously authoritarian. For him, the so-called war on terror, hyped up to turn each and every day into a possible 9/11, requires aggressive executive power, domestic spying (perhaps without warrants but certainly without much oversight), avoidance of the Geneva Conventions (interrogation equals torture), and endless war in Iraq. In other words, the use of fear to justify just the sort of police state where Giuliani would feel right at home.)

But have the Republicans -- Bush and his pre-midterm rubber stampers in Congress -- made America safer? And would they make America safer than the Democrats would? Would a Democratic victory in '08 open America's doors to terrorism, to more 9/11s? For this is what Giuliani is saying.

Like Kevin Drum, I find Giuliani's remarks all too predictable. Still, the debate is worth having. If Republicans want to make the case that they have made America safer and are best entrusted with the task of protecting the homeland, I'm more than happy, like many others, to make the opposite case, that they have waged the war on terror recklessly and without due regard for the Constitution, weakened America both at home and abroad, and put the homeland at great danger.

But how have the leading Democratic contenders responded to Giuliani? As Kevin suggests, like "wimps" -- "[w]ith the usual whining". (He's referring to Obama and Clinton.)

And that's just not good enough.

Now is the time for partisanship, for explaining why us and not them, which is just what Giuliani was doing. (Although his attack may also be a sign of desperation, as Steve Benen argues, a reflection of profound ignorance and incompetence on his part.) Democrats need to stand up for themselves and fight back. "Until they do, Rudy and the Republicans are going to win every round of this fight."

**********

I acknowledge that much of the above gives Giuliani far too much credit. I just don't think that he or his campaign attacks can be ignored. Whatever his own personal popularity, his attack here is very much in line with what Republicans often say about Democrats. For an excellent critique of Giuliani's "2008 electoral identity," displayed in this attack, see Andrew Sullivan: "We have to ask ourselves: after the next terror attack, what powers would a president Giuliani assume? And what would be left of the constitution after four years of the same? Give Rudy the office that Cheney has created -- and America, already deeply altered, will become a new political entity altogether." And much for the worse.)

The return of the asshole extraordinaire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That's Fox's John Gibson, of course -- although I realize that fine network offers many qualified candidates for the title.

On his radio show on Monday, the A.E. called Iraqis "knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century" and blamed them for what's going on in their country -- yes, as if a grossly mismanaged war had nothing to do with it, so blatant is his bigotry.

See Media Matters. And fore more of Gibson's assholery, see here and here.)

Go Bayrou -- but Go Royal for now

By Michael J.W. Stickings

François Bayrou -- my preference in Sunday's first round of the 2007 French presidential election -- is refusing to play kingmaker. After finishing a solid third behind Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal, he spoke of "a centre in France, a large centre, a strong centre, an independent centre capable of speaking and acting beyond previous borders," an alternative of change and hope. And the key question in defeat was whether he would support Royal on his left or Sarkozy on his right.

The answer: neither: "I will not give any advice on how to vote."

Indeed, according to Bayrou, neither candidate would be good for France: "Nicolas Sarkozy, I believe, will aggravate the problems with democracy and the fractured society. Ségolène Royal, through her programme, is going to aggravate the economic problems, and one as much as the other is going to unbalance the deficit and the debt." And so his plan is to establish a new centrist party, the Democratic Party, to compete with the major parties of the left and right, Royal's Socialist Party and Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement. It will run candidates in June's parliamentary elections.

For more on Bayrou's present and possible future, see here. Although he has expressed opposition to Royal's economic policies, which tend to be mildly socialist but hardly out of the social democratic mainstream, his criticisms of Sarkozy have been blunt, harsh, and ominous. Consider: "Because of his close links to big business and with France's media barons, and thanks to his taste for intimidation and threat, Mr Sarkozy will concentrate power like never before. And because of his temperament, he risks aggravating already deep social divides in France." Tough words -- in my view, entirely justified.

So what now? It seems that Bayrou is leaning to Royal and that, on the whole, his supporters are, too. But to what extent? Enough to put Royal over the top, given Sarkozy's margin of victory in the first round and his popularity and prominence in French politics?

