In the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, we American Exceptionalists were on quite a roll; that roll was about “the wave of expanding Democracy”.

With the fall of the Second World – the commies – the First World would be strengthened to spread the one-person-one-vote, choose-your-path gospel to the “Third World”.

Bob Collins at MPR’s NewsCut notes that it doesn’t seem to be working out at the moment:

So what happened?

The Boston Globe’s Joshua Kurlantzick today uses Thailand as an example of a receding wave. The streets of Thailand have been crammed with protesters wearing the color of the former monarchy, demanding an end to the reign of the democratically elected prime minister. Last week, they got their wish.

The events unfolding in Thailand are part of a gathering global revolt against democracy. In 2007, the number of countries with declining freedoms exceeded those with advancing freedoms by nearly four to one, according to a recent report by Freedom House, an organization that monitors global democracy trends.

How could this be? Blame the middle class, Kurlantzick says.

As a country develops a true middle class, these urban, educated citizens insist on more rights in order to protect their economic and social interests. Eventually, as the size of the middle class grows, those demands become so overwhelming that democracy is inevitable. But now, it appears, the middle class in some nations has turned into an antidemocratic force. Young democracy, with weak institutions, often brings to power, at first, elected leaders who actually don’t care that much about upholding democracy. As these demagogues tear down the very reforms the middle classes built, those same middle classes turn against the leaders, and then against the system itself, bringing democracy to collapse.

“Elected dictators” are not just a problem in Thailand, but Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Indonesia, and — the big one — Russia, the poster child for tension between pro- and anti-democracy forces.

Both pieces bring up some interesting questions, with by-no-means simple answers.

For starters, I question the validity of Kurlantzick’s  numbers;  using the raw number of nations as a metric can be misleading; if Andorra, Luxembourg and Montenegro (hypothetically) adopt dictatorships, and  India is democratic , do you count the nations (3:1 for dictators) or by population (hundreds to one for democracy)?

And for all of the alarmism of the conclusion, it’s worth remembering that it’s been worse;  in the Thirties, the intellectual current was to assume socialism, even authoritarianism, was going to win out in the end; in the Sixties and Seventies, people assumed Communism was here to stay, and the red wave engulfed much of the Third World.

Still – nations like Russia and Thailand are hardly small potatoes; there would seem to be a problem here.
Reading Paul Johnson’s classic “The Birth Of The Modern”, it’s interesting to note that so much of what we recognize as the “Modern World” today – from direct democracy to abolition of slavery to the asphalt road, steam engines and pants – got its start between 1815 and 1840 or so.

Among the more subtle and yet wide-sweeping changes was the notion on the part of people in the “liberal” (with a small “l”) west that Democracy was the way things should be.  It’s not always been a given, even in the West; it took many sweeping intellectual changes – the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment – to set the philosophical stage for the notion that Man can rule himself.

Huge swathes of the world never had a Renaissance or an Enlightenment (and as to the Reformation, many of the world’s major religions are not nearly as tolerant of dissent and uppitiness on the part of the peasants as Judeo-Christianity have been).  Russian society in particular never had any of the benefits of the change in Western intellectual tradition; authority (especially the authority to protect one from rampaging Huns, Tartars or Nazis) is government’s most important attribute to great swathes of Russian society.

The real question isn’t whether nations with long, illiberal histories – Bolivia, Thailand, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico – have a hard time adopting democracy.  The real, important question is how  any nation with a long, illiberal history – India, Colombia, Mali, Senegal – adopt it at all, and how we can help similar nations with similiar traditiosn – Iraq, Afghanistan – do better in much, much less time.

Which leads us to the obvious question: How does the U.S. respond to this?

That, on the other hand, is easy.  We do what we did in 1983; we remain the best, healthiest democracy in the world; we provide a strong contrast with the alternatives; we remain the place on this planet where everyone wants to go (and, since they can’t, we provide a model for them to copy in their own countries).  And we do what we did in 1948; stand up for fledgeling democracies against totalitarians – diplomatically, materially, and if necessary (heaven forfend) militarily, with all the moral and material strength we have.

Which necessitates having a government that believes in American exceptionalism – that this is the kind of place and system worth defending and exporting.

Glad you asked.

It’s not often that I find myself defending Saint Paul mayor Chris Coleman. Indeed, I die a little inside at the thought.

But they say you can learn a little about a guy by his enemies.

So here goes; good job, Mayor Coleman.

A group of stalkers followed Coleman to a fundraiser last week:

About 30 demonstrators showed up outside a fundraiser for St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman on Friday, objecting to what the group saw as an overreaction by police during last week’s protests outside the Republican National Convention.

