Apparently, a lot of people do. Only 51% of American workers in this survey are "satisfied" with their bosses.

That strikes me as a pretty high number, but Robert Sutton, in Harvard Business Review, begs to differ. He's got some other pieces of the puzzle:

But other evidence paints a less gloomy picture. For example, a recent poll [pdf] by StrategyOne of over 500 American workers finds that over 80% of employees feel respected by their supervisors and believe their supervisors value their work. And I just heard from a Danish journalist about an ongoing effort by staffing firm Randstad to index satisfaction and other work-related attitudes and behavior across 26 countries. While Japan, according to it, has the lowest satisfaction, with only 41% of its workers calling themselves either very satisfied or satisfied with their employer, Denmark tops the charts at 83%. (Note that there is other research that shows the Danes are the happiest people in the world.) US workers, while not as satisfied as their near neighbors the Canadians (78%) still came in at 70%. Worldwide, some 68% of employees are satisfied with their employer. (I realize this does not necessarily mean they are satisfied with their bosses. The old saw that people leave bosses, not companies, is supported by a lot of research.)

Sutton is the author of Good Boss, Bad Boss, which I haven't read (yet). On his blog, Work Matters, he describes some of the worst boss types he's come across:

Research on power poisoning suggests that because wielding authority over others leads to "dis-inhibition," impulsiveness, and disregard for and detachment from the reactions of others -- bosses are likely to do some pretty strange and offensive things. Here are a few examples to get you started:

He walks around the office with his shoes off, and doesn't realize that his feet stink.

She picks her nose during meetings.

He talks VERY loudly on his cell phone, even when talking of company secrets.

She talks and talks and talks, and seems incapable of listening.

He keeps forgetting to zip-up his pants after going to the men's room.

When we go to lunch, she eats food off our plates without asking permission.

He calls women "honey" and "sweetheart" and doesn't realize that they find it offensive.

Only some of which I've done. Actually, I'm kidding. For some reason, although I recognize all of those things as rude or unpleasant, it's not exactly what I think of when I think of "bad boss." I guess my mind goes more towards the psycho, the screamer, the scaredy-cat. In my experience, those are the worst kinds of bosses.

This is the big news in the NFL, folks.

It seems that wife Gisele Bundchen and Justin Bieber are the only fans of Tom Brady's new look.

"Nice haircut, Brady," the tween singing sensation told the [Boston] Herald in an email. "Dude's got golden locks. Haha!"

Photo: AP

A few months ago, as you'll recall, Rob hypothesized that Hillary Clinton will announce her intention to challenge Obama for the Democrat Party's nomination in 2012 sometime next summer. As supporting data points for his conjecture, Rob pointed to polls that showed Hillary Clinton's approval rating at 10 to 15 points above President Obama's.

Since then, not only has the gap in approval ratings continued to widen -- Clinton now polls at 66 percent approval, while Obama has fallen to the low 40 percent range -- but the country seems to have fallen deeper into crisis, rendering null the promises of hope and change. Which is great news for Hillary. The Wall Street Journal reports on a new study in the British Journal of Social Psychology:

Times of crises change what people look for in a leader. And men don't fit the bill. A new study explores a phenomenon called the "glass cliff," in which female leadership becomes more desirable during times of uncertainty. Previous research has found that when women attain leadership positions, they are more likely to be asked to take over organizations in crisis.

Researchers gave test groups information about fictitious companies, some of which were in crises. They found that women were more likely to be selected than men if the company was struggling. The reason seemed to be that stereotypically female characteristics were suddenly valued when everything went to pot: interpersonal qualities such as being "intuitive" or "aware of the feelings of others."

Women are perceived as being better leaders during times of crisis. And we certainly have plenty of examples of women making great leaders during crises.

Consider that data point #3 in support of Rob's speculation.

I hate to give this any more press than it's already gotten, but as it's part of a trend, I think it's worth a mention. Brazilian artist Gil Vicente has manufactured some controversy over charcoal drawings that show him assassinating such horrors of humanity as George W. Bush, Pope Benedict XVI, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, Queen Elizabeth and... you get, as it were, the picture. In doing this, Vicente joins the ranks of such other sad hate mongers as Nicholson Baker, who imagined killing W in his novel Checkpoint (I'm not linking. Find it yourself.), and the clowns who made the film showing Bush's murder, whatever it was called.

The only point I want to make about this, is that these artists and the people who cover them and even the people who are outraged by them all fail, it seems to me, to ask the pertinent questions the work actually raises. To wit: If your philosophy fills you with murderous rage, shouldn't you change your philosophy? If murder is the necessary outcome of your politics, shouldn't you change your politics? If your worldview has no room for art that transcends death shouldn't you change your worldview?

Or to put it another way, if this is all you have to contribute, shouldn't you just shut up and go soak your head?

By way of Twitter, this just in from Uncommon Knowledge viewer Travis Lindsay:

Peter, if you had to make a list of the top conservative intellectuals today who would make your list?

A lovely question. We’ve come a long way since Lionel Trilling’s 1950 declaration that “[i]n the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominate but even the sole intellectual tradition.” Our side has brilliant scholars, think tanks, intellectual ferment. Of any number who belong on this long list, three who come immediately to mind:

1. Historian Paul Rahe. From the very beginning of the Obama administration, while lots of other conservatives were sunk in gloom, Paul remained persistently cheerful, arguing, as he put it, that “the Obama administration is a gift to the friends of liberty.” In predicting the emergence of a popular revolt—Paul foresaw the Tea Party before it existed—Paul didn’t merely have his finger to the political winds. He had his mind attuned to the deepest currents of American history. Drawing on his immense erudition—in particular his detailed knowledge of the political culture of the first half of the nineteenth century—Paul decided things were about to get better, not worse.

People like me wanted to believe him but couldn’t quite bring themselves to do so. But just look. Paul was right. An astonishing intellectual achievement.

2. Economist John Taylor, who, I’m proud to say, appears from time to time right here on Ricochet. During the first months of the financial crisis, the narrative that took shape in the academy and was then amplified in the mainstream press was simple: Markets had failed. Capitalism had been discredited. Big government needed to save us. Milton Friedman? To the ash heap. Long live John Maynard Keyes! John Taylor bravely stepped forward to say “Not so fast.”

