Partay!

Party politics writ large. There is speculation that there is  a groundswell in the body politic in the US that will suddenly lead back to the promised land of a solid Democratic party majority. Well, promised land for the Democrats, anyway. Ann Althouse takes a look at the whole thing and, as usual, disabuses a few people about exactly how foregone this conclusion is.

Probably? What about all the Democrats — myself included — who lost their party affiliation over 9/11. Does anyone even want to get out my vote? Actually, I'm contacted by the Democratic party constantly. They're desperately pushing me to vote. Governor Doyle's campaign just sent me a form to apply to vote by mail. ("Anyone in Wisconsin can vote by mail… No special reason required.") Actually, there's a good chance I won't vote!

Back to Kirkpatrick:

[P]olls showing Democrats poised for big gains this fall in both chambers of Congress are reigniting the debate: Can Democrats crack apart the Reagan coalition of white blue-collar workers, evangelical Protestants, Southerners and chambers of commerce? Or will shifts in population toward the outer suburbs, the South and the West combine with the Democrats’ secular, liberal Northeastern image to keep the party a minority in national elections for years to come?…

The Democrats’ hope is that the war changes the reputations of the two parties in a way that may ultimately lead to remaking their constituencies as well…

It may not be quite what some people expect, this election. Oh, there is no guarantee which party will take which chamber of Congress. But it is premature in the extreme to bet which way the electorate will align itself in the long term. There is a very good reason the "Reagan coalition" formed in the first place. The Democrats have not changed the equation away from those causes at this point. While there may or may not be a short term shakeout, it is far too early to try and predict a long-term realignment. (I doubt there will be one, no matter what the short term brings.)

Writing On The Wall

In what I am sure she did not intend to be a funny post, Arianna Huffington wrote one of the funniest postings of the entire campaign season. She urges all the HuffnPuff faithful to help Ned Lamont write his concession speech. Because, she thinks, that will help him win.

It's a truism in politics that candidates often give the best speech of their campaigns when they are conceding (see Al Gore, circa 2000). And it makes sense — after they lose, they're suddenly liberated from their handlers, their advisors(sic), and their fears of saying "the wrong thing." All at once, they remember to speak from the heart, summoning the passion and purpose that drove them to enter politics. And what a shame this is — because if only they'd spoken like this during the campaign, they'd likely be giving a victory instead of a concession speech.

So why not have Ned Lamont lock himself in a room and deliver his concession speech now so he can be freed up to act as if there is nothing left to lose between now and the election? Why wait for the inevitable post-game Monday morning quarterbacking when, with a little help from the blogosphere, the Lamont campaign can do some pre-game Sunday afternoon quarterbacking that might help get Lamont to the U.S. Senate?

At some point, Ned Lamont is going to speak from the heart, and tell us about his hopes and dreams for the country, and the passion that drove him to challenge Joe Lieberman when almost everyone said it couldn't be done. The only question is whether he'll do it now, and win, or do it on the evening of Nov. 7, as he thanks his crest-fallen supporters.

To make sure that Lamont never has to grit his teeth and congratulate Joe Lieberman on his victory, why don't we help write his "concession speech" now? Post your ideas in the comments section below and we'll cobble the best ones together and send the speech to the Lamont campaign.

You  know, I think a lot of political "experts" often are fairly dumb and tend to give their candidates bad advice. However, quite often, the "experts" are also right in keeping their candidates from running off a cliff. Huffington ran against Arnold Schwarzenegger a while back and had boatloads of passion. Which translated into about twelve votes when election day came around. Passion can help, but practicality is also necessary. Lamont has to appeal not only to the passionate, but to the hardheaded realists in the electorate. But by all means, please do carry on. It is amusing, if not really practical.

Great Write-Up

Rick Moran, proprietor of the Right Wing Nut House, gets a really nice review from his local newspaper.

In the Internet age, being a voice in the public square no longer requires reputation, pedigree or a D.C. address.