Carrying signs that read “I Am Ashamed” and “I Survived 9/1,” the group strolled the sidewalk in front of a St. Anthony Park residence where the event was being held, briefly confronting Coleman when he arrived.

Look, I don’t support government overreach; police overreach against legitimate protest is no better than, say, siccing the FCC on conservative talk radio under the guise of the “Fairness” Doctrine.

But look at what Coleman’s administration – which is of a relatively small city, remember – was facing:

• A movement that pledged to “shut down” Saint Paul and the convention
• Groups that were threatening to stalk and kidnap delegates and other people.
• Credible threats of violence and mayhem from groups that have carried it out in the past (see Seattle, 1999).
• Groups that did, in fact, commit violence against delegates on the first day – sandbag attacks on buses, bleach squirted at delegates and so on.

With that background, caution was hardly misplaced.

So did officers possibly use “excessive caution” on protesters who didn’t obey lawful orders to disperse – macing people excessively and so on?  Possible.

Did the police break up any protests that were legally permitted, and where the protesters were operating within the conditions of the permit?  I’ve been asking counterculture types for the past week, and heard nothing.

The protesters, I suspect, are upset – legitimately at what may have been instances of cops overapplying mace, and illegitimately at the overall approach, which seems not to have had any affect on legal, permitted protests.

And they’re upset because their protests, outside the echo chamber of the perennially-angry far left, had zero affect on the convention, on national policy, on the GOP, and – most galling to them, I suspect – the national press coverage of the convention.  Pissed off kids and ageing hippies throwing things in the streets?  Dog bites dog.  Sarah Palin sweeping all before her?  Pitbull bites lightworker.

The protesters barely qualified as a sideshow.  Unless you were a cop.

Anyway – good job, Mayor Coleman.

Feel free to keep the good will flowing, by the way, by reconsidering your property tax hikes.

In January of 2004, when we had the fateful lunch with Hugh Hewitt out at the late, great Billy’s Lighthouse in Minnetonka that directly led to the NARN going on the air in the first place, Hugh asked us for our electoral vote predictions. I forget the exact numbers – but other than bobbling Minnesota and Iowa (I thought MN would flip to Bush and Iowa would vote for Kerry; I obviously had it inverted) I pretty much nailed it. I’m not even sure why; I just had a pretty secure sense of how states were going go roll.

I should point out that my only real guide for this sort of prediction is very-loosely-informed intuition. I’m no analyst. And yet that “gut feeling” often does the trick for me.

I don’t really have a sense of where this election is going. Not yet. The Obama phenomenon was obviously going to change things bigtime. The Palin phenomenon – and the larger strategy of which it’s a part, the use of the red/blue divide as an active wedge – is changing it again; while a few weeks ago the lefties were making hopeful noises about flipping parts of the Great Plains, I really just don’t see it happening; Obama’s closed up shop in South Dakota and Montana, and he’s withering in North Dakota. (Hah hah hah!)

And now – well, there’s big news from the polls today, according to Ed:

As if the Barack Obama needed any more bad news, the St. Petersburg Times and Zogby both deliver cause for pessimism at Team O. Florida polling shows that despite spending millions in advertising in the Sunshine State and a delay in advertising for McCain, Obama is in worse position that John Kerry at the same time in 2004. Zogby has new polling that shows Obama now trails in Pennsylvania, a must-hold state for the Democrats.

Zogby is, of course, about as reliable as a meth addict’s 1972 Vega. But let’s assume for a moment he’s not entirely off his nut, and that Ed’s continuing analysis is right on. Using Opinion Journal’s excellent Electoral College calculator, let’s work out a couple of scenarios.

First: Let’s take Zogby at his word: Obama flips Nevada, Iowa, Colorado and North Carolina, and holds Michigan. Mac/Palin flips Pennsylvania and holds Virginia.

Too close for comfort, but certainly liveable.

And if Mac can squeedge out a win in Michigan?

I did all of the above before we got the blockbuster news that Minnesota – which Rasmusson on Friday called “Likely Democrat” – is, according to traditionally-inaccurate but usually DFL-skewed Minnesota Poll – showing Mac and Obama tied in Minnesota.

The poll found that McCain has made gains across the board since a May Minnesota Poll that showed him trailing by 13 points. He has picked up considerable support among men and to a lesser degree among women. He also has boosted his standing with whites, young voters and all levels of household income and education.

Conducted a week after the Republican National Convention was held in St. Paul, the poll likely reflects — at least in part — the traditional bounce candidates enjoy after being in the spotlight.

Part of the rise in McCain’s fortunes nationally has been attributed to his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a move that has energized his party’s conservative base.

So hypothetically – and this is extremely hypothetical – let’s just say Mac manages to flip Minnesota, and that flip takes one of the neighboring states with it. If Minnesota