This process takes place in your body every second of the day, and it takes place with utter and unerring fidelity across thousands of discrete chemical steps. 

Every single second of the day. 

And here's your "You really didn't think that through, did you?" explanation of the day: 

A U.S. study of transfer RNA is challenging long-held theories concerning the evolutionary history of protein synthesis.

University of Illinois researchers report the dual functions of transfer RNA, or tRNA — a molecule that delivers amino acids to the protein-building machinery of the cell — apparently originated independently.

“Structure is highly conserved, capturing information that is evolutionarily deep,” said Professor Gustavo Caetano-Anolles, who led the study. “It was only logical to focus on transfer RNA, a molecule that is believed to be very ancient and is truly central to the entire protein synthesis machinery.”

During protein synthesis, tRNA’s dual function is reflected in its unique L-shaped structure, the scientists said. One end of the molecule decodes messenger RNA — a molecule that carries instructions for the sequence of amino acids in a protein — while the other transfers a specific amino acid to the growing protein chain.

Previously scientists assumed the two functional domains of tRNA had evolved together. But Caetano-Anolles and researcher Feng-Jie Sun determined the two functions have different evolutionary histories, which suggests they were acquired at different points in time.

The research appeared in the July 30 issue of the online journal PLoS One.

So: They evolved separately, at different points of time. But what good is it to have a decoder if you've got no way to transfer the amino acids to the protein chain?

And if it doesn't convey an advantage, why would it evolve? 

Yes, yes, I know. The answer's out there, we just don't know it yet. But hasn't anyone noticed that the more we understand, the harder the questions get?

Humor me by not looking this up, and not thinking--yet---about why I'm asking. I'll explain later. For now, I'm just curious about how Ricochet scores on this quiz. Add one point for every "yes" answer, unless the question is preceded by an R, in which case subtract a point. 

1. Beneath the polite and smiling surface of man's nature is a bottomless pit of evil. 
2. (R) Human nature is fundamentally co-operative. 
3. (R) Most people can be trusted. 
4. Human nature being what it is there will always be war and conflict. 
5. Life is a jungle. 
6. Man is a fighting animal. 
7. "Dog eats dog" is a law of nature we have to accept. 
8. "Survival of the fittest" is what determines who gets on in life. 
9. (R) Everybody can control his temper if he really wants to. 
10. I believe in "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth".
11. If a man hits me I believe in hitting back. 
12. Wars are a good thing because they help people work off the aggression inside them. 
13. It's natural for men to be full of fight when they are young. 
14. (R) To be kind and friendly towards others is the natural state of men. 
15. (R) If we trust others they will generally prove worthy of our trust. 
16. (R) Nobody is just born with a need to show himself stronger or superior. 
17. With some people it is a waste of time being soft-the only argument they understand is force. 
18. If you are always obliging to other people they don't respect you. 
19. A fighter is always respected. 
20. (R) Any sort of fighting is basically uncivilized. 
21. (R) Aggressive people are not being natural -- they are psychologically sick. 
22. (R) It is natural to be considerate towards others. 
23. Civilization is only a thin veneer over man's basic animal nature. 
24. (R) It is not natural for man to be destructive. 
25. (R) Man is basically a builder--not a destroyer. 
26. Children are naturally destructive. 
27. (R) Fighting never solved anything. 
28. (R) Fighting is never necessary. 
29. (R) People who fight to settle an argument are just showing how stupid they really are. 
30. (R) Nations don't need armies to protect themselves.

Don't over-think it, for now, and if you know or can guess why I'm asking, please save the comment for later so that you don't influence the way others react. 

There's been much discussion in the MSM and the blogosphere linking the vitriolic language of politics with the appalling act of violence just committed in Tucson, as well as much discussion of the discussion -- is it relevant? Is it appropriate? Is it opportunistic? Is it base?

But there's another conversation to be had in the wake of the attack. I was talking to a friend yesterday about the shootings -- another transplanted American married to an Israeli -- and her response was an impassioned plea for across-the-board gun control in the US. The argument was striking to my ears simply because it's been such a very long time since I've heard anyone propose such a thing. Israel is, after all, something of a case study of the lack of correlation between a ubiquity of guns and crazy gun violence. There are M-16s slung on the backs of young soldiers everywhere, my eight-year-old walks past an armed guard on his way into school every morning -- even I, nondescript suburban Mom that I am, am routinely asked if I'm packing every time I park my car in an underground lot or walk into a mall. (If I were carrying, I would be asked to show my gun license.) Schoolteachers and school officials are permitted (provided they are IDF veterans, as they almost invariably are) to wear guns to class (and the only school shooting I can think of was a Hamas terrorist attack in a yeshiva lunchroom two years ago). Incidents of soldiers using their weapons to commit acts of violence at home have occurred, but are extremely rare.

In short: guns are in full view and pretty readily available here. But here's the thing: they're not handed out like candy, and you can't buy whatever floats your boat. Loughner is not a veteran, is only 22 and has a drug offense on his record. Those points alone would likely have quashed any attempt by an equivalent young Israeli to get a gun license. He would also have been required to present certification from a medical doctor that he is fit to carry a weapon, and all the reports I've read concur that Loughner had been behaving very strangely for quite some time prior to his purchasing a gun -- so much so that there is retroactive speculation that he is schizophrenic. The odds of such behavior being completely ignored by a doctor certifying a gun license applicant on behalf of the Israeli health ministry are slim to nil.

