"Be Adequite": A young actress expresses her condolences over the passing of Robert Altman. We tend to forget that the stars of stage and screen are often not that much more educated than your run-of-the-mill hoops phenom.

Bo's Last Speech: The Onion has details....

They canned Robert Scheer for this? The L.A. Times published this Erin Aubrey Kaplan gem this morning, equating Michael Richards' n-bomb response to hecklers with OJ's double homicide, which included the following:

Even O.J. neutralists like me — to this day, I'm not sure whether he did it — had to concede that the former football star belongs in some ethical netherworld occupied by other tragically deluded celebrities such as Phil Spector and Michael Jackson.

and

...the O.J. indignation is driven in large part by racial indignation: the idea that a black man may have killed a white woman and gotten away with it. That's a violation of decorum and social law that white America cannot tolerate, whatever the findings of a court — and that fact sealed O.J.'s fate long before the announcement and subsequent disappearance of "If I Did It."

Not sure whether he did it? Calling a brutal double homicide a "breach of racial decorum." If the Times must insist each week on plucking the lowest hanging fruit from the punditocracy tree, there are plenty of bloggers out there who will do the work for far less....

Wannabes [Pt. II]: More evidence why the lefty blogosphere is just like high school. [link via National Journal]

$30 million: That's the amount of money Hillary Clinton spent running against a nobody en route to an easy reelection. That's more than any other Senate candidate, and yet she still received fewer votes than Elliot Spitzer, who won the governor's race in New York.

Wannabes: One of the more thoughtful (ie., someone who posts more than two sentences at a time) bloggers on the left, Digby, writes about Maureen Dowd, describing her unfavorably as a classic "Mean Girl." Dowd made a rather over-the-top statement about the new Speaker-Elect and Botox, playing into the stereotype that a female public figure is more concerned about physical appearances and vanity than any substantive political issues, and is rightfully chastised. To Digby's credit, he/she also points out that over the past six years, liberals have been willing to look the other way when Dowd aimed her vituperation at Republicans, forgetting that she made her bones in the 90's by making shallow, catty attacks on the Clintons.

But Digby then goes on to list the characteristics of the "Mean Girl", quoting from Rosalind Wiseman's tract on the subject, Queen Bees and Wannabes, and perhaps shows an uncomfortable lack of self-awareness, to wit:

-- Her friends do what she wants them to do.
-- She can argue anyone down, including friends, peers, teachers and parents.
-- Her comments about other girls are about the lame things they did.
-- She doesn't want to invite everyone to her birthday party, and if she does, she ignores some.
-- She's charming to adults.
-- She makes other girls feel "anointed" by declaring them special friends.
-- She is affectionate to one person to show rejection of another, like throwing her arms dramatically around one girl to emphasize the exclusion of another.
-- She does not take responsibility when she hurts another's feelings.
-- She seeks revenge when she feels wronged.

In fact, each of those characteristics is typical not just of "Queen Bees" in high school, or of Beltway Insiders in general, but of the political blogosphere in particular, especially the lefty blogosphere. The lefty blogosphere is as cliqueish and centralized as any high school, with a handful of blogs at the very top, doling out links and support to others very sparingly. Those who go against them, or are critical of their favorites, end up on the receiving end of some vicious attacks, made more difficult to counter by the fact that so much of it is anonymous.

Of course, insults are usually petty and personal ("liar" and "wanker" are two of the more popular), and often targeted at the person's appearance or weight. Mistakes are rarely owned up to, like this one confusing two different Harry Byrds. Those who believe that civility and respect for others is the foundation of liberalism, from which our principles germinate, and not simply a debating ploy, are labled "concern trolls", and hooted out of the conversation. And "charming to adults?" Well, no one can smooch derrieres like a lefty blogger when in the presence of Howard Dean, Arianna Huffington, James Wolcott, or Paul Krugman.