Either way, I'm with Royal -- but mostly because I dislike Sarkozy and his atrocious combination of neoliberalism, xenophobia, and authoritarianism. It's not that Royal is too much of a socialist -- in fact, she's quite moderate -- it's that Bayrou is probably right about her economic policies and that she lacks experience in foreign and security policy and often doesn't seem to have much of a clue (plus, she has expressed support for Québécois separatism, not exactly a position that endears one to a proud Canadian federalist such as myself).

But she's not that bad, on the whole, and, well, she's not Sarkozy. That's good enough for me.

(Photo from The Globe and Mail.)

Exploiting heroism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So it seems the U.S. military -- and its warmongering political overlords -- lied about Pat Tillman (Afghanistan) and Jessica Lynch (Iraq). This according to Tillman's brother and Lynch herself in testimony before Congress.

• Kevin Tillman: "We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public."
• Jessica Lynch: "The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate tales."

There's nothing noble about these lies. What they point to is the cynical deception with which America's wars are being waged.

The American people deserve the truth, however hard it may be to handle.

And they deserve not to have heroism invented for them for political purposes:

• Jessica Lynch: "I am still confused as to why they chose to lie and tried to make me a legend when the real heroics of my fellow soldiers that day were, in fact, legendary."

Why? Because support for these wars, as well as their ongoing waging, depends upon the American people not knowing the truth about them:

• Kevin Tillman: "The facts needed to be suppressed. An alternative narrative had to be constructed, crucial evidence destroyed... These are deliberate and calculated lies."

Indeed they are.

The stink of desperation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Ah, yes, the treason card. Played not by Dick Cheney, a common culprit, but by Tom DeLay, who told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are "getting very, very close to treason".

Such dastardly bullshit.

At The Carpetbagger Report, Steve Benen smashes DeLay's accusation to smithereens.

And at The Horse's Mouth, Greg Sargent puts it in context: "Has anybody else noticed that every day brings palpably more wild-eyed and unhinged attacks from the folks who either are in favor of the war or the folks who are for some reason instinctually opposed to the Dems' aggressive antiwar stance? You can see the attacks growing significantly more deranged by the day -- and sometimes by the hour."

A sure sign of desperation.

A new planet, a new earth

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This could be a huge discovery:

A rocky planet not much larger than Earth has been detected orbiting a star close to our own neighborhood in the Milky Way, and the European astronomers who found it say it lies within the star's "habitable zone," where life could exist -- possibly in oceans of water.

The object is the smallest of all the 200 or more so-called "exoplanets" whose discovery around far-off stars in the past dozen years has sparked a burst of excitement worldwide among astronomers and astrobiologists...

The lead author of the discovery report, Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, said the planet's sun is named Gliese 581, one of the galaxy's extremely common "red dwarfs." It lies in the constellation Libra, the Scales, about 20.5 light years away from Earth -- a relatively close neighbor compared to other "exoplanets" that have been detected thousands of light years away.

Udry's group estimated the planet's average temperature at between 32 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It orbits Gliese 581 every 13 days only about 6.5 million miles out, which is 14 times closer to its sun than Earth is from ours. But the planet is well within the star's "habitable zone" because Gliese 581 is much smaller and colder than our sun.

Here's the comparison:

In praise of Roger Ebert

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The ninth annual Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival -- Ebertfest '07 -- opens tomorrow at the University of Illinois in Urbana. Despite going through a prolonged battle with his health -- cancer of the salivary gland, a tracheostomy, multiple surgeries, more procedures planned -- Ebert will be there in person. And you know what? Through it all, he is still Roger Ebert, one of the world's great cinephiles, a fine critic, and a courageous man: "I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks. I still have my brain and my typing fingers... I'm not going to miss my festival."

And that's how it should be. It's easy to dismiss Ebert as a celebrity critic who has reduced criticism down to multiplex-friendly pandering to the masses -- what with his thumb up or down for every movie -- but those who know Ebert's work know that he is so much more than that, that in fact his famous thumb is but a popular gimmick, that in fact a profound film critic capable of genuinely brilliant analysis, an enthusiastic student of the cinema who genuinely loves movies, and a teacher of the cinema in possession of a wealth of learning.

