Suspended for rudeness? This is the type of thing I would expect to see Vladimir Putin or Hugo Chavez try to get away with, not something done by a legitimate "democracy". And what kind of self-respecting journalist chooses to be a complainant in this type of action?

Apparently, Crony Capitalism is a bipartisan affair. Any doubts that a Democratic majority in the Senate would be just as spineless and compliant as the status quo should be alleviated by its rolling over and confirming this clown to sit on the Federal Reserve Board. Just a reminder: it was a Democrat-controlled Senate that unanimously confirmed Michael "Heckuvajob" Brown to head FEMA...and lets not forget the Bankruptcy bill from last year. An effective opposition party has to stand for something other than the fact that it considers the President to be pure evil.

Collapse? Mickey Kaus has been, shall we say, obsessed with the box office appeal of Brokeback Mountain since the film was first released in mid-December, and he seems cheered by its apparent decline over the past few weeks. One problem: it's "decline" is not only less than that of the other four Oscar nominees (see here, here, here, and here*), it's also doing double the business of the two blockbuster pics that were released concurrently, King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia, even though both films are screening on (roughly) the same number of theatres. Moreover, its box office to date is higher than last year's Best Film winner, Million Dollar Baby, which didn't contain a gay sex scene to offend the flyovers. Even more surprisingly, its per screen average for this time in February is higher than the average for Return of the King two years ago. What with the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and Hollywood's penchant for releasing its dregs at the start of the year, I don't see any evidence of a "collapse".

*Crash is no longer screening at theatres.

My Koufax Award pick, Digby, on the "Vichy Democrat" issue:

The Democratic party did everything it could to alleviate the culture war and the partisanship in the 90's by electing southern moderates to the White House and helping the Republicans pass a lot of legislation born of major compromise of Democratic principles. Nothing was good enough. The culture war raged, not on the basis of policy --- there was much in Bill Clinton's policies for a Republican to love. It was based purely on the tribal instincts of the culture warriors who insisted that liberals not only be marginalized (fair enough in politics) but that they be annihilated. They gave no quarter unless public opinion absolutely forced them to.

The grassroots believe that after all that, after moving to the right, after offering to compromise, after allowing our "red state Democrats" to run with the other side who then treated them with nothing but bad faith, now is the time for politicans to make a choice. Submit to them or stand with the resistence.

More to the point, since 1994 "moderates" and "New Democrats" don't have a good track record winning downticket races in Red States. I'll be damned if I'm going to compromise what I believe in to support Lieberman or Cantwell or Akaka or Casey or anyone of those other weasels when they seek high office in a Blue State. We have too many other good candidates to choose from without having to pick an appeasor.

Paging Sarah Silverman: This is wrong, on so many levels....