Not dead yet? – Mary Katherine Ham over at Townhall says that “Social Security reform lives again.” (Hat tip: B4B)

Delaware Senator Joe Biden dead - Just kidding. But how else can you explain his failure to appear on any of the Sunday morning shows? It's baffling, I tells ya!

Just one more minute....

Very little posting today. Know why? We went to the mall today and I picked up the updated version of Sid Meier's "Pirates" for my PC. This was a game I played nearly obsessively for years, until a "friend" of mine "borrowed" my CGA-graphics disk. Now it's the same game but in color. Oh, this is bad. Very bad. I need help, ye scurvy dogs.

Do not incur my fearsome wrath – I’m taking the family down to Disney World in a couple of months. Would it be wrong to mention that I’m a semi-popular (#218 on the Ecosystem) blogger? The impression I get from Instapundit is that I’d be foolish not to; more towels for the mighty Viking Pundit!

Amazing video – Watch this girl stack cups and don’t blink.

It’s come to this – With the economy growing steadily and unemployment at 5%, Paul Krugman has to reach back to the 2000 election in his latest rant. Mark at the newly-designed (nice!) Decision08 lays down the smack. What’s next for Krugman? Nixon taking America off the gold standard? Pathetic.

P.S. – Still waiting for the Social Security plan, too. Haven't forgotten.

Babe-alicious

Jessica Alba has an, um, interview in…Newsweek. And something, she says something. I’m sorry, I seem to be distracted.

Blogrolling is down again - Here's something to do to pass the time: get Daffy Duck to land on the target.

Quote of the Day – “Only nuclear power can halt global warming” – James Lovelock, founder of Greenpeace (found on the Economist)

The drift of the Democrats

Here’s David Ignatius in the WashPost with “What the Democrats should be saying”:

So where are the Democrats amid this GOP disarray? Frankly, they are nowhere. They are failing utterly in the role of an opposition party, which is to provide a coherent alternative account of how the nation might solve its problems. Rather than lead a responsible examination of America's strategy for Iraq, they have handed off the debate to a distraught mother who is grieving for her lost son. Rather than address the nation's long-term fiscal problems, they have decided to play politics and let President Bush squirm on the hook of his unpopular plan to create private Social Security accounts.

Because they lack coherent plans for how to govern the country, the Democrats have become captive of the most shrill voices in the party, who seem motivated these days mainly by visceral dislike of George W. Bush. Sorry, folks, but loathing is not a strategy -- especially when much of the country finds the object of your loathing a likable guy.

I’ve been saying most of this for a long time, esp. in the context of Social Security reform. Be sure to read the whole thing.

You are in error, sir! - Pat Hynes is wrong wrong wrong in this article: “That Old Feeling Again.” It was Paul Davis, not Barry Manilow, that had a seventies hit with “I Go Crazy.” Everything else is right.

Obscure Jessica Simpson joke ahead - John Roberts was raised in Buffalo, New York up until the second grade. Buffalo wings are made from chicken, not buffalo! Can we trust John Roberts on the Supreme Court when he grew up in a city that doesn’t interpret recipes in the literal sense? A city that spawned Tim Russert and a football team that lost the Superbowl four years in a row? He must be stopped!

Extra – The ABA gives John Roberts a unanimous “well-qualified” rating. Orin Kerr notes that if the ABA had a sense of humor, it would have rated him “over-qualified.”

The adults and the children

Here’s what I wrote [emphasis added]:

For the Crawford demonstrators, Casey must be a one-dimensional character, an unwitting pawn of the Bush/Israel cabal. He must be infantilized and subjugated to the Cause.

Mark Steyn in the UK Spectator (reprinted on Free Republic):

Ever since America’s all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterise them as ‘children’. If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that’s her decision and her parents shouldn’t get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the Oval Office shagpile and chow down on Bill Clinton, she’s a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year old is serving his country overseas, he’s a wee ‘child’ who isn’t really old enough to know what he’s doing.

Steyn’s conclusion:

Cindy Sheehan is a woman whose grief has curdled into a narcissistic rage, and the Democrats cheering her on are cheering their own marginalisation. Most Americans will not follow where she’s gone — to the wilder shores of anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-Iraq, anti-Afghanistan, anti-Israel, anti-American paranoia. Casey Sheehan’s service was not the act of a child. A shame you can’t say the same about his mom’s new friends.

Indeed. (Hat tip: Ankle-biting Pundits)

Up up up - If it’s Thursday, it’s time for a Social Security post on Willisms. Today Will shows the projected growth of entitlement spending and the history of the payroll tax rate. (Hey, that graph looks familiar).

Quote of the Day – “But what are we going to do about him? We’re stuck with him.” - An “old-line Democratic loyalist” lamenting DNC chair Howard Dean (according to Robert Novak).

O No! - The “O” is all about the outraged CEO of Overstock.com.

GROW accounts “certain” to come up for a vote – “The House will likely vote this fall on a Social Security bill to let workers put part of their payroll taxes into U.S. Treasury bonds that they would own, Republican leadership officials say.”

The inevitable Cindy Sheehan post

I’ve tried, oh how I’ve tried, to avoid adding to the cacophony of opinions on Cindy Sheehan, but this article today by Peter Beinart struck a nerve:

As the parent of a dead soldier, Sheehan has so much moral authority precisely because so few Americans (including so few of us who supported the war) risk sharing her plight.

It’s telling, perhaps, that Beinart doesn’t mention Casey Sheehan until paragraph 9 of an eleven-graf article, and even so only in through the prism of his mother’s grief. For the Crawford demonstrators, Casey must be a one-dimensional character, an unwitting pawn of the Bush/Israel cabal. He must be infantilized and subjugated to the Cause. We must never know that Casey Sheehan signed up for the military, re-enlisted three years later, and then volunteered (over the objections of his C.O.) for the mission that ended his life at Sadr City. If he had survived, he would have been decorated as a hero. But since he died, he’s no longer a hero, but a duped victim in the ghoulish ventriloquism of his mother.

But let’s face it: the MoveOn crowd doesn’t want to talk about Casey. They really want to focus on the “plight” of Cindy whose anguish waned enough during her first meeting with President Bush that she said relatively nice things about him to her local paper. Now Bush is the “top terrorist in the world.” It’s obvious that Sheehan has no goal beyond the unblinking television cameras, tracking her pensive gaze at a makeshift cross adorned with American flags.

I’ve avoided writing about Cindy Sheehan because I think she’s internalized her anguish such that it’s become bigger than herself and her family. (It’s noteworthy that not a single other member of the Sheehan family has joined her in Crawford, or even stepped outside their homes to make a public statement to the press.) But let’s not hear anything more about the “plight” of Cindy’s own making. “Mother Sheehan” wants to elevate her sorrow to national prominence for political purposes; unfortunately, unlike other mourning parents, she wants her son remembered with pity, not honor.

Follow-up – Here are some choice quotes and an appropriate editorial cartoon.

Family-sized Amazing Race starts September 27th – I’ve already picked my favorite team: the dad (from Massachusetts) racing with his three sons-in-law. That’s bound to lead to fireworks.

Air America update - Where in the world is Evan Montvel-Cohen?