I encourage you to visit his website regularly for all the latest news, and hopefully soon for more reviews, as well as for all his old reviews in the archives, his incomparable movie glossary, commentary on film and the arts, his reports from the world's top film festivals (including the Toronto International Film Festival, which he loves, and which I, a Toronto resident, have had the good fortune to attend over many years), his Oscar-related articles, and -- and this is my favourite feature -- his Great Movies.

I may not agree with his review of this or that movie, but I always respect his opinion and I always learn a lot from what he has to say about any movie. Indeed, he is as much teacher as critic. (Consider his incredibly insightful commentary on the Citizen Kane DVD.) And this is especially true of the Great Movies, his compendium of reviews and analyses of many of the greatest films of all time. Many of my own favourites are in there -- there are simply too many to mention -- but collectively these pieces amount to a history of film, by film, that is truly astonishing in scope.

If there is one thing for which I must thank Ebert above all else, however, it is his promotion of in my view two of the very best directors of all time, Krzysztof Kieślowski and Yasujiro Ozu. Both would be known and celebrated without Ebert, of course, but neither would be known and celebrated as well without Ebert's efforts to introduce their films to American audiences, as well as to all of us who have been touched by Ebert's criticism. Whether it's The Decalogue or the Three Colours trilogy, Tokyo Story or Floating Weeds (for which he also provides commentary on the amazing Criterion DVD), we are all richer for what you have done.

Mr. Ebert, I wish you well.

It's great news that you're going to be at the opening of Ebertfest, and I know I speak for many of us cinephiles when I say I look forward to your return to what you do so well.

(See also Melissa's wonderful post at Shakesville.)

Rove under investigation

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The "obscure" Office of Special Counsel is set -- as the L.A. Times is reporting -- to launch "a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove".

"The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House." (Note: could. See below.)

Well, it's about time. Steve Benen explains.

Unfortunately, and predictably, the head of the OSC is yet another Bush hack, so the whole thing could be nothing more than a pre-emptive whitewash -- or, as David Corn puts it (via Sullivan), "a basement flooded with backed-up sewage -- with the water rising".

A lovely image, but that's the Bush Administration for you.

Mexico City votes to legalize abortion

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Against predictable opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, Mexico City's assembly has voted -- 46-19, a clear majority -- to legalize abortion in the city. Up to now, abortion has only been allowed in certain extreme cases. This "legislation will permit abortions of pregnancies in the first trimester, or 12 weeks." However, it applies only to Mexico City itself, which has become a bastion of progressive politics in an otherwise traditionalist country: The Assembly "recently voted to allow same-sex civil unions and is currently considering legalising euthanasia".

**********

Update: See also WaPo.

Liberals to the left of us, liberals to the right...

By Capt. Fogg

Is it possible to find enough nasty things to say about Rush Limbaugh? I don't have the vocabulary or the time fully to describe a man of such privilege that he can go relatively unpunished for drug charges that would have sent another man to prison; whose friends in high places (no pun intended) make sure that he can lie and vituperate and rave against the politics of our founding fathers and the philosophy behind our nation without let or restraint or consequence. But let me try.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, a political liberal is a man in favor of democratic reform and opposed to privilege. According to Rush, such a man is the radix malorum, the source of all our woes, while a man opposed to democracy and in favor of special privilege or plutocracy would of necessity be, like Rush, the answer to all that ails us, including apparently: paranoid schizophrenia.

Rush's April 19th attempt to show that the massively demented Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-hui was in the grip of liberal fervor rather than an illness would be a new low for any other man, but in Limbaugh's vocabulary there is no word for bottom:

"This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act."

Anyone who calls liberals gun-grabbers while calling Cho Seung-hui a liberal is a fabulist on the order of Hitler. Anyone who can lump everyone from Jesus Christ to John Wilkes Booth into a category and make that category seem vile; anyone who can invent a language that makes such subhuman reasoning possible should be more understanding of mental illness, but as I said earlier, such people shy away from recognizing the existence of insanity because they are afraid of the obvious and unavoidable comparison. Worse than mental illness, in terms of culpability for one's actions, is the mission of Rush Limbaugh: to lie for money, to disrupt Democracy and American principles for money, to promote special privileges for plutocrats for his own gain, to shout down reasoned discourse by sheer volume and amplitude of lies, misstatements, half truths, distortions and hysterical departures from objective reality -- for money.