Drawing on a detailed analysis of Fed policy and the housing markets, John demonstrated that big government had had a lot to do with causing the crisis in the first place. The Fed had expanded the money supply too fast, creating the housing bubble. Then Congress had pressured Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to increase low-income mortgages, and, eagerly complying, Freddie and Fannie had in effect created the subprime market. John transformed the way serious people look at the crisis—and at what still needs to be done to clean the mess up. Again, a remarkable intellectual achievement.

3. Classicist Victor Davis Hanson, who is, again, a Ricochet contributor. Victor’s achievements as a historian of the ancient world are simply massive. Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece. A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power. In his analysis of—and, broadly speaking, support for—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Victor has deployed his undoubted scholarship. All by himself, he has made it impossible to deride as yahoos or ignoranti those who believe that from time to time the United States must—skillfully and wisely, but unapologetically—make use of its military might.

Now, into the mosh pit.

Good people of Ricochet, you’ve seen my list. Who’s on yours?

It's subscriber only, but Stanford economist Edward Lazear has a must-read op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today. Lazear's done the math and concluded that if America limits growth in government to the inflation rate minus one percent, we'd have a balanced budget within a decade and would be in a better position to pay down the debt. Lazear's argument complements the GOP pledge to return non-defense discretionary spending to 2008 levels. Personally, I'd like to see larger cuts, especially in the Post Office. But Lazear's proposal strikes me as politically realistic.

In the past, Democratic attacks made Republicans cautious about calling for limited government and budgetary restraint. To put it mildly, our democracy doesn't have a fantastic track record of rescinding entitlements. But the past half decade of political and economic upheaval may have caused the public, or at least conservatives and independents, to open up to new approaches to governance. You see this newfound openness in the Tea Party's popularity and the rise of Paul Ryan. That's why the GOP Pledge to America can be rightly criticized for being too cautious. If Republicans gain power, here's hoping Congressman Ryan hands out Lazear's article at the first House Budget Committee meeting.

By the way: I've started writing a weekly newsletter over at home base, the Weekly Standard. Sign up today!

Yesterday I missed my flight home from Las Vegas, spent ten hours in the airport, had my credit card stolen, and spent 40 minutes trying to find a parking spot in my neighborhood when I finally made it back to San Francisco. So I was a bit grouchy this morning when I reported to the Ricochet editor's desk.

Grouchy, that is, until I happened upon the Young Cons' rap video, "The Problem." Ronald Reagan rapping, a shout out to Mark Steyn, and a bite sized nugget of the Christian Gospel -- I can't imagine a better way to start the day.

Looking over Mollie Hemmingway's post regarding the admonishment 60 Minutes administered to those of us opposed to the Ground Zero Mosque, I was struck by the continuing theme that those of us who find the project distasteful or offensive are guilty of simple and ignorant bigotry. Who wants to be found guilty of that? Perhaps, if 60 Minutes, the editorial board of the New York Times, and the rest of the DNC, want to find real bigotry, they should broaden their horizons just a tad.

Here's an example. In Pakistan last March, a 38 year-old Christian man was burned alive and his wife raped. Their crime? They refused to convert to Islam.

Or how about this? Kiran George, a Christian maid, was raped by the son of her Muslim employer. When she threatened a lawsuit, her attacker killed her.

However, lest the tolerant people of that region be found guilty of age discrimination, we should not leave out the story of 12 year-old Shazia Bashir, who was murdered by her "employer," a wealthy Muslim lawyer.

For if there is one thing that these practitioners of the 'Religion of Peace' cannot abide, it is an indelicacy. In Punjab, Pakistan, for example, Christian children have been accused of marking a copy of the Koran with ink and chewing gum. Naturally, the locals have sworn death against several Christian families, who have had to go on the run. As the local mosque announced, "It is a matter of respect of Islam." Quite.

So to recap, Christians are murdered and raped for their faith in a predominantly Muslim country, and the media is silent. But if American citizens peacefully express reservations about a mosque at the place where Muslim extremists slaughtered 3,000 innocent human beings, it is the Americans who must be lectured.

How about this: How about 60 Minutes taking their cameras and their stop watch overseas to where ignorant bigotry is a way of life? And how about Imam Rauf taking his little road show and his inter-faith mosque to Muslim countries and practicing some moderation where it is most sorely needed? Again I ask, how is that cathedral in Mecca coming along?

The Post Office wants to raise its rates. From 44 cents to 46 cents, to mail a first class letter. Because, as we all know, it's a finely-tuned model of efficiency and service.

Of course, it lost about $3.5 billion last quarter, and is projected to lose almost $250 billion more in the next ten years. And they want to eliminate Saturday delivery. Call it Long's First Law of Public Sector Economics: If it's even remotely politically possible for a government-sponsored enterprise to increase its fees and reduce its service, it will do so annually.

(Long's Second Law of Public Sector Economics, by the way, is that any government-sponsored enterprise that is legally and explicitly not backstopped by the American taxpayer -- Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, for instance -- will in fact be backstopped by the American taxpayer for losses in excess of 100x what anyone dreamed of.)

The real question with the Post Office, though, is where does all that money go? Speaking personally, my surly letter carrier appears only intermittently. And my local post office, where I keep a P. O. Box, has signs everywhere announcing that All Box Mail Will be Delivered by 11AM. Box mail is usually available around 3PM. When a helpful customer (me) points this out to the folks behind the counter, he is told that the signs are only there for when the local supervisor drops by. They'll try to get the mail in the boxes by four, five at the latest.

So where does the money go? Well, according to the Washington Times, a lot of it goes to things like this:

Even as the U.S. Postal Service began sliding into the worst financial crisis in its history, some postal executives in recent years found a way to earn more money by resigning from their jobs and returning as highly paid contractors while doing essentially the same work.

In three recent contracts awarded without competitive bidding, for instance, former Postal Service executives were hired to perform what contracting records described as "knowledge transfer," according to a review of the agency's multibillion-dollar contracting operation by thePostal Service's office of inspector general.