Also, I understand Loughner was using a “high-capacity” ammunition magazine in a semiautomatic; he was thus able to shoot off thirty rounds before having to stop to reload. Leaving aside the magazine for a moment, on what possible grounds was this kid issued a semiautomatic? In Israel, if I'm not mistaken, the only civilians who can get their hands on semiautomatics are "licensed animal control officers," and their licenses entitle them only to limited-capacity magazines. Surely some regulation is a good thing?

I'm fully aware that historically, the disarming of the population is often a precursor to tyranny and strongly support the right of the individual to defend him- or herself; it's abhorrent that anyone should be required to abdicate that right. But there are ways and means. The "thin end of the wedge" argument -- that it's dangerous to allow regulation of the sale of semiautomatics to unstable young people because that'll trickle down to bans on the purchase of 12-gauge shotguns by upstanding citizens who wouldn't dream of using them outside a duck blind -- is more than just silly; it costs lives. The phrase "gun control" has come to connote "eventual gun ban", but perhaps it's time to take back the narrative, no? The convulsive desire to ban all guns in the wake of a gun atrocity is patently absurd -- but I'd argue that some control is clearly needed here. Would you agree?

The significance of Dan Holmes' question about conspiracy theories goes beyond Ricochet's Code of Conduct--it's a fascinating question.

I'll begin at the end of the argument and explain, first, why our Code of Conduct aims to discourage them. Let's start with the Ricochet founding legend. (Like all good founding legends, it happens to be true). A couple of talkative, good-natured, right-of-center, fun-loving guys were sitting around one day talking about politics and the Internet, and saying, "The thing is, where can you go to talk about this stuff and not waste your time getting into a flame war with the tinfoil-hat brigade?"

To an extent, our definition is like Justice Stewart's definition of pornography. We know a rhetorical rathole when we see it; the whole point of Ricochet is to avoid conversations that go over the same ground without getting anywhere, shed more heat than light, and leave everyone feeling that it's time to change the channel. So the point of banning most conspiracy-theory talk is not to prevent the truth from outing, but to keep the conversation interesting. 

But that leaves the more interesting question unanswered: Is there in fact a definition of a conspiracy theory more rigorous than "We know it when we see it?" 

Of course there are real conspiracies, even in open societies and liberal democracies. Dan brings up the perfect example--the conspiracy to "hide the decline." That was, we can clearly see now, a genuine conspiracy. Many people who had been dismissed as tinfoil-hat-brigade types turned out to be absolutely right.  That's why we say "99 percent" of conspiracy theories, not "100 percent."

But most conspiracy theories are just deeply implausible, and require a view of the way the world works that is so counter to common sense and experience that it can't really be viewed as "conservative."

I live in Turkey, so I actually spend all my time trying to explain to people why their pet conspiracy theories are implausible--particularly when these theories concern America, probably the world's least secretive society. The belief in conspiracies is obviously closely connected to lack of transparency in government. If you can't see how things really work, it's impossible to come up with a good mental model of how they don't work.

When I argue with people here (as I do all the time) about conspiracy theories, I find that the following points seem to make sense to some people, sometimes.

1) It is incredibly hard to keep secrets. The logic of this point is intuitively appreciated by any man who has ever had more than one girlfriend at the same time.

2) The more people who know the secret, the less likely it is to stay a secret. This is why men who have more than one girlfriend at the same time usually try to keep the circle of people who know about this to a minimum.  

3) It is highly unlikely that a major political event would happen owing to the agency of a very small number of people. Think about the manpower required just to make a small thing happen--to run a corner grocery store, for example. The bigger the thing you're trying to do, the more manpower and expertise you need. If you're going to stage a coup, control the currency markets, take over the media, or assassinate the president, you're going to need a big staff. Therefore, it is incredibly unlikely that conspiracies will stay secret.

4) It is incredibly hard to organize anything. Most people grasp this intuitively. If it were so easy to organize people, no one would ever get stressed about planning a wedding. 

5) It is incredibly hard to get people to work effectively toward a goal. Anyone who has ever managed a small business knows how hard it is to get employees to do what they're supposed to do even when the goal is clear and even when everyone knows what they're supposed to do and why. To pull off even a modest goal in business, you need sophisticated communications, training, a management hierarchy, accountants, endless meetings. It is extremely hard to do even when you don't have to do it in secret.  Adding the imperative of secrecy to such an operation would make it exponentially harder--and thus less likely to have happened.

Those are just some basic, obvious points that are easily confirmed by the personal experience of every human being who has ever had any contact with other members of his species. 

The mark of a conspiracy theory is that is assumes the world works in a way that runs counter to these observations: It assumes a very big secret that many people know but none reveal. It assumes the people keeping this secret are better-organized, more competent, and more effective than any of our experience of life suggests people to be. And it assumes this, usually, in preference to a vastly more parsimonious explanation of the event in question.  

Those are some general thoughts, which we can probably refine here. But the basic answer, from Ricochet's perspective, is that a conspiracy theory is one of those ideas that makes us say, "Oh, man, not that again. Must we waste time talking about this? Wouldn't it be great if someone set up a website where people could talk about right-of-center politics without having to deal with the flame wars and the tinfoil-hat brigades?'"

Duane Oyen, writing on the Ricochet facebook page, says the RINO hunting has got to stop:

Nonsense like this is what may doom the Right....[W]hen the purges go this far, we are setting up to get a whopping 25% of the vote. No serious discussion of policy or alternatives, let alone the realities of governing; just bumper sticker slogans and invective.