It just requires enough gumption to get out of bed at 4 a.m., read the New York Times and dozens of other news and political sites, and write something everyone finds enticing, as one Algonquin resident has discovered.

Rick Moran - brother of "Nightline" co-host Terry Moran - is doing it daily with nothing more than a computer, a keyboard, a microphone and an eternal supply of opinions.

Moran was born in Libertyville and grew up in Mount Prospect. Some of his family still resides in Barrington.

On Sept. 23, the 52-year-old blogger celebrated the second anniversary of his site, rightwinguthouse.com, which now draws 2,800 people a day and has become one of the established names in the right-wing blogosphere.

Go read the whole thing, it's quite an interesting little piece on the blogosphere in general as well as on Rick. Congratulations, Rick.

UPDATE: See also: Brainster and Rick's place.

“Dem Bones, Dem Bones Gonna Dance Around”

Those are part of the words of an old traditional spiritual. Most people probably know the chorus:

Toe bone connected to the foot bone Foot bone connected to the leg bone Leg bone connected to the knee bone…

It seemed a good lead-in to this article about a very unusual museum in England:

Where else would you get to see the pickled head of a vulture, an Irish giant's skeleton and the diseased tibia of a lion once caged in the Tower of London zoo?

The Royal College of Surgeons boasts one of the most bizarre collections in the country which has attracted 55,000 visitors since it was refurbished last year.

The Hunterian Museum is named after the 18th century surgeon John Hunter who became one of the leading medical figures of his generation and transformed the way operations were conducted.

The sight that greets you on arrival at the museum is bizarre and surreal — row upon row of glass jars containing everything from a human foetus to the larynx of a muscovy duck.

A hyena's urethra, a seal's colon, turtle ovaries — nothing escaped the voracious curiosity of Hunter whose museum of medical oddities was considered so important after his death in 1793 that the government bought it for the Royal College.

The tip of a camel's tongue and the remains of a cancerous human testicle might not rank with most tourists as must-see sights in London but the museum can intrigue the layman as much as the medical devotee.

Curator Simon Chaplin takes visitors once a week on free tours with an infectious enthusiasm for Hunter's achievements in training surgeons to master new techniques.

He delights in telling in lurid detail how grave robbers — known in those days as "Resurrection Men" — would bring corpses in the dead of night to Hunter's house in Leicester Square for him to dissect.

Of course one wonders if the good doctor did business with folks like Burke and Hare.

NIMBY Becomes BANANA

Not In My Back Yard morphs into Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. There is a controversy brewing up all over the country on building coal-fired power plants. There are literally scores of them in the planning stages. Activists on both sides are drawing lines and rapidly building a full employment program for lawyers.

Should power companies be permitted to build new plants that pollute more but are reliable and less expensive? Or should regulators push utilities toward cleaner burning coal plants, even if it means they will cost more and are based on newer, yet still unproven, technology?

How those questions are answered will have huge implications over the next few decades. It could determine how Americans light, heat and cool their homes and business, the rate of return on utility investments and the potential environmental impact of the new plants.

Nowhere do these competing interests play out with such force as in Texas, where 16 new coal-fired plants are proposed — 11 of them by Dallas-based TXU Corp., the state's biggest power company.

The scope of TXU's 5-year, $10 billion plan is considered bellwether and being closely watched by industry analysts, lawmakers, competitors and environmentalists across the U.S.

"TXU put its stake in the ground and said it will (build the plants) faster and cheaper than anyone else," said Daniele M. Seitz, analyst with investment firm Dahlman Rose. "So they have something to prove."

The company is hardly alone, however.

Some 154 new coal-fired plants are on the drawing board in 42 states. Texas and Illinois are the only states where 10 or more plants are planned, according to the National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Energy analysts say factors driving coal's resurgence are soaring power demands, volatile natural gas prices and a favorable investment market.