"These contracts were put in place, even though highly experienced postal executives filled the positions vacated by the former executives," the inspector general's office concluded in a report, which was ordered by two senators amid a procurement scandal involving the agency's former top marketing officer.

One former vice president retired in May and within two months received a $260,000 no-bid "knowledge transfer" contract for the postal executive who assumed his old job, the report found.

I like that phrase -- "knowledge transfer." But I wonder what that "knowledge" is? Aside, I guess, from knowing how to charge more for less and get away with it.

In our our discussion on Uncommon Knowledge this week, Claire, you argue that Margaret Thatcher achieved changed British politics profoundly, achieving a permanent victory. What would the Iron Lady have made of the election last week of the leftist Ed Miliband as the new leader of the Labour Party?

Googling around this morning, here’s what I’ve been able to find out about the 40-year old Mr. Miliband:

• Ed Miliband’s principal opponent in the leadership contest was his older brother, the former Foreign Secretary David Miliband. David stood unambiguously for continuing the New Labour policies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown—in a word, for the “third way,” the centrist attempt to support the welfare state while also standing for economic growth. Young Ed stood instead for a move back to the left.

• How far to the left? Not all the way back to the position of Michael Foot, who, as leader of the Labour Party during Mrs. Thatcher’s first years in office, continued to call for state ownership of all means of production. But still. Ed Miliband wants higher taxes. He demonstrates particular animosity to the City, London’s financial district, calling for a new transactions tax and insisting on making permanent the tax on bonuses, which former Prime Minister Gordon Brown enacted as a one-time tax during the financial crisis.

• Ed Miliband’s intellectual pedigree traces back to the hard left. His father, Ralph, was a Marxist theorist. After attending Oxford, Ed studied at the London School of Economics, an institution that retains a fundamentally statist outlook

• Although he won with support of the trade unions, his experience of the working class—or, for that matter, of work itself, as most understand the term—is nugatory. After graduating from Oxford and the London School of Economics, he worked briefly in television, then became a speechwriter for Harriet Harman, a leading figure in the Labour Party. Miliband has remained in government and politics ever since. Unmarried, he lives with a partner, by whom he has one child.

Miliband represents, then, a pure artifact of what Tony Blair used to call “cool Britannia.” Untouched by physical labor, lacking any experience whatsoever of business, completely uninterested in the military.

What would Mrs. Thatcher have made of this man? She was serious. He? Miliband may prove me wrong, but he certainly appears an utter lightweight. Does his election suggest that the Britain she strove to create—free, proud, and, once again, a power in world affairs—has simply…evanesced?

Claire?

We don't make fun of specific nationalities here on Ricochet, nor do we indulge in conspiracy theories. But when Vladimir Bukovsky does it, and when what he says is genuinely worthy of wide notice, we do.

Let me start with a fresh Polish joke about a conversation between two pigs in a barn:

Pig #1: “You know, I cannot believe that they are feeding us and looking after us just because they are kind. They must have some ulterior motive. In the end, they will probably kill and eat us.”

Pig #2: “Oh, stop this. To hell with your conspiracy theories!”

The debate about the 1989 revolutions over the past 20 years has been developing along more or less the same lines.

A few years ago, when Iliescu was still the president, I mentioned in an interview to a Romanian newspaper that he and his ‘National Salvation Committee’ were secretly backed by Moscow. Even at that stage, the evidence was already overwhelming, so I felt free to refer to that as an established fact and did not expect any controversy. But suddenly, Iliescu went out and threatened to sue me for libel in a Romanian court. I replied I would be happy to have the evidence tested in court, but invited him to sue me in Britain – after all, we have the most draconian libel laws in the world. Iliescu calmed down and soon lost the election.

The best line in this discussion is simply inadmissible by any stretch of the Ricochet protocols. You'll just have to read it.

Today is a teaching day, and I am in a rush. Had I had time earlier this morning, before I posted the piece on realignment that I composed last night, I would have read and referred my readers to the essay, entitled The Great U-Turn, that James Bennet has published in the new issue of National Review. It is an historically sensitive account of the manner in which Europe went one way in the 20^th century while American went another. It underlines the importance of the election of 1946 and of our geographical circumstances.

I would add to his analysis only one point. The 401k, which had its debut on 1 January 1980, has had a transformative effect on American politics and is, to a considerable extent, responsible for the great battle now underway.

The reason is simple. Thanks to the legislation providing for the 401k, defined-contribution plans took over in the private sector, and untold millions of ordinary citizens found that they had a clear and obvious interest in economic growth and in private enterprise. In the public sector, nearly everywhere, we still have defined-benefit plans. Workers in the private sector look to the market for their long-term well-being; workers in the public sector look to the government.

One of the reasons why Barack Obama was elected is that private-sector workers with 401k’s felt betrayed by those in power in and before 2008. One of the reasons why the Republicans will sweep in the midterm elections of 2010 is that private-sector workers now feel betrayed by President Obama and the Democratic Congress. The 401k is the bulwark of the market system. If the Democrats cannot destroy the defined-contribution retirement plan – which many of them would very much like to do – the Left is doomed. If, over the next few years, the Republicans can shift public-sector workers from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plans, the Left will lose most of its base.

The times they are a-changing.

If there's one thing that I love, it's tiffs--small and large--between two like-minded publications, especially if they're conservative. It suggests a vibrant debate, tensions, and forward movement within conservatism. It proves, contrary to the liberal media's portrayal, that there is no lock-step Right.

With that in mind, I turn your attention to a piece today in the Daily Caller by Tucker Carlson which goes after National Review and, specifically, NR's editorial endorsing the Pledge to America. Carlson calls NR's editorial an "inside job." It was, he alleges, "prearranged" by National Review and Neil Bradley, an aide to Rep. Eric Cantor.

We know that GOP leadership aides were aware of, and excited by, National Review’s editorial before it was published. We know that the piece was posted online just minutes prior to the start of the Wednesday evening caucus meeting, yet somehow aides were ready with copies to pass out to members. A coincidence? Please.

But there are also some things we don’t know. Who at National Review (or its non-profit arm, the National Review Institute) spoke to members of the Republican leadership staff about the editorial, and when? What was the substance of those conversations? And are there other instances in which National Review has used its influence to help the Republican leadership placate its conservative base?

