This has nothing to do with politics, but I love this early photographic image of humans. When daguerreotypes were used, it was exceedingly difficult to capture humans or anything else that moved, for that matter. But you can see what looks to me like two black kids near the river in this picture of Cincinnati.

Other cool film links? Two time travelers. First, this cell phone-talking lady at a premiere of a Charlie Chaplin film. And a hipster transported to the 1940s.

Yesterday the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO) e-mailed the advertisement pictured to the right to a historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) recipient list.

Surprising? No.

Illegal? Yes.

The NAFEO is a nonpartisan, nonprofit group registered under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code, and as such is prohibited by law from "directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office."

But don't worry: NAFEO president Lezil Baskerville promises it was an accident!

Ricochet member Trace Urdan writes:

If this mailer were instead sent to the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities membership base with the same rhetoric exhorting its members to vote for Republicans: "If you don't vote, they win," how quickly the charges of racism would come.

But the HBCUs might want to reconsider, because the same strong hand of government impacting the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU) membership could easily turn its attention next to the appalling outcomes performance among its member schools.

I've been working on an article all week about Turkey's bafflingly supine diplomatic position toward Iran. Now I read this.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's spokesman sent a birthday greeting to the president of Iran, who turned 54 this week.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley urged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to send American hikers Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer home.

In a tweet sent Thursday on Ahmadinejad's birthday, Crowley said, "What a gift that would be."

Let me get this straight. Our Secretary of State has wished the president of a regime that kidnapped American citizens a happy birthday, asked him nicely to give them back, and thinks Twitter is the appropriate medium for this communication? Could this all be true?

I can't believe I've been working all week on a piece arguing that Turkey doesn't seem to grasp what it's dealing with.

Judson Phillips, a tea party leader, urged voters in an e-mail to vote against Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn) in part because of Ellison's religious affiliation. Politics Daily reports:

A prominent leader of the Tea Party movement has reiterated his view that voters should cast their ballots against Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, in part because he is a Muslim.

Judson Phillips, founder of the Nashville-based Tea Party Nation, had sent out an e-mail Monday calling on voters to elect Ellison's independent challenger, Lynn Torgerson, because "Ellison is one of the most radical members of congress. He has a ZERO rating from the American Conservative Union. He is the only Muslim member of congress."...

Ellison--regardless of his religious affiliation--is the worst type of politician imaginable, so I have a hard time defending him on this one. Scott Johnson at Powerline recently chronicled the hypocrisy of Ellison:

Incidentally, Ellison used to hang with the gangbanging Minneapolis cop killer Sharif Willis. Now he hangs with the likes of Schultz, an altogether better class of thug. In his conversation with Schultz, Ellison announced he felt like taking Williams's books (referred to in in the singular as "that stuff") off the shelf "and putting it in the garbage."

Schultz elicited from Ellison the fevered charge that "Juan Williams contributes to profiling and harassing Americans." He doubts Williams's integrity -- this from a guy who predicated his first congressional campaign on three easily demonstrable lies.

Ellison responded to Phillips in the Washington Post two days ago, invoking the typical boilerplate:

I issue a call to civility, and urge Americans to reject the divisive rhetoric of Republican Tea Party leaders like Judson Phillips; including calls for my defeat solely because of my religion.

Usually, I would agree, but Ellison himself has brought his religion into the political arena, which doesn't help his case.

Nor, as far as I'm concerned, does his predictably liberal voting record.

Terrific column by Kimberley Strassel in this morning's paper of record, The Wall Street Journal. It's about the myths the Democrats are promulgating to explain their unpopularity--and how the mainstream media pass those myths along. She covers the mysterious foreign spending myth, the we-didn't-explain-our-policies myth, the insane tea party myth and on and on.

It's locked up behind the paywall, so I have hired a team of medieval German Carthusian monks to actually transcribe one paragraph by hand:

There are indeed many ads up about gay marriage and abortion. It so happens they are being run by Democrats spreading fear about their opponents. To a remarkable degree, Republicans have campaigned purely on economic issues. The idea that lower taxes, less spending and free markets are "extreme" positions says far more about the accusers than the GOP.

Sing it, sister. Now go out, buy the paper and read the rest. And, er, thanks Monks.

Do you see him? He's standing at the front edge of the tree-lined sidewalk. It looks like he's pumping water from a fountain with his foot, doesn't it?

(h/t Jonah Golberg at The Corner).

Read more about this evocative photo here.

This photograph of Boulevard du Temple in Paris was made in 1838 by Louis Daguerre, the brilliant guy that invented the daguerreotype process of photography. Aside from its distinction of being a super early photograph, it’s also the first photograph to ever include a human being.

I love this image. I love that this is the first photo of a human ever taken. I love the way it connects you to another time and another place. And I love that the man is the only person on the street, going about his business thinking he is perfectly alone, when of course he is not--the photographer is there too.

The thought occurred while I was speeding through Akron, Ohio a couple of days ago about how to respond should one of Ohio's finest pull me over. Mind you, a truck governed at 60 mph doesn't get many chances to speed. So while blazing through a 55 mph zone with the defiance of Sammy Hagar and the speed of Grandma running late for bingo night, I determined how to respond if pulled over. "You see officer," I would droll, "the traffic law is a living, breathing document." The result? I'd get a ticket, a fine, perhaps even a good tasing depending on the persistence of my argument. That's when it occurred to me, ...this living breathing document business only goes one way.