Here's a little taste of the so-called nonsense:

The beltway buzz is all 'atwitter about Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's possible run for the GOP Presidential nominee-nod in 2012. I believe and know Pawlenty to be in the big-spending GOP camp. He would be a terrible choice. Albeit he would predictably start to strut around his conservative ideals only to govern like another quasi-RINO in sheep's clothing...True-conservatives please stand up. Party activists please stand up. Reaganite conservative limited government believers please stand up. If this guy is the nominee, I am vying for a third party.

The call for party purity is dangerous and self-defeating. Without a broad coalition of support, the Right will be unable to garner the majorities it needs to effect policy change in the legislature. And yet, I all too often hear fellow conservatives express their preference for all or nothing. If we can't have a majority of principled leaders who won't stray from the limited-government, deficit-hawk, tax-cutting rubric of "real" conservatism, best just to let the Democrats have control of the government so that they're to blame when things go wrong. This is all well and good in theory, but it's simply not realistic.

Take for example my blue state of California. The best candidate we can hope to elect to the Senate is Carly Fiorina, and to the governorship, Meg Whitman. I've heard both women decried as RINOs countless times right here on Ricochet. But considering the electorate in this state at this point in history, these two candidates would be immeasurably better than their alternatives.

While I agree that now is the time for conservatives to rally around first principles -- and among those, cutting spending, tackling deficits, curtailing government growth -- we mustn't go so far as to alienate a broad swath of support by demanding ideological purity.

The question is somewhat rhetorical since I wrote a book about this subject, but current events continue to vindicate my position that liberals are waging war on Christianity. I won't rehash arguments in this post about the absurd degree to which the Establishment Clause has been distorted to suppress religious freedom in the name of protecting it, but consider this case reported in The Hill.

The Federal Reserve issued an order to an Oklahoma bank to remove religious items from public view because they could discourage people from seeking loan applications. The items were a link on the bank's website to a Bible verse of the day and buttons saying "Merry Christmas, God With Us." 

Do you agree with the bank examiners? Or with Sen. James Inhofe and Rep. Frank Lucas, who fired off a letter to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke objecting to this?  Inhofe claims it discriminates against Christians and their freedom to express their faith. I agree.

If these had been references to a religion other than Christianity the examiner probably would have directed the bank to give bonuses to the employees involved. There is a disturbing paranoia about Christianity in our modern culture -- so ironic, given its putative majority status. The story says the Federal Reserve withdrew the order after Inhofe and Lucas complained.

Please forgive me if you've seen this ad already -- I just saw it for the first time this morning; it was posted by a Facebook friend -- but it strikes me as interesting, particularly in light of the South Carolina results. (Click on it to see it larger.)

Now, it's easy to look at this with a partisan shrug -- yeah, you're really one of the masses, Barry. And way to slide right past those pesky little issues like the recession. And are we feeling a little defensive today? What's up with the capitals? 

But this seems to me a very effective ad. It's defensive, yes, but the weaving together of a rockets'-red-glare sentimental patriotism with a contemptuous, patronizing tone toward dissenters reassures Obama fans that they are on the side of both the good and the intelligent. The hectoring, all-caps, drumming-it-in tone of the denials is designed to convey the impression -- or I should say reinforce the impression -- that the people he's defending himself against are dumb-as-dirt mouth breathers who have to have self-evident truths spelled out for them. Of course he's shouting, the ad projects: you've got to shout at Republicans to make them see sense.  You can't reason with those people.

What could this gain him? A lot. By hearkening back to the vacuous, emotion-filled campaign of 2008, he sidesteps the issues and opens his arms to welcome back any Democrats who have become shaky about him during his calamitously inept first term. He can also easily draw fence-sitters with this kind of decorous, non-attack-ad approach -- see, we're above the fray. We're what this country is really all about; we're the good guys. Note the reiteration of the middle name: we're the inclusive party, the party that's about love (mom, grandparents, community) and the dream of prosperity. We good. They bad.

This can easily work; it's a variant of a formula that worked like a charm in 2008. And I would posit that this kind of dumbed down, context-free, content-free approach will be especially effective if the Republican nominee is someone who took Bill Clinton to the woodshed and is now indignant that he should be held accountable for similar indiscretions. That kind of thing confirms exactly what many people already believe about Republicans: that they shamelessly deploy the double standard when it suits them, and are therefore disqualified from being entrusted with the well-being of all Americans.

If a close look at your own performance will lose you the election, you change the subject. Issues, shmissues, this ad is telling us. Who makes you feel good about being an American? Who do you feel good about holding up to the world as your representative? The charmingly rumpled multicultural icon of humble origins who scaled the heights of academics and politics, or the whiter-than-white guy who can dish it out but can't take it?

If Newt's the nominee, we'll get some lively presidential debates out of it, but one uptick in the economy and it's all over until 2016. If anybody is likely to rally the undecided under Obama's tent, it's Gingrich.

Sitting here in Turkey, I can promise you this: The people here who are friendliest to the United States are the ones who have actually been there. 

Have a look at this website. These are two Turkish guys who both studied in the US. They came back and decided to open a Mixed Martial Arts academy in Istanbul. Now why does that make America safer? It makes it safer because they could no more believe the more egregious nonsense some people here believe about America and Americans than I could believe the more egregious nonsense some people in America believe about Turkey. They've seen the place with their own eyes. They brought some of it back. 

You'd have to really lack confidence in America not to believe that most people, no matter where they come from, will visit America, be pretty impressed with it, and think, "maybe some of the things they're doing here would work well back home." 

Have some faith in the seductive power of the West and the American Dream. 

