While everyone seems to be all atwitter (quite literally) about Sarah Palin's hinting that she will run in 2012 "if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country," it is worth noting the only actual name she mentioned in her Fox News Sunday interview last Sunday—Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. As she told Chris Wallace,

Last week was a big one for nuclear news.  First, the Obama administration submitted its proposed budget for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (that’s the agency that, among other things, maintains our warheads).  Second, the administration’s chief negotiator for the START follow-on treaty announced an “agreement in principle” with the Russians. 

These two things are connected beyond the obvious point of contact.  The former is meant to be a down payment on the latter.  The administration has been put on notice that it faces substantial opposition in the Senate, not only to the ratification of this new treaty (whatever it ends up being called), but to its other arms control priorities as well.  The price, say a coalition of 41 mostly (but not entirely) Republican senators, is a serious commitment to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t claim to have developed an economic stimulus plan of his own. But he does favor a cluster of proposals that, when packaged together, are a simple, sensible program for rejuvenating the economy.

I take the liberty of dubbing it the McConnell Plan (without asking the Republican leader’s approval). If enacted, the plan would do a great deal more to boost the economy and increase employment than the “jobs bill” that President Obama and congressional Democrats are cooking up.

Arnold Kling:

My point here is not to champion Republicans. It is not to champion democracy. My point is that the ones throwing the temper tantrum right now are the Progressives. They think that the 2008 election gave them the right to operate like China's autocracy, and they are lashing out hysterically at those they perceive as preventing them from doing so. On the one hand, the villains are a small minority in the Senate. Or maybe the villains are the incoherent majority of the people.

The important point is that Progressives are never wrong. Top-down reform is the only way to fix the health care system. Anthropogenic global warming is scientifically proven, and its solution requires strenuous exercise of political control over individual behavior. Deficit spending is necessary and sufficient to create jobs. Technocrats can make banks too regulated to fail. Markets without technocratic control are like adolescents without adult supervision. Individual happiness can be improved by political authorities using scientific knowledge. Concentrated political power is the wave of the future, and it is good.

I am not a populist. I fear the mob. But how can I fear the Progressives any less?

Also read Gerard Alexander on liberal condescension. It occurs to me that American liberals are re-learning the lesson of the old left-wing chant: The people united can never be defeated. And it's driving them up a wall.

Is NOW's president similarly outraged by Snickers' 'celebration' of 'violence against women'?

Rachel Abrams launches a must-read blog (Don't worry! She'll still be contributing here too.)

Via Geraghty, the St. Pete Times reports: "Marco Rubio says his  Stimulus Fundraising Bomb (www.StimulusBomb.com) has raised $411,000, just one week after launching with the goal of raising $787,000 by February 10."

The Wall Street Journal's Mark Lasswell has a rave review of Matt Labash's new book, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader (which Jeffrey Goldberg dubbed "The Funniest Book of the Year"). From the Journal:

In a just world, Matt Labash would be celebrated as the heir to Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson and other writers in the 1960s and 1970s who were corralled under the rubric of "new journalism," but, well, the world just isn't just. Like the best of the new-journalism practitioners, Mr. Labash inhabits a story so thoroughly that readers feel as if they're at his side, seeing events with his sharp eye, privy to his wisecracks, savoring moments when he reels in what feels like the truth. Sure, executing long-form journalism at this high level has about it a whiff of the Civil War re-enactment—an almost perfect evocation of a bygone era!—but there is also a certain thrilling defiance, displayed by both the writer and the magazine that lets him plow ahead, page after page.

Fly Fishing with Darth Vader hits stores tomorrow. You can buy a copy at Amazon.com today.

Politico is reporting that Vice President Biden will be delivering a key address on the future of America's nuclear arsenal this Wednesday. Here's what to expect:

--It's likely that Biden will channel Secretary Gates' Oct 2008 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In that address, the SECDEF spelled out precisely why America needed to modernize and maintain its nuclear arsenal. Gates did so in a most unusual forum, an institution dedicated to ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Obama faces a similar problem, in that he has to explain why he's pumping $11 billion into nuclear upgrades two months after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for advocating nuclear disarmament.