We've all heard the audio recording of then Professor Obama lamenting the Constitution's framework of "negative rights." The Constitution failed, in Obama's estimation, to do certain things that he suggested government "must do." The President's remedy? Ignore the Constitution, of course. It's a living, breathing document anyway, subject to changing times and circumstances. In other words, it's meaningless.

Just ask Congressman Alcee Hastings, who famously said, "There are no rules. We make 'em up as we go along." Or for that matter, ask Allen Boyd, the Congressman from Florida's second district, who told his constituents that it is the judicial branch's job, not his, to determine the constitutionality of the laws he votes for.

I have to wonder though, do these officials expect the citizens to regard the laws they pass as casually as they themselves regard the Constitution? Do we get to take the pulse of a living, breathing individual mandate and decide it doesn't apply to us? Will the 16,000 new IRS agents created by the health care law acquiesce in our decision. Will we be relieved of the onerous burdens of cap and trade if we detect a rogue emanation from its penumbra? Can we ascertain a heretofore unknown right in the tax code to use Monopoly money to settle our debt on April 15th? If the 14th Amendment contained a previously unknown right to dismember a baby, surely there is some serious latitude in laws governing light bulbs and gallons per flush.

But I'm afraid such efforts, while intellectually consistent with the left's reading of the Constitution, would come to a bad end. The Constitution, which is the law of the land and the very foundation of our civil society, is a malleable thing in the liberal mind, easily contorted, like silly putty. But an edict specifying the maximum allowable diameter of the pipe going to your bathtub? That is a stone tablet from Mt. Sinai.

What we are dealing with is not so much a problem of elitistism, as one of hubris. There are elite sports teams, elite schools, elite military units, elite intellectuals, elites in almost every field of endeavor. It's when people presume to order the lives of others with no legal or ethical right to do so that the problem arises. And the error is compounded further when these people fashion themselves as elites, but in reality are little more than garden variety busy bodies of below average intelligence and above average arrogance. That, ultimately, is the root of despotism. In a few short days, we will uproot this idiocy before it completely undermines the constitutional foundation. Then, we can get about the business of a much needed restoration.

Here's an interesting local vote to watch: San Francisco's sit/lie referendum.

If you want to be annoyed to the point of apoplexy, read what San Francisco's vagrants have to say for themselves in Heather MacDonald's terrific piece about the homelessness industry in the Haight-Ashbury. I'm trying to find a quote to extract here, but it's a challenge, because they seem to be unable to express themselves without using profanities. Ah, I found one that's not obscene, at least not technically--although it's certainly monumentally irritating:

Why should people give you money? “They got a dollar and I don’t,” Cory replies. Why don’t you work? “We do work,” retorts Eeyore. “I carry around this heavy backpack. We wake up at 7 AM and work all day. It’s hard work.” She’s referring to begging and drinking. She adds judiciously: “Okay, my liver hates me, but I like the idea of street performance. We’re trying to get a dollar for beer.” More specifically, they’re aiming for two Millers and a Colt 45 at the moment, explains Zombie. Aren’t you embarrassed to be begging? “I’m not begging, I’m just asking for money,” Cory says, seemingly convinced of the difference. How much do you make? “In San Francisco, you don’t get much—maybe $30 to $40 a day,” says Eeyore. “When you’re traveling, you can make about $100 on freeway off-ramps.”

What more conventional people consider “employment” is, in the eyes of the street punk, something conferred gratuitously. “People see you, they’re like, ‘Get a job.’ You’re like, ‘Okay, pay me, hire me. You know, do something!’ ” a boy complains on a promotional video made by Larkin Street Youth Services, a local organization that serves “homeless” youth. Meantime, welfare will do just fine. A strapping young redhead trudging down Haight Street with a bedroll and a large backpack explains the convenience of his electronic food-stamp card, which he can use to pick up his benefits wherever he happens to be—whether in Eugene, Oregon, where he started his freight-train route last Halloween, or in California.

Anyone who's ever been there knows these descriptions are absolutely accurate. I'm so annoyed now that I have to stop thinking about this lest I have a hemorrhage.

One of Ricochet's special strengths is its humor. So when I find great political satire somewhere, I feel an obligation to share it with my fellow members and contributors. I've recently discovered a brilliant satirist named Paul Krugman who has written this piece for The New York Times. I've never seen Mr. Krugman perform live, but I have a sneaking suspicion that, under his fake gag beard, there beats the heart of an Andy-Kaufmanesque stand-up comic. If anyone knows his true identity, please tell me. I would really like to see him perform in person. Kudos to the Times, too, for providing a forum for this counter-cultural comedic genius.

I wrote a piece back in September that gives a more personal take on the Israel-Iran situation. It came out too long to post on Ricochet, so I benched it. I have a shiny new blog, though, and it occurred to me that that piece might make a nice first entry. I just put it up; feel free to stop by and have a look.

Here's a teaser:

We in Israel are forever being lumped together, and not only by those who wish to malign us. Israel is one of those subjects, like vaccinations or Jennifer Aniston’s love life, about which most people feel qualified to have an opinion, no matter how minute their actual knowledge of it. We’re all soldiers, all victims, all occupiers, all heroes, all redeemers of the land, all Nazis. That strategy of argument works well at cocktail parties and in graduate seminars, but its distortion of reality could ultimately come at a massive cost to those of us who live here.