The summer before last, I posted a series of pieces on www.biggovernment.com, exploring the nature of executive temperament and Barack Obama’s lack thereof; examining the virtues of Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Mitch Daniels in this particular; and, finally, suggesting that executive temperament is not enough: that, in the absence of a firm embrace of first principles, it is positively dangerous.

When, in The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton observed that "energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government,” I remarked, he quite rightly used the indefinite, as opposed to the definite, article. “What Hamilton had in mind,” I explained,

when he insisted on the necessity that the new nation be endowed with an energetic executive is the fact that a government in which the laws are not vigorously executed and in which emergencies are not confronted and handled with decision and dispatch is hardly a government at all. He knew that wisdom, prudence, and moderation are also required for a government to be good, and he recognized as well that the ends and sphere proper to government are limited. He was no less committed to the principles of the Declaration of Independence than was the man who had drafted it.

Hamilton was also aware that Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell had been energetic executives, and to their number we can now add such luminaries as Napoleon Bonaparte, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot. The executive temperament necessary for good government is not, alas, sufficient to guarantee its achievement.

If, as I argued in mid-June, it is now abundantly clear that Barack Obama lacks the temperament requisite in an executive, if, as I contended, he is inclined to shirk responsibility, shift the blame, dither, and punt, his administration is beyond question a government insufficient for our needs. This does not mean, however, that – merely by demonstrating energy, vigor, and dispatch in shouldering the responsibilities of executive office – Bobby Jindal of Lousiana, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Jeb Bush of Florida, Haley Barbour of Mississippi, or any of the other potential presidential aspirants in the Republican Party who have been effective governors has demonstrated that he possesses all of the qualities called for in the grave crisis we now face.

All of the individuals I have named are impressive – as are, for example, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. The moment has not yet arrived, however, for a thorough assessment of the qualities and outlook of each. There will be plenty of time for sorting through the candidates after the midterm elections.

At this point, however, it is proper that I reiterate the conclusion that I argued for in a series of posts – here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here – in the course of the last year: to wit, that we live in a time of grave danger and of unprecedented opportunity; that, by means of his healthcare reform and the other measures he has pursued, Barack Obama has both threatened what is left of our liberty and offered us the chance to recover it in full; that, by exposing the tyrannical character of the liberal, progressive project and by outing nearly all of his fellow Democrats, he has opened up for us the possibility of a return to first principles; and that, with the proper leadership and focus, we really can effect a realignment, roll back the administrative state, and escape what, with a nod to Alexis de Tocqueville, I called, in my recent book, soft despotism.

It is also now requisite that I say something about the other attributes, apart from executive temperament, that will be required if we are to wrest ourselves from modern democracy’s soft despotic drift.

Here is what is needed and what is likely to be sorely lacking in some, if not most, of the Republican presidential aspirants: an adequate understanding of the underpinnings of American republicanism, a firm and principled commitment to limited government, and a determination to put the limits back in place.

Most of the Republicans elected to the Presidency in the last century have been what I call “business” or “managerial progressives.” I do not doubt that Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush were preferable to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, William Jefferson Clinton, and Barack Obama. But there is no indication that any of them understood what was at stake. They differed from their Democratic opponents in being considerably more favorable to business and the free market and considerably more hostile to tax increases, but – if there was no obvious economic price – they, too, welcomed government intrusiveness whenever they thought that encroaching upon our prerogatives or those of the state and local governments was necessary if they were to do us what they took to be good.

Here lies the danger. What is needed is a repeal of Obamacare; what is needed is a paring back and even a gradual elimination of the welfare state; what is needed is a constitutional amendment banning unfunded and partially-funded  mandates; what is needed is a withdrawal of the federal government from spheres (such as education) left by the Constitution to individuals and the states; what is needed is a reinvigoration of local and state governments; what is need is a new spirit in Washington.

What we are likely to get, however, if we do not watch out, is more of the same.

I can easily imagine a Republican President thinking that what is really needed is what FDR called “enlightened administration.” I can easily imagine the Republicans thinking that Obamacare would be just fine if they were in charge. That is the spirit that guided Hoover, Nixon, Bush père, and Bush fils, and I fear that most of the men with gubernatorial experience whom I mentioned above would fit right in with these former Presidents. If our primary problem were Obama’s incompetence, that would be fine. Unfortunately, our problems go deeper – and if the Republicans muff the golden opportunity now in the offing, the game may be up.

I quote this argument at length because it articulates the presumptions underlying my assessment of the various aspirants, real or imagined, to the Republican presidential nomination. It explains why, writing later on Ricochet, I encouraged Governor Daniels to enter the race and criticized a number of his stands and why, when he chose not to run, I expressed misgivings about the likelihood that Mitt Romney would be the nominee and pulled out all stops to get Congressman Paul Ryan to run. In my judgment, Daniels is a proven executive with a spectacular record who had a first-hand knowledge of the federal budget; Governor Romney is not only a political chameleon, but also managerial progressive who does not understand, much less respect, the proper limits to the government’s reach; and Ryan, though he has never held executive office, has displayed executive temperament in boldly proposing legislation aimed at staving off the immediate fiscal and economic crisis we face and at moving carefully and prudently in the direction of paring back the administrative entitlements state, and in rallying the members of his party in the House of Representatives behind that legislation. He has, moreover, stood up to and outdebated the current President of the United States.

But, of course, Governor Daniels chose not to run, and Congressman Ryan followed suit. So, in later posts, I tried to separate the clowns from the contenders and took a look at Michele Bachman, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain – all of whom I eventually found grievously wanting. I touched on Newt Gingrich here, for example, and here but was dismissive:

His intelligence cannot be doubted. But his personal life cannot be defended, and he is a loose cannon – apt to line up with the likes of Nancy Pelosi on a fashionable issue like global warming. More to the point, he is a managerial progressive. Like Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, and both Bush père and Bush fils, he is always on the outlook for something additional that the federal government can do. He is in no position to articulate the case for limited government.

