Uncle Ted, The Face of the Democrats

Boston columnist Don Feder takes apart Ted Kennedy and the Democrats. This is a good read for
liberals, because it surfaces the issues on which
mainstream America differs
from the Democratic coalition of victims and rescuers.

The Political Math for Social Security Reform

Fred Barnes discards the conventional wisdom and tries to figure out how President Bush can get to
51 percent on
Social Security reform this year.

Sshh! The Deficit is Shrinking!

While we are all attentively watching Dan Rather’s rather outré retirement party, the deficit
is shrinking rapidly
from a big increase in corporate tax collections and individual income tax collections. And
the Bush administration is planning a couple of hold-the-line budgets. Expect the pips to start
squeaking any moment now.

Peggy Noonan at Her Finest

Peggy Noonan—who used to write Dan Rather’s radio commentaries—weighs in on the Rathergate Report.

Don’t worry that the report doesn’t mention liberal bias, she writes. It didn’t need to. But the
important thing is that the world has changed. The old MSM monopoly is dead. Back in the old days, if
your ox was gored by the media you could write a letter. Maybe they would read it; maybe they
wouldn’t. Maybe they would publish it; maybe they wouldn’t. But they always had the last word. Not
any longer. One thing more. CBS has been wanting to get rid of Dan Rather for years, Peggy writes.
Low ratings, don’t you know. Now they’ve got rid of him.

Steyn: Brits are to Blame for Black Homophobia?

No, Mark Steyn hasn’t gone bonkers. But the earnest Decca Aitkenhead in
The Guardian thinks that the rampant homophobia among Jamaican blacks
in Britain is a legacy of slavery. It all goes to show, writes the long suffering
Steyn, that multiculturalism is a suicide cult,
a way of blaming yourself (or at least your
right-wing compatriots) for all the ills of the world.

Steyn: Last Week's Boxer Rebellion Means Dems are Losers

Speaking as a Canadian and resumably entitled to vote in California,
Mark Steyn isn’t buying
the flim-flam from last week’s Democratic
media show on Stolen Ohio. All it means is that Democrats are losers.

NYT Trendspotters: Religion is Reviving Worldwide!

All the Upper West Side is agog this week after the New York Times’s Laurie Goodstein
announced that
religion is on the rise, worldwide. But not to worry, “fundamentalism” seems to be mostly declining
and progressive politics is still the only thing that matters.