I pointed out last week that NR wrote a glowing editorial praising the Pledge even though some conservatives have criticized it as fluff--the Pledge does not, for instance, mention earmarks, entitlements, or a balanced budget amendment, even though it is ostensibly focused on reducing the debt and the deficit.

This is in part why National Review's endorsement of the Pledge, as Carlson points out, was "precious" for Republican lawmakers. Carlson writes:

If you’re a member of the Republican establishment in Washington, ideologically out of sync with your conservative supporters but anxious not to offend them, endorsements like these are precious. And indeed, leadership aides passed out copies of National Review’s editorial at the GOP caucus meeting.

In the tug-o-war between the conservative establishment and the grassroots, does National Review hang with the iced-tea or the martini crowd?

National Review has written enthusiastically about the tea party folks. But in the past, under the George W. Bush administration, NR was criticized by conservatives for hawking RNC talking points rather than facilitating an open discussion about the state of the GOP. Is it fair to say, as Carlson suggests, that NR is acting as an organ of the establishment fellows of the Republican party? Carlson concludes, "National Review has taken sides, providing ideological cover for the party’s establishment wing at a critical moment."

What do you think?

Peter and I discuss Thatcher, Palin, Turkey and moderate Islam. Now remember: Peter has actually met Margaret Thatcher. (And I've met moderate Moslems.)

I meant to be extremely calm when the subject of Sarah Palin came up. But somehow it didn't work out that way.

Thank you, Peter, for having me on the show.

What do you think about Bill O'Reilly?

I ask because voters apparently love him.

According to a new poll of likely voters out by Politico/George Washington University, in a ranking of media personalities, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh were the top three favorites, coming in at first, second, and third respectively "as having the greatest positive impact on the political debate in the country." Note: this was a poll of likely voters, not of likely Republican voters.

Politico reports:

Fox’s opinionated personalities were also rated as having the greatest positive impact on the political debate in the country. Bill O’Reilly was rated as having, by far, the greatest positive impact, with 49 percent of respondents rating him positively, and 32 percent negatively.

Glenn Beck was the second most-positively rated personality, with 38 percent of respondents saying he had a positive impact, and 32 percent saying he had a negative impact.

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was the third-most-positively ranked, with 36 percent saying he has a positive impact on the discourse, but his negatives far outweighed his positives, with 52 percent saying he has a negative impact.

But poor Rachel Maddow--no one apparently has heard of her, or of her compatriots over at MSNBC, like Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz!

MSNBC’s personalities were largely ranked as unknown by respondents: 70 percent said they had never heard of Ed Schultz, 55 percent said they had never heard of Rachel Maddow and 42 percent said they had never heard of Keith Olbermann.

What do you think--does the Politico poll have it right? Does O'Reilly deserve the number one spot?

First Velma Hart, now Shepard Fairey.

These are just two outspoken Democrats who have prominently announced, and not at a worst time, that they are losing hope in who they thought would be their messiah, President Barack Obama.

Hart, a middle class African American woman, told the president at a town hall in Washington DC last week:

I'm one of your middle-class Americans. And quite frankly, I'm exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for, and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I've been told that I voted for a man who was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I'm one of those people, sir, and I'm waiting. And I don't feel it yet.

And on Friday, Shepard Fairey, the famed artist behind the Obama "Hope" poster--which tea partiers have appropriated for their own use--told the National Journal, in an exclusive interview, that he too is losing hope in the president.

Fairey told the National Journal:

There's a lot of stuff completely out of Obama's control or any of the Democrats' control...But I think there's something a little deeper in terms of the optimism of the younger voter that's happening. They wanted somebody who was going to fight against the status quo, and I don't think that Obama has done that.

It looks like the tea partiers are not the only disillusioned ones.

As a television writer and producer, I love reruns. Each time, for instance, a rerun of one of my episodes of Cheers hits the airwaves, I get a small check. A very small check. Still, it's a nice feeling to get paid for work you've already been paid for.

So, someone in the Obama media world needs to pay someone in the Clinton media world something, because in his increasingly shrill and desperate attempt to hold off disaster in November, Obama is trotting out all of the old material. Here he is talking about the years before he took office:

It was not any accident during this same period a very specific philosophy reigned in Washington: You cut taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires; you cut regulations for special interests; you cut back on investments in education and clean energy, in research and technology. The idea was if we put blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we left everybody to fend for themselves, America would grow and America would prosper.

Okay, this is pretty much the boilerplate Democratic pitch. Trouble is, as Matt Welch describes over at Reason, it's all a lie:

Between 2001 and 2009 George W. Bush did not "cut back on investments in education," he increased them by 58 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. Regulations? "The Bush team has spent more taxpayer money on issuing and enforcing regulations than any previous administration in U.S. history," Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy wrote in January 2009, in a piece that should be distributed to every audience member before an Obama speech.

And that's the trouble with reruns. They're never really as lucrative as the new stuff. Over time, as an episode is run and rerun, the checks get tinier and tinier. My latest check for a Cheers rerun was somewhere around $6.00.

And that's a great show business lesson for our president: you can't live on reruns.

May we all pause for a moment to appreciate Václav Klaus? I'm often asked which politician strikes me as Margaret Thatcher's heir. He's top of my list. Sadly, he's not eligible to run for president.

A selection of recent great Klaus moments, for your pleasure:

Klaus to UN: Butt Out

"This is the time for international organizations, including the United Nations, to reduce their expenditures, make their administrations thinner, and leave the solutions to the governments of member states."

Klaus on Global Governance: "Total Leftist Cosmopolitan Nonsense"

"I am in favour of accepting anyone in the EU."

Klaus on Global Warming: Socialist Claptrap

"There are huge material (very pecuniary) and even bigger psychological incentives for politicians and their bureaucratic fellow-travellers to support environmentalism. It gives them power. This is exactly what they are searching for. It gives them power to organise, regulate, manipulate the rest of us. There is nothing altruistic in their environmentalist stances."

Klaus on Barack Obama: Not Much of a Beer Man

"But he might drink those, how do you say? ... piña coladas.”