But it's neither a Conservative nor a Liberal, a communist or a democrat or a libertarian or Bolshevik or royalist or an anarchist who spoke those words -- it was Rush Limbaugh and it is Rush Limbaugh's every continued breath and heartbeat that confirms that there is no justice in this world unless we fight for it.

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)

"This is no fantasy, no careless product of wild imagination"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's an interesting story:

It seems that researchers have discovered kryptonite -- or something very much like the fictional kryptonite of Superman fame -- in a Serbian mine. It's "white and harmless," not green and deadly to the Man of Steel -- one presumes. And it won't officially be called kryptonite, as there is already an element known as krypton. Instead, it will be called jadarite -- the mine where it was found is in Jadar.

"These are matters of undeniable fact." -- Jor-El, taken completely out of context.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq LV

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Worse than usual -- for the U.S.: "A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-rigged truck into a U.S. military outpost near Baqubah on Monday, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20 in one of the deadliest single ground attacks on U.S. forces since the start of the war in Iraq, military officials said early Tuesday."

As I have said before, I don't post any of this happily, let alone gleefully, whatever my views on the war.

These are just the facts coming out of Iraq.

The bungling of Broder

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Not so long ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Read (D-NV) said that the "war is lost" -- the Iraq War, that is -- and aroused the ire of the warmongering right. (As Media Matters pointed out, Reid went on to say during the same press conference that "the surge is not accomplishing anything" and that "the war, at this stage, can only be won diplomatically, politically, and economically" -- which is to say, Bush's military war is lost, but there can still be engagement with Iraq in other and more constructive areas. The media, true to form, neglected to mention this. It was the sensationalism of "war is lost" -- and the prospect of partisan combat -- that drew their narrow attention, not Reid's more nuanced argument.

The knee-jerk hostility on the right was predictable, but so, too, perhaps, was the response from the so-called "dean" of the Washington press corps, David Broder. (I hardly pay any attention to Broder, whether it's in the Post or on Meet the Press; still, what he has had to say in response to Reid merits commentary.) Speaking on XM radio, as Think Progress is reporting, Broder called Reid "an embarrassment" who doesn't think before his "mouth opens". Reid's leadership has been a "bungling performance," and "about every six weeks or so there's another episode where he has to apologize for the way in which he has bungled the Democratic case".

Such uneducated malignancy from the so-called "dean" of the Washington press corps, eh? What he's doing in the Post and on Meet the Press is beyond me, although his continued presence in the spotlight attests to the corrupted state of journalism as it is practised within the cozy confines of the Beltway.

As Think Progress argues:

It doesn't matter whether what Harry Reid said was actually true or false, but whether it was impolitic. And what determines whether it was impolitic isn't the opinion of American public, but whether conservatives got angry and called Reid "reckless" and "disgraceful"... It's apparently irrelevant that Reid's views are shared by President Bush's regular military adviser Henry Kissinger, or senior U.S. military officials, or the majority of the American people.

Nor does it matter that Broder neglected to read beyond the sensationalistic "war is lost" comment -- Does that not say a lot about the quality of his journalism, not to mention the validity of his self-appointed and self-important role as partisanship policeman, not to mention his very integrity? Does that not make you wonder even more why he has those prominent media platforms from which to spew whatever nonsense happens to tickle his fancy, including standard right-wing partisan spin?

Yes, the "dean" is here, as elsewhere, the purveyor of partisan spin. How else to take not just his neglect for the context of Reid's comments, as well as for everything else Reid had to say at that press conference, but his blatant lie that Reid has had to apologize regularly for how he has handled "the Democratic case"? Here's Greg Sargent, proving that Broder is a liar: "I just checked with Reid's office, and they told me in no uncertain terms that Reid has not apologized for any of his remarks during his first four months or so as majority leader. He certainly hasn't apologized for the 'war is lost' comment."