Reducing the arguments to their essences, there are two schools of thought about Israel. One holds that we are morally obliged to concede everything it’s possible to concede in exchange for the right to live at all, since our very existence as a nation is an affront to the natural order. The country was stolen; it is therefore illegitimate, and any attempt to wrest it out of the hands of the thieves and restore it to the displaced is morally justified, no matter how barbaric the methods of restoration might be. We have forfeited our right to be considered human beings – creatures with a right to defend ourselves, and to be offended by double standards concerning violence against us – by callously blinding ourselves to the plight of those we have collectively wronged. Israeli children are as guilty as Israeli adults – as inhuman – since they are the product of a sinful enterprise. We are a monolith that offends the sensibilities of all decent people and are thus not entitled to be differentiated as people worthy of individual concern. Israeli Jews can earn readmission to the human race by agreeing, humbly and without insolent reciprocal demands, to deny our national and religious history, and to turn our backs on everything we’ve built on the stolen, sacred land.

The other school of thought is deeply sympathetic to Israel. We are the sole beacon of enlightened Western thought in an ocean of repressive Islamic theocracies and corrupt Arab “republics”. We are the standard-bearers for progress out of the darkness. We are the brave nation that rose out of the ashes of the murdered six million to give meaning to their destruction, and to give the Jews the home they have been denied for generation upon generation. We are indomitable in the face of relentless condemnation of all our attempts to safeguard our lives and those of our children. We are uncowed by the poison of salon anti-Semitism, which winkingly delegitimizes us from Oxford to Berkeley. We are both the first line of defense and the last stand against radical Muslim tyranny, which is at war with every freedom the West has grown too complacent to value. We are the army of the free. We are the army of the Lord.

The rest is at judithlevy.com.

Ricochet reader Duane Oyen was kind enough to call my attention to a very interesting interview with Martin Kramer conducted by Michael Totten on Pajamas Media. In it, Kramer speculates on the degree to which Jeffrey Goldberg, whose recent piece in the Atlantic placed the odds of an Israeli strike on Iran by next summer at about 50:50, was spun by the people he was interviewing (a possibility Goldberg himself acknowledged). As Kramer says, "The whole purpose of spinning Jeffrey Goldberg—assuming that’s what happened—was to prod the United States into taking a more forward position. Americans are taking a forward position already, but the idea here would be to multiply the effect." His own assessment is quite refreshingly honest, in that it reflects the total inability of anyone outside Israel's inner security circle to speculate:

...I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to all the people Jeffrey talked to, and there are a lot of variables that we don’t know yet. The timeline is open to question. The intelligence is also being debated. So while I wouldn’t put a percentage on it, plans are definitely on the table. If the United States doesn’t act, the moment will come when a decision will have to be made. We don’t know what the arguments will be or in which ways the calculations will shift between now and then. Israel has the option, though, and it’s on the table. I wouldn’t say the odds are greater than fifty percent, but it’s a credible option.

Kramer makes many points worth reading. He posits, for example, that even bonkers Iranian mullahs and cheerful sociopaths like Ahmadinejad would hesitate before vaporizing the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, which together make Jerusalem the third-holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. This suggests that it's in Israel's interests to "concentrate every strategic asset it can right next to [Jerusalem]:"

The Israeli leadership has built a duplicate command center in Jerusalem exactly like the one it has in Tel Aviv in the Ministry of Defense. So why stop at the top brass and the political leadership if you know that over the long term we’ll face a hostile nuclear adversary? It makes sense to load up Jerusalem with strategic assets which would themselves serve as a deterrent to a future exchange. And it’s a lot easier to do than position submarines in the Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean.

So the long term effect would be to make Jerusalem central to Israel not only for political and cultural reasons, but also for strategic reasons.

This, then, would have obvious implications for "land-for-peace" negotiations with the Palestinians:

If there’s a shift of Israel’s assets from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the struggle over real estate up here becomes even more acute. There will be less leeway for Israeli concessions. Concessions are difficult to make in any case. Local security issues can be, in one way or another, finessed, but once they play out in this mega arena of confrontation between nuclear states, flexibility diminishes quickly. It would create tremendous pressure on Israel to maintain its right to decide the future of different pieces of turf close to the city.

He also makes a point I've been yelling into the wind for a long time, this time with regard to gaining Arab popular support for containing Iran ahead of solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem:

Is it that important to have the so-called Arab street? It’s extremely difficult to turn the Arab street into a strategic asset. Nasser tried to do it. Saddam Hussein tried to do it. Ahmadinejad is trying to do it. Erdogan is trying to do it. It’s flattering, I suppose, to have your poster on walls here and there, but nobody has found a way to turn that into something they can use, and I don’t think the United States has much prospect of doing so either. It’s an intangible.

A nuclear Iran, on the other hand, would be tangible. So I think linkage, in fact, runs the other way.

Regarding the American calculus on whether to step up or let Israel handle Iran:

The Gulf is a zone of American dominance, and the only way to assert that is to do what Carter did with the Carter Doctrine, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. He said there should be no outside power or local power that is allowed to challenge the United States in the Gulf. And a nuclear Iran clearly crosses that line.

If even Jimmy Carter was compelled to issue a doctrinal statement in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan about the Persian Gulf, one would think that Barack Obama would see the need to do something similar. Obama should especially feel compelled to do so because there’s a question mark there. He should declare the Persian Gulf a nuclear-free zone. It’s too much to talk about the Middle East as a nuclear-free zone at this time, but the Persian Gulf is nuclear-free now, and it’s time for the United States to come out and say it should remain nuclear-free...

