QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 7:07 A.M. ET:  From Charles Murray, in the Wall Street Journal:

Drive through rural Sweden, as I did a few years ago. In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticulously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government. And the churches are empty. Including on Sundays. Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their "child-friendly" policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers, and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marriage rates. Those same countries are ones in which jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And they, with only a few exceptions, are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, least often seen as a vocation, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.

What's happening? Call it the Europe syndrome.

COMMENT:  Coming soon to a location near you...if certain people in Washington get their way.  But please remember that there's a congressional election next year, possibly one of the most important in our recent history.  Even President Roosevelt lost seats in Congress in the first congressional election after Pearl Harbor.  Mr. Obama, should his ideas fail to produce real and sustainable progress, is extremely vulnerable.  Should he implode during a foreign crisis, sure to come, his vulnerability becomes that much greater...assuming the Republican Party is well organized, and with an attractive program to sell.

March 17, 2009