Coal now accounts for about 50 percent of the power generated in the U.S. By the year 2030, that share will increase to 57 percent, according to Energy Department forecasts.

The U.S. has the world's largest coal reserves, enough to last for the next 200 to 250 years, analysts believe.

We are approaching a crisis on power generation. The fact of the matter is that all the "alternative" forms of power production like solar and wind require 100% backup available instantly for when the sun goes behind the clouds or the wind dies. That means you need baseline capacity that is there when you need it. If backup capacity is not there, you will have to live with brownouts (and burned out refrigerator compressor motors) or blackouts. There is no other choice here. (I've been over that before). So the choices come down to: build coal plants, build older style nuke plants or build next generation nuke plants like the pebble bed reactor. But we have to build something. Or regress to a third world standard of living. Take your pick.

Venezuela Trying To Buy UNSC Seat

Hugo Chavez is going all out spending his country's money trying to buy a seat on the UN Security Council. He has been throwing large sums of money all over the globe, trying to lock in support for his bid. It is not yet clear that this will work out for him in the long run.

While Venezuela is expected to get a majority in secret balloting in the 192-nation U.N. General Assembly, Caracas may not achieve the required two-thirds vote, leaving open the possibility of a compromise candidate.

"This is a real wrestling match. This is a heavy-weight encounter," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs.

"If they vote with their head they're voting against Venezuela because, the United States is certainly going to make this an anti-Venezuela position," he said.

"If they vote with their heart they are basically saying: 'we're tried of being pushing around by Washington and we're just going to go our own way on this,"' Birns said.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, up for reelection in December, has campaigned hard for the seat in 2007-2008, sending assistance to Latin American countries as well as contributing to food aid in Africa.

And Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro left no doubt during a visit to the United Nations last month his government sees the race as one against the United States.

"Our debate is not with Guatemala,"' Maduro told reporters. "Our debate is with Secretary of State of Condoleezza Rice. We are calling for an end to the unipolar world that has been so damaging."

John Bolton has pointed out that back when Cuba had a seat on the UNSC in 1990-1991, they were very unhelpful by blocking real progress to address real issues. Cuba tried to obstruct the first Gulf War to free Kuwait. (T)Hugo wouldn't be any better, and in fact would likely be worse.

Situation In Oaxaca Continues To Deteriorate

The situation in the Mexican city of Oaxaca continues to deteriorate with what appears to be an outbreak of violence by citizens tired of the leftists blocking roads. A car full of men returning from a night drinking at a bar were refused permission to pass a leftist roadblock. One man got out of the car and started shooting. One protester was killed and another wounded.

The shooting immediately fueled tensions in Oaxaca, where tens of thousands of striking teachers and leftist protesters have been demanding the resignation of Oaxaca state Gov. Ulises Ruiz.

Protesters blamed the shootings on undercover police and soldiers sent by Ruiz's government. State investigators said the shooting was prompted by frustration over months of blockaded streets and had nothing to do with politics.

Investigators said a group of four men were driving away from a bar after a night of drinking when they encountered the roadblock. After the demonstrators refused to let them pass, at least one of the men got out of the vehicle and began shooting.

Alejandro Garcia, 42, was shot in the head and died of his injuries late Saturday afternoon, hospital officials said. A second victim, 19-year-old Marco Antonio Joaquin, was treated for a gunshot wound to the shoulder and released.

It was not immediately clear if any of the men allegedly involved in the shooting had been arrested.

Garcia was at least the fourth person killed in Oaxaca's unrest. Two protesters have been shot to death in clashes with police. Last week, a teacher was hacked to death by attackers wielding an ice pick. Colleagues said they believed he was killed because he opposed the strike.

The Mexican government needs to step in and clean up the situation there. Oaxaca will take years to recover its former tourist business as it is. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to fix the damage.

UPDATE: Mexican authorities have arrested a soldier for the shootings. The soldier appears to have been off duty and not a plant (as the leftists are charging).