Of course not. Because there's no need to apologize. He's been a fine leader in the Senate and he was right about the Iraq War. His own party agrees with him, and so do the majority of the American people, and so do many on the other side of the partisan divide.

But none of that matters to Broder. The only reason anyone pays any attention to him is that he's been there a long time, hence the "dean" tag. And his whole schtick, whether in print or on TV (or on radio, it seems), is to seem to be above the partisan fray and hence a neutral arbiter. But there's nothing genuinely neutral about him and there's certainly nothing to suggest that he is a competent arbiter. As he shows here, he takes a single statement out of context, blows it out of proportion, and gets it wrong.

Shouldn't he be working for Fox?

Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Boris Yeltsin died today at the age of 76.

There's not much I can add here to what's already been said. (So see, for example, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.

Tony Blair put it well: "He was a remarkable man who saw the need for democratic and economic reform and, in defending it, played a vital role at a crucial time in Russia's history."

I recommend this piece at Slate by Anne Applebaum, which captures the man's personal and political conflicts: "That euphoria [around the 1991 presidential election, which he won] launched an extraordinary period of Russian history -- and a presidential career best described as manic-depressive. Over the next eight years, Yeltsin had enormous bursts of creative energy, alternating with long periods of illness, alcoholism, and retreat. He could rouse himself to rally the country, and he would then vanish, leaving the government in the hands of his corrupt cronies. He was capable of speaking eloquently about freedom, yet he had an autocratic streak and brooked no criticism. He talked about economic reform, but he transferred his country's industry to a small group of oligarchs. He ended the Cold War, but he started a new and terrible war in Chechnya."

Also, see this piece at The Independent by Mary Dejevsky, which similarly offers a balanced perspective: "Boris Yeltsin will be remembered by most Russians who lived through the Eighties and Nineties, with much affection and, yes, with not a little respect. He was a unique character, a tough Siberian, a Russian through and through, and a leader who obeyed instinct, not design. A man of action, he did not plot and plan. He did not have anything that could be described as a philosophy -- either of life or of Russia's destiny. Nor was he a dissident as the term is generally understood. He did not start out as an opponent of the Soviet regime; he ended up in opposition as a frustrated regional leader who chafed at the rigidities that prevented what he saw as common-sense reforms. And in truth his legacy was mixed. He presided over enormous freedom, but also over chaos, crime and economic collapse."

Barack-o-mania

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's Obama at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. That's the Old Capitol behind him. Like him or not, prefer him or not to the other Democratic contenders, there's no denying the excitement and enthusiasm he brings to the campaign.

Photo from The Globe and Mail.

Funny Man

By Capt. Fogg

Ariana Huffington notes that when Bush announced he wasn't going to be funny at the White House Correspondent's dinner the other night, he didn't explain why he's so often snickered, pranced and giggled like a cardboard monkey on a string while US troops are being killed and mutilated in Iraq. Who knows who advised him to act serious for once, but Bush is a funny man; he's even funnier when he tries to be serious and can't really seem to help himself:

"The Attorney General went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job,"

said America's court jester as quoted in a Raw Story article today. Whether this "heckuva job, Gonzo" was genuine idiocy on the president's part or whether it will result in Gonzalez's voluntary resignation some time this week remains to be seen, but I'm putting my chips on stupid and letting it ride.

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)

Newt Gingrich is a dangerous idiot

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you haven't heard, Newt has found the cause of the Virginia Tech shootings. Or, rather, he has found something upon which to pin the blame:

Liberalism.

Yes, that's right. Liberalism.

On ABC's This Week yesterday, he blamed the shootings (and such violence generally) on video games, what he called "dehumanization," and "the fact that we refuse to say that we are... endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God". Stephanopoulos pressed him -- "what does that have to do with liberalism?" -- but all Newt could come up with was a rambling, incoherent mess that included "situation ethics," "the use of language which is stunningly degrading of women," and McCain-Feingold. Yes, McCain-Feingold. While political speech is being restricted, he claims, "it's impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech". (Crooks and Liars has the video/transcript. So does Think Progress, along with more from Newt's past. For more, see The Carpetbagger Report, The Moderate Voice, PoliBlog, and DownWithTyranny!.)

