American liberals have a habit of withdrawing into cynicism and ennui at the most inopportune moments. The 2000 presidential election, and subsequent recount, was one such moment.

Strangest comment of the day (from Bob Woodward, on Meet the Press):

Frank Rich really lit into the Republican Party yesterday:

a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war.

a G.O.P. killing field

confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama

Frank Rich, today:

Democracy Corps has a very interesting survey about the worldview of conservative Republicans. The focus group interviews show that the Republican right, which consists of about a fifth of the electorate, is held together by a set of beliefs that goes well beyond small government and traditional values.

After several weeks of swooning, news reports are finally being filed about the gap between Senator Barack Obama’s promises of a pure, soul-cleansing “new” politics and the calculated, deeply dishonest conduct of his actually-existing campaign. But it remains to be seen whether the latest ploy by the Obama camp--over allegations about the circulation of a photograph of Obama in ceremonial Somali dress--will be exposed by the press as the manipulative illusion that it is.

Frank Rich, who loves disparaging Republicans for McCarthyism, seems to be following the late Wisconsin senator's playbook. Summing up the president in his Sunday op-ed, Rich writes, "I have not been one to buy into the arguments that Mr. Bush is stupid or is the sum of his 'Bushisms' or is, as feverish Internet speculation periodically has it, secretly drinking again. I still don't." Nice of him to pass on the rumor nevertheless. --Isaac Chotiner