I'm in Oklahoma City this week, and what people are talking about here is this article, from last week's Wall Street Journal.

It's about two kids in OKC -- both living in the tough south side -- and the paths they've taken. One got sidetracked by gangs and drugs until he went to a local charter school. The other attended a decent but unchallenging local public high school. The story is surprising: the boy who went to the charter school was transformed into a bright, ambitious powerhouse. The girl who went to the local public school was popular, voted president of her class, but never pushed to think about college, to dream about the future.

And then, a day or so ago, this article in the Los Angeles Times, about the lengths some newly-rich Chinese parents will go to get their child into Hafo. I mean, Harvard.
In a way, this is the same story: parents taking charge of their children's education. Pushing kids to think bigger. Assuming that whatever the state provides is going to be inadequate.

Humiliating, for us, is that China seems able to adapt and innovate. In Los Angeles, where I live, the LA Unified School District is so ossified and sclerotic, so incompetent and entitled, piecemeal reform charter school by charter school will still leave thousands of kids behind, for years to come.

This is one of those rare areas in which President Obama hasn't, actually, been awful. He's even been bold. This could be a Nixon-to-China moment. Or it could be a brief moment of independent thinking from a president and an administration trapped by a party that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the teachers' unions.
In which case, maybe it's time to move to China. For the opportunity.

Duane, Ricochet's editors pointed out your post on Ricochet's Facebook page asking for my reaction to these op-eds about Turkey. Here's my take, for now. I just wrote this piece, Murky in Turkey, for City Journal.

And I've just sent a longer piece about the Turkish-Brazilian nuclear deal with Iran to World Affairs Journal, which should be published in their next issue. I guess the world will have to wait for my views about that until they run it.

I broadly agree with the editorialists mentioned on Powerline: something significant and ominous is happening here. I would stress two things in addition, though. The first, as I say in my City Journal piece, is how little we understand about what, precisely, is going on.

I want to know exactly what the relationship is between the AKP and the İHH. (It is not necessarily as warm as many reports are suggesting; for all we know the İHH may have double-crossed Erdoğan after assuring him there would be no unpleasantness on that boat). I want to know exactly how the decision to allow the Mavi Marmara to sail was made: Was it made at the Cabinet level? Was there dissent? Who were the dissenters? Why, I wonder, has Turkish President Abdullah Gül been silent to the point of invisibility in the aftermath of the event? What does the military--which has also been silent to the point of near-invisibility--make of this?

I want to know just what's going on between the AKP and Fethullah Gülen: Were they aware that he planned to criticize the İHH? Did they encourage him to do so, and if so, why? I want to know why the Turkish media, which ordinarily does offer a wide spectrum of opinions, has been so remarkably monolithic about this: Is it really because they're all just feckless, neo-Islamist idiots? Or is something else going on--have the dissenters been silenced, and if so, how? (The easy answer is that they've been silenced through financial consolidation, intimidation and harassment, which has been going on for some time, but why is it suddenly working so well? This was not an entirely monolithic and compliant press before this incident.)

I want to know why, despite all of this, no one here is raising the possibility of severing Turkish-Israeli military cooperation, even though the government is intimating that the Israelis are mixed up with the PKK. Doesn't it seem strange to you that a government that is on the one hand accusing Israel of cooperating with its greatest (real) enemy is planning to continue to rely on Israel to modernize its tanks and furnish its drones?

I want to know what the Iranians make of all of this: Doesn't it seem to you they've been awfully quiet, all things considered?

I'm not trying to spin conspiracy theories here; quite the opposite. I'd like to encourage a bit of epistemological modesty. There is obviously a lot we don't understand. Someone in the West may know the answers to these questions, but they're not being reported.

Second, the reporting I'm seeing is missing a lot of details that strike me as important. For example, I wonder if people realize that the protests here are not that big, and not that widespread, and that moreover they're not spontaneous: They're being organized by the AKP, which is frantically sending text messages to its supporters inviting them and urging them to join. I'm not seeing much reporting that suggests the feeling I'm getting from speaking to ordinary people here, which is that above all they're confused. I'm looking for reliable opinion polls--how is the AKP polling now? How is Kılıçdaroğlu polling? But I haven't seen them yet.