I thought the former Speaker of the House a dinosaur whose day was done. It never crossed my mind that he would become a contender, and I was not alone. Apparently, the Obama campaign has done not a whit of opposition research on Gingrich because those involved were as dismissive as I was. What we forgot was that in the world of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

The reasons for Newt Gingrich’s rise are fairly simple. For reasons that I have spelled out earlier, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul have no business being in the race, and, thanks to the debates, everyone now knows it. Rick Perry, who has an impressive record as Governor of Texas, blotted his copybook in the first few debates in such a way as to make one doubt whether he is or ever will be sufficiently well-informed about things outside Texas. Most prospective Republican voters share my misgivings about Romney, and Gingrich has demonstrated that he has a mastery of the requisite detail. Moreover, in the debates, he has treated his rivals with respect; he has repeatedly unmasked the buffoons asking questions as buffoons; he has stayed within the time allotted; he has hammered Obama; and he has frequently said things that cause one to stop and think. Where he has gone astray in the past – briefly embracing the individual mandate in 1993 and 1994, lining up with Nancy Pelosi on global warming, and breaking his wedding vows, etc.– he acknowledges folly and fault. It is refreshing to hear a Presidential candidate describe a stance he has taken in the past as positively stupid. The new Newt is not a loose cannon. He is neither conceited nor arrogant. He evidences a certain irony about himself and his conduct in the past. Or so, at least, it seems.

We need also consider Gingrich’s accomplishments in the past. He was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; attended Emory University as an undergraduate; and did an M. A. and a Ph.D. in history at Tulane before taking up a teaching post at West Georgia College. He ran for Congress a couple of times in Georgia’s Sixth District against an entrenched incumbent who usually faced no opposition. He lost by a small margin on both occasions and then won in November, 1978. He held the seat through ten more elections and resigned in January, 1999. At least at that level, Gingrich is a seasoned campaigner.

More to the point, in 1981, in Congress, Gingrich was not, like most Republicans, content with being a member of the minority. He founded the Congressional Military Reform Caucus and the Congressional Aviation and Space Caucus; in 1983, he co-founded the Conservative Opportunity Society – much to the delight of Ronald Reagan. And in 1988, citing ethics violations, he spearheaded a successful effort to topple Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright. A year later, he became Minority Whip and initiated an effort to make the Republican Party what he called “a much more aggressive, activist party.” In 1994, he helped draft the Contract with America , persuaded his fellow Republicans in the House to sign on, nationalized the election, and led them to a victory in the midterm elections in which they gained fifty-four seats and secured control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. Even this observation understates Gingrich’s achievement. For, in the sixty-four years following the stock market crash of 1929, the Republicans won the House twice – in 1946 and in 1952. On both occasions, they lost control two years thereafter. In the aftermath of 1994, however, the Republicans held onto the House for twelve years. If Ronald Reagan began the Republican revolution in 1980, it was Newt Gingrich who solidified it.

For four years, Newt Gingrich served as Speaker of the House. In his first hundred days in office, he brought each of the ten items mentioned in the Contract with America to a vote in that chamber as promised. In 1996, on his third try, he managed to get President William Jefferson Clinton to agree to welfare reform. In 1997, he secured the passage of the largest capital gains tax cut in American history, and he persuaded President Clinton to sign it. In 1998 and 1999, he managed to get Clinton to cooperate with him in balancing the budget, which was achieved in the latter year.

Eventually, to be sure, Gingrich’s dominion came a-cropper. In his struggle to force President Clinton to go along with the Republican minority in cutting the federal budget, there was a partial government shutdown; the liberal press managed to pin the blame on Gingrich (though it was a direct consequence of vetoes by Clinton); and he became highly unpopular. In time, moreover, he was sanctioned by the House for ethics violations; and, in the summer of 1997, there was an abortive attempt on the part of John Boehner and others to oust him from the Speakership. Shortly after the Republicans lost ground in the 1998 midterm elections, which took place on the eve of President Clinton’s impeachment, Gingrich resigned from Congress. It had been a very wild ride. His hegemony was widely resented in his own party; and, when Dennis Hastert replaced him as Speaker, the Republicans turned away from reform and became an old-fashioned pork-barrel party on the Democratic model.

Gingrich can certainly be faulted – for arrogance, for vanity, for negligence with regard to the ethical rules supposed to govern the conduct of members of Congress, and for marital infidelity. As Speaker, he was not apt to seek or accept advice. One of his former Congressional allies told me a couple of months ago, “The trouble with Newt was that you never knew what he was going to do.” He was also erratic. In one speech, he could articulate the case for limited government from the perspective of the Founding Fathers. Three days later, you could hear him touting all that government could do. Consistency was not his watchword. He was and is in love with technology; he was and is always looking for technological fixes; and he has often displayed the instincts of the social engineer. Indeed, in his years out of office, he touted one piece of social engineering after another. But whatever else he may have been, Newt Gingrich instigated a revolution in our national affairs, and for one brief, glorious moment, he turned what had been a hapless, hopeless party of patronage into a party of principle. He was a budget-balancer, a friend to low taxes, and a critic of the welfare state; and he brought to the Republicans in the House a measure of discipline not seen before or after his brief reign.

