The blogosphere is practically bursting with bright, novel perspectives. Here’s Ezra Klein, for example, on the Spitzer news.
This is sort of the boring take on Spitzer, but what we’re seeing here is not the fall — if indeed he does fall — of a high-flying governor. It’s the final tumble of a crushed reformer. Spitzer, for reasons both structural and personal, has been utterly humbled by Albany. The new capitalism he promised, the age of transparency he spoke of, the national ambitions he harbored — all have broken before the obstacles he faced in the governor’s mansion. When you think of the hype he was getting only a couple years ago, that’s a rather remarkable fact. I don’t care about the prostitution. But the capacity of the system to stand against those who would reform it, and who come into office with a broad mandate to do so, is really quite sobering.
Then again, on any given day some don’t make the cut.
Bill Kristol. Steve Benen lingers on Kristol’s silly idea that Clarence Thomas in the VP slot would hardly help McCain’s campaign (more evidence, by the way, that the GOP is freaking out over tearing down a black guy), but that’s peanuts. If you think that the activist right hates McCain now, picture for a minute how they will react when McCain pulls a rock-solid GOP vote-o-matic off the Supreme Court under a Democratic Senate. Heh. If McCain was even toying with the idea he would have voted in February to outlaw waterboarding.
Jacki Schechner. Here is a bit of electoral math – if Obama runs as an independent there will be two Democrats against one Republican. In a presidential election that means that the Republican wins. Cognoscenti call it “splitting the vote.” I didn’t set out to give Aravosis a hard time for hiring one of CNN’s blogreaders but yeesh, pointless noodling like this is why I can’t bear listening to political pundits on the teevee*.
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(*) Partial fib. You and I both know that I’ll be livedrunkblogging the FOX News suicide watch in November.