Think we can write him in?

Tuesday last, as I slept fitfully prior to an early morning journey to Latrobe, Pennsylvania to speak on Montesquieu and the present discontents at St. Vincent’s College, Peter Robinson posted a piece entitled Dr. Rahe, Call Your Office – in which he reported on a conversation that he had had with “a distinguished political scientist here at Stanford, a friend who's a lot more conservative than not.”

When asked whether we were “witnessing a realignment? A decisive rejection of the welfare state?” Peter’s friend “simply stared” at him, “wide-eyed with disbelief. ‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘What we're seeing is a simple reassertion of the great American center.’ Voters didn't want a lurch to the right under Bush, he explained, so they punished Republicans in the midterm election of 2006. In the presidential election of 2008, voters threw their support behind Barack Obama not because he was a man of the left but because he seemed, in the midst of the economic crisis, calmer and more competent than John McCain. Now that voters have discovered Obama isn't a post-partisan figure but an ideologue after all, they're preparing to punish him in November by electing Republicans. ‘Voters don't want a conservative revolution,’ my friend said. ‘They just want Washington to adopt a pragmatic, moderate, problem-solving approach.’”

When I read Peter’s post late Wednesday afternoon, I was on the verge of going off to attend a dinner and deliver my talk, so I posted a brief comment and went on my way. When I made it back to Hillsdale, I had a lot of catching up to do. So I left it at that.

The question posed retains its interest, however. And so, as briefly as I can, I will respond. Better late, than never.

Peter’s friend has a point. For the most part, we Americans outsource politics. Ours is a representative democracy. Most of the time, we ignore what is going on and leave governance to the officials we elect. The center of our lives lies in the private sphere. As long as we are left alone, we are to a considerable degree content. We don’t like lurching left or right. That having been said, Peter’s friend misses the point.

To begin with, there was no “lurch to the right” under George W. Bush. In domestic affairs, there was a gentle drift to the left. Witness No Child Left Behind and the prescription-drug benefit. Witness the attempt made by Margaret Spellings at the Department of Education to use the accrediting agencies as an instrument for dictating the curricula of our colleges and universities. There was considerable discontent with Bush, to be sure. It had to do with an occupation of Iraq grossly mismanaged, and it took a shellacking of his party at the polls in 2006 to get Bush back on track.

But, to be fair, this is a side issue. Peter’s friend is correct that, in 2008, the voters had more faith in Obama than in McCain. This was partly due to the economic crisis and the fact that a Republican was President at the time of the crash; it was partly due to tactical brilliance on the part of Obama and his campaign team; and it was partly due to the fact that Bush had to a considerable degree alienated his base, to the fact that those angry at Bush had even greater reason to distrust McCain, and to the obvious ineptitude of the Arizona Senator.

All of this is true, and all of it is irrelevant today. The heart of the matter now is that Obama has not left us alone. He has upset our apple cart – both with the so-called “stimulus” bill, the massive expansion of the federal bureaucracy, and the gigantic increase in the federal debt – and with Obamacare, which has left nearly all of us fearful as to what our situation will be when the bureaucrats have worked out all of the details. Whether we are at this point employed or not (and far too many of us are not), our lives have been disrupted – and when we have expressed our misgivings, we have been denounced as Astroturf, Nazis, teabaggers, racists, and fools. And now we are hopping mad – and when folks get hopping mad, they really are ready for a revolution of sorts.

On Sunday, I posted on BigGovernment.com a piece entitled Can We Trust the Polls? In it, I question whether even Rasmussen has the numbers right. No one, I point out, predicted that Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell would defeat Lisa Mukowski and Mike Castle. No pollster thought either race close. And yet both insurgents won handily: one might even say decisively. The old formulas – based on prior elections – seem no longer to apply, which suggests that the Republicans will do considerably better than the polls suggest.

Furthermore, I noted, a recent survey run by Glenn Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies suggests that, in the 66 House districts classified as a tossup in the Cook Report when he did the survey, the Republicans have a decisive lead in the generic ballot. My guess is that the Republicans will retain every seat they currently hold and that they will gain somewhere between 70 and 100 seats now occupied by the Democrats. If this sounds optimistic, ask yourself this: Who imagined, before January 2009, that Scott Brown would win Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate?

Here is the heart of the matter. Over the last eighteen months, Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have taught the American people a lesson – and that lesson is that, if there is not a conservative revolution, they will not be left to their own devices. It will take a revolution of sorts to force a repeal of Obamacare, an extension of the Bush tax cuts, and a balancing of the federal budget. It will take a revolution of sorts to prevent a collapse in states like Illinois, New York, and California where unfunded pension and medical obligations threaten states with bankruptcy. It will take a conservative revolution to secure the passage of entitlement reforms capable of bringing Social Security and Medicare obligations into line with revenues. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

I have nothing against political scientists. Some of my best friends are political scientists. But Peter’s friend, like nearly all political scientists, operates on the presumption that the near-term future will resemble the recent past. Most of the time this is a reasonable presumption. But it is good to remember that no Sovietologist predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. It took men sensitive to the fact that, in politics, critical moments eventually come – men with historical sense, such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Amalrik, Richard Pipes, and Ronald Reagan – to recognize the extent of the rot. The welfare state is on the verge of bankruptcy – not just here, but in Europe as well – and we are on the cusp of something really big.

Last week a reporter at a fairly large newspaper in Texas tweeted that there was no difference between Democrats inviting Stephen Colbert to testify in character and the Republican Party's Pledge document outlining policy goals. They were both stunts, you see. I thought the suggestion was stupid but I think that his views are representative of a typical mainstream media reporter.

My better half wrote a column noting how many in the media dismissed the Tea Party in similar fashion -- saying that they were not serious. Journalist Marc Ambinder, now covering the White House for National Journal, actually said he wasn't going to bother covering the GOP any more because:

“My Republican friends keep asking me when I'll take the GOP seriously again and why I've stopped writing about ticky-tak political gamesmanship and GOP consultant tricks. When they're a serious party with serious ideas, then we can talk.”