Earthquake Hits Hawaii

Preliminary information says it was a magnitude 6.5. There are no reports of fatalities, only some injuries and landslides blocking at lest one major road.

Power outages were reported across the state and there were unconfirmed reports of injuries, according to the State Civil Defense. Problems with communication prevented more definite reports.

Gov. Linda Lingle said in a radio interview with KSSK from Hawaii Island that she had no report of any fatalities. She said boulders fell on highways, rock walls fell down and television had been knocked off of stands, she had no reports of building damage.

The quake occurred at 7:07 a.m. local time, 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua Kona, a town on the west coast of the Big Island, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center, part of the U.S. Geological Survey.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.3, along with several aftershocks, including one measuring a magnitude of 5.8.

Blakeman said there was no risk of a Pacific-wide tsunami, but a possibility of significant wave activity in Hawaii.

On Hawaii Island, also known as the Big Island, there was some damage in Kailua-Kona and landslide along a major highway, said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the Pacific Tsunami Center.

Officials were concerned there may be "structural integrity" problems at the big hospital in Kona in the Big Island, Lingle said. New patients were being accepted, but kept outside.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on the Richter scale. Magnitude 6.5 is not considered a major quake, but there can be some local damage.

UPDATE: Doesn't look like there was any loss of life at all. One hospital has evacuated some patients, but is still open and accepting patients.

“Too Much Partisanship”

The words of Joe Lieberman about the situation on Capitol Hill and the situation he finds himself in today, fighting for his political life as an independent candidate. The Hartford Courant has a good article that shows the problems and the advantages that Lieberman's decision to run as an independent have given him. Some old friends have turned their backs on him, while others have stood fast. In a way, says Lieberman, it has been a blessing being forced to run without his party's endorsement.

As a Democrat who often saw himself as a man apart, whether speaking against President Clinton's affair or rallying support for President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, Lieberman is finding solace in his new status.

"Running as an independent, as you well know, was not my first choice," Lieberman said Friday in an interview. "I honestly now look at it as a kind of, oh, I don't know, a blessing."

He remains a registered Democrat as he runs as a petitioning candidate on his own ballot line: Connecticut for Lieberman.

If he is victorious on Nov. 7, Lieberman said, he intends to return to Washington as a member of the Democratic caucus. He says he has been assured by Senate Democratic leaders of retaining his 18 years of seniority, an assertion other senators say privately is well-founded.

But Lieberman, whose outspoken support for President Bush's decision to invade Iraq was the catalyst for Lamont's challenge, also said his run as a petitioning candidate has been transforming.

"There is no question that this has had an effect on me," Lieberman said. "Look, long before the primary, long before Ned Lamont announced … I've been saying over and over again, there's too much partisanship in Washington. It stops us from solving the problems or seizing the opportunities for people who are good enough to elect us."

On the campaign trail, Lieberman's message has changed since the primary, when he stressed his party credentials as a vice presidential nominee and presidential candidate who opposed Bush. His target then was Democratic voters antagonistic to the war and disdainful of Bush.

Democrats now are the smallest segment of his support. A recent poll shows his support comes from 67 percent of Republicans, 45 percent of unaffiliated voters and 35 percent of Democrats.

Lieberman relies on talking points more often sounded by the Bush White House than Democratic congressional candidates, invoking patriotism and America's need to be vigilant in a dangerous world.

Last week, Lieberman campaigned in Waterbury, where the mayor, Michael Jarjura, is a rarity: a Democratic officeholder still backing him. About 50 police officers and firefighters, some on duty and in uniform, stood behind him on the steps outside city hall as Lieberman held himself above other politicians.

"I am doing something unconventional," he said. "I decided to stay in the fight after the primary, because I believed so deeply I can do a better job for the state and the country than the other two candidates."