Informally, I'm seeing signs of a backlash, as in this comment, posted by a Facebook acquaintance:

we are Only Turk not arab or etc..only line connect us is religion, we have 5000 years history in this geograpy but muslim since 1300 years so we are 1st turk then muslim we are just turk different then them different blood i just ashamed from the ones inside us who thinks like radical arabic way, if ATATURK was still alive i bet he would cut pff all radical muslim turks head's again.

There are a million important things to understand about this comment and others like it, culturally and historically, but I'm not seeing the kind of analysis in the Western media that would help readers make sense of it.

The reporting strikes me as a bit superficial, basically. I don't disagree with the overall message--that something very ominous is happening--but I wish it went a bit deeper. Given the significance of what's happening here, it should.

I'm obviously going to do my best to find out the answers to these questions (and to keep raising them). I'll let you know if I have any luck.

In addition to being D-Day, today marks the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ.

Spooky, right? Today Catholics paid more attention than usual to one of the great supernatural features of the Catholic faith; the actual transformation of bread into flesh, and wine into blood.

If you want to get kids interested in the Church (I tell anyone who will listen), sieze on stuff like this and make the confirmation ceremony look more like a Marilyn Manson concert than the fluffy joy fest it has become today.

Focus on rivers of blood, secret language (Latin), 3D Gothic images, Gregorian chants, etc. And dress those Knights of Columbus like Roman soldiers for effect and get them out of those Captain Crunch suits. This will get the kids interested. The last thing they want is 40 year old church ladies trying to make things "hip" with grooveless interpretations of mid-tempo tunes left over from the 1970s flowery Charismatic movement.

We all know there hasn't been a decent song written for Catholics in a thousand years so let's stick with the hits. Your kid likes the Beatles right? He's gonna go ape for Panis Angelicus. Give it a chance. Your kid likes the 1980s? How about the actual 80s? when the Church was still smarting from its first Pope being martyred on an upside down cross. While we're at it, let's take the upside down cross appeal away from the metal heads and own it.

Let's take the solemn dress code away from the Goths, the Rosaries away from the gangs, the blood & death fixation away from the scene-kids, the art away from the academics, the Latin away from the Harry Potter geeks, the bi-location away from Siegfried & Roy, the exorcisms away from Art Bell, the Angels away from Hollywood, the bling away from the players, the stigmatas away from the Arquettes, and the ghosts away from the new agers. In Denver there's a beautiful downtown cathedral called the Church of the Holy Ghost. Who's not curious about what goes on in there?

And don't get me started on the Pope's red shoes. If you're kid's watching too much Glee, have him take a look at those babies.

As Hoosiers celebrate the life of our incomparable Coach John Wooden, it was encouraging to see the President note in his gracious tribute the Coach's "modesty" and "humility". Maybe a gentle reminder of flattery's sincerest form would be in order? Those two traits are especially valuable in high national office, and have been, might we say, noticeably lacking the last year or so?

Greetings from Central Park, where I'm frying catfish flown in from Yazoo City, Mississippi for the annual Mississippi Picnic. Never heard of it? Listen in on the Ricochet podcast for details.

Let me take this opportunity to express my deep sympathies for those affected by the Gulf spill, and my confidence that Mississippi is taking the right measures to help meet the region's challenges.

Matt Yglesias makes a modest point that gets bigger the longer you think about it:

[...] at the moment we have a large number of unemployed people in this country. And in a more enduring way, we have a lot of retired people in this country. And with every passing year we have more. In a lot of ways, I think retirees are going to prove to be the killer ap of digital content creation. It’s just that at the moment relatively few retired people are all that comfortable with digital media. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now that’ll be very different.

His thrust is that no liberal or progressive should fear the left blogosphere's capture by a tiny number of professional keyboard-pounders. But the broader observation is an intriguing one, because a future in which huge numbers of older Americans spend their vast leisure time blogging leaves itself open to utopian and nightmarish interpretations. You think the boomers are crushingly self-referential? Try a couple of generations raised on the internet, living well into their tenth decades and spending ten hours a day blogging! On the other hand, have blogs really increased the net amount of nonsense in the world in a worrisome way? Haven't they also increased the amount of smart, worthwhile interaction -- by people who would never have the chance to reach as wide an audience? Indeed, haven't blogs allowed people to overcome the distinction between active content production and passive content consumption?