Those who may have been baffled by the intense, out-of-proportion jihad that many bloggers had against St. Joe can better understand the phenomenum by seeing it through the prism of the childish, petty antics of the Mean Girl in reacting to someone who doesn't prostrate herself before her. Lieberman spoke critically of President Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal, was a cheerleader for the war and the Administration, and refused to oppose cloture on the Bankruptcy Bill or the Alito nomination. In short, he was a conservative Democrat, but he was not unlike any number of others, like Senator Nelson of Nebraska, or Senator Kohl of Wisconsin, or even candidates like Robert Casey Jr., Jim Webb, and Harold Ford Jr., who received unflinching blogospheric support. There was just something about him they didn't like. Thus, a Senator who had organized for voting rights in Mississippi in 1963, at a time when people died for doing that sort of thing, was drawn in blackface on one popular blog.

To no one's surprise, the tactics used against Senator Lieberman backfired badly, and one of most sanctimonious men in American politics got to play the role of martyr, easily winning reelection after losing his party's nomination in one of the bluest states in the country. Perhaps the lesson lies in the fact that no one really likes the Mean Girl, and that if you adopt Varuca Salt as your role model, the public will rebel.

After all St. Joe has done for his "party", it breaks my heart to see it turn its back on him now.

Rest in Peace, Bo.

UPDATE: The Dead Schembechlers disband.

Because you've been good, here's a nice little tune from forty some-odd years ago:

Yes on Murtha, No on Hastings:

1. Didn't Murtha refuse a bribe during ABSCAM? The throwaway line about how he wanted to do business with the faux-Arab for awhile before he started accepting baksheesh strikes me as the sort of thing a person uncomfortable with insulting a foreign guest might say, not a policy that congenitally crooked politicians might have towards bribetaking. In the video that's been getting play, Murtha looks like one of those saps being taken for a ride by Borat, done in by his own ingrained sense of civility, not a run-of-the-mill crook.

2. Alcee Hastings was impeached and removed from the federal bench by a Democratic Congress. Who cares if he was acquitted of related criminal charges? So was OJ. I would hope that the ethical standards for a judge would be higher than merely the code set by criminal statutes. For Hastings to leapfrog Jane Harman, merely because Pelosi is peeved at the Congresswoman, would do as much as the Democrats jumping back into bed with K Street lobbyists to discredit the notion that anything has really changed on Capital Hill.

I hope some of you have taken the time to visit my college football blog, Condredge's Acolytes, this season. If you haven't, you've missed my weekly BCS update, a recap of every matchup featuring two ranked teams, and everything you wanted to know (and a lot of what you didn't, and/or a lot of what might make you very uncomfortable knowing me afterwards) about Super-Songleader Natalie Nelson. It's a team blog, and I'm always looking for new contributors. Go Bears !!!

News You Can Use: Human-Chimp cross-breeding impossible.

Good to know....

YBK [The Aftermath]: Prof. Kleiman has a good update on the bankruptcy reform act that went into effect last October, and the impact it will have once the combination of collapsing home values and delinquent ARM loans hits American homeowners. Ironically, the devastation it will cause will occur in spite of the law having been so "perfect," that not a word need be changed.

If James Carville, et al., are serious about this, the Democratic Party rank-and-file had better make their voices heard. We just picked up at least thirty seats in the House, our best effort in decades, and took a majority for the first time in a dozen years, in large part because Howard Dean pursued a strategy of challenging the Republicans in every district, taking the fight to all fifty states. Many of the incoming freshman class will represent districts that are heavily Republican in voter registration, the types of seats that the party establishment would aver that they were beyond any hope of capture, and it's because of the 50-state Strategy.

Many of the longshots didn't pan out, of course, but there are a lot of Republican and conservative voters in Wyoming, lets say, or in Idaho-1, that voted for a Democrat for the first time, a pivitol step towards any realignment. Reaching beyond the base means the party might see a day when no region of the country can be written off, which is the true mark of a majority party. And it shows respect and reverence for others, that we don't view our fellow citizens as "Red Staters," but as members of a governing coalition, as potential constituents, and most importantly, as fellow Americans. Dean and his allies in the blogosphere forced the GOP to defend areas that it had perceived as being untouchable, but were in fact soft, and the result was a victory of national proportions.

Lincoln Chafee has always struck me as a decent sort, someone who was a Republican pretty much because he was born into it, and not out of conviction. His refusal to endorse George Bush during the last election and his early opposition to the war in Iraq are testament to that; I would rather be represented by him than Joe Lieberman any day.

But I think any decision by him to switch parties comes three days too late and a dollar short. We could have used him the last six years, but now that he lost his seat, what difference does it make what party he belongs to?