My husband notes that on Monday of last week, Lady Gaga held a rally in Maine to try to convince that state's senators to rescind "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." On Tuesday, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Ohio -- where the GOP is poised to gain the governorship, a Senate seat and as many as five congressional seats -- dropped the "F-bomb" on Tea Party folks and refused to apologize. On Wednesday, President Obama used his faith-based office to call religious leaders and ask them to talk up his unpopular health care legislation. On Thursday, Democrats announced they wouldn't vote on extending tax cuts. And then on Friday there was the Colbert stunt, which Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi described as "appropriate." He ends:

By contrast, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, refused to attend Colbert’s testimony. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, retorted to Colbert that he respects workers who “prefer the aroma of fresh dirt to the sewage of American elitists.”

Maybe when Democrats are a serious party with serious ideas, voters will take them seriously again. It’s a safe bet that won’t happen before November.

So I just watched the 60 Minutes report on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero tonight and it was laughably bad. Perhaps the producers were under the impression that if you just one more time suggest Americans who oppose the mosque are bigots, they'll totally change their minds.

I actually am not opposed to the mosque near Ground Zero, which I suppose I should mention up front. But I really can't stand the way the media has decided to advocate instead of report the story. And this broadcast show is a prime example. It began with a puffy look at how awesome the developer of the mosque is. Then they noted how distant the mosque was from Ground Zero by showing that you had to walk all the way to the corner of the block before you could see the gaping hole left when Muslim extremists committed the worst act of terrorism against America by commandeering planes and crashing them into the World Trade Center towers. Then they ran a hostile interview of bogeyman Pamela Geller. They accused her of "moving" the mosque to Ground Zero and being the first person to do so in December of last year by emphasizing its proximity in her blog.

But I'm pretty sure the New York Times was first with the Dec. 8, 2009 story "Muslim Prayers and Renewal Near Ground Zero." The whole story was about why the group behind the mosque wanted to build so close to Ground Zero and why they were happy to have found a building that had been struck by debris from the terrorist attack.

Anyway, the story wrapped up with a look at how awesome Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is.

I'm all for asking tough questions of Geller, but I'm pretty sure that 60 Minutes could commit journalism by also asking some tough questions of the folks who want to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, too.

A graduate of the Queen's University in Belfast has taken the university to court, claiming that he's entitled to a better class of degree. The class of degree is based entirely on the results of examinations, but the student argues tht if only he had received better supervision from the faculty, he'd have done better on his exams. (h/t Overlawyered).

Disgruntled students have been known to litigate in this country, too. A few years back, the father of a Wisconsin high school student argued that it was unconstitutional for the school to assign summer math homework to his son! (He lost).

So as a Sunday-afternoon, back-to-school special, let me ask: any good stories of student litigation you'd like to share?

Name that publication:

The incumbent, Democrat Barbara Boxer, has failed to distinguish herself during her 18 years in office. There is no reason to believe that another six-year term would bring anything but more of the same uninspired representation. [...]

Boxer, first elected in 1992, would not rate on anyone's list of most influential senators. Her most famous moments on Capitol Hill have not been ones of legislative accomplishment, but of delivering partisan shots. Although she is chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, it is telling that leadership on the most pressing issue before it - climate change - was shifted to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., because the bill had become so polarized under her wing.

For some Californians, Boxer's reliably liberal voting record may be reason enough to give her another six years in office. But we believe Californians deserve [...] a senator who is accessible, effective and willing and able to reach across party lines to achieve progress on the great issues of our times. Boxer falls short on those counts.

Boxer's campaign, playing to resentment over Fiorina's wealth, is not only an example of the personalized pettiness that has infected too much of modern politics, it is also a clear sign of desperation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the San Francisco Chronicle. Having dispatched Barbara Boxer -- or, rather, having counted the ways in which Boxer dispatched herself -- they make the endorsement that defines the Dems' election season: no endorsement at all.

I'm sure that's not what they're going to call the rally, but that's what I'm calling it.

This Saturday, on the Mall in Washington, the empire strikes back. From the indispensable Byron York in the Washington Examiner:

Stung by political setbacks and scrambling to avoid a repudiation of Democrats at the polls this November, a coalition of labor unions and liberal activist organizations is planning what it calls "the biggest progressive demonstration in decades" at the Lincoln Memorial next Saturday, October 2.

The march, called "One Nation Working Together," is sponsored by the AFL-CIO, the NAACP, the Service Employees International Union, La Raza, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, the Rainbow Push Coalition, the Campaign for America's Future, and several other activist groups. The event is also being promoted by Organizing for America, the permanent wing of the Obama presidential campaign, which is sending out email notices to members asking that they travel to Washington to take part.

I wish I could go to this. As a professional, I mean. Events like the Glenn Beck rally -- where thousands of people gather in genial association -- just aren't that interesting from a screenwriter's point of view. I'd rather be among the desperate, the delusional, and the doomed.

All you need to know about this rally is the guest list:

In addition to the main organizers, participants will also include left-wing fringe groups like International ANSWER, Code Pink, and the Communist Party USA. The leaders of those groups are known for loud, confrontational demonstrations, which virtually assures that anyone looking for extremist elements in the One Nation gathering will be able to find them.

Of course, no one will be looking for extremist elements in that crowd. At least, no one in the media. They're probably exhausted from looking for all of those racist hate-mongers at all of those Tea Party events. And also: this rally is all about energizing the base, which includes most journalists.

Read the list of organizers again, and the guest list. It all seems so tired. So old. So yesterday. How did Obama get so stale, so fast?

Maybe he was never fresh. Maybe he was always 1970's leftovers.

The New York Times has a story this morning about the efforts of a number of Republican activists, notably Karl Rove, to raise money and provide organizational support for the GOP. The Times being the Times, it makes only glancing mention of the massive efforts that the Democrats were the first to organize—after Democrats outspent Republicans in the last couple of election cycles, the GOP is playing catch-up—while straining to make the venture sound sinister:

[Rove] has had a major hand in helping to summon the old coalition of millionaires and billionaires who supported Mr. Bush and have huge financial stakes in regulatory and tax policy….

Millionaires and billionaires and lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my!

The Times also does its best to suggest some kind of civil war within the GOP.

