1) From the New York Times, “So Where’s Murphy” by William Kristol. As I mentioned earlier in the day, Kristol feels that political consultant extraordinaire Mike Murphy will soon return to John McCain’s side and make sense out of the tone-deaf and contradictory hash that the McCain campaign has been cooking up:
My fear with the McCain campaign is that it has the philosophy, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if it is broke, do nothing because maybe it will fix itself.” Sometimes such a strategy can work. See “Republican Primaries 2008” for a case study. But it won’t be enough going up against a strong opponent in a Democratic year. Or, to paraphrase Princess Leia, “Help us Mike Murphy – you’re our only hope.” Other than Obama self-destructing which of course remains a possibility. 2) From the Wall Street Journal, “Obama Faces Resistance From Top Supporters of Clinton” by John R. Emshwiller and Christopher Cooper As the old saying goes, hell hath no fury like an irrational nag scorned, let alone a bunch of irrational nags. The Journal reports that “Clinton holdouts are typically most angry about what they say was the media’s sexist treatment of Sen. Clinton during the campaign. And though few, if any, blame Sen. Obama directly, they fault the Illinois senator and other party leaders for what they say was failing to do enough to stop it.” Sitting atop the list of silly grievances? “Pundits both on TV and in print referred to Sen. Clinton’s laugh as a ‘cackle.'” First of all, objectively speaking, it was a cackle. It is not sexist to call it what it was. Second of all, I was doing a radio show on the Sunday night after Hillary had debuted her cackle (and that is what it was) with Chris Wallace earlier that day on Fox News Sunday. I spent pretty much the entire show making fun of the cackle. Personally, I would rather have spent the time discussing secular humanism or some other more edifying topic, but the listening public kept demanding, “More cackle!” My point is this – I’m unclear exactly what Barack Obama could have done to stop this particular show’s sorry direction. Okay, maybe he could have tried to pass the Fairness Doctrine while in the senate instead of writing a dreary campaign book. But it doesn’t seem like the Clinton backers have a reasonable beef here. 3) From the New York Times Magazine, “Late-Period Limbaugh” by Zev Chafets. Some people on the left found this lengthy story very annoying. Others on the right found it maddening. I found it enormously entertaining and insightful. Limbaugh comes across as a quadruple threat, just like he does on his show – funny, intelligent, well-spoken and funny again because he’s just that good. I especially enjoyed the little nugget on the talk radio business model:
