Roundup

I read a few of Megan's recommendations this week. A few thoughts: Regarding Ross Douthat's debut NYT column, in context with the sweep of his work, I would agree with his point that Cheney's version of conservatism (as Ross describes it) isn't going to be politically useful going forward; indeed, it wasn't particularly useful when he was vice-president. It would be a bit much to expect him to have stopped the war -- that was a mistake that almost the entire political class made -- but lowering credit standards for home mortgages was exactly the kind of thing that having the "grownup" Cheney around was supposed to prevent.

But that said, I have two criticisms. On Ross's charge that Cheney is doing something unseemly by pushing back on the interrogation issue, I have to point out that Obama picked this fight, not Cheney. Cheney has every right to defend his administrations record, especially when it is, in fact, defensible. Obama continues to act like he's still campaigning instead of actually running the country, blaming his Republican predecessors for the deficits he himself is creating.

And second, as Ace points out, there is something a little . . . unseemly about Ross using his first column in the NYT to attack other conservatives. No doubt Ross believes he is buying himself credibility with likely NYT readers this way, but it only pays out when he subsequently persuades them to embrace a conservative policy. We'll see how it works. Regarding Charlotte Hays' WSJ review of Jennifer Scanlon's biography on Helen Gurley Brown, I offer this quote without comment:

One of Helen's disappointments was that she was unable to get [her book "Sex and the Single Girl"] officially banned by any prominent priest or preacher. "Letty dear," she wrote to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, her publicist, who would go on to become a prominent feminist, "I don't know how to get a public denunciation -- a nice, strong, snarly, vocal one -- from some religious leader, but it is a possibility." She tried unsuccessfully to provoke the Daughters of the American Revolution. Unaided by banning, the book nonetheless became a world-wide best seller.

Regarding the NYT report on the Hobbit remains found on the island of Flores: I assume that paleontologists know what they're doing, but as anyone considered the possibility these might be the remains of plain ole' children? Just askin'.