One odd thing here for me. I have actually written quite a lot about the Senate race in Connecticut, even though I live nowhere near the place. The longer I have covered it, the more I find I like Joe Lieberman. In the 2000 election, I knew virtually nothing about the man and disliked him only for the fact that I did not like Al Gore. I've come to like Lieberman more and my son has come to like McCain less. it's a funny old world sometimes.

Eco-Terrorists Renamed By AP

The Associated Press is now informing us that "environmental activists" who break into mink farms and free the animals to suffer almost certain death are mere "vandals". Never mind the fact that the raids were planned and coordinated to cause the maximum number of the minks to escape - so they could die in the wild. It's just "vandalism". Never mind that the people who own the mink farms have been financially devastated. No matter the terrorism, it can be explained away as "activism" or "vandalism".

The raiders — believed to be environmental activists — acted under cover of darkness late Saturday in three towns in Galicia, northwest Spain. It has about 80 mink farms.

At one of the farms, in the town of Muros, an estimated 5,000 mink were released from their cages and about 2,000 of them made it outside the walled farm compound, said local police official Maria Dolores Sendon.

The operation was so well organized that the vandals propped boards on the walls to help animals scale them and placed fish outside the walls as bait for them to keep going, Sendon said.

"This was not a prank," she said in a telephone interview. "It was very well planned."

The biggest breakout was at a farm in the town of Oza dos Rios, where some 11,000 of the animals were allowed to scurry out of their cages, and about half made it outside the walls, according to the farm's owner, Charo Carrillo.

The vandals tried to tear down the wall to facilitate the escape and when this failed they ripped off doors and set them up as ramps for the animals to climb, she told the national news agency Efe.

Carrillo said that most of those that got away will probably starve to death in a matter of days because they were raised in captivity and do not know how to hunt or fish.

Perhaps it is time to begin describing AP reporters as "alleged journalists". Although that might be giving them more credit than they deserve lately.

Failed Policies And Finger Pointing

Jack Kelly, writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an analysis of the past failed policies that led up to North Korea getting nuclear weapons (assuming they actually have done so, of course). His opening lines set the stage:

If Democrats went after America's enemies with the ruthlessness with which they attack Republicans, the Axis of Evil would be toast.

No sooner had North Korea completed its (botched or faked) nuclear bomb test last weekend than Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., were blaming it on "the failed policies of the Bush administration."

Kelly then proceeds to knock those charges down - hard.

Two experts told a House committee in April of 2000 that North Korea was producing enough highly radioactive material then to build a dozen bombs a year, but it is unclear when the North actually built a bomb (if yet) because our intelligence on the reclusive regime there is so poor.

Most experts think North Korea restarted its nuclear weapons program between 1997 and 1999, said Paul Kerr of the Arms Control Association. But the Congressional Research Service thinks the North began cheating in 1995.

Signs of cheating were abundant by 2000. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flew to Pyongyang that October to put lipstick on the pig. She offered dictator Kim Jong Il a relaxation of economic sanctions if he'd limit North Korea's missile development. Kim took those carrots too, but kept building missiles.

The Bush administration called North Korea on its cheating and suspended fuel aid pending an improvement in its behavior. North Korea declared (in 2002) it had the bomb, and the United States organized the six-party talks to try to persuade it to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Like Mr. McCain, I thought the Agreed Framework was a bad idea from the get-go. But I don't blame the Clinton administration (very much) for trying. Massive bribery hadn't been tried before, and if it had worked, it certainly would have been preferable to war. And, since as far as we know, serious cheating didn't begin until 1997 or 1998, it can be argued the deal did buy us a little time.

But even though the ultimate failure of the Clinton policy of appeasement is excusable, the refusal of Democrats to acknowledge that failure is not.

There are calls to reward North Korea for its bad behavior already from many of the usual suspects. Kofi Annan urged the US to enter unilateral talks. So have many on the left. They fail to see that the policies of the Clinton administration failed completely. Or worse, they know it, but refuse to acknowledge it. Kelly is dead right here: the refusal to acknowledge the failures are inexcusable. The Democrats had better start thinking seriously how to address the real issues here instead of simply playing partisan politics. It's time to try going after the real enemies of the US, not the opposing political party.