It would be an astonishing lapse if a man who promised to roll back nuclear proliferation watched proliferation develop in one of the least stable parts of the world, a place where the United States has only been able to maintain even a modicum of stability by a massive projection of its own forces. The region is of prime interest to the entire world for its energy resources. If it becomes nuclearized, it will be the one thing for which Barack Obama would always be remembered by history, and he would be remembered by history as a failure.

Another piece I highly recommend is Daniel Gordis's article "The Other Existential Threat" in Commentary. Gordis makes the essential point that a nuclear Iran has the potential to fundamentally alter the psychology of the Israeli soldier -- which is to say, the psychology of most Israelis:

...Many people are put off by the Israeli national affect, which they take to be a mix of arrogance and bravado. This is a misperception of an attitude that is born, in truth, out of collective relief: We Jews no longer live—and die—at the whim of others. That sense of security would evaporate the minute Iran had the weapon it seeks. Even if Israel does possess a second-strike capability, and even if the U.S. could be counted on to punish a nuclear attack on the Jewish state, the existential condition of the Jews would still have reverted to that experienced in pre-state Europe. It would mean that Jews by the tens of thousands could die because someone else determined that it was time for them to do so. No action that Israel could take in response would change that fundamental reality.

Gordis personalizes the matter in a way that really hit home for me:

Periodically, as my 21-year-old son heads back to the army at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning after a weekend at home, I’ll kid with him as he’s walking out the door with all his gear, mimicking conversations we might have had when he was a teenager. I’ll ask, in a falsely harsh tone, “Just where do you think you’re going at this time of the day?” To which he’ll smile and say, “To defend the homeland.”

It has become ritualized family banter, but only because the first time my son responded that way, he did so without thinking, without humor, and without irony. It was, in point of fact, exactly where he was headed. He was going to defend the homeland. The thousands upon thousands of young Israelis who serve their country this way, some of whom volunteer for roles more daunting than could possibly be described, do what they do, day after day and year after year, because they believe themselves capable of defending the homeland. On land, in the air, and at sea, they have proved decade after decade, war after war, that periodic failings notwithstanding, they can keep the country safe. They leave their homes behind, and risk life and limb to ensure the safety of their parents, their grandparents, their siblings, and often their children.

And all this—these national rituals and this still pervasive willingness to serve—would lose all meaning were Jews returned to the status of European victims-in-waiting. Which is precisely what an Iranian nuclear weapon would do.

He explains the potential consequences of that psychological shift:

[T]he first commitment of Zionism has been to provide safety to Jews. So far, it has more or less succeeded. But the minute that Iran possesses its long-sought nuclear weapon, Zion becomes not a haven for the Jews but a potential deathtrap. Six million Jews (an ironic number if there ever was one) will again be in the crosshairs. And if that happens, Israel will have lost its purpose.

Without purpose, Israelis will not remain in Israel. The allures of Boston and Silicon Valley, where intellectual and financial opportunity await without the burdens of war and the shadow of extinction, will be too difficult to resist. Those who now stay in Israel do so, in large measure, because they sense they are part of a historic transformation of the Jewish condition. Absent that awareness, however, the most mobile of Israel’s citizens—who also happen to be those whom the state most desperately needs—will be the ones who abandon it.

In this way, Iran could end the Jewish state without ever pressing the button.

Have a look at both pieces; they're well worth your time.

...are actually encouraging. From the latest pollster memo:

A quick update: tight CA Governor's race is moving toward Meg Whitman.

As of last night, in two separate tracking polls conducted over the last 72 hours, the race is now tied in one poll and Meg leads by +1 in the other. Among early voters who say they have already cast their ballots, Meg Whitman is leading by 3 points.

Field is a good poll. But it was taken from 10/14 to 10/25 and missed this movement. GOP intensity, seen in early vote returns, is very high.

This is a tight race and while the public polls are down, most were taken a week or more ago. CA trend looking more and more like rest of US, despite blue state status. Brown has been stuck for months around 45%, looks like undecided voters are now moving toward Meg.

These polls also showing Meg's favorable rating rising every night, while Jerry Brown's unfavorable rating now at highest we have ever measured. Meg also leading with older voter and voters projected as most likely to vote.

Both polls reflect a Democratic party advantage of 6-8 points. The 2006 election day exits showed 6 point spread. We believe it might even be closer this year.

Make of this what you will. I'm encouraged by three big metrics: 1) Jerry Brown can't get his numbers above 46%; 2) Whitman's numbers keep growing; and 3) Whitman's up +3% with early voters.

So, it could happen.

The definition of a close call:

Bill Clinton sought to persuade Rep. Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race for Senate during a trip to Florida last week — and nearly succeeded. Meek agreed — twice — to drop out and endorse Gov. Charlie Crist’s independent bid in a last-ditch effort to stop Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee who stands on the cusp of national stardom.

[Meek's] withdrawal, polls suggest, would throw core Democratic voters to the moderate governor, rocking a complicated three-way contest and likely throwing the election to Crist.

...“It was a completely done deal,” one source said....The Crist, Meek and Clinton camps even set a date for an endorsement rally: the following Tuesday, Oct. 26.

Last weekend, however, Meek changed his mind.

“Not being seen as a quitter was more important than stopping someone who was so opposed to what you and your party had stood for,” said one Democrat who had been hoping to close the deal.

These days, when I go into the office, someone immediately collars me and asks, “So what’s going to happen? Do you still think … ?” And I answer that I do still think. I really do.

