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Rick Perlstein's "The End of Democracy" in the Village Voice is not to be missed. My colleague, Tim Burke, shares related grievances in "Class Warfare: The Republican Party's New Favorite Sport," for which he is gently chided in "The Dude Has His Crassitude" by John Holbo and Ambrose Bierce. Being both a Republican and an Evangelical, I had thought to post my own reply, "Why is Tim Burke Normal?", but I thought better of it.

Speaking of my Republicanism, this letter by former United States Senator Marlow W. Cook of Kentucky brought back memories. At 16, I was a Republican activist, already a precinct captain and 1st Vice President of the Young Republican Club of Louisville and Jefferson County. Alas, I was also very naive and didn't protect my flanks, so I was defeated in a bid for re-election by an ambitious young attorney, Marlow Cook. Subsequently, he became the chief executive of Jefferson County and served in the United States Senate from 1968 to 1975. We were both raised in the moderate Republican tradition of former Kentucky Senators John Sherman Cooper and Thruston Morton, so Marlow's letter comes as no great surprise to me. "I am not enamored with John Kerry," he says, "but I am frightened to death of George Bush." It is a very powerful conservative argument against the Bush administration. Read the whole thing. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

For a good laugh, don't miss Ted Barlow's "To Blog a Mockingbird" at Crooked Timber. If Mickey Kaus had a reputation, it won't soon recover.

But, of course, race relations in the South are more tragic than comic. I mentioned earlier that both Liberty & Power's David Beito and I have been working with the FBI's inquiry into what more can be known about the 1954 murder of Emmett Till. Sunday evening, CBS's "Sixty Minutes" will focus on the renewed inquiry. At Liberty & Power, Beito, whose research turned up a key surviving witness to the 50 year old murder, has more on the story.

Finally, regarding our discussion of the Wikkipedia, Tim Lambert has an amusing post up about it. Apparently, Mary Rosh (remember him?) has apparently repeated tried to "correct" its record about John Lott (remember her?). "Jonathan" asks the relevant question at Deltoid: What does one have to do to get fired at the American Enterprise Institute?

Posted on Friday, October 22, 2004 at 1:11 AM | Comments (16) | Return

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