Levees Not War

Credit Where Credit Is Due Dept.

It is rare to the point of Almost Never that NYT columnist Ross Douthat writes something not annoying, so when he says something we find intelligent and worth quoting, we want to be nice and share. Likewise, the so-called candidates* for the Republican nomination are so down-the-rabbit-hole deranged and delusional we normally prefer not to give them any more attention in the Upper Blogosphere, but we can make this one exception. We’re not sure he’ll turn out to be correct, but he says it well. Regarding “The Inevitable Nominee,” Douthat writes:

. . . when you have eliminated the impossible, as Sherlock Holmes told Watson, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. This rule holds for presidential contests as well as for whodunits: Romney is improbable, but his rivals are impossible, and so he will be the nominee.

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* The exception is Jon Huntsmann, former governor of Utah and ambassador to China, who is polling around one or two percent. He alone among the G.O.P. candidates has refused to sign Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform “Taxpayer Protection” pledge (not to raise taxes).

While the GOP convenes in New Orleans with nary a mention of Katrina (who? that Nation editor?), here’s an event we’re sorry we missed, but we’re “retro-promoting” it a day late, for the message remains true:

From the Southern Republican Leadership Conference Welcoming Committee

There’s going to be a big, crazy second line in the CBD on Friday: the Stooges Brass Band, the Free Agents Brass Band, and a level of ass-shaking the business district hasn’t seen since the Second Line to Reopen Charity. We’re going to party and rage down Poydras, and we’re going to show the boy prince Bobby Jindal that the people of Louisiana have had it with his policies of privatization.

“A level of ass-shaking the business district hasn’t seen since the Second Line to Reopen Charity”

The Southern Republican Leadership Conference (SRLC) takes place April 8–11 in New Orleans, and is the largest gathering of Republican leadership short of the presidential convention. As Bobby Jindal is groomed for higher office, the Second Line for Healthcare & Education is our opportunity to present a unified response to Jindal’s assault on Louisiana’s state hospital system & public education.

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“To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.” —President Obama, Jan. 27, 2010

That was our favorite line of the State of the Union address. Now, the president and the general public should keep reminding the congressional Democrats of this fact every day, for how easily they forget. In a speech that did not shrink at all from his ambitious agenda—but that wisely set the necessity of reforms in the context of economic necessity—the president challenged everyone in the room to keep working, and work harder, to deliver the change that the American people voted for in 2008.

Probably our second most appreciated challenge was the one that followed, directed at the cool-handed Republicans:

And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town—a supermajority—then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. [Applause] Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.

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