Almost all of the pundits – major and minor – have weighed in against Newt Gingrich – David Brooks, George Will, Peggy Noonan, Charles Krauthammer, Ramesh Ponnuru, Jennifer Rubin, Ron Radosh , Yuval Levin (I could go on; the list is long and getting longer every day). He is, they say, conceited, arrogant, vain, erratic, vulnerable to attack in the general election, and likely on a whim to lead us over the cliff. I am inclined to take what they say seriously. Newt Gingrich is a wild card. The fact that his own staff gave up on him and resigned on the eve of this campaign is a sign that, his appearances in the debates notwithstanding, the new Newt is not all that different from the old. If I had to vote today on the Republican nomination, I would vote against Gingrich and for Romney – not because I think all that highly of Romney (for I do not) but because he is notably steadier than his rival.

I write these words. Then, I read them and want to take two steps back – for Newt Gingrich, as those who have watched the debates have generally noticed, is far more formidable than Mitt Romney.

The latter has won one election in his life, and he did not stand a chance for re-election. He is careful, steady, methodical, politically timid, and easy to rattle. Ted Kennedy did just that, and Barack Obama may well do it again. Moreover, Romney is brittle, as the Bret Baier interview revealed, and he does not adjust quickly and gracefully to changing circumstances. The jury was in on anthropogenic global warming by December, 2009, but, as late as June, 2011, Romney was still spouting the same old nonsense. It was as if no news was news for him until The New York Times ratified it.

It was evident long ago that a commitment to the individual mandate and Romneycare could cripple a Presidential campaign. But once Romney settled on federalism as a gimmick for arguing that we should ignore his signature achievement as Governor, he stuck rigidly to it. The man is politically tone deaf –as the graduating seniors at Hillsdale College learned in 2007 and the attendees at the National Review banquet learned not long thereafter. Like many engineers and technocrats, he is not adept at sizing up an audience and making the right pitch. In consequence, he sometimes comes across as a robot. He is the sort of politician who could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He did so in 1994 and 2008.

Gingrich is, as I said, formidable. He took a pathetic, me-too caucus lead by the hapless Robert Michel, and he turned it around. He cornered the President of the United States and for a time made him do his bidding. But, of course, he also crashed and burned – and we cannot ignore the possibility (some would say, likelihood) that he would do so again.

It could be, however, that the peculiar time in which we live requires audacity and a man of formidable intellect, unsurpassed self-confidence, and uneven, erratic temperament with an impressive record of uniting his party around a set of political principles and of leading it to victory in a tense, divisive national election. On Thursday, Steve Hayward posted a piece on National Review Online, comparing the general take on Newt Gingrich today with that on Winston Churchill in 1940 when he became Prime Minister. It is sobering and reminds us how easily we human beings can misjudge – and Ramesh Ponnuru’s response is lame. There really is something to think about here.

I am very glad that the hour is not late – that we have months in which to make up our minds and that there will be debate after debate, caucus after caucus, and primary after primary in which the candidates will be tested. In my judgment, none of them is even remotely close to being ideal, and no one currently in the race deserves our active support. In stating that -- if I had to decide today between the contenders Romney, Perry, and Gingrich, I would choose Romney -- I reserve the right to change my mind as I learn more about them. Changing my mind on occasion is, after all, the only real proof that I have one.

Anyone would be preferable to four more years of Obama, seems to be a near ubiquitous sentiment in the right-of-center blogosphere.  Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit is on record saying he'd even "vote for a syphilitic camel over Barack Obama in 2012."

But it looks like the FreedomWorks branch of the Tea Party isn't down with Glenn's "Syphilitic Camel Rule".  In fact, if Romney is nominated the GOP's candidate, FreedomWorks warns (threatens?) that the Tea Party may just forget about showing up to the polls.

If Mitt Romney wins the Republican nomination for president, Tea Party activists may not show up at all to vote in the general election, one leading group associated with the Tea Party movement is warning.

“I think that’s a potential problem,” said Matt Kibbe, FreedomWorks’ president, during a wide-ranging interview with reporters at The Daily Caller.

He also warned that if Republicans nominate another “John McCain,” activists might even vote third party in 2012.

“I believe in redemption, but at some point, you sort of give up,” he said. “And we’ve given up on Mitt Romney.”

On the other hand, Amy Kremer, Chair of the Tea Party Express recently asserted that the Tea Party will indeed support Romney if he turns out to be the nominee.

So will the Tea Party stay home on Election Day if Romney turns out to be the Republican nominee or won't they?  At this point, what the head honchos of FreedomWorks and the Tea Party Express have to say about the matter is pure speculation. Very few Tea Partiers I know identify with either of these organizations, and even if they do, they definitely don't take their marching orders from a FreedomWorks or Tea Party Express organizer.  

Here at Ricochet, we have quite a number of self-identified Tea Partiers, so instead of paying too much heed to someone else's irrelevant speculation about whether or not you will vote, I'll ask you directly:  Is there any candidate, whether Mitt or someone else, who would cause you to forgo voting in next year's election?

Is the new Christine O'Donnell television ad likely to change hearts and minds about the Republican senate candidate in Delaware?

My WSJ colleague James Taranto published a provocative piece yesterday trying to explain the hatred toward Sarah Palin. Well worth a read.  When I spoke to him, he thought that a lot of it is abortion, and the fact that she lives her convictions there (carrying Trig to term even after she knew he had Down).

I think that abortion has a part, but is not the whole story (read James' whole story for some of the other factors). My reasoning is that there are any number of Republican and conservative women who are pro-choice and yet seem to suffer from being considered not quite legitimate. A parallel example might be Clarence Thomas, whom people declare not really being black. To me that is because the left tends to define identity for a "woman," "gay," "black," etc. in highly politicized terms. (Claire, if you are reading, weren't there people who didn't consider Mrs. T a "woman" in this sense -- not that Mrs. T would care).

