EVENING UPDATE,  FEBRUARY 4,  2008

•   Forget Super Tuesday.  There's a crisis in the Afghan burqa industry, and, as sophisticated readers of Urgent Agenda know, that's important.  It seems there's a new player on the block - China.  Chinese burqas are flooding the Afghan market.  We're talking cultural calamity here, infidel threads, undercutting prices.  Why, why, this is as big as the Toyota Camry.  The key to the earthquake:

The Zamarai family have been tailors and burqa-makers for three generations. But recently there’s a new player in the Kabul burqa market: China, which mass-produces a style of burqa that many women here find more fashionable than the Zamarais’ traditional hand-assembled garments.

The Chinese-made burqas’ tightly-crimped folds and machine-produced embroidery have become something of a fashion craze in the last few months in Kabul. As one burqa seller named Hassan explained to me in a crowded Kabul market, “Women love the new, modern style of the Chinese burqas.”

I can just see the Oscars in a year or so.  There's Angelina in her new Chinese burqa.  And of course there's Oprah, returning from her first world trip as secretary of state.  There'll be the Manhattan burqa, and the all-season burqa.  I can't wait. 

•   Speaking of Hollywood, there's a perfectly good story by John Harwood in today's New York Times, reporting on Barack Obama's progress in California.  But what really caught my eye was this little gem:

“There’s a piece of Hollywood that is fascinated by the fact that we could have the first woman president,” said Marge Tabankin, an adviser to Ms. Streisand who formerly headed the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee. “But much of Hollywood is caught up in the aspirational side, the inspirational side of Barack Obama. They’re willing to go with the dream because they think it’s so transformative.”

Say what?  An adviser to Ms. Streisand?  You mean, Hollywood stars, or past stars, have regular political advisers, just as they have caterers and personal trainers?  Is this a real job?  Are they listed in the yellow pages?  I can just see a Hollywood résumé with the entry, "Political adviser to Gwyneth Paltrow until we disagreed on Venezuela."

Why do I feel we're becoming one big high school?

•   California is now the center of attraction for tomorrow's battles.  The latest polls show both Obama and Romney surging.  Look, some of these polls are by Zogby, whose track record isn't great, but they seem somewhat confirmed by others. 

My own sense is that the attempt by conservatives to stop McCain may prove damaging to the party, no matter how sincere the effort.  I may be very wrong, but I just can't see Romney defeating Obama in the fall, and I believe Obama has a very good chance to be the Democratic nominee. 

Wouldn't it be great if neither party comes to an early conclusion, and we have real conventions with real floor fights?  I'd love to see it because great battles bring high public attention, and the public must wake up to the fact that this is an important election about the future of the country, not a contest to see which "first" gets to the White House.

•   As if to emphasize the political trends, John McCain's people are playing down their man's prospects in California, and Romney is rushing there for some last-minute campaigning.  The GOP base in the state is very conservative, and not that warm toward McCain.  The key quote:

Even if a win in California left Romney at a disadvantage in the rest of the country, it would be a huge boost for a candidate who has looked, if not resigned to his fate, at least on the ropes and badly in need of a victory. A Golden State win could prove to the former Massachusetts governor that a one-on-one race against McCain really could turn to Romney's advantage, and in the end, that could make for a renewed interest in a long-term crusade against the Arizona maverick. 

•   Bill Kristol, always interesting if at times exasperating, has a reasoned analysis of the Romney push, and on the history of movements boosted by anger. 

But American politics tends to be unkind to movements that dwell in anger and relish their unhappiness. In the era from Franklin D. Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy, liberals tended to be happy warriors — and that helped their cause. The original civil rights movement succeeded in part because it worked hard to transcend a justifiable bitterness. Liberalism faltered when it became endlessly aggrieved and visibly churlish.

And later:

One reason conservatives have been able to navigate the rapids of modern America is that they’ve often gone out of their way to make their case with good cheer. William F. Buckley, the father of the conservative movement, skewered liberals, but always with wit and élan. By 1980, bolstered by the growth-oriented doctrine of supply-side economics, and speaking the language of American uplift more than that of conservative despair, Ronald Reagan won the presidency.

Those are words to reflect on, no matter whom you prefer.  Hatred doesn't get you far in American national politics.  We used to say, during the great Democratic era, that the Democrats had more fun.  In the last quarter century, the Republicans have had more fun.  It seems to me that the party that has more fun tends to win.  Who wants to spend four years with a grouch?

Read Kristol's column.  It's one of the most articulate arguments I've read recently.

•   By the way, the battle within the Republican Party has an antecedent.  In 1948 the GOP thought it had a clear chance to defeat Harry S. Truman.  The party's Eastern establishment wanted to give Thomas E. Dewey of New York a second nomination - he'd lost to FDR in 1944 - and prevailed.  Dewey lost again.  In 1952 the party's conservative wing was bitter, believing the establishment had cost the Republicans two national elections.  The establishment wanted Dwight D. Eisenhower, the conservatives wanted "Mr. Republican," Robert Taft of Ohio.  If Eisenhower hadn't been a war hero, it's doubtful he could have prevailed against the anger of the right.  Fortunately, he did prevail, and gave his party eight years of the presidency, breaking the Democratic hold on the office.

By the way, Ike, very much a shrewd operator, smiled a great deal and projected a positive view of the future.  Hint.

•   Scott Johnson, at Power Line, refers us to a wonderful piece, "Confessions of a Young Hillary Supporter," written by a Georgetown University student.  It's pretty clear that Obama is sweeping the campuses, and we have to ask why.  Is it because young people actually support him?  Or is it because it's the trendy thing to do?  When we talk about campuses, we're talking about the left,  and never forget that the left has a pecking order.  It starts with anti-Americanism, and continues down the list of the aggrieved.  In that pecking order, race always trumps gender.  The colleges are controlled by the sixties generation, and I suspect that the atmosphere they've created has contributed to the Obama madness.  A key quote:

At Georgetown, the Obama supporters—devotees? cultists?—are everywhere. He's the best thing to happen to college since campuses went co-ed. Red, white, and blue O's line the windows of dorm rooms. It won't take long for someone to invent a drinking game where you count the words change and hope in the senator's stirring stump speech. (That would be 16 shots of headache, if his speech after the South Carolina primary was any indication.)         

The whole Obama thing reminds me of the Peter Sellers film, "Being There," about a candidate who says nothing.

These young Obama kids might start thinking about how serious the world is.  This isn't a game.

•   As if to prove that point, there was a suicide bombing in Israel today, reminding us that the crazies are still out there.  One dead, 40 wounded.  It occurred in Dimona, known for the site of Israel's nuclear installation.  Hamas can't decide whether it did it:

Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin Kassam, claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attack in Dimona which killed a woman and wounded some 40 other people, saying that he bombers came from Hebron and not the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported.

However, Hamas's representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, denied the report, saying the group was not linked to the bombing.

Maybe they should ask Christiane Amanpour of CNN for some good advice on how to handle the PR aspects of this.  I'm sure she'd help.

•   Finally, a Mississippi lawmaker wants to have a law banning restaurants from serving obese customers.  He doesn't expect it to pass:

“I was trying to shed a little light on the number one problem in Mississippi,” said Republican Rep. John Read of Gautier, who acknowledges that at 5-foot-11 and 230 pounds, he’d probably have a tough time under his own bill.

Okay, the bill will probably die.  But if it does pass, and goes into effect, can you just imagine the sight of those sit-in protests?  Not exactly 1962.

Be back on Super tomorrow.

Posted on February 4, 2008.