Yes. Nonetheless...there's something profoundly different about a world in which large numbers of people -- possibly majorities -- spend a lot of time blogging (or doing something like it), and we'd be silly to pretend that some of the worst characteristics of internet life wouldn't expand into general social life in that kind of world. Perhaps worst of all, all these people on the internet might deprive themselves of the face-to-face interaction that's an essential part of what it means to be human -- to have a culture, to be a citizen, and all the rest. Nonetheless...even a lot of time on the internet doesn't make real human contact, and the development of real human relationships, impossible. Sometimes, it even helps.

From the current issue of The Economist:

Israel's desire to stop the flotilla reaching Gaza was understandable....As it was, disastrous planning by Israel's soldiers led to a needless loss of life.

"Needless loss of life." "Fiasco." "Embarrassing incompetence." Over the last few days this idea--basically, that the Israeli Defense Forces screwed up--has become an instance of what Bill Buckley used to call the "planted axiom." That is, an assertion made so often that it becomes, simply, taken for granted. Yet nowhere--not in The Economist, not anywhere else--have I seen a single convincing argument that the Israelis could have enforced the blockade in any other way.

Sabotage the flotilla before it left port? Oh? And engage in a gross violation of another nation's sovereignty?

Maneuver Israeli vessels so as to block the flotilla? Really? And provoke a collision at sea? The largest of the six ships in the flotilla, you will recall, was a cruise ship--as massive, essentially, as a floating hotel. Collide with that? And expect no loss of life?

Disable the flotilla? Break their keels or disable their screws with a few well-aimed but smallish torpedos? What an interesting thought. Even if the explosions did nothing but disable the vessels precisely as hoped, the Israelis would then have been faced with hundreds of people afloat and drifting in international waters. What then? Attempt to tow the vessels to port? Over the objections of those aboard them? Or stand by while those aboard ran out of food and water? And the "international community," such as it is, took days and days to pull itself together to decide how to rescue them?

Sorry. But the Israeli decision to board the vessels from the air, gaining control of them as peacefully as possible, strikes me as the best--and safest--of the bad options with which Israel found itself confronted. Maybe I'm wrong--maybe a Ricochet reader will be able to direct me a compelling, believable argument that the Israeli operation could indeed have proven safer. But what's striking for now is that nobody is even attempting to make such a case.

Big Tease: Did Obama's Cairo Speech Make It Worse?

Oligopoly Money: As Nation's Banks Flounder, Big 6 Pass Go, Collect $51B

Attack of the Drones: Justice Flies Blind

Ezra Klein: I Don't "Loathe" Kaus!

Real Talk: Why Isn't Ashton Kutcher A Bigger Star?

Stewardess, I Speak Globish

The Newsstand of Dr. Moreau: Splicing Together Newsmaxweek

It's a minor thing with which to be annoyed these days, all things considered, but I wonder why it's become a journalistic convention to alternate references to "Israel" with "the Jewish state," as in this report from Bloomberg:

Israel says its blockade of Gaza is legal because it is in “a state of armed conflict” with Hamas. Some countries, such as Turkey, dispute the legality of the blockade.

Hamas’s charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

After all, no one writes "The French prime minister returned to the French state on Monday," or "Governor Purdue led a 43-person delegation in a business mission to explore trade and tourism opportunities with the Cuban state." My objection to this is aesthetic, not political. I just don't see the need for three words when one will do perfectly well.

Speaking of aesthetic objections, Alice Walker's punctuation leaves much to be desired.

Now that it's over I have permission to talk: Have just left the most warm, fabulous, elegant, tasteful, beautiful wedding and party -- Rush Limbaugh marrying his beloved, fabulous Kathryn -- and the surprise of the night was a truly wonderful mystery-guest performance by... Elton John!

