This is where I would disagree a bit. I don't want to send a politician to Washington to sit quietly for years. I want them to go and do the job we sent them to do, and then come home. 

Thanks for the kind words, James. I do think he is very humbled. And while he was in office before, he was never Schumeresque in his desire to live before the cameras. But his political actions would make news because they were so bold, so I'm hoping it will be his politics making the news again. If so, the benefits he brings will greatly outweigh the negative.

Yeah, I think you're right. That will come with the territory--for a while. It'll be his Homeric epithet, like "rosy-fingered dawn" or "grey-eyed Athena"--the media's crutch to maintain the liberal meter of their stories. 

But I predict it will become so old and boring to everyone else that readers eyes and ears will skim right over that, sort of like the way our eyes and ears don't even notice "he said" to introduce a quote.

This, I think, is a moment to try to end the media tyranny of GOP candidates. (Not that one moment will do it, but a consistent string of moments could turn the tide.) 

You're so right about Mourdock. It was awful how the party fled from his side, for saying something any preacher in any church would say. All because of abject terror of what the media would do. So instead of even fighting for him, we just threw him over. We lost his seat *and* got smeared anyway. If we'd fought, maybe we would have overcome one or both.

We've got to lay down a marker somewhere and say, that's it, we're done running. 

He said he would leave after three terms, and he did. Today he was asked about this pledge and said he would be willing to make it again.

I think it's a stretch to say that he could never serve again. He left Congress 12 years ago. It's not as if he has the trappings of incumbency to secure reelection. 

He's a good guy, and Gowdy too, and Duncan, and...well, the only name I wouldn't mention approvingly is Clyburn. SC's delegation can be a powerful voting block,especially with Sanford on board, and they all know each other, unlike Bostic, so if/when he wins, it should be a fairly seamless transition.

Thank you, Jerry. I couldn't have said it better myself.

I agree. I appreciate the time he took to compile a few pointers.

Good rules, but the last made me chuckle, as "with prepositional phrases" is a prepositional phrase. I suspect he meant "with a preposition."

He's generally correct, except when it comes to idioms ending in prepositions and adverbs that get mistaken for prepositions. 

The old story comes to mind of Winston Churchill becoming upset when an editor attempted to conform Churchill's writing to this long-standing rule, to which Churchill replied:

"This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."

I too am troubled and frustrated that Republicans have become so frightened of the media and Democratic spin that they now practically refuse to say anything that might include having military action on the table. Romney pressed the case that we want peace, but I didn't hear forceful emphasis on the "through strength" component. And we see where Obama's peace through inaction, negotiation with enemies, withdrawals and weakness has gotten us. 

Right now we're apparently in "just win the election" mode. But after November 6, conservatives need to quit being so timid. Let's review our principles and make sure our military and foreign policies abide them.

For instance, when we introduce a new battlefield technology, it's up to us to set fair rules of war for it. I don't like our drone usage for the reasons outlined by Jonah and Ben above, but also in opposition to Valiuth's take. Do we want other countries/groups believing they can blow up our people with drones indiscriminately? Convince me we do, because my starting point is no.

I like the optimism of you all. It gives me hope to which I can cling bitterly, because I can't believe Obama is not polling in the 20s. Other than self-identifying liberals (supposedly 20% of the population), who would vote for this guy? I am utterly mystified.

I fear that the process stories *are* getting through and taking root. Ask the average American what they know about Sarah Palin, and it is most likely information gleaned from a process story.

The media is good at protecting their guy at all cost. That bit about our diplomat being drug through the streets? Just this afternoon, a tiny clip has emerged on YouTube, pretranslated for English-language media, claiming it was good Samaritans rescuing the ambassador from a burning building and erupting in cheers of Allah Akbar to celebrate he was alive. The NY Times, Atlantic Monthly, Daily Beast all leapt on it, to squelch the horror of the event and try to turn the savage crowd into heroes.

So they continually clean up Obama, while packing more mud on Mitt.

Sorry to be such a downer.

I give you Four Geppetto Hammers for your excellent takedown of "Honest John" Kessler.

That's part of it. But when there is no respect, civility arises from shame---or fear of it.

The Left has worked for decades to eliminate shame from their emotional palette. We conservatives still tend to use it as a guiding compass, a moral antennae. But the mere suggestion someone should be ashamed enrages liberals, on everything from government dependence to "getting in your face."

Would a conservative woman go before the nation and proudly proclaim she is having premarital, recreational sex and demand Congress force her Catholic school to not only abide her sexual activities but also fully fund them? No, we'd be too embarrassed.

The Left is further enabled by the media. They have no shame either. When Anderson Cooper uses the slur "teabagger" with impunity, or Soledad O'Brien gangs up on a guest, calling him a white supremacist, they aren't going to call out their fellow shameless. There's no one to hold their incivil feet to the fire.

I suspect they do feel ashamed, though. Ashamed they have no shame, and since shame makes them mad, they're gonna take it out on us.

I find your reports very disturbing, especially since the few discussions I've seen elsewhere about Turkey generally praise Erdogan as a mild moderate and great friend to America. The interview he gave to Fareed Zakaria gave me the opposite impression.

Have you read the Erdogan profile in this week's New Yorker ("The Deep State: The Prime Minister is revered as a moderate, but how far will he go to stay in power?")? The whole way through the piece, I wondered how you would respond to it.

It saddens me to think that the future will be deprived of letter collections. The tactile joy of a secret box in the back of a drawer or closet filled with ribbon-bound special letters and postcards is fast disappearing.

Emails saved in an inbox can be easily lost in digital failures and technological transitions. They can't be passed down through generations---and I can't imagine my heirs daring to go through my tens of thousands of emails to find one or two worth keeping for posterity. But they will inherit a lovely scrapbook of my great-grandmother's postcards from a hundred years ago.

It's no wonder some schools have abandoned teaching cursive writing. There's little use for it now, except to autograph credit card receipts.