Point is, James has posted a piece well worth reading. And I'd like to hear the reactions. Again, this isn't about whether Gov. Palin should be the nominee, or even if you agree with her. It's about the nature of the liberal hatred for her. Anyone?

In the May edition of First Things,  R. R. Reno presents an editorial that strikes me as entirely correct--and thoroughly ominous.  Excerpts:

Last summer, New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a speech in advance of the close vote in the New York state legislature that decided that men have a right to marry men and women women.  He described the fight for same-sex marriage as "the great civil-rights issue of our times...."

[But the]...belief that homosexual acts are immoral is not the same kind of claim as the belief that black people are inferior because they are black.  When we deem homosexual acts immoral, we are not stigmatizing a class of persons; we're exercising our moral reason about the rightness and wrongness of actions.  Unlike racism, principled opposition to homosexual rights has a firm basis.  It's normal to judge behavior, including...sexual behavior.  That's why describing homosexual acts as immoral is not at all like calling black men and women inferior.

To merge sexual liberation into the civil-rights movement dramatically raises the stakes in public debate.  The Selma analogy [that is, comparing the gay rights movement with the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama] makes traditional views of sexual morality as noxious as racism, and in so doing encourages progressives to adopt something like a total-war doctrine.  The implication is that people who hold such views should have no voice in American society and that homosexuality should be aggressively affirmed in our public and private institutions, while dissent is punished.

Chai Feldblum [pictured here] is an Obama appointee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission....She sees the future this way:  "Positive changes in the moral values of our country--such as moral values that honor the love between two people, regardless of their gender--will inherently and necessarily pose a challenge to those who believe, for religious or other reasons, that such love is sinful...."  [W]hen asked her opinion on the conflict between homosexual rights and the moral commitments of religious institutions she insisted that "in almost all cases sexual liberty should win, because that's the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner."  It's a frank statement that clarifies how few restraints progressives feel once they are convinced that they are fighting for "the great civil-rights issue of our times...."

I fear that we are entering into a new phase of the culture war...The Selma analogy gives [progressives]...a rationale for deploying the vast coercive power of the civil-rights apparatus to serve their moral vision of sexual liberation.  It's a prospect that will give an even more literal meaning to the dictatorship of relativism.

Don't shoot me; I'm just the messenger.

            In the wake of Mitt Romney’s resounding victory in Florida’s primary, the odds of anyone other than Romney capturing the Republican nomination seem to be as low as the odds Barack Obama will be offered a guest professorship at Hillsdale College.  As one of the many conservatives who are less than enthused about the nomination of a self-described “Progressive whose views are moderate,” the time has come to decide whether or not to bite the bullet and vote for Romney in the general election.  Traditional party orthodoxy suggests that I should support the lesser of two evils.  However, Romney’s ideology is so antithetical to the principles of conservatism that I believe the best thing I can do for the conservative movement and the country in the upcoming election is refuse to give my support or vote to Mitt Romney.

            The biggest blow to Romney’s conservative credentials is his support for the state-level version of Obamacare during his time in Massachusetts.  Romney’s supporters have painted Romneycare as the best of many bad choices for Romney in Massachusetts (although why they would offer up “Three Cheers” for the best of bad alternatives is beyond me.)  I would be OK with supporting Romney if he openly stated that Romneycare was a mistake that the legislature forced on him.  Unfortunately, Romney has decided to defend his mini-Obamacare project.  Romney himself said “I’m proud of what we’ve done” in reference to Romneycare and lauded it as a “Model for the nation.”  When asked about what he thought of Obamacare in 2010, Romney said he wanted to “Keep the good parts,” and applauded the “Incentives to purchase private insurance” (in other words, the individual mandate.)  These are hardly the words of someone who views Romneycare as the lesser of many evils.  Instead, they point to a man who is proud of signing the precursor to Obamacare into law and is fine with an individual mandate on the federal level.   

            Furthermore, Romney’s defense of the individual mandate bears a surprising resemblance to the arguments used by Progressives such as Barack Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt to justify their expansions of government.  Romney has argued that government-mandated health insurance is based on “Personal responsibility” and Romneycare protects individual rights by preventing “free riders” from gaming the system.  It almost seems as if Romney believes we must abandon free market healthcare principles to save free market healthcare.  Furthermore, Romney’s argument for Romneycare echoes Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s sentiments in the Commonwealth Club Address that “The exercise of the property rights might so interfere with the rights of the individual that the government, without whose assistance the property rights could not exist, must intervene, not to destroy individualism but to protect it.”  FDR and Romney make identical arguments.  Romney argues that the exercise of individual rights on healthcare infringes on the rights of other individuals, and thus the government must intervene to protect “individualism.”

            Jonah Goldberg recently wrote a column arguing that dissatisfied conservatives should vote for Romney because he will owe the conservatives who elected him and govern like a conservative.  Unfortunately, Romney and his supporters have shown no sign that they care what conservatives in the Republican Party think.  Romney’s scorched-earth campaign tactics against Newt Gingrich and the dismissive, snide treatment Romney’s apologists have given anyone who dares question The Mitt Romney’s conservatism (I’m looking at you, Ann Coulter and David Frum) doesn’t bode well for conservatives who hope Romney will listen to them.  Furthermore, voting for Romney will hardly make him want to listen to conservatives.  If anything, it will show that Romney can take conservatives for granted and still earn their votes. 