Outstanding renditions of one beloved song after another -- Sir Elton hasn't lost it at all. Standing ovations on almost every number, all wonderfully rendered. Most interesting: this all came about because they all were staying at the same hotel in Hawaii when Rush got sick, and EJ inquired through management, genuinely concerned that Rush was OK. A few days later, Kathryn inquired if Sir Elton would possibly be available to and interested in playing at their wedding, and when Sir Elton got the message from his agent saying "I'm sure you won't want to do this", Elton John replied "Oh, I certainly do!" and even moved some other dates to accommodate it.

While both are fully cognizant of political differences, Sir Elton is genuinely open minded about getting to know people of different viewpoints and sees himself as a bridge builder; and having had several exchanges with Rush is touched by his personal warmth and history and how much they were able to identify with each other.

Would that everyone were that way!

Richard Epstein:

The trouble here is the conservatives [that is, conservative justices on the Supreme Court] tend to believe in judicial restraint while the liberals believe in the statute. That tends to allow a lot of legislation to go through.

This is what we call a tight schedule. I picked up a loaded trailer just east of Memphis yesterday afternoon and it must be in Hagerstown, MD tomorrow morning at 5:30, with a second stop north of Scranton, PA at noon. Presently, I'm stopped in Lexington, VA at an interesting truck stop called Lee Hi.

As you can see from the photo, the owner likes antiques. Two large antique gas pumps stand guard over a section of the restaurant, while the walls are lined with glass cases which house antique toy trucks, tractors, fire engines, etc. It's just delightful.

The sandwiches on the menu are named after old cars and trucks, e.g. packard, caddy, edsel and more. I couldn't pronounce the name of the vehicle that substituted for cheeseburger, but I ordered it anyway. The staff was very nice and recommended an apple dumpling with ice cream to finish the meal off. This apple, with a pie crust substance literally wrapped around it and covered with a cinnamon glaze that was also spread over a scoop of ice cream was simply too good to be legal. I'm sure all the neighboring states have banned it. I consumed enough calories and cholesterol to choke a clydesdale horse, which is probably not good for me. On the other hand, it was delicious. I'm thinking that if I apply the rational basis test to that meal, I've added years to my life. I feel better already!

Meanwhile, I must be back on the road at 2:30AM in order to make my Hagerstown delivery appointment. Good thing I like this job.

Reading Richard Epstein and John Yoo on the constitutionality—or, as I continue to hope against hope that the Supreme Court will ultimately find, the unconstitutionality—of ObamaCare these last couple of day, I’ve been searching for something. The nub. The crux. The One Big Question I could hold in my little mind as we watch the progress of the case against ObamaCare that twenty state attorneys general have brought in Florida.

Rading a recent post by John, I finally found the One Thing. Reaching it took three steps.

Step 1: “[I]f the rational basis test is used,” John wrote, “ObamaCare will survive.”

Step 2: “But the rational won’t apply if the law in question [ObamaCare] lies outside the Commerce Clause entirely.”

Step 3: The Commerce Clause has never been used to punish inactivity. So, John concludes, does “sitting on one’s couch, watching TV, and refusing to buy health insurance is itself an economic activity subject to government regulation.”

And there it is, the One Big Question: Under the Constitution of the United States, does the federal government possess the authority to deploy the coercive resources of the state—to levy fines on, or, ultimately, to imprison, ordinary citizens—merely for doing…nothing?

At least I think that’s the One Big Question.

John? Richard?

What would you do if the regional regulatory agency you ran achieved its goal of eliminating air pollution as a significant problem in your community? If you answered, “declare victory, collect a community service award and possibly a pension, then shut down,” you haven’t spent much time in California. However, if your first thought is, I’ll redefine pollution and reinvent our agency as an economic planning board, dust off your CV: a great future awaits in our entrepreneurial little politburo

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), not satisfied at extirpating vestigial air pollution, and finding Christmastime hearth control politically unpopular, has now found the perfect enemy: local greenhouse gases causing dangerous global warming. In a politically savvy move, the latest diktat will be laundered through local planning officials rather than enforced by the air board's own roving fireplace police. Responsibility without authority: the joys of local public service in today’s Golden State.