I would conclude that he's lost it, but I'm not so sure he had all that much to lose. I agree that some video games are violent and that young people should not have access to them, but it is ridiculous to claim that video games were behind this massacre. As well, it's ridiculous to claim that atheism (or, rather, not believing in Newt's God) or the absence of speech codes were behind it.

Let me address three points in particular:

1) Conservatives once argued, and occasionally still do argue, against speech codes on college campuses. Just to show what an unironic theocrat he has become, Newt is here arguing for speech codes, for restrictions on freedom. (As he has before. Apparently the First Amendment means so little to him that he is more than willing to defecate all over it.)

2) Conservatives once argued, or claimed that they argued (for it all mostly spin-happy rhetoric), for personal responsibility -- a culture thereof, in fact. Remember Dubya in 2000? They ridiculed liberals for suggesting that crime was social, not just personal and moral. But here we have Newt suggesting that the culture is to blame for what happened at Virginia Tech.

3) Apparently, according to Newt, there was no such violence and no such crime before liberalism, that it's all a strictly liberal phenomenon. And, too, according to Newt, there is apparently no such violence and no such crime where Christianity, or at least Newt's version of it, is strong. Consider that Newt is a history teacher. Consider how little Newt seems to know about history. I needn't mention what was going on in the world before liberalism and when Christianity was the faith of choice and/or coercion.

Newt may have lost his mind, but he is dangerous because many people still, for whatever reason, seem to pay attention to him. And many on the right obviously share his view that liberalism is to blame for all of society's ills.

If liberalism can be blamed for anything it is for allowing Newt and his simple-minded ilk to speak freely in a free and democratic country. But that, we liberals argue, is what liberalism is all about: freedom. Newt doesn't get that, but it's good that he is free to make such an ass of himself and that we are free to call him on it.

Enough already

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We've been highly critical of the excessive media coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings -- see here and here, for example -- and now it looks like Virginia Tech has had enough of the media orgy, too. As a local ABC affiliate is reporting, Virginia Tech's student government is "calling on hundreds of reporters to leave campus by Monday morning, when students are supposed to return to classes".

Will the media go along with this sensible request? Hopefully so, but don't expect the orgy to come to an end. Doing what they always do, the media will continue to milk this story until there's nothing left to milk, and then some.

For as I have said before, there are some stories that, by virtue of their magnitude (or more precisely their sensationalism), turn into media events. And this is one of them. Regardless of what the students of Virginia Tech want, regardless of the distasteful nature of the coverage, this event will go on for as long as the media choose to continue to exploit it to serve their own ends -- which is to say, until they decide that they've had enough, or until the ratings tell them to move on to the next story, or event, or until whatever integrity they have left, and there may not be much, gets the better of them.

(h/t: Joe Gandelman)

French election updates

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Updates to the post two below this one.)

12:54 am: The BBC has the latest numbers:

• Sarkozy: 31.1%
• Royal: 25.8%
• Bayrou: 18.6%
• Le Pen: 10.5%

Sarkozy did well to break through 30 percent, but Royal came in a solid second, setting up a fascinating showdown. It's too bad Bayrou didn't do better, but he -- and French centrism -- came in a respectable third. And although it is rather distressing for the National Front candidate to win over 10 percent of the popular vote, Le Pen nonetheless did quite poorly given recent elections -- in 2002, he actually made it through to the second round (where he was trounced by Chirac).

So now, on to the second round!

**********

6:06 pm: The exit polls were right. Here's what the AP is reporting: "Preliminary results from the Interior Ministry, based on a count of 21 million votes — or more than 50 per cent — had him leading with 30 per cent, followed by Royal with 24 per cent." Bayrou is third with 18 percent, Le Pen fourth with 11 percent ("one of his worst showings in the five presidential elections he has contested").