            Mitt Romney’s approach towards government places him drastically outside the conservative camp.  Instead of arguing that big government must be eliminated, Romney seems to believe that he can run big government well.  Voting for Romney sends the message that conservative voices can be ignored with impunity.  Conservatives are ignored by candidates like Romney because they believe conservatives will simply vote for whoever has an R next to their name, the only way to ensure the GOP understands that conservative voices cannot be ignored is to show that our votes are not guaranteed.  Mitt “I’m a Progressive” Romney is the ideal candidate to use as proof that even the most loyal Republicans have their limits and will not vote for Liberalism Light.       

Here's a question that has been on my mind. It was articulated recently by both Jon Huntsman and Paul Krugman, and is a frightening prospect.

Is the Republican party becoming the anti-science party?

As Huntsman said:

The minute that the Republican Party becomes the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012.... I can't remember a time in our history where we actually were willing to shun science and become a party that was antithetical to science. I'm not sure that's good for our future, and it's not a winning formula.

Thoughts?

Maybe it’s the Internet. Maybe it’s Twitter or Facebook. But whatever it is, verbal clichés seem to grow and prosper more quickly than ever. For example, it’s virtually impossible to listen to any two people discuss any subject without hearing the dreaded, “At the end of the day” and/or, “Having said that.”

The latter is a verbal tic that’s an extension of “but” or replaces “uh.” Having said that? Having said what you just said? Yeah, I heard what you just said, and now you’re going to point out that you just said it? “The Republicans are in a strong position, Christiane, and the Democrats are on the defensive, but having said that...” I know you said that. I was listening.

“At the end of day...” At the end of what day? When does the day end? “There are a lot of important factors in the race, David, but at the end of the day...” What if something happens before the day ends? Then what?

Or how about, “At this point in time.” You mean, “Now.” It’s such a lawyerly phrase. It’s as if you’re trying to cover something up. “At this point in time, he doesn’t know how that got on the dress.”

My new least favorite expression is more apt to be uttered by a waiter or waitress than by a political commentator. It’s the simple, but, for some reason, aggravating phrase, “No problem.”

“May we see the menu, please?”

“No problem.”

I know it’s no problem! It’s a restaurant; you have hundreds of menus! How could it be a problem? Some advanced students of linguistics have switched to the even-more-annoying, “No worries.”

And for anyone over, say, 45 years old, please don’t use the word “props” to express giving credit to someone. It sounds like some middle-ager trying to sound hip, as when older people used to say “cool” in the 60s.

Having said that, at the end of the day, there’s not much to be done about it. 

Three months ago, I was convinced the Republican nominee wouldn't be Mitt Romney.  Two months ago, I was convinced that it couldn't be anybody but Romney.

And now?

I know nothing.

That said, a few thoughts:

Item:  Going into the debate, all the polls showed Newt ahead in Iowa by double digits.  That meant the debate amounted (to borrow Tim Groseclose's wonderful metaphor) to a NASCAR race.  Anybody could argue about whether a certain candidate handled this or that line of argument better or worse than other candidates, but there were really only two questions that mattered:

Would Newt do anything so dramatic that it would cost him first place?  Would he spin out?  Would he slam into a barrier?

He didn't.

Would Mitt do anything dramatic enough to break away from the pack of candidates in the rear, overtaking Newt?

He didn't. 

Newt didn't spin out and Mitt didn't overtake him.  On that analysis alone, the debate belonged to Newt.

Item:  The debate might--might--have done subtle but serious damage to Romney.  

Mitt used to be seen as the inevitable nominee.  Now he's trailing Newt by double digits in three of the first four primary states, namely, Iowa, South Carolina, and Florida.  

Mitt used to be seen as the only Republican who could beat Obama.  Now polls have shown that Newt could beat Obama.

Mitt used to be seen as cool, disciplined and utterly unflappable.  Now?  Well, he had some very rough moments last night. He permitted himself to become visibly annoyed by Rick Perry.  He talked at much too much length about his continued devotion to RomneyCare, permitting himself to be placed on the defensive for minutes at a time. And he took a couple of swings at Newt that were simply undisciplined.  Attack Newt for saying schoolchildren might one day perform science projects on the moon?  Giving Newt the chance to reply with a passionate, compelling defense of the space program?  Really?  This could hardly have astonished me more, but Mitt looked less disciplined than Newt, not more so. (I hasten to admit that this is a purely subjective impression, reminding you that, as I have said, I know nothing, and I invite FrozenChosen and BThompson and anyone else among the Ricochetoise to disagree just as full-throatedly as they'd like.)

Maybe Mitt's support is firm--if his ceiling is 26 percent, maybe his floor is 24 percent. Maybe.  But if his poll numbers now started to dwindle--in particular, if his lead in New Hampshire began to sink from the low double digits to, say, the middle single digits--I wouldn't be terribly surprised.

Item: That said, Mitt had some wonderful moments.  In a couple of answers, he attacked Barack Obama, displaying more cogency and passion than ever before--something I doubt he ever would have done if he hadn't found himself in his present struggle with Newt.  If Mitt does somehow manage to turn this campaign around--and, Lord knows, anything is still possible--he'll have Newt to thank for making him a tougher, more conservative, and more impassioned candidate.

Item:  Which leads to one of the best lines of the evening.  During our live blog, Ricochet member Pseudodionysius wrote this:

Mitt would make a great president if Newt would go into his office every three hours and holler at him.

Come to think of it, I take it back.  I do know something.  Pseudo's a genius.

Those, as I say, are my thoughts.

Yours?