But what happens if your local officials are heterodox on anthropogenic global warming and resist BAAQMD regulations? Rather than relying on official Church of Gore pronouncements, perhaps your town planner has reviewed the latest data showing that the world has been cooling for the past decade. He may even have downloaded the leaked East Anglia Climate Research Unit files for a first-hand peek at the multiyear cook-the-books effort supporting the worldwide global warming “consensus.” Or perhaps the members of your town council just can’t see how smothering a hundred local construction jobs is going to affect global carbon dioxide concentrations one way or the other.

This is where we meet arm-twisting the Chicago Way:

Bay Area cities and counties are not required to adopt the air district development guidelines, but they may ignore them at their own peril. They could face time-consuming lawsuits by development opponents who could argue that the air district is the best judge of pollution guidelines.

You got that? No need to follow our rules – we’re the hired help while you folks are elected by the people – but our no-growth environmental friends, the ones who helped write the rules purporting to mitigate an imaginary problem, have legal standing to sue you on behalf of the public interest. So you have a choice: you can work with us and possibly, some day, see some sort of politically correct, overpriced economic development in your town, or you can fund a lawsuit, see no local economic growth in your lifetime, and face a lefty challenger in the next election who will helpfully accuse you of wasting scarce taxpayer funds.

Have a nice day.

Deferred: No First Black Governor Yet, Say Bama Dems

From Bang To Whimper: Obama Youth Burns Out

Das Uh-Oh: Euro Clock Strikes Nein?

Silicon Shivers: Can A Valley Of Win Survive In A State Of Fail?

What Education Gap? China's Ivy Craze

Tomorrow The World: Welcome To Walmartland

Who Killed The Book Review?

From msnbc.com:

SACRAMENTO - California could become the first state in the nation to ban plastic shopping bags, a move that has the support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

What is it with these people and their insatiable need to boss everyone else around? Look, I like our environment and think keeping it clean and flourishing for my children and their children and so on is a good thing. But there are a lot of good things in this life, and sometimes they come into conflict with one another. I happen to think those plastic shopping bags are pretty useful -- they provide more flexible carrying options when you're also lugging around a couple of kids on your shopping trip; they fit better into the bottom of a stroller; and they have many, many more after-market uses than paper bags or those reusable ones so in vogue at the local Whole Foods. If someone comes up with a credible estimate of the "social cost" of using a single non-biodegradable bag, and the government wants to impose that amount of tax on each bag, I'm okay with that. But the choice should be mine, not Arnold's.

All of these things remind me of the schemozzle we had a few years ago in Chicago when the City Board of Commissars of Public Virtue (or whatever) decided to ban the sale of foie gras within the city limits on the grounds that the methods used to product foie gras are inhumane to geese. Fortunately, the city's restauranteurs are a pretty feisty and libertarian-leaning bunch, so the result was a well-publicized series of dinners at which various restaurants would charge for the rest of the meal and throw in a foie gras course for free. Hating looking silly even more than hating the inhumane treatment of geese, the Commissars backed down.

If you follow yesterday's conversation about the aircraft carrier deployment,  you will see a post at the bottom by a guy named Robert E. Lee.   Folks,  please indulge me a moment as I introduce him to you.  

You see,  back in 1987, then Staff Sergeant Lee recruited a young smart alleck beret wearing security forces guy to possibly become an active duty historian.   Having been an historian himself for awhile,  Bob tried to scare me away from the job,  but when that didn't work I guess he figured I deserved it.  He became my teacher,  and in time, my friend.  

Here's a story that will speak volumes about this gentleman.  For a short time we shared the office with a lieutenant colonel who had been selected for promotion to full bird colonel.  One morning, the three of us were in the office working,  and listening to NPR on the little radio on Bob's desk.  They were doing a story about the Air Force officer promotion system and it wasn't very flattering.  One anonymous interviewer in the report said, "You have to sell your soul to make colonel in the Air Force."  Bob looked at our new colonel selectee, and I knew what was about to happen.   While I looked for room to crawl under the desk,  Bob asked,  "Is that true, sir?"  Without looking up,  the colonel said, "You can believe about half of what you're hearing."  Bob immediately shot back,  "Does that mean you only sold half your soul?"  There was no answer from the colonel, and I braced for the rocket's red glare right there in the office.  

But there's more.  Bob would never shy from puncturing the ego of the brass when needed, but he never failed to stand straight up out of his chair when a young lieutenant or a kid with one or two stripes walked through the door.  He treated them like they were generals, and why shouldn't he?  They do all the work! 