From the AP: "Spokesman for Rep. John Murtha says the Pennsylvania Democrat has died at 77."

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Obama's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan claimed that Republicans should have known, based on his Christmas Day conversation with them, that terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be Mirandized:

This week in Tehran, it's déjà vu all over again:

Iran has formally informed the UN nuclear agency that it will start on February 9 to further enrich uranium stockpiles to a level of 20 percent, further fueling Western concerns that Tehran is secretly seeking a nuclear bomb-making capacity.

"We wrote a letter to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] that we shall start making 20-percent enriched fuel," the head of the Iranian Atomic Organization, Ali-Akbar Salehi, told Iran's Arabic-language state television channel, Al-Alam late on February 7. "We will hand over this official letter to the IAEA on [February 8] and shall start enrichment on [February 9] in the presence of IAEA monitors."

President Obama will host a bipartisan health-care summit, to be televised on C-SPAN, on February 25. Reaction to the event has been divided. Liberals mostly think it's a good idea, while conservatives are not sure. Michelle Malkin says Republicans shouldn't attend. Philip Klein notes that the event will be "pure theatre."

In my opinion, there's no harm in a televised discussion of health care reform. If Obama hasn't been able to convince the public his way is the right way by now, one more event won't make a difference. Nor will a single C-SPAN broadcast alter the political dynamic that is preventing Democrats from passing a final bill. What's more, Republicans will have an opportunity to present their ideas to lower the cost of individual health insurance and increase consumer choice. So let's say Republicans accept Obama's invitation, which they seem inclined to do anyway.

Sarah Palin's February 6 address to the Tea Party convention in Nashville opened the 2010 campaign season. It's arguable that it opened the 2012 campaign season, as well. Amazingly, however, the left has decided that the most important takeaway from Palin's speech was the fact that she scribbled some notes on her hand. Say what you will, Palin responded to the criticism in her own inimitable way.

Here is my off-the-cuff reaction to Palin's speech. NBC's First Read has a roundup of media reactions here. On February 7, Fox News Sunday broadcast Palin's first interview with a Sunday talk show. During her conversation with Chris Wallace, Palin clearly hinted that she will run for president in 2012. No real surprise there; former vice presidential candidates have recently campaigned in the next cycle: Lieberman in 2004; Edwards in 2008. Of course, neither was particularly successful -- political dynamics change massively within four years!

The LA Times reports that the president of the National Organization for Women is still outrageously outraged over the incredibly tame Focus on the Family/Tebow ad last night:

NOW president Terry O'Neill said [the Tebow ad] glorified violence against women. "I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it," she said. "That's what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don't find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself."

The "violence against women" O'Neill refers to occurs when Tim Tebow tackles his mom Pam in an attempt at slapstick.

The only thing more analyzed than quarterback play after the Super Bowl is the commercials: Were they funny, offensive, pointless? Money well spent, or 30 seconds of confusion? How does the MTV set view the last 25 years of politics?

This weekend, the Left freaked out at the revelation that Sarah Palin had notes on her hand during her speech in Nashville. I truly have no idea why this is an issue for the supporters of Capt. TelePrompter, but there you have it.

The next day, Palin struck back, scribbling "Hi, Mom!" on her hand at a Rick Perry rally. Ha.

A lot of people have been looking to find someone to blame for President Obama's failures: the Constitutional order, the right-wing noise machine, the dull, dim-witted American people. Funnily enough, one person rarely seems to get fingered.

Last week I noted that the Washington Generals are hiring, which was occasion to relive some of the storied franchise's great moments: Red Klotz's invention of the barnstorming losers; their 6-13,000 record against the Harlem Globetrotters; and their final victory against the Globetrotters, in 1971. The last of which prompted this fantastic note from Wade Cook:

Late-night junkies (you know who you are!) will no doubt want to read this tick-tock of how the Letterman / Leno / Oprah ad during last night's Super Bowl came together.