So what now? "Royal can expect support from parties to her left, which swung behind her after their candidates were eliminated. But the scramble is now on for voters in the middle ground of French politics and others who deserted the left and right in favour of Francois Bayrou." Which is to say, Bayrou as kingmaker. Or at least his centrist supporters as collective kingmaker.

The second round vote is on May 6. These should be a couple of interesting weeks ahead.

Here are some quotes from the BBC:

-- Sarkozy: "By putting Mrs Royal in second place, they clearly marked their wish to go to the end of the debate between two ideas of the nation, two projects for society, two value systems, two concepts of politics."

-- Royal: "On 6 May we will have a clear choice between two very different paths. I extend my hand to all those who think like me that it is not only possible but urgent to leave a system that no longer works." And this is where I agree with her, and what, now that Bayrou has been eliminated, leads me to support her: "I call tonight for the rallying of all those who identify with the values of the presidential pact and who think that it is possible to reform France without brutalising it, who want to make human values triumph over stock market valuations, who want to put an end to the insecurity and precariousness that have painfully worsened in recent years." She refuses "to cultivate fear," which is exactly what Sarkozy has been doing all along. (For more on how "Sarkozy has struck fear and anger in the hearts of many," see the Guardian Unlimited.)

-- Bayrou: "More than seven million French people came together to support magnificent idea of change. It is these millions of French people I am thinking of... They opened a path of hope for France and this path of hope will not stop. There is finally a centre in France, a large centre, a strong centre, an independent centre capable of speaking and acting beyond previous borders."

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2:21 pm: It's Sarko-Ségo. Here's the latest from the BBC:

Centre-right leader Nicolas Sarkozy will meet Socialist Segolene Royal in the run-off of France's presidential election on 6 May, exit polls suggest.

Mr Sarkozy, a former interior minister, came first with 30%, ahead of Ms Royal, who is bidding to be France's first woman president, on 25.2%.

Centrist Francois Bayrou got 18.3%, and far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen 11.5%.

Voting throughout the day reached record numbers, with turnout put at 84% -- the highest for nearly 50 years.

A strong showing for Sarkozy, as well as for Royal, if the numbers hold up. Bayrou apparently hasn't won over enough of the centrist undecideds to mount a challenge for second. And -- and this is very good news -- there's been no "bump" for Le Pen, which means Sarkozy may have been quite successful in his efforts to reach out to rightist voters (which could hurt him in the second round). The question now is whether a unified left-center opposition to Sarkozy will emerge out of this round. Le Pen's supporters presumably will go with Sarkozy. Will Bayrou's go with Royal?

Sometimes SNL Rules

By Creature

The 2007 French Presidential Election

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Updated with results here.)

So today's the day the French go to the polls to elect their next president. (The Age of Chirac is over.) To be more precise, the French go to the polls in the first round of the French presidential election. If no candidates receives over 50 percent of the vote -- an outright majority -- the top two candidates will face each other in a second, run-off election on May 6.

I examined the race closely two weeks ago, and not much has changed. Polls from the past week show Sarkozy with a lead over Royal of as much as seven points. Still, a poll from Friday has him up by only a single point. Bayrou continues to lag behind in third place, a few points back of Royal, with Le Pen fourth. So it looks like there will be a Sarkozy-Royal showdown next month -- "Sarko-Ségo" is what it's already being called.

Or perhaps not. As Reuters is reporting, there are "millions of undecided voters," perhaps "up to a third of France's 44.5 million voters". There's no telling which way these undecideds will go. If neither Sarkozy nor Royal has managed to win them over yet, they could flock to Bayrou, a solid centrist candidate. Still, it seems likely that Sarkozy and Royal will move on.

Polls put Sarkozy ahead of Royal in a second-round vote, but the same poll that puts Sarkozy up by one over Royal in the first round has a 50-50 tie in the second. With Sarkozy on the right and Royal on the left, one imagines that the second round would be decided by voters in the center, assuming that both sides are able to mobilize their supporters. (Turnout has been about 80 percent for recent presidential elections; this, too, could be a factor.) What is interesting is that polls put Bayrou well ahead of both Sarkozy and Royal in terms of second round votes. If Bayrou is somehow able to leap over Royal, he could very well win the presidency. With Sarkozy seeking the rightist vote (see below), Bayrou could win both the center and the left, especially if Royal were to throw her support behind him.