Bob retired before 9/11 with some pretty significant disabilities as a result of his service.  And yet when the planes flew into the towers, he was the first to pick up the phone and volunteer to return to active duty.  There is no doubt in my mind that he would suit up and go back in today if called.  Whether the Air Force would be ready for another dose of him is another matter entirely.

He is a patriot a gifted writer, a phenomenal thinker, a truly great American, and as the photo shows, I am proud to say that he is my best friend.  It was an honor to serve with him, and Ricochet is better with readers and members like him. I'm happy to have him with us.  

Today, my regular Friday column in the Abu Dhabi English-language newspaper, The National, was bumped to Sunday.

Which, of course, I found irritating.  Friday is the Muslim holy day -- so the Friday paper is sort of like the Sunday paper.  And you always want your stuff in the Sunday paper.

Why was it bumped?

They needed the space to mark the one-year anniversary of President Obama's Cairo speech.  Well, more like eulogize the speech.

You remember the Cairo speech, right?  It was historic and majestic and transformed the relationship between the US and the larger Muslim world.  It was breathlessly reported on, swooned over, and praised by the media in general.

Now, not so much.

This is a president who likes to talk.  And worse, he likes to talk big.  But he doesn't seem capable of understanding that when a president speaks, it's supposed to mean something.  It's supposed to connect with some action. It puts people on notice, it announces a shift in policy, it tells the troops which direction to march in.  In other words, it has a point.

For this president, though, every speech is an Oscar-acceptance speech.  Every speech is about him.  He's confused -- like a lot of his contemporaries in the do-nothing, no-experience world of academia -- the dog with the bark.

Which is fine, if you're a weatherman or a chat-show pundit or movie actor or an academic or something equally futile.  But is disastrous if you're a president.  

Have you read about Ms. Lorenzana? She was fired from her job at a Citibank branch here in New York for being “too hot.”

Like Ms. Lorenzana, I worked in a testosterone-rich environment while being 5-foot-5 and 125 pounds. However, I never had her problems.

As a sports reporter in New York City, I spent nearly every evening of four full years in and out of professional baseball, basketball, football, and hockey locker rooms. I adopted a few strategies to prove that I was there for quotes not kicks. I always stood near a column or piling so my view of everything would be at least half obstructed. I never stood anywhere near a shower. But most of all, I learned to keep my eyes fixed, steadfastly, on my pen, pad, or cell phone. I never let my eyes wander around the room. The most innocent glance – the kind of thing you do reflexively while deep in thought about something – could have been deadly for my career.

I was never the best writer or the best reporter. But I was doing the job for the right reasons: I did *not* go to work hoping to see grown men naked.

In the vast majority of instances, I was pleasantly surprised by the way I was treated by athletes. Most gave me the benefit of the doubt and answered my questions as thoughtfully – or not, as the case may be – as they answered my male counterparts’ questions. There were a few notable exceptions, of course. One infamous pitcher ignored all of my questions and would purposely turn his back on me. A plus-sized slugger once deliberately unhitched his towel and let it drop to the floor while I was talking to him. (Fortunately, his lack of fitness preserved my innocence; he was too fat for me to see anything.)

But experiences like these were rare. Most of the time, male athletes went out of their way to be gracious. In a few cases, some apologized on behalf of their less-than-gentlemanly teammates. Overall, I was treated respectfully and appropriately.

I have some doubts about Ms. Lorenzana’s complaints. For one thing, she seems all too eager to show off her figure in the press, an impulse that, in my opinion, is likely related to her current problems.

Don’t get me wrong now, I’m not advocating for a dress code for women in the workplace. Women deserve respect no matter how they dress. But Ms. Lorenzana worked at Citibank, not Citi Field. I suspect her complaints could have found receptive ears somewhere in the human resources chain. I have to wonder why they didn’t. Harassment? Maybe. Maybe not. Men’s professional sports is still very much a macho man’s world. Just ask Erin Andrews, whose professional reputation was questioned when she appeared in skimpy costumes on “Dancing With the Stars.”