But if Mr. Rove and his colleagues remain prime movers of the Republican establishment, it is less clear that their influence extends into — and will not be diminished by — the grass-roots conservative movement that has energized and somewhat reordered the party this year.

In re all of this, a couple of thoughts.

The Tea Party could have wreaked havoc this year by registering third-party candidates instead of competing in Republican primaries. It didn’t. Are the Tea Party and the Republican “establishment” at war? Scarcely. In all the hundreds of races for the House, Senate, and governorships taking place this autumn, a truly serious dispute arose concerning only one race, the Delaware Senate contest between the liberal Republican Mike Castle and the Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell. When O’Donnell won, establishment figures such as Karl Rove and Mike Murphy felt sore about it for a couple of days, and that was that. Is the establishment backing Tea Party candidate Rand Paul’s Senate candidacy in Kentucky now that he has won the primary? Indeed. Is it supporting Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle in her Senate race against Harry Reid in Nevada now that she, too, has won the GOP nomination? Once again, indeed—and massively, having poured millions of dollars into Nevada media to keep Angle competitive. How did the establishment behave when the Tea Party candidate, Joe Miller, defeated incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Alaska GOP primary? Well, Sen. Murkowski herself threw a fit, announcing that she would continue her candidacy as a write-in candidate. And then? Then her Republican colleagues in the Senate made their support for Joe Miller unambiguous by immediately voting to strip her Murkowski of her seniority.

The “civil war” within the Republican Party, in other words, concerned just one race—exactly one—and lasted for all of 48 hours. Contrast that with dissension among Democrats. Over the last two weeks, more than 30 Democrats defied the President and Speaker, refusing—flatly refusing—to vote on the Obama-Pelosi tax hike. That’s civil war.

The real story here—the big story, the story of historic importance—isn’t about the GOP's committing suicide. To the contrary. It’s about the rebirth of the GOP. Less than two years ago, when George W. Bush left office, the Republican Party appeared moribund. By embracing vast new domestic spending, it had betrayed its own principles. It had suffered a series of scandals. And the President himself had supported the TARP program, the first of the giant bailouts.

But today? In the Tea Party movement, a truly popular revolt has emerged, leaderless and amorphous but utterly compelling—and merged seamlessly with the GOP. Figures such as Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, and Ricochet’s own Gov. Haley Barbour have simultaneously activated established Republican donors, raising tens of millions of dollars, while creating a new, supple, and dynamic organizational framework for supporting Republican candidates. All this--this work of political resurrection--in the space, again, of less than two years.

As the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick once remarked, “We must learn to bear the truth about ourselves, no matter how good it might be.”

Welcome back to the Sunday news shows post, which went on hiatus for a couple of weeks as I was moving first, then going coastal for work.

The main theme of the Sunday shows this week was Republicans dodging the political cow-pies the media wants them to stumble into: the longed-for conflict between those unhinged Tea Partiers and the entrenched Republican establishment.

But first a quick digression. Steny Hoyer appeared on Fox News Sunday this morning where he rendered his “judgment” on Class-clown, Stephen Colbert, and his expert testimony before the immigration subcommittee on the Hill. “I think his testimony was not appropriate … it was an embarrassment for Stephen Colbert”—what about for the House Democrats, who called him to the Hill? Hoyer deflected. “It was inappropriate…that's just a personal opinion.”

Digression over. Back to the GOP and the tea party. On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace asked John Boehner—the potential speaker of the House next year—whether his plan as the speaker-in-waiting would be to block the Obama agenda (in News-speak: The Party of No!) or to compromise with the Democrats (News-speak: desert the Tea Party).

Here’s Boehner: “I think the American people want us to work together to address the concerns facing us every day….I think with this document [the Pledge to America], we make pretty clear where we’re going.”

Boehner was trying to avoid the conflict the media would foist upon him between the Tea Party—which wants him to give the big-foot to the Obama agenda--and the Republican party—which when last in power might better be recalled as a big spending party.

Boehner: “I get it, I understand what’s going on in America.” Does he? Boehner recently took some heat for suggesting that he’d sign on to the Obama tax cut plan—that is, extending tax cuts for the middle class, but not those making above $250,000: the “wealthy.”

Christiane Amanpour hosted Mitch McConnell on This Week, where she finally seemed to be more at ease in her role as host—perhaps because she seemed to be feeling her partisan mojo as she went after McConnell. Much like Chris Wallace, she was beating the drum over Republicans compromising on tax cuts.

McConnell held his ground. “Raising taxes in the middle of a recession …. Is a particularly bad idea.”

Amanpour: “Will the middle class be held hostage [on tax cuts] …. Would you compromise on that?”

McConnell: “What might happen down the road is not the subject today … the subject today is do we raise taxes in the middle of the recession.” The answer, of course, being no.

Amanpour then turned to the tea party. Will the tea party, in the form of Republican candidates like Delaware’s eccentric Senate hopeful, Christine O’Donnell, and Nevada’s sharp-edged, Sharron Angel, ruin the GOP's chance to take power in November?

McConnell, displaying his inimitable flair for the obvious, calculated: “The Delaware candidate was interesting. New candidate, fresh face, I think she’s got a chance of winning.”

When Amanpour questioned McConnell on what she and her colleagues refer to as the extreme views and rhetoric of Angel and O’Donnell, McConnell shot back, “What most Americans think is extreme is …. what’s been happening here [in Washington] for the last year and a half….I don’t think the people of Nevada should be attacked for the choice they made in the primary.”

The Pledge to America, which was unrolled last week by Republicans, was of course a major news item on the shows. Republicans right now are afraid of being cast as the monosyllabic party of “no” heading into the home-stretch of the campaign season—which is in part why they felt compelled to produce something to show that they are worth being taken seriously, something substantial and more than the negative advantage of not being a Democrat.

Thus, the Pledge to America, a positive policy platform, which certain tea partiers think doesn’t go far enough, and some conservatives have even called milquetoast. Bill Kristol, speaking on the Fox News panel, said that the pledge was a “step toward boldness….they’re being bold in a reasonable way,” when asked if the Pledge was “bold”—the litmus test word for “tea party approved.”