Balancing On The Pinhead Of The Week

Mark Steyn's description of how some people see the vast iceberg of terrorism and the threat to the West. Not as 7/8ths hidden but as upside down balancing on the pinhead of Mark Foley.

"Justice Department officials denied . . . " What Reuters means by those words is that a reporter — possibly the great Vicini himself or his colleague ("Additional reporting by Rick Cowan") — gets the press release about this once-in-a-half-century treason thing and says to the relevant feds, "C'mon, you guys are just nailing this dude in Pakistan to distract from Mark Foley, right?"

And the Justice Department fellow no doubt replies, "Mark who?"

And Cowan (or Vicini) goes, "The ex-congressman. Teenage pages. Horny gay Republican predators. Hastert's notorious pedophile ring. You must have read about it. It's been in all the papers." And the Justice guy says, "Sorry, I've been been working the fax machine to Pakistan all week, typing up the relevant indictments in triplicate, and so forth."

Originally, only the Republican Congress was covering for Foley. But, as Vicini and Cowan see it, the conspiracy now extends to the Justice Department. We should be grateful Reuters imputed merely the "timing" of the treason indictment to the "lewd computer message" scandal, not the indictment itself. After all, why would the Bush administration have earmarked some nobody in Pakistan for a cockamamie charge of "treason" if it weren't for just such an eventuality as this? Also, notice the way the most damaging "lewd computer messages" and the toppling of Saddam Hussein both occurred in 2003: Did the neocons stage the entire Iraq war in order to set Foley up with an endless supply of fetching young Arab houseboys? As Al Jolson liked to sing, climb upon my knee, Sunni boy.

And what about that North Korean nuke? That timing's pretty suspicious, too. And in that goofy outfit of his Kim Jong Il looks a bit like a teenage congressional page at a slumber party. Well, from a distance and in a poor light, and if you've had a couple drinks.

And how about this for convenient timing? From the BBC on Thursday:

"A man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder people in a series of bombings on British and U.S. targets. Dhiren Barot, of north London, planned to use a radioactive 'dirty bomb' in one of a series of attacks in the UK, Woolwich Crown Court heard . . ."

In my new book (out this week, folks: you'll find it at the back of the store past the 9/11 Conspiracy section and the Christianist Theocrat Takeover of America section and the ceiling-high display of the new Dixie Chicks six-CD box set of songs about how they're being silenced), I say that some of us looked at Sept. 11 as the sudden revelation of the tip of a vast iceberg, and I try to address the seven-eighths of that iceberg below the surface — the globalization of radical Islam, the free-lancing of nuclear technology, the demographic weakness of Western democracies. Other folks, however, see the iceberg upside down. The huge weight of history — the big geopolitical forces coursing through society — the vast burden all balancing on the pinhead of the week: in this instance, Mark Foley.

Absurdity upon absurdity. Everything seen through the lens of a disgraced former Congressman's actions. Everything seen in a fundamentally unserious manner. Read the whole thing. As usual, Steyn is deadly accurate.

The Political Theater Of The Absurd

Jules Crittenden has a piece in the Boston Herald that details how absurd the election season has gotten this year. I've mentioned the viciousness several times, Crittenden goes for the absurdity. That pretty well wraps the entire election cycle up, I think.

So what makes this situation absurd? Never mind suspicions that the nuke blast was faked with TNT, and let’s ignore Kim Jong Il’s bizarre demands for now. It is a mistake to enter into the logic of the insane or reward unruly children’s tantrums.
 
But let’s look at the loud protestations that North Korea’s entry into the nuclear club was not a result of the Clinton administration’s earnest effort to deal with a manipulative dictator. Instead, the Bush administration is blamed for taking a tough stand when North Korea had already violated its agreements.
 
