This isn't going to work:

"Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton criticizes rival Barack Obama's record on abortion rights in a mailing sent to New Hampshire voters.

The mailer says that seven times during his time in the Illinois state Senate, Obama declined to take a position on abortion bills, while Clinton has been a defender of abortion rights.

During his eight years in the legislature, Obama cast a number of votes on abortion and received a 100 percent rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council for his support of abortion rights, family planning services and health insurance coverage for female contraceptives. He voted against requiring medical care for aborted fetuses who survive, a vote that especially riled abortion opponents."

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--The American economy is looking very dicey. The Fed will lower rates, but assets are deflating across the whole economy, led downward by housing stock. The only immediate cure for asset deflation is currency inflation. This Fed would be bold enough to apply it. But that medicine has many nasty side-effects, especially for seniors and low wage-earners.

--The government-enabled madness of Wall Street over-leveraging has collapsed, and the fall into prudence will discourage investing for many months. This Administration is incapable of assessing, much less coping with, its gross failure to do even the mild regulation that might have helped avert the calamity.

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Yes, we are an Obama family, and for those who need or want to know:

Nate Hundt, field organizer in Algona, Iowa, reports that his area delivered 50% of its delegates to Obama, 25% to Edwards, 25% to Clinton.

Betsy Hundt, his mother, spent the last few days knocking on doors, making calls, baking cookies, and perhaps doing some laundry.

Best friend Alex K is present, working, and well accounted for.

A family affair.

Just for those who wanted or needed to know.

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From the Los Angeles Times:

"After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts."

What's more, by and large these appointees are movement conservatives. The Bush Administration has done a far better job being politically astute and ideological in its nominations to the judiciary than any Administration since Johnson.

At the same time the Chief Justice is leading an effort to increase substantially the pay of judges. The non-transparent thinking is that ideologically fervent judges can apply their philosophy to cases, as opposed to teaching in law schools. But in law schools they are paid a lot more. So the Chief Justice wants to even out the incentives.

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"a serious, respected conservative intellectual" - that is the description of Bill Kristol provided by the NYT editorial page editor.

Intellectual? That implies some familiarity with ideas -- real ideas, not slogans from the RNC.

Respected? By whom. It's hard to imagine.

Serious? If by that we mean, wrong about everything important in America, then he's serious.

I just don't understand what the Times is thinking.

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