Back on 2 September, in a post entitled Restoring Constitutional Government, I predicted that the Republicans would pick up more than 70 seats in the House and would take the Senate. None of the pundits have yet gotten to the point where I was then, but – when I consult Real Clear Politics, pay a visit to Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, glance at Rasmussen, give Gallup a gander, or dig up Jay Cost or Nate Silver, I consistently find that they have inched yet one more step in my direction – and right now they are very, very nervous. For, like me, they sense that something big is coming, and they have not seen the like. As Stuart Rothenberg put it this morning,

With a week to go until Election Day, House Democrats face the potential of a political bloodbath the size of which we haven’t seen since the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The largest midterm House loss for the president’s party during the last 50 years was 52 seats in 1994. The previous largest losses were 55 seats in 1942 and 71 seats in 1938.

While some Democrats say their party will keep Republican gains to fewer than 39 seats, Democratic losses are likely to be much higher.

Democratic district-level polling suggesting manageable losses is contradicted by GOP surveys, which show more than eight dozen Democrats under 50 percent in general election ballot tests, and dozens of Democratic nominees either trailing their Republican opponents or sitting in the mid-40s.

In wave elections, incumbents of the party at risk tend not to receive the votes of people who are undecided late, so most Democrats need to hold comfortable leads and be near the 50 percent mark if they are going to survive on Election Day.

Ladies and Gentlemen, mark my words! On 2 November 2010, the American people are going to make history. This will, I think, be bigger than 1938, 1942, 1946, 1966, 1980, and 1994. And on the evening of 2 November, I am going to celebrate.

The rest of you can stay up and watch until the glorious end, counting the votes and cackling as you do. Me, I am going to go right to bed if I learn, as I expect to learn, that Barney Frank has lost his seat on the House. After such a consummation, devoutly to be wished, what is there to look forward to? What could top it?

Peter Robinson will tell me: “the demise of Barbara Boxer.” And if I lived in California, I might agree. But the man who prevented the proper regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – well, he’s the man I most want to see go down!

In a new study, David Kirby and Emily Ekins document what many of us already know: both libertarians and conservatives have swelled the ranks of the tea party. But the numbers are welcome proof that the tea party phenomenon cannot be written off as just the latest and greatest way for the right's moneyed elites to rile up the rubes for election season. The tea party isn't a single movement, a single constituency, or even a single would-be realignment. It's a focal point for a number of different shifts -- the kind that take away the explanatory power of words like 'center-right' because the definition of the political center is being contested.

Libertarians and conservatives alike have been grappling over the past decade or so with a basic choice between a more top-down and a more-bottom up approach to governance. Independents who don't share the ideological commitments of devoted libertarians or conservatives have wrestled, in a different fashion, with the same thing. In addition to this ongoing debate about the direction of governance, there's a broad reconsideration of the appropriate content of governance. It's the kind of shake-up that makes for movements you can't pin down or pigeonhole. And it's evidence that the tea parties are the pointy end of a larger thrust in American politics away from the routine we've become accustomed to.

Helpful as they are in pointing this up, Kirby and Ekins' numbers run the risk of cementing the illusion that the tea party is an either/or affair, sharply divided between unreconstructed libertarians and unreconstructed conservatives. The truth is a much more intriguing mush in the middle -- as once-settled sets of priorities and principles are resorted in response to Obamanomics, and as voters without clear-cut ideologies continue to gravitate away from the offerings of the party establishments.

In case you missed it, it seems that Harvard law professor Larry Tribe wrote President Obama shortly after Justice Souter announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. The purpose of the letter was to advise the President on whom he should pick to replace Souter. In a nutshell, Tribe's advice was "anybody but Sotomayor." Well, okay, he didn't say that, but he did say:

Bluntly put, she’s not nearly as smart as she seems to think she is, and her reputation for being something of a bully could well make her liberal impulses backfire and simply add to the fire power of the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas wing of the Court

For full coverage - including Tribe's efforts to dig himself out of the hole today - go to Ed Whelan's posts at NRO. It is clear, however, that Tribe valued Souter primarily for his ability to manipulate Anthony Kennedy; he doesn't think that Breyer is up to the task; nor is the "bully" Sotomayor.

Oh, and Tribe ends his letter by asking Obama to create a special position at Dept of Justice just for him. I wonder why the President didn't jump at that?

Next week Oklahomans will elect the state's very first female governor. But will Oklahoma's next governor be a wife and mother, or will she be a single, childless career woman?

Mary Fallin, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, emphasized this question in a recent debate when she described what most distinguishes her from Democratic opponent Jari Askins:

I think my experience is one of the things that sets me apart as a candidate for governor. First of all, being a mother, having children, raising a family.

Many female commentators have decried Fallin's statement as a mean-spirited cheap shot against her 57-year old never-married, childless opponent. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus thinks that marital and family status should be off-limits when two women are on the ballot.

The unstated premise of Fallin's comment is: "I'm a mom and she's not." And the unstated but barely disguised conclusion is: "And that makes me better and leaves her lacking in a material way."

This put-down packs a far more powerful punch in a woman-on-woman race. If Fallin were running against an unmarried man, the I'm-a-parent-and-you're-not card wouldn't be quite so loaded: A "childless" female candidate tends to be perceived as lacking in an essential way that a man without children is not. And if Askins's opponent were a married father, he would probably be smarter than to bring up her marital and maternal status for fear of the ensuing backlash.