Sneak peek: It involves Leno wearing a disguise.

The New York Times reports on President Obama's offer to host a bipartisan health care summit at Blair House on February 25. The president made the offer during his Super Bowl pre-game interview with Katie Couric. Republicans quickly accepted. Not everyone is pleased, however:

Separately, some Congressional staff members expressed concern that Mr. Obama’s meeting would simply prolong an already tortuous process. And Democrats still face steep challenges in reconciling the differences between the House and Senate bills.

Some House Democrats are firmly opposed to a proposed tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance policies, which they think will hit some middle-class workers and violate Mr. Obama’s campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 a year.

Don't forget Bart Stupak, either--his supporters may still balk at the Senate's abortion language. The bottom line is that Congress is stuck on health care, with Pelosi and Reid in a Mexican stand-off over which chamber will hold the next vote.

Via Steven Ertelt, this is the supposedly "controversial" Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad that the National Organization for Women fought tooth and nail to keep off the airwaves:

When Burger King opted to go with "The King"—a sort of adult version of Ronald McDonald that some have described as "creepy"—it took a huge risk. But it was a calculated risk: BK executives decided they would focus their marketing energies on "super fans" (18- to 34-year-olds) instead of older adults, parents, or children. The ads would be hip. There were no promotions for Happy Meals or fruit snacks or oatmeal. Double cheeseburgers would go for $1, much to the dismay of some franchisees. Has it worked?

Sarah Palin's speech to the Tea Party convention in Nashville showcased all of the former Alaska governor's strengths. She was confident, funny, down-to-earth,  at times emotional--and she took a scalpel to the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. Ignore the critics who will say Palin spent too much time looking at her notes; her off-the-cuff approach and decision not to use a TelePrompTer was clearly calculated to highlight President Obama's reliance on scripted events and canned speeches.

The timing of the speech was also significant. Palin used the talk, broadcast live on Fox News Channel and C-SPAN, to respond to the president's State of the Union address from last week. Palin's mention that today is Ronald Reagan's birthday positioned her squarely among his heiresses. More interesting, Palin started off with a concentrated attack on the Obama administration's national security policies--not an issue for which the Tea Partiers are known. Palin noted that the president spent hardly any time on foreign policy during his annual report to Congress--indeed, she spent more time on our Israeli and Japanese allies, our Iranian and jihadist adversaries, and our strategic competitors than he did. And when Palin said that America needs a commander in chief, not a law professor, the crowd went wild; one was momentarily transported back to her famous speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

President Obama’s economic policy has run smack into reality. No one believes that he can keep spending even to the massive levels he projects, or eventually lower the deficit, or persuade congress to switch from profligacy to prudence, or … well, you get the idea. Worse still, even if you believe all of these things and more, the deficits projected by the president are simply unsustainable, and would drive the combination of federal, state and local government debt to well over 100 percent in 2020 -- a level that most observers believe will stifle economic growth.

A new paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, professors of economics at the University of Maryland and Harvard University respectively, covers the experience of 44 countries over 200 years and concludes, “Our main finding is that across both advanced countries and emerging markets, high debt/GDP levels (90 percent and above) are associated with notably lower growth outcomes…. Seldom do countries simply ‘grow’ their way out of deep debt burdens.” If you are the worrying sort, add to these your answer to a question put by Larry Summers, now the president’s economic adviser but at the time free to speak his mind, “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?” Efforts to reach Mr. Summers to obtain his current answer to his question proved unavailing.

Many of us have fond memories of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution. In fact, it seems like it was just yesterday that we were all cheering the throngs of pro-democracy Ukrainians who threw out the nations entrenched post-Soviet oligarchy. And who could forget the faces of the revolution's two dynamic leaders -- presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, his face disfigured from attempted assassination by dioxin poisoning,  and his fiery sidekick Yulia Tymoshenko, the blonde-braided orator?