TUESDAY,  JANUARY 29,  2008

•   The Forida Republican primary is on.  Some 57 convention delegates, more than in any previous primary, are at stake.  The Florida Democrats also vote, but there's a dispute with their national command, and the delegates may not be awarded.  This should give us confidence in the ability of the Democratic Party to run the country, confront Iran, and light the annual Christmas tree. 

By the way, have you noticed the virtual absence of one phrase in the Florida rhetoric this year?  It's "senior citizen."  There was a time when any Florida primary would revolve around Social Security, and we'd be treated to endless jokes about the age of the voters.  Apparently, it's true -  90 is the new 80.  Look, if she loses, Hillary could run in...  No, she wouldn't, would she?  Well, maybe:

"You know, my former husband and I were just saying last night, 80 is a great age to run for president.  The wisdom I've acquired, and watching Chelsea raise her two kids, Barack and George W - I really think I'm ready." 

Don't count that out. 

•   Speaking of Hillary, newly minted racial agitator, and her groupies, we report today that there is fever, there is pain, among New York's leading feministas.  The head of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women described Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama as "the ultimate betrayal."  A regular knife in the back.  And she said more:

Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few.

But kinder, gentler words came from the head of the New York City chapter:

He’s been a friend to N.O.W., a friend to women, and a friend to the women’s movement and has a long record of supporting women’s issues.  I think Ted Kennedy has been a tremendous friend to women.

The six remaining members of the organization have not yet commented.

•    We recognize, though, that there are women doing important, dangerous things in this society, sometimes with heartbreaking result.  Here is a heroine: 

NEW ORLEANS — A vagrant wanted for questioning in a rape overpowered a 24-year-old police officer who was trying to handcuff him, then shot her to death with her own weapon Monday, police said.

But remember, everything wrong in New Orleans is Bush's fault.

•   And more from the real world:  Did you know that the Protect America Act expires Friday?  Well, with the Super Bowl, and Super Tuesday, and Superman, who in this, busy, busy world has time for that?

We should have time for that.  The Act, as the Wall Street Journal points out, allows for warrantless wiretapping of foreign terrorists.  But Democrats simply won't cooperate, stalling and stalling and stalling.  Key quote from the Journal:

It strains credibility to believe, as Majority Leader Harry Reid claims, that the Senate needs another month to do what it couldn't in the past six. But Mr. Reid and his fellow Democrats are under intense pressure from the far left to deny Mr. Bush this authority. The tort bar, meanwhile, wants to preserve its ability to sue telephone companies for assisting the program in the days after 9/11.

Terrorists have calendars.  Why do I think there'll be an awful lot of phone cards bought in Pakistan and Afghanistan on Saturday morning? 

•   One of my late mentors, Senator Paul Douglas, a liberal at a time when it was respectable, liked to use the phrase "the fullness of time."  It sits side by side with that little saying we learned as kids, that experience is the best teacher.  In the fullness of time we learn who is real and who is not, who is great and who is a pose, which policies worked, and which fell apart.  The conclusions often surprise us.  I thought about "the fullness of time" while watching the president last night.  Already the space fillers of the predictable media are assigning him the title of "worst president in history."  In a Washington Post column, though, Lou Cannon, the fine biographer of Ronald Reagan, and Carl M. Cannon, caution us:

These commentators, and especially those who confidently assert that Bush is the "worst president in history," would do well to remember the British historian C.V. Wedgwood's observation: "History is written backward but lived forward. Those who know the end of the story can never know what it was like at the time." We all know -- or think we do -- what things are like in our union now, with an economy hitting a rough patch and a foreign war grinding on with no end in sight. But we don't know how the story will turn out.

That is wisdom. 

In the 1950s, presidential politics was dominated by two men, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who won the elections of 1952 and 1956, and Adlai E. Stevenson, who lost them both.  It was the last era in which a major party nominated a man who lost, then nominated him again, to see him lose again.  In the fifties, what passes for our intellectual elite loved Stevenson.  "We're madly for Adlai," they chanted on cue.  He spoke beautifully.  He sounded intelligent and reasoned.  Why, why, he wrote his own speeches.  By contrast, Eisenhower garbled his words.  He played a lot of golf.  He'd been, shall we admit it, an Army man.  The 1956 Democratic convention keynoter, Governor Frank Clement of Tennessee, spoke of how Ike "peered down the green fairways" of indifference and indecision.

What a difference half a century makes.  Today, Stevenson is remembered as, essentially, a shallow man with a nice style.  We learned after the fact that he was somewhat bigoted, a man who had no idea what to say, for example, to a group of African-Americans.  His contributions were small.  While Eisenhower spoke poorly, we learned that he was an excellent writer, a student of history, a man who served us well with, as one historian put it, his "hidden hand" presidency.  As a pure intellect, he had it all over Adlai.  The country was better for him. 

Be careful with quick judgments.  Many of us remember how Jimmy Carter, a failed president, was called "America's best ex-president."  You don't hear that much these days.  "Our most egotistical, self-absorbed and pompous ex-president" might be a better choice.

The fullness of time will tell.

•   Another note on that fullness.  Robin Toner, in today's New York Times, reports that Democratic enthusiasm in the primaries has been much greater than the enthusiasm on the other side.  But the story includes some sobering up for Democrats:

Republican Party analysts also note that both Ronald Reagan and the senior George Bush were elected after Republican primaries in which turnout was lower than in the Democratic primaries.

Michael Dukakis (remember?) was far ahead of George H.W. Bush in polls taken after the 1988 conventions.   President Dukakis has yet to write his memoirs.

Toner continues:

The sheer intensity of the Democratic primary battle could be problematic over the long haul. Outside analysts say that the sharp disputes and deepening divisions between Senator Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton could, if not resolved, leave some voters disenchanted if their candidate did not prevail.

They will not be resolved.  It's not about policy, or even personality.  This is about race, and racial disputes are never resolved.  They may subside, but that's about it.  It will be a horse race in November, no matter who the Democrats nominate, unless the Republicans entirely blow it, which they're capable of doing.

•   Finally, London's Telegraph is asking readers, "Has Britain changed for the better over the last 50 years?"  I was struck by one reply:

The material improvements of the last 50 years are not unique to Britain. They apply across the developed, and much of the developing, world. But it is hard to think of any other country that has trashed its own culture to such a grave extent, or sold its soul so ignominiously as Britain has done in the last 50 years.

That's something to think about when we go to the polls.  What are we voting for?  What kind of country do we want?

Be back later with Florida and the rest of the universe.

Posted on January 29, 2008.