"Southern voters are interested in solutions,” said Harold Ford Jr. in 2003. “They can spot a fake.” Perhaps this explains Ford’s subsequent decision to decamp from the South in search of a more gullible electorate.

"Southern voters are interested in solutions,” said Harold Ford Jr. in 2003. “They can spot a fake.” Perhaps this explains Ford’s subsequent decision to decamp from the South in search of a more gullible electorate.

I don't wish to join Isaac in piling on Matthew Continetti's love letter to Sarah Palin in the Weekly Standard. Wait. Let me re-phrase that. I do wish to join Isaac in piling on Matthew Continetti's love letter to Sarah Palin in the Weekly Standard. I know I shouldn't but I can't resist. Here's a passage that gives you an inkling of the method Continetti used to compile his argument:

The saga of Rush Limbaugh and his failed attempt to acquire a piece of the St. Louis Rams may be the quintessential postmodern American racial incident. When word first leaked of Limbaugh's potential ownership, a couple of sportswriters, joined by a handful of cable news talking heads, repeated what turned out to be totally unsubstantiated quotes by Limbaugh praising slavery and James Earl Ray. (Documented outrageous Limbaugh-isms were available but generally ignored.)

Is Joe Wilson a racist? Many people in Washington seem to think the answer is yes--and that it helps explain the congressman's impolitic yelp of "You lie!" during Obama's recent address on health care. Maureen Dowd encapsulated the good-thinking wisdom on Wilson last week, writing, "Some people just can't believe a black man is President and will never accept it."

Not.

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told NBC News. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shares the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans."

The Arts Section of today's New York Times carries a front-page ad for the movie Julie & Julia. It seems a bit unnecessary.

On January 25, the New York Times endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton. At the time, the 1,100-word editorial stood out for both its tepidness and early appearance, coming near the front-end of the primary season. The piece ran in the paper the Friday before Super Tuesday, instead of in the Times’s symbolically-important Sunday edition.

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.

It’s been theorized (by Mickey Kaus and Maureen Dowd, among others) that Hillary Clinton is the beneficiary of misfortune and some of its attendant states: enfeeblement, debasement, etc.