Phoenician Update: Tony Blair doesn't go on trial until January, according to the Channel 4 website. We Americans will have to wait awhile longer....

One day after forcing out L.A. Times editor Dean Baquet, the Tribune Company now faces a joint takeover effort by local billionaires Ron Burkle and Eli Broad. They would also become owners of the Chicago Cubs, btw.

All in all, not a bad night for California Dems. Schwarzenegger won, but he was expected to, and he's sui generis in any event. I voted for Angelides, more out of a sense of duty and partisan loyalty than anything else, but the California Democratic Party has the potential to become as corrupt and calcified as the national Republicans (as would be attested by our disastrous Insurance Commissioner nominee; not even I could stomach voting for Bustamante), and I know of few people who are heartbroken over Ahnolt's reelection. Surprisingly, Schwarzenegger's victory was narrower than Gray Davis' win over Dan Lundgren eight years ago.

Besides those two position, the Democrats won all other statewide offices by margins more comfortable than expected, and the bond measures supported by the governor and legislative leaders passed easily. The party maintained comfortable majorities in both houses of the legislature, losing only one seat in the State Senate and none in the Assembly (thank you, Michael Berman !!), and Diane Feinstein breezed to reelection; in fact, her opponent may be the first Republican Senate candidate since forever not to break 50% in the O.C.. I would have liked to see Props 87 and 89 pass, but those are the breaks, I guess....

Differing takes on the 2008 battle for the U.S. Senate, here and here. Three Republicans (Warner, Domenici and Stevens) are close to retirement, two (Coleman and Smith) represent Blue States, one (Allard) is in the Red State that has moved most sharply to the left over the past six years, and one (Collins) is the Republican most likely to switch parties in the aftermath of last night. Of the Democrats, two (Landrieux and Johnson) have to be considered in a fair amount of trouble, and two (Kerry and Biden) have Presidential hopes, although both would likely be replaced by a Democrat. Twenty-one of the thirty three Senate seats are held by Republicans, so the prospects for increasing our majority are quite favorable.

Anyone who wants the new Democratic majority to spend the next two years refighting the first half of the decade is an idiot. Maybe the newbies aren't "conservative" in the classical sense, but the majority in either house of Congress isn't enough to pass whatever grand progressive vision we might have, much less override a veto. The Democrats have a majority because the voters in the Midwest and Northeast turned virulently anti-Republican, and because Howard Dean and his allies in the blogosphere demanded the party pursue a 50-state strategy, not because of some panacea offered by our party. The next two years will be tough enough, thank you.

If you want the party to be more militant, run for office yourself. Or perhaps actually get someone elected, rather than riding on Rahm Emmanuel's and Chuck Schumer's coattails or whining about how the party stabbed poor Ned Lamont in the back. It's thanks to you guys that we now have to spend the next two years kissing up to that pisher Joe Lieberman, hoping that we don't say something that sends him into the arms of the GOP.

With the networks now calling Montana for Tester, and Webb continuing to lead Allen by a slight but significant margin in Virginia, Democratic prospects to capture the Senate as well as the House seem imminent. The thing that strikes me about the last night's results is how regional the GOP now is. Only five of the House pick-ups (and possibly one in the Senate) came in the South, and two of those seats were in districts (KY-3 and FL-22) that Kerry and Gore captured in the past two Presidential elections. Two other seats (FL-16 and TX-22) were directly attributable to scandal-ridden incumbents resigning after winning their primaries, preventing the Republicans from putting a new candidate on the ballot, leaving only Heath Shuler's win in NC-11 as an example of the Democrats going into a Red District in Dixie and emerging victorious.

It was the rest of the country that rejected Republicanism. More than half of the gains in the House came in states the Democrats have won in either of the past two Presidential elections. The key to Republican dominance since 1994 has been to maintain a sizable contingent of Congressmen representing suburban and exurban districts in the North and Midwest, buttressing the party base in the Old Confederacy. That contingent doesn't exist anymore, certainly not after last night; George Bush and Karl Rove have now scared away conservative and centrist voters from every section of the country, and the few that remain, like Christopher Shays, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Susan Collins, are going to be the ones most likely to switch parties in the near future. The post-2006 Republican Party is the least national party since the post-Reconstruction Democratic Party