Low blow or fair game? I'm inclined to accept Fallin's remarks as fair game if she genuinely believes that her experience as a mother is pertinent information for the electorate. But if nothing else, it's unfortunate that Fallin squandered an opportunity to emphasize her distinguishing governing philosophy and first principles.

Get in on this! The winner gets...something. Not sure what, yet. An Amazon gift card, an appearance on the podcast...something cool.

Here's how we'll do it:

You correctly pick the number of House and Senate GOP gains, as of 11PM Pacific Time, November 3rd. That's the day after, and there will probably still be some recounts going on -- there's gonna be some shenanigans at the polls -- but we've got to pick a time and stick to it.

Tell us:

1. The number of GOP House net pickups;

2. The number of GOP Senate net pickups.

3. Tiebreaker #1: The number of GOP governor pickups.

4. Tiebreaker #2: Steele or Dingell?

5. Tiebreaker #3: Boxer or Fiorina?

6. Tiebreaker #4: The percentage spread between O'Donnell and Coons in Delaware. Not who wins, just the spread!

For background, check out Larry Sabato's thoughtful, measured predictions here. He says House +55, Senate +8, Governors +8-9. (Of course, in the Ricochet pool, there's no "8-9" -- you've got to pick a number....)

We'll call "Last Bets" sometime on Sunday. You can revise and change and argue it out until then. Whatever your last bet is, that's the one we'll count. So, like Chicago politics, bet early and often.

Graphic courtesy of E.J. Hill

Republican Robert Dold is running for congress in Illinois's suburban 10th district against Democrat opponent Dan Seals. Dold may well win too--especially after Seals endorsed him! Well, some seals...

The reliably-liberal Ninth Circuit recently upheld a resolution passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors denouncing statements by Cardinal William Levada and the Vatican that "Catholic agencies should not place children for adoption in homosexual households," and "Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children."

According to the San Francisco resolution, the Church's statements are, and I quote: hateful, discriminatory, insulting, callous, insensitive and ignorant.

Now, whether or not you agree with the Church's position, does it not seem odd for the government to take an official position that a particular religious doctrine is "wrong?" Indeed the resolution went further, suggesting that anyone who adhered to Catholic teaching would be violating San Francisco's "established customs and traditions." Not long ago, the NY Times' Linda Greenhouse waxed rhapsodic about Justice Souter's 2005 holding that the Establishment Clause means that “the government may not favor one religion over another, or religion over irreligion."

Three judges (Andrew Kleinfeld, Sandra Ikuta and Jay Bybee) dissented, but ultimately the Ninth Circuit concluded that the resolution was perfectly acceptable. As far as I know, neither Linda Greenhouse, nor David Souter, nor anyone at the ACLU has protested the Ninth Circuit's decision. If only the resolution had denounced Islam -- then I bet you'd hear the protests.

According to scientists at Harvard and UC San Diego, there just might be:

Researchers have determined that genetics could matter when it comes to some adults' political leanings.

According to scientists at UC San Diego and Harvard University, "ideology is affected not just by social factors, but also by a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4." That and how many friends you had during high school.

Call me an unenlightened brute, but whenever I see scientists giving material and/or genetic explanations for major aspects of human behavior--happiness, addiction, politics--I have to roll my eyes. It seems so condescending, doesn't it? It presumes that people are slaves to their genes. It's deterministic and, if true, it seriously undermines the concept of free will. In an era of genetic engineering and test-tube babies, imagine: you'll be able to code your child's political philosophy. (I'm joking--kind of).

On the other hand, if one's political disposition is fated by one's genes, we now know that liberals just can't help their wayward beliefs.

Also, this made me laugh: according to the study, the more friends you have in high school, the more likely you will be liberal. Insert subtext about conservatives here.

Does Sarah Palin live up to the "high standards" of the presidency? Does she have the required "gravitas"? Is she "up to the job"?

Karl Rove doesn't think so. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Rove took a dig at Palin's forthcoming reality show, saying that the path to reality TV stardom does not lead to the Oval Office (via Hot Air):

“With all due candour, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel, I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office’,” Mr Rove told The Daily Telegraph in an interview....

He said Mrs Palin had done a “terrific job” in 2008 when Senator John McCain took her from near obscurity to the vice-presidential nomination, but added: “Being the vice-presidential nominee on the ticket is different from saying 'I want to be the person at the top of the ticket’.

“There are high standards that the American people have for it [the presidency] and they require a certain level of gravitas, and they want to look at the candidate and say 'that candidate is doing things that gives me confidence that they are up to the most demanding job in the world’."...

But Mr Rove suggested that “outside of the true believers”, most Republican primary voters were still watching the race and would choose the candidate most suitable for the role. “They are going to be saying 'the person who can win is the person who proves to me that they are up to the job’,” he said.

As Allahpundit points out, this is Rove's third strike: "First came the criticism of O’Donnell on the night she won the primary, then came the knock on tea partiers for being unsophisticated, which earned him Rush’s ire. Now this."

I can see Rove's point, though. Is it really wise to appear on reality TV unscripted and perhaps uncensored if your next move is to run for high political office? When Diane first alerted us to Palin's reality show, she wrote:

While Palin runs the risk of overexposure, I think the show has the potential to actually help Palin's future political career. Providing viewers with access to her personal life will help reinforce the fact that she's a real person that ordinary Americans can relate to.