Bold in a reasonable way? The Pledge does not mention earmarks or entitlements, which is why conservatives, including Brit Hume on Fox News today, said the Pledge is “not serious.” Matthew Dowd, a former Bush strategist featured as a guest on This Week, gave the Pledge the ultimate smack-down declaring it will have no effect on the election--rendering it meaningless boilerplate. And so it is.

Are the pundits right? Where do you come down?

The Democrats have a strategy for the up-coming midterms.

It's to run as Republicans.

From the Daily Caller:

Aware that their stock has taken the same tumble as home values, Congress’ most vulnerable Democrats are declaring their independence from their party’s agenda in Facebook profiles, television advertisements, news interviews and campaign websites leading up to the Nov. 2 election. That’s when Republicans hope to retake control of the House they lost four years ago...

The rebranders include Democratic Reps. Betsy Markey and John Salazar in Colorado, Zack Space in Ohio, Jason Altmire in Pennsylvania, Glenn Nye in Virginia and Joe Donnelly in Indiana. In Texas, Rep. Chet Edwards, once promoted as a potential running mate for Barack Obama, has become a vocal critic of his party’s policies.

And of course Nancy Pelosi is a problem for a lot of vulnerable House Democrats. Although some of them have a pretty interesting way of dealing with the problem:

In Alabama, Rep. Bobby Bright begged off a question about whether he would vote for Pelosi as speaker by pointing out that “she may get sick and die.”

That's what's known, in politics, as making lemonade out of lemons.

When Rush mentioned this on the air on Friday, I could scarcely believe it. It took me a while to dig into the story--on Saturday I had kids playing both Pop Warner and high school football games, and then I found myself glued for a couple of hours to replays of the Dartmouth's narrow victory over Sacred Heart University and Stanford's astoundingly big win over Notre Dame; and I remain, even in this election season, just sane enough to recognize that football comes ahead of politics--but sure enough, Rush was right. The poll he quoted may have been taken three years ago, but it said just what Rush claimed: over a third of Democrats believed President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks before they took place.

From Rasmussen Reports of May 4, 2007:

Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.

As of three years ago, I repeat, over a third of Democrats believed President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks before they took place.

Contrast this with the poll earlier this summer showing that 18 percent of Americans believe President Obama is Muslim.

Ordinary Americans--the people with jobs to do, bills to pay, and kids to get through their homework before they can devote any time to reading up on the life of our chief executive--ordinary Americans have very good reasons for being confused about Barack Obama's religious beliefs. He was raised in part in Indonesia, a Muslim country. He has given speech after speech about the respect due to Islam. When introduced to the King of Saudi Arabia, he bowed. And his middle name--has the entire mainstream press forgotten this?--is, after all, "Hussein," a name, Wikipedia informs us, that "is commonly given as a male given name among Muslims."

But does anyone have any good reason for supposing that President Bush knew about the terrorist attacks in advance? Has anyone ever brought forward the merest shrewd of evidence? No. Never. Not once. Not in any way whatsoever. Zero, zip, zilch, rien, nada.

Now a couple of questions.

How many times this past summer did we hear members of the mainstream media quote, in smug, disapproving, mock-disbelief the poll showing that something under one American in five made an easy-to-understand mistake about President Obama's religion? Dozens and dozens and dozens. But how often do you recall hearing anyone in the mainstream media note that more than one Democrat in three subscribed to the utterly insane view that President Bush knew about 9/11 before it took place? Did the media trumpet the poll when it appeared three years ago? Have you heard it quoted in the mainstream media at any time since? If you're like me, you heard about the poll for the first time from the lips of Mr. Limbaugh.

Why go into all this?

Because it's good to remind ourselves every once in awhile that we're not the crazy ones.

Karl Rove -- the anti-tea partier?

The landscape has changed, with Mr. Rove at times clashing with potent new Tea Party-style activists, some of whom view him as a face of the old party establishment they want to upend.

Already a prominent presence as an analyst on Fox News Channel and a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Rove is also playing a leading role in building [political action groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS] what amounts to a shadow Republican Party, a network of donors and operatives that is among the most aggressive in the Republican effort to capture control of the House and the Senate.

Well, first, let me say: let a thousand shadows bloom. Anyone making up for Michael Steele is probably doing something right. There's a reason why "there's no money" going to the RNC, as Mary Cheney puts it. But I confess I'm even more sympathetic to folks on the right who are making up for Karl Rove.

Richard Viguerie, a longtime conservative strategist who has allied with Tea Party activists, said, “We’re all on the same page until the polls close Nov. 2.”

But, referring to Mr. Rove and Mr. Gillespie as part of the “ruling class,” he added, “Then a massive, almost historic battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party begins.”

I'd like for that to be an exaggeration -- I have a hat, a shirt, and a few bumper stickers reading No Purges -- but it's true: given no other choice, I'd rather be governed by someone plucked at random from the Tea Party rolls than be ruled by Karl Rove. The trouble with Massive Historic Battles, in this case, is that they raise the stakes so high, and polarize alternatives so powerfully, that they push well-intentioned people to cast their last resorts as dreams come true. Just as I'd expect someone to look around for other options when given the choice between ME and KARL ROVE, I'd expect Rove and Company to understand that their moment at the helm is good and gone and gone for good -- and, perhaps even more importantly, to understand why.

Last night my wife and I attended a fundraiser at the governor's mansion in New Jersey, Drumthwacket, where the First Lady was honored for her work for children with Down Syndrome. Specifically, the event was held for a private group, Research Down Syndrome. This group focuses on improving the cognitive abilities of people with Down; they have done it with private money; and they are about a year away from clinical trials. The audience was filled with people who have children with Down, and there wasn't a sad sack there: this was about life and hope.

I can't claim to know the Christies, though their daughter is in my daughter's class at a local Catholic high school. But I will say that the more America gets to know this people, the more they will love them. This is a family utterly without pretense -- they don't even live at the governor's mansion -- and awed by the responsibility they have been given. YouTube has made the governor a star over his various confrontations with hecklers. When you see the man up close, you're going to come away even more impressed.

Now all I have to do is make sure the rest of you outside NJ don't draft him for national politics before he's finished cleaning up the mess here!