I will say this -- I’m glad I don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Trouble in Turkey.  Tensions in the Yellow Sea.  A gushing oil well.  A divisive president.  A faltering economy.

And what am I writing about in today's Wall Street Journal?

Fancy cakes.

The sun is up, revealing Northern California at that exquisite late-spring moment after the rains have stopped but before the sheer, lush riot of green in the hills has burned down to the browns and dun-colors of summer, and--critical point--yours truly has imbibed a cup of joe.

When I moaned to one friend at the coffee shop about my mood indigo of the pre-dawn hours, he replied, "Enjoy life and relish the opportunity"--he used that marvelous word, "relish"--"to do what you can today." A moment later, a second friend approached. "Can you believe what's happening in the country?" he asked. "I can't wait for election season. This is going to be a beautiful fight."

Relish life, do what you can this very day, and gird yourself for a beautiful fight.

There. All better now.

Elsewhere, they're sometimes known as open threads. Here at Ricochet, I'd like to start throwing out a Big Question every day -- something timely but deep, focused but far reaching. Something...like this:

Should we be more pessimistic?

Americans have always been known, especially in their better moments, for their indefatigable optimism. In our politics and our social life, optimism is like that perfect renewable energy resource at the end of the rainbow guarded by sparkly unicorns. Not only does it keep us going when times are tough. It makes us bounce higher when we hit bottom. And it makes us reach higher when we're already flying high.

But optimism can have its pathologies -- blindness to problems that need solving, or a distorted view of human nature, or an unreasonably high estimate of professional expertise. Pessimism, which isn't the same as grumpiness or defeatism, might educate or curb excesses and errors like those.

Thoughts?

For all its steroids and scandals, when it counts America's pasttime seems to offer us a better example than politics. Witness the class act in Detroit yesterday, when the crowd cheered an umpire whose blown call robbed their hometown boy of a perfect game. No one doubts that Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga beat Indians' batter Indians' Jason Donald to first base for what should have been the 27th straight out in the game. After seeing the replay, so did umpire Jim Joyce, who manned up to his mistake -- an honest mistake -- and expressing his regret that it had robbed Galarraga of a bit of history.

But it didn't end there. The next day Galarraga was chosen to carry the Tigers lineup out to home plate in an act of grace toward Joyce. There the pitcher shook hands with a plainly emotional umpire, and two men showed the nation that true sportsmanship may not be quite as dead as the cynics would have it.

Compare that with Washington's most recent example: a White House awards ceremony for former Beatle Paul McCartney. It wasn't enough for *Sir* Paul McCartney to accept the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. On foreign soil, in the East Room of the White House, McCartney remarked, “After the last eight years, it’s great to have a President who knows what a library is."

Then again, McCartney grew up without the benefit of baseball.

I'm not sure if you'll all appreciate just what a weird twist this is. It's weird because the people here who are most afraid of the AKP are convinced that Gülen is the Turkish Khomenei--the hidden mastermind behind the AKP's rise to power.

I'm not even going to begin to try to interpret this. I applaud the statement, though I'm sure Turkish friends will tell me that behind it lies some nefarious conspiracy far too subtle for my Occidental mind to grasp.

1. Why We Can't Just Keep Raising Taxes on the Rich - Megan McArdle, The Atlantic

2. Gibbs: Yeah, we were trying to avoid a primary challenge with a job offer - Hot Air

3. In California GOP Race, Cash Trumping Doctrine - WSJ

4. When does the statute of limitation run out on blaming George W. Bush? - WSJ

5. Brewer Holds Her Ground: Arizona Gov. talks after meeting with Obama - Politico

6. Book Owners Have Smarter Kids - Salon

7. Replay Will Ruin Baseball - The Anchoress, First Things

8. Obama Administration Pushing for Investigation of Israel - Gateway Pundit, First Things

9. The Culture of Narcissism - Ross Douthat, The New York Times

10. This Is the Way Sovereignty Ends - Mark Krikorian, The Corner

Last thing before turning in last night, I put up "Calling the Law Office of Epstein & Yoo," asking Richard Epstein and John Yoo what they make of the case, now underway in Florida, in which 20 state attorneys general are challenging the constitutionality of ObamaCare. At the time, I assumed, without really realizing it, that the court case was quixotic. Overturn the most massive piece of legislation enacted in decades? Whatever the constitutional merits, what court would even dare? The whole matter seemed laughable.