Rewriting history to make yourself look better is one thing, but what is alarming and inexplicable are the calls to compound past errors with new appeasement. North Korea wants direct talks with only the United States, excluding four neighbors who have a major stake in the outcome and significant means to influence North Korea.
 
North Korea wants a big stage, upon which it can inflate its own importance and set up a good pratfall for the United States. And there are American politicians who want to reward Kim Jong Il’s saber-rattling by giving him what he wants. This is absurd.
 
Moving on, we have the matter of former Congressman Mark Foley, apparently overly interested in young male pages, whom he badgered with lascivious e-mails. Reprehensible behavior that led to his resignation, a House ethics investigation and an FBI probe.
 
Any suggestion that immoral behavior is limited to one party is absurd. Any suggestion that it is an issue upon which national policy and elections should hinge is beyond absurd.

Read the whole thing. This is a rotten election cycle any way you cut it. Maybe laughing at it is the only way to make it better.

UPDATE: Others: Protein Wisdom, TMV,

The Buffet Of International Diplomacy

Apparently, they just do things differently in the Middle East. Who Knew?

Associated Press embarrassment of the day:

Bon Apatite!

(I am now officially dangerous. I can capture screen shots).

UPDATE: Heh, they corrected it. So I can correct "appetit" now. (Yes, that was done intentionally).

Widespread Panic?

It's amusing in a way to see some of the reports about the elections that are coming out right now. It is also interesting to see some of the punditry about the news. The Washington Post has an article that positively drips with disbelief that George Bush and Karl Rove remain upbeat regardless of the news. Now, one assumes that a writer for the Washington Post is smart enough to know that those in the top spots in the party always have to remain cheerful and upbeat. But the story seems to be saying, "Just accept our conventional wisdom and surrender before the election". That has never been a winning strategy for any party, ever.

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats — shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush's second term.

In the Senate, Rove and associates believe, a Democratic victory would require the opposition to "run the table," as one official put it, to pick up the necessary six seats — a prospect the White House seems to regard as nearly inconceivable.

The Mark Foley page scandal and its fallout have many Republicans panicked, but Rove professes to be taking it in stride. "The data we are seeing from individual races and the national polls would tend to indicate that people can divorce Foley's personal action from the party," he said in a brief interview Thursday.

The official White House line of supreme self-assurance comes from the top down. Bush has publicly and privately banished any talk of losing the GOP majorities, in part to squelch any loss of nerve among his legions. Come January, he said last week, "We'll have a Republican speaker and a Republican leader of the Senate."

The question is whether this is a case of justified confidence — based on Bush's and Rove's electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology and other assets at their command — or of self-delusion. Even many Republicans suspect the latter. Three GOP strategists with close ties to the White House flatly predicted the loss of the House, though they would not do so on the record for fear of offending senior Bush aides.

I pointed to an interesting analysis yesterday that says all may not be what it seems. I have seen many, many campaigns where victory was predicted for one side or the other come out quite differently when the actual voting happened. I don't pretend to know where this one will end. But there sure is a lot of cheerleading in the media, and not a few pundits abandoning the Republican ship. In one way, having Democrats win the House would force them to grow up and propose alternatives instead of shrilly pointing fingers. On the other hand, too many of the people who would be leaders under that scenario have proposed cutting off funding for our troops (in a magic way that defunds the war but doesn't hurt the troops - as if that were possible). They have also promised to raise taxes, which will slowly choke off the booming economy. A Republican victory will actually make it harder for that party to win the White House in 2008, I think. A Democratic victory will put that party in a weaker position going in to the next presidential campaign, as well. So I am of two minds about the whole situation. But I do not believe everything I read in the media, especially these days.

UPDATE: Others: Light Seeking Light, The Political Pit Bull, Don Surber, Ann Althouse, Hugh Hewitt,