* Jon Stewart was “characteristically brilliant”:http://s92409068.onlinehome.us/qt/0209.mov in his coverage of Bush’s Meet the Press interview. (Link is to a very big Quicktime file.) Hat tip to “Making Light”:http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/. How oh how I wish Comcast offered a limited cable service where you could pay a quarter a day in order to receive Comedy Central from 11:00-11:30 pm, Mon-Thurs. I’d pay for that.
* Joe Trippi “has a blog”:http://www.changeforamerica.com/blog/. One moment: campaign manager for the lead Democratic contender. Next moment: blogger. Ouch. But seriously, I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say in this venue.
* Big news! Jim Henley “has abandoned libertarianism in order to become an avid Kerry supporter”:http://www.highclearing.com/archivesuo/week_2004_02_08.html#005038! Maybe that’s overstating it a little, but Jim does warm to the fact that one thing Kerry has been accusing Bush of for a while now is spreading a “culture of fear”:

Crap. I may not be able to maintain my traditional aloofness between the two major hopefuls. Because this is the overriding issue facing the country right now: will we live bravely again or will we forever shiver in post-traumatic stress from our Very Bad Day two and a half years ago? And as I’ve said over and over, what’s despicable about the Bush Administration is that it wants us to wallow in perpetual, low-grade panic. That is what I can’t forgive . . . [A] major Presidential candidate running a forthright campaign against fearmongering would have incalculable value. It would make up for everything I am fated to dislike – even hate – about John Kerry. It is the whole ball of wax. It is the national soul. It trumps fiscal policy, regulatory policy, even the particulars of how any particular politician did or did not vote on the use-of-force resolution in late 2002 or the PATRIOT Act before that. Because let the country recover its courage, and these other matters can be mastered. Keep the country in terror and we are doomed on all fronts.

Those of us who will naturally vote Democratic should be thinking about our libertarian friends who will be doing so only after much soul-searching and hand-wringing and shaking-of-their-fists-at-the-sky. Maybe we should set up a 1-800 number or support group or something. Of course, two weeks into the Kerry Administration they’ll all be at his throat whether they voted for him or not. At least in Jim’s case, you know it’ll still be worth reading.