Yet now, in the early hours--here in California, the sun won't come up for another 90 minutes or so--I find my mind returning to the court case in a completely different mood or register. Think of it. Consider what it says about the institutions of the oldest constitutional democracy on earth. The chief legal officials of no fewer than 20 states believe the administration's signature legislation--the legislation on which Barack Obama in some basic way staked his presidency--violates our founding document. This isn't a minor dispute about whether some regulatory agency has overstepped its bounds. It isn't even a dispute about a more or less minor provision of the Constitution. When Richard Epstein and John Yoo argue about the chief executive's war-making powers, it can get pretty technical. This isn't like that. This is fundamental. This goes to the most basic workings of our institutions as a self-governing people under the law. If the federal government has the right to force every citizen to purchase health insurance simply because--well, simply because he exists--then, the state attorneys general argue, there is virtually no aspect of our lives that lies beyond the reach of federal power. The founding constraint on the federal authority--the creation of a government of limited and enumerated powers--will, after two-and-a-third centuries, have simply...evanesced.

This isn't an act of Third World madness, like sailing ships to Gaza, or an accident, like the oil leak, or an act of God, like each of the ten hurricanes the forecasters are now predicting over the course of the summer. This is something we have done to ourselves.

The sun will come up soon, I'll drive the kids to school, then grab a cup of coffee at Peet's, and then, most likely, find myself in a cheerful enough mood by the time I sit down at my desk to start work. It's wonderful, really, the way life simply goes on, quotidian tasks taking one from hour to hour. But in the back of my mind, like the residue of a bad dream, there will linger a certain apprehension. Something seems wrong. Something seems to be sliding away.

This week, Ricochet's gone global. On the latest Podcast, we've got Boxer challenger Mickey Kaus; brand-new Ricochet contributor Matt Continetti, fresh from the Republic of Georgia; Claire Berlinski, in Istanbul; and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Click that green play button, over there to your right. Now sit back, listen, and enjoy.

Maybe sometimes. But in a country like ours, captivated by the way our politicians disgrace and redeem themselves, we know that resignation itself can be misused as a tool of rhetorical stagecraft and political convenience. Politicians who blow their promises might even have a responsibility to find a way to finish what they started -- under the watchful eye of judgmental citizens.

I say all this and more on RT today (after a brief seppuku montage):

On reflection, I concluded that I don't understand it any more than anyone else does. But let me take this opportunity to say that City Journal's editors are the best in the business. That I can say with confidence. Editors are the natural enemies of writers, usually. Most journalists complain bitterly that their editors ruin everything, and usually they're right. But City Journal has significantly improved every piece I've ever sent them. While you're there, read this piece by Judith Miller about Japanese germ warfare and Ben Plotinsky's very thoughtful piece about the unconscious yearning for religious rite and imagery in modern secular politics.

Today I spent the day backwards, only just now getting to the newspapers, where my eye now falls on an editorial in the Wall Street Journal titled "Justice Needs More Time." "Last week," the editorial explains,

Administration lawyers motioned for a one-month extension in Florida district court, where 20 state Attorneys General and the NFIB, the small business association, are arguing that ObamaCare is unconstitutional....At the core of the suit is whether the Commerce Clause gives the government the power to compel all private citizens to buy insurance. "Requiring individuals to purchase something simply because they are alive is unprecedented," as NFOB president Dan Danner recently wrote...and if this individual mandate stands, the question is what remains of the Constitution's government of limited and enumerated powers.

Should they have a moment to spare from teaching their law school students to direct some instruction toward Ricochet, I'd like to ask professors Epstein and Yoo what they make of this. In particular,

a) Do they suppose ObamaCare is indeed unconstitutional?

b) Do they suppose the state Attorneys General and the NFIB have chosen the strongest grounds on which so to argue?

c) Regardless of their answers to a) and b), do they suppose we may entertain so much as the faintest hope that any court in the land would actually hold ObamaCare unconstitutional?

And, d), if not, what will remain of the Constitution's government of limited and enumerated powers?