I think Diane makes a great point, but I just wonder: don't ordinary Americans who are fans of Palin already feel like they know her and can relate to her? If so, then the reality show will just provide entertainment for those who already like her and fodder for those who don't.

While we're contemplating bizarre international sex scandals, I call your attention to--no, wait--would linking to the story violate Ricochet's Code of Conduct? Do you really want to know the details? Maybe not. But I am, after all, a professional journalist; so I have an obligation to cover the story, for good or ill.

Remember what I was saying about Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of the Malaysian opposition? Key words: proctoscope, Paul Wolfowitz, Al Gore? Well, the Sodomy II trial, as they're calling it, is underway. (I found a link that explained the situation in the most chaste possible terms. You probably don't want to Google much further.)

Now, one very serious point about that link. Put this under the category of "things reporters don't mention, but really ought to." The article notes:

In 2008, Anwar was instrumental in cobbling together an opposition alliance that included the Chinese-dominated, socialist Democratic Action Party (DAP) and the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS). Even his detractors would admit that Anwar is still the only figure capable of bridging the ideological gulf that exists between these two groups. This being the case, if Anwar is imprisoned the brittle DAP-PAS alliance could well unravel.

What this article doesn't note is that the PAS are the radical Islamists, so it is not exactly some huge credit here to Anwar that he's the only one capable of bridging that divide. They're these guys:

A leader of Malaysia's Islamist party, which made surprising gains in March elections, wants its secular allies to apply strict sharia law, which include amputations and stonings for Muslims.

The hardline Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) has enacted such laws in its Kelantan stronghold to punish rapists and adulterers with stoning to death, while thieves would lose their limbs.

In other words, the worry about the unraveling of this electoral alliance is a little misplaced.

All of America, I'm sure, is glued to its seat--so to speak--by the breaking sex scandal in Azerbaijan. This is my personal favorite part:

In a commercial showed widely on Lider TV, viewers were told to watch the evening news show "Seda." It was during this program that the video of Ahmedov and a woman having sex was shown. The announcer says that what is happening in the video is a result of the "asymetric policy from the West."

While engaging in oral sex, the Lider TV moderator said "we have to show this to the Western world, especially to France, so they know that their methods are very close to our opposition."

I reckon the French will be deeply sobered by this realization.

I'm not quite sure what the editors were thinking with this headline:

New report reveals Germany's involvement in Nazi past

As the friend who sent me this link said, "Hold the front page!"

I'd give him proper credit for that line and the tip, but I got in trouble with him before by trying to do that--seems some of the people he works with don't have a sense of humor. But thank you, protected source!

"What's a hipster," you ask? The question you should be asking is: "What was a hipster?" Mark Greif explains:

If I speak of the degeneration of our most visible recent subculture, the hipster, it’s an awkward occasion. Someone will point out that hipsters are not dead, they still breathe, they live on my block. Yet it is evident that we have reached the end of an epoch in the life of the type. Its evolution lasted from 1999 to 2009, though it has shifted appearance dramatically over the decade. It survived this year; it may persist. Indications are everywhere, however, that we have come to a moment of stocktaking.

The whole piece in NY Mag is long, but worth a read. Chances are you'll glean a factoid or two about a predominant American subculture of which you may not even have been aware.

If you tried to write a parody of the New York Times, you simply couldn't do better than this. From today's book section, Patricia Cohen on James T. Kloppenberg's study of the academic influences that shaped our current, flailing president.

When the Harvard historian James T. Kloppenberg decided to write about the influences that shaped President Obama’s view of the world, he interviewed the president’s former professors and classmates, combed through his books, essays, and speeches, and even read every article published during the three years Mr. Obama was involved with the Harvard Law Review (“a superb cure for insomnia,” Mr. Kloppenberg said). What he did not do was speak to President Obama.

“He would have had to deny every word,” Mr. Kloppenberg said with a smile. The reason, he explained, is his conclusion that President Obama is a true intellectual — a word that is frequently considered an epithet among populists with a robust suspicion of Ivy League elites.

So that's why he's such a lousy president. That's why he has a hard time connecting with the American voter. He's just too...wonderful. On the other hand, according to Patricia Cohen's unintentionally hilarious essay, he's in excellent company:

In New York City last week to give a standing-room-only lecture about his forthcoming intellectual biography, “Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition,” Mr. Kloppenberg explained that he sees Mr. Obama as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.

“There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln and in the 20th century just Woodrow Wilson,” he said.

Let's forget, for a moment, that it's nothing less than a blood insult to the memory of four great presidents -- that's Adams, Adams, Jefferson, and Lincoln, if you're keeping score -- to toss that repellent creep Wilson into the mix. Let's focus on the idea that Barack Obama is a "philosopher president." What a spectacular piece of delusional straw-grasping idiocy! How perfectly it encapsulates the unplugged, unhinged cocoon of the academic left.

It's an analysis that has a delicious appeal, of course, to Barack Obama's most loyal following. Here's the punch line:

Those who heard Mr. Kloppenberg present his argument at a conference on intellectual history at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center responded with prolonged applause. “The way he traced Obama’s intellectual influences was fascinating for us, given that Obama’s academic background seems so similar to ours,” said Andrew Hartman, a historian at Illinois State University who helped organize the conference.

That's really all you need to know, isn't it, about our arrogant, out of touch, and hyper-vain president? He reminds that puffed-up, flatulent class of academic hoo-has of themselves! Applause, applause! He's just like us! We, too, could be presidents. Well, philosopher presidents.

