From urban legend to legend in your own time. Bask in the gratitude, Yeti. You're the (wooly) man.

If you can't do, administer?

Yes -- I bet. And if there is, it should be encouraged.

General remark: given the President's apparent interest in pushing some sort of "broad" or "comprehensive" gun legislation (or regulation), it might be valuable to stake out some policy ground that can gather support from more than a segment of Republicans -- even if (especially if?) buyback programs don't have a very broad or comprehensive effect.

I mean people show up with guns -- that's it. Even if buyback isn't effective among people who (a) really really want to keep their guns and (b) use them irresponsibly/dangerously, I don't think that's the proper measure of the effectiveness, or purpose, of buyback.

Not sure I have anything to add here except: keep these great and surprising remarks coming. "The party of long-term planning" may not be super-sexy (or, necessarily, super-pro-family), but it is Tocqueville-approved...

Romney on Russia was a mess. Obama on executive war by fiat leaves much to be desired, and Romney was nowhere near hard enough on this. Neither party seems to have much of a plan for how to help Europe control its own destiny. The China issue is obviously complex, but did either campaign make clear to America what the big picture is there? Also both parties are just incoherent on the Mideast. If the idea is to just take it ad hoc, people should come out and say so. Just a few examples.

I mean we've got to start ensuring that South Korea, Japan, Israel, and Europe, for instance, can increase their military independence. Putting this off until later, I suspect, won't end particularly well.

That'd be Walter Russell Mead, who's a must-read on this.

It's already happening in San Jose and San Diego:

Public employee unions that aggressively fought the measures weren't able to overcome the simple message supporters used to attract voters in San Diego and San Jose: Pensions for city workers are unaffordable [...].

Imagine.

Jerry Brown is also now taking heat for declining to follow even Rahm Emanuel's lead on these matters.

And now, we get to ask: can Hollande work with it?

Thought experiment: the tax first, followed by (kept) promise to step down from Congress if cuts not secured *and implemented* afterward. Publicity stunt or game changer?

We're probably not as far apart as you seem to think, Barfly. Rather than setting up honor and prudence as binary alternatives, I'd identify them as poles on a spectrum. My concern is that politically active and influential Republicans are gravitating away from the middle portion of the spectrum and toward the poles. The problem I want to draw attention to is that this is really dangerous for the GOP as a political party. From this standpoint, Rubio isn't primarily at fault because caring too much honor is bad (though I think that's true); he's contributing to the problem because he's exacerbating the evacuation of the spectrum's middle. And he's doing so in a way that doesn't cast Obama's failures in clear, convincing terms.

Agree. Unfortunately, Team Romney seems to think the opposite. It's all part of the mistaken strategy of going after Obama as too weak -- instead of calling him to account for being too controlling.

Also true. But I wonder how much traction Paul would have gotten had Obama run a different foreign policy...

Ehh. I'm ambivalent. Hypothesis: Facebook and such just make it easier to be lonely -- or not lonely. Much like a hammer makes it easier to pound nails or pound your thumb.

It's also possible that the old concepts have been eroding all on their own, so to speak. Heather Mac Donald's call for a new elite push for fatherhood and parenthood is eloquent. Would it work? Does it matter?

There's an honesty here in LA. It can be offputting, but it can also be refreshing. People aren't as afraid to admit that the things you want them to do -- and, by extension, you -- just aren't that important to them. Unfortunately, flake culture can also be used to enable lies about degrees of importance...