I'm no fan of Sarkozy -- I find his law-and-order demagoguery rather off-putting -- so I would prefer a Royal-Bayrou match up in the second round. But this seems unlikely. I'm afraid Sarkozy's spot in the second round is more or less assured. So it comes to this: who can beat him? Either one, perhaps, but Bayrou could be the more formidable opponent. Yes, this is an anyone-but-Sarkozy way of looking at the election, but it's not so much that as the forward-looking strategy that comes with any two-round system. (By the way, it's not anyone but Sarkozy for me. I'd take anyone over Le Pen.)

So... Go Bayrou? Sure, why not?

Here's how he described himself in a recent NYT piece, quoted here: "I am a democrat, I am a Clintonian, I am a man of the 'third way'."

Sounds good to me.

(My predictions: Sarkozy 29, Royal 21, Bayrou 18, Le Pen 15.)

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Stuff to read:

-- Newsweek: Eric Pape looks at Sarkozy's appeal to the far right, especially in Marseilles, the heartland of Le Pen's xenophobic, bigoted National Front. (If he secures some of Le Pen's rightist support, as well as the undecided rightist vote, he will run away with the first round. But at what cost? Like Republicans running to the right to win their party's primaries (for example, Giuliani and McCain), Sarkozy could lose the center to a unified opposition in the second round.)

-- The Washington Post: John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore look at the key paradox of this election. French voters both "demand" change and "fear" it. (France is currently mired in a state of self-critical malaise. The word for it is "declinism". And over the past couple of years it has witnessed riots in the suburbs and barricades in Paris, expressions of violence and protest that suggest widespread national disease. The French seem to know they need new direction, but there is hardly consensus on which direction to take. Hence, one suspects, all those undecideds, as well as what looks to be a close and competitive election.)

-- Salon: Elisabeth Franck-Dumas looks at how the Napoleonic Sarkozy is a lot like Giuliani: "Sarkozy seems to have modeled his political persona on his American counterpart. He is tough on crime, prone to polarizing the public, and tosses off ready-made solutions to the host of ills that ail France." (In other words, as I mentioned above, rightist law-and-order demagoguery. Just as Giuliani is courting the religious right despite his own liberal past and centrist leanings, Sarkozy is looking for support among Le Pen's rightist mob.)

-- The New Republic (sub. req.): David Bell looks at the "immeasurables," such as "what will the large number of undecided voters do" and "who has been lying to the pollsters". In the past, voters have often lied about not supporting Le Pen, which has mean a Le Pen "bump" come election time. Could that happen this time? "In the last few days, Le Pen has started deriding the half-Hungarian Sarkozy as 'not French enough'." If Le Pen holds off Sarkozy on the far right, his "bump" could boost him up to third, ahead of Bayrou. Otherwise, a key demographic may turn out to be the French version of David Brooks's famous "bobos," the bohemian bourgeois. If enough of them vote for Arlette Laguiller on the far left, Royal could suffer. (Bell does not predict this, but it's a possibility. And, again, we could very well be in for a surprise.)

Team Gore

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Sunday Telegraph:

Friends of Al Gore have secretly started assembling a campaign team in preparation for the former American vice-president to make a fresh bid for the White House...

[A]ware that he may step into the wide open race for the White House, former strategists are sounding out a shadow team that could run his campaign at short notice. In approaching former campaign staff, including political strategists and communications officials, they are making clear they are not acting on formal instructions from Mr Gore, 59, but have not been asked to stop.

Well, okay. Even if true, this doesn't necessarily mean anything. A lot of people -- myself included -- want Gore to run, and it is hardly surprising that some of his unnamed "former strategists" (a bit vague, no?) are actively preparing for him to do so. Is Gore behind it? No, perhaps not, but it also wouldn't be surprising if he is, at the present time, passively keeping his options open. (America needs him. The world needs him. Run, Mr. Gore, run!)

In other words, there's no reason to get excited. Yet.