Obama, says Kloppenberg, is a "pragmatist." (Which should come as news to actual pragmatists.) But he's a "philosophical" (there's that word again) pragmatist. Unlike, say, Bill Clinton, who was a "vulgar" pragmatist.

Obama, says Kloppenberg, has a "profound love of America."

It gets worse and worse. And funnier and funnier. Read the whole thing. And the next time you're tempted to complain about the liberal bias of the New York Times, stop yourself. Be grateful for life's unexpected comedies.

A classic Ricochet roundtable this week with author/publisher Roger Kimball and über-blogger (and our favorite Democrat) Mickey Kaus. Also, Dr.Rob Steele, who's doing his best to unseat the Duke of Dingell, stops by for an update on his campaign. It's a lively discussion that covers all the big races, but with a special emphasis on the California races, especially the one in which Mickey was a former candidate. Also, Juan Williams, NPR and Fox News (Shhhh! Mickey has a secret source!), and whether or not Prop. 19 will go up in smoke.

It's a beautiful fall day here in Southern California; we're hitting the links:

• The Southern Foodways Alliance is an organization that documents, studies, and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. In the Atlantic Monthly, Corby Kummer dubbed the SFA “this country’s most intellectually engaged food society.” Hall of Fame members include Craig Claiborne, Ruth Fertel, and Tabasco.
• The website for the planned community of Seaside, Florida may be found here. It was used as a location for the movie The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey. It's not cheap to buy a house there.
• Walt Disney was indeed a model train enthusiast. He had his own 1/8th scale model railroad the backyard of his Beverly Hills home.
• Please visit Dr. Rob Steele's web site and donate. It's the only way we're going to get a contributor from the halls of Congress. We're looking at you, Dr. Savage.
• Sarah Palin recently did Dr. Steele a big solid by endorsing him via her Facebook page.
• There is an art restorer at New York's Whitney Museum who has spent the last few months salvaging sculptures of meat. The pieces aren't actually made of meat (unlike a certain singer's evening wear).
• In his last will and testament, Ho Chi Minh requested that he be cremated, but like the meat at the Whitney, he has been preserved for all eternity.
• Arthur Slessinger Jr. (October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007), was a Pulitzer Prize recipient and American historian and social critic whose work explored the liberalism of American political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. Dinesh D'Souza wrote a great piece a few years ago exploring how Ronald Reagan knew that the Soviet Union was doomed long before the intellectuals on the left.
• In 2004, William F. Buckley wrote poignantly about selling his beloved yacht Patito and giving up sailing after a lifetime on the sea.
• Mickey Kaus now blogs for Newsweek. It's a must read. You should also follow his Twitter feed.
• The San Francisco Chronicle blog post Mickey refers to is here.
• The latest polling on Prop. 19 indicates it may be going up in smoke.
• Jerry Brown's website.
• Martini Shot, Rob Long's weekly commentary on life in the entertainment business is broadcast weekly on KCRW, the public radio outlet in Los Angeles. Yes, you can podcast it.
• KCRW also produces the political roundtable show Left, Right, and Center, or as it's affectionately known in some parts, Really Left, Left, and A Little Less Left.
• The Ricochet Code of Conduct: Read it. Learn It. Live It.
• Sorry James, but we really like This American Life. We don't disagree about Ira Glass's voice though.
• Please join us on Election Night for a live discussion on Ricochet using CoverItLive. Details coming later this week.

Music in this week's episode:

• Let Yourself Go by James Brown
• Radio Nowhere by Bruce Springsteen

The direct link to this week's episode is here (great for mobile devices!), but we'd really love it if you'd subscribe. Not an iTunes user? Please visit our Feedburner page for a number of other subscription options.

The Ricochet Podcast is sponsored by Encounter Books and their Broadside Series. This week's featured title is Obama Health Law: What It Says and How To Overturn It by Betsy McCaughey. Available for $5.99 at EncounterBooks.com.

Dodge has a World Series television commercial out apparently geared toward Tea Partiers (or Ranger's fans...).

We keep hearing, even now, about the "destructiveness" of the Tea Party. Oh? My friend Sally Zelikovsky is a major figure in the Tea Party here in Northern California. In recent weeks, Sally notes, a little movement has arisen here in the Golden State on behalf of impressive, and conservative, third party candidates. What is Sally urging members of the Tea Party to do? Support the Republicans instead.

From Sally's article today in the American Thinker:

Many Tea Partiers aren't happy with the Republican choices for certain offices and are pushing voters to cast their ballots for last minute conservative candidates who, they believe, more readily pass the conservative sniff test than some of their Republican counterparts. Admittedly, some of them just might be more conservative.

Karen England is one such write-in candidate for Lt. Governor. She is an amazing person who I wish had entered the race earlier with a full-blown campaign instead of coming in at the last minute as a write-in....But...a vote for Karen is a guarantee that [Democrat] Gavin Newsom gets elected.

Newsom is the mayor who proudly pronounced San Francisco a "sanctuary city" despite existing law to the contrary and performed hundreds of same-sex marriages in blatant defiance of the popular will....It's virtually the same for the unknown but conservatively appealing Chelene Nightingale, who is running for governor on the American Independent Party ticket....

Wake up from the fantasy before it is too late. This is California -- we cannot change things overnight. It takes deliberate, calculated actions over a long period of time to make a difference. We must start with baby steps in California, and that means voting for the most conservative candidate who can get elected!