Bells tolling on the island.

I never knew "no man is an island" and "for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee" came from the same quote (#17). The liberal blogosphere is just a font of information.

Read all the quotes -- number 1 especially.

Merry Christmas all. Thanks for your patience with me. I'll be back blogging in the new year.

Please give this man a blog!

Tom Delay has a blog, which means there'll be no more need to wait for the New York Times to arrive or comb Google to catch the Hammer's take on the news of the moment. Human Events covers some of what we can expect:

DeLay named Clinton loyalists Harold Ickes, Sidney Blumenthal, James Carville, Paul Begala and Joe Lockhart as the masterminds behind the left-wing coalition. He said that these groups, more than anything else, contributed to the GOP’s fall this November. “I have never seen a more powerful coalition,” he said.

More than anything else?

DeLay also implored conservatives to start digging into Obama’s past. He said Obama’s record in the Illinois Senate was on par with a “Marxist leftist.”

It begs the question: does Delay have any idea at all what the term "Marxist" actually means?

Probably not:

During an appearance last night on MSNBC, DeLay was asked about the mechanics of writing for his new blog. “Well, I’m not a very good writer,” DeLay acknowledged. “I have the ideas, and I have somebody else put the words together.”

So much for Delay Unfiltered. Too bad.

Iraq: Bringing Alan Simpson and Leon Panetta together.

David Broder, tricked out on Baker Commission goodness:

Whatever the final impact of the Iraq Study Group report being issued today, for the 10 commission members this was an exhilarating experience, a demonstration of genuine bipartisanship that they hope will serve as an example to the broader political world.

...Panetta concluded: "This is an opportunity to look at the realities we're confronting in Iraq. For too long, both sides have been trapped by their sound bites. I hope they realize that if they're going to govern this country, they have to work together."

Simpson was even more expansive. "This could be an example, not only of how to handle Iraq, but it could apply to immigration, Social Security and all those other things that have been hung up for so long. That's what this last election said: Get serious and get your work done."


Ohhhh. Yes. Somewhere, as I type, Leon Panetta and Alan Simpson are sharing a brandy. It is a good day in Broder-land. Meanwhile, here is the first article I got from typing "Iraq" into the Google News engine:

Ten American service members were killed in two improvised explosive device attacks in Iraq on Wednesday, NBC News reported. The news came hours after a mortar attack killed at least eight people and wounded dozens in the Sadr City Shiite district of the capital, police said.


You can follow politics for years and never get past the disconnect.


Later: And here is Bush himself, fulminating over the bipartisanship of it all:

"This report will give us all an opportunity to find common ground for the good of the country -- not for the good of the Republican Party or the Democrat Party but for the good of the country," he said.

Talk about piling farce on top of tragedy.

Notes on Liberal leadership.

John, writing at Ezra's, has a nice recap of the procedings and what led up to them (though, of course, I'm in the "external factors" camp. Paul Martin had it in him to be a great leader.) And Galloping Beaver recounts Howard Dean's address to the convention -- in English and French! It's good, and sort of bracing, to see the Dems call a spade a spade and pick sides.

As a Kennedy-but-really-anybody-but-Iggy-or-Rae supporter I'm delighted. I think John is basically right about the grassroots rejecting the party brass' picks this time -- and the continuation by proxy of the Liberal civil war with a chunk of the Chretienites betting on Rae and a chunk of the Martinites behind Iggy. Gerard Kennedy's agency in the affair can't be overstated, sending his delegates to Dion before the third ballot. But it's basically just exciting to see the Liberals engage in such a messy, democratic convention.

Harper has a lot to be worried about.