What the Republican Party Needs to Do Now

(With apologies to Meghan McCain.)

When my dad told me last week that Barack Obama had been elected, I cried because I was soooo excited that soon we would have a black president. But also because that means the Republican guy lost and I think my dad is a Republican and he sounded sooooo sad. But I was also sad about the Republican party which I love soooooo much. The Republican party is losing the most important voters in this country, which in order are young people, single women, minorities and gays. In order to win back these important constituencies, here is what the Republican party has to do now, or else I might consider leaving them, which will be a major blow.
1. Stop being the party of White People. If the Republican party wants to win elections they have to stop getting the votes of White People. We live in the Age of Modern Family, not the age of some show about a white family that is old. The Republican party should tell White People to stop voting for them unless they are married to a much younger Latin American woman, and have at least one son who is gay. This way, the Republican party will look more like America.
2. Appoint Sofia Vergara to the Supreme Court. Times are changing, and it is time for this country to have a hot Latina woman on the Supreme Court. Also, this will help Republicans with women, Hispanics, and men. Also consider appointing Cam or Mitch to the Supreme Court.
3. Stop talking about religion. Religion is very old. If the Republicans want the votes of young people, they should stop talking about stuff that is very old, like religion, and also the constitution which Ezra Klein said is almost a hundred years old!
4. Republicans should be pro-life, but only if they also protect a woman's right to choose. I mean, what kind of life is it if you can't choose what to do with your own body? I am pro-life, but I believe that women should always have a right to abortion, because life is complicated. This is the only type of pro-life that should be allowed.
5. Stop worrying about the future. Old people worry about the future. Young people don't worry about the future, because it is in a long time. Young people care about now. Imagine if instead of talking about the debt crisis, Paul Ryan talked about how he wants to give young people stuff now. Do you think young people would have all voted for Obama just because he's cool? Maybe, but we'll never know.
I'm a Republican, but we can't let Republican voters, who are very extreme, decide the views of the Republican party. If Republicans don't become a lot more like the Democrats, I will become a Democrat, because that is how much I love the Republican Party.

In case you were wondering whether the Democrats had 2/3 of the vote--highly unlikely.

Hezb No Allah, Part III

Brody File:

Guess what? God’s name has been removed from the Democratic National Committee platform.
This is the paragraph that was in the 2008 platform:
“We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-givenpotential.”Now the words “God-given” have been removed. The paragraph has been restructured to say this:
“We gather to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth – the simple principle that in America, hard work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.”

(See also: here and here.)

Sorkin's The Newsroom

The opening scene from the new HBO series. Shocking that studiously non-partisan journalist is actually stereotypical liberal, I know. And it just gets better from here--even more preaching follows. I'll let Dorothy Rabinowitz take over: "the preening virtue that weighs on this Aaron Sorkin series like a great damp cloud—the right-mindedness oozing from every line—isn't going away. It's the heart of this enterprise... like all the sanctimonious twaddle here, well nigh unbearable."

There's something in the theme of journalists and news reporting that can bring out the worst in writers—though not, to be sure, one like James L. Brooks, who wrote the magnificent "Broadcast News" (1987). That something has to do with the view, which has come to be an article of faith over the past 75 years or so, that journalism is a sacred calling deserving of reverence. "The Newsroom" gives every spine-chilling sign of immersion in that faith. Which may explain some of Mr. Sorkin's apparent difficulty conceiving reasonably human characters in this saga of broadcast journalists... Still, it's clear that Mr. Sorkin's main interest in "The Newsroom" runs to concerns other than characters and storytelling. There's anchor Will—who is, we're assured, a Republican—going on camera in episode three to blast away at certain social and political forces that constitute grave dangers to the nation. (In Will's world, no danger ever emanates from the political left—it just doesn't happen.) His targets include, not surprisingly, Gov. Jan Brewer's immigration bill, Sarah Palin, the new Republican majority in Congress, Fox News—and, not least, the Tea Party. That last a subject on which Will goes to town with ferocious firepower all the more deadly for its employment of actual quotations. There's Rand Paul attempting to explain certain of his complicated social views. There's Sharron Angle, briefly a heroine of the Tea Party, complaining that the press had failed to ask the questions she wanted to answer. An episode like this one, drawing on the deep bitterness of our current political wars, brings "The Newsroom" to life. But it's a kind destined to be intermittent. The show's deeper problems—thin drama, a thick hide of smugness—would take far more than that to overcome.

Can't believe I watched that. Times like this make you grateful you don't have the job that requires you to watch 3 whole episodes. Update: Jake Tapper's TNR review:

McAvoy—and, by extension, Sorkin—preach political selflessness, but they practice pure partisanship; they extol the Fourth Estate’s democratic duty, but they believe that responsibility consists mostly of criticizing Republicans. This is done through the oldest trick in the book for a Hollywood liberal: by having McAvoy be a “sane Republican” who looks at his party with sadness and anger.

Obama's Osama Ad

In addition to the numerous reasons given for why Obama's Osama ad was a bad idea, it seems to me that the fact that the ultimate success of the mission was out of Obama's hands means that he can only take credit for rolling the dice. As president, he was responsible for the decision, that is all. The risk inherent in the mission was beyond his ability to control, and the mission's success has nothing to do with his efforts. The fact that he must portray this decision as the pinnacle of his accomplishment just ends up highlighting the fact that he lacks a notion of what actual achievement means. UPDATE: Nice video version of the criticism here.

For good or ill (and most would say ill), no one did it like Mr. Breitbart.

and if you disagree, you don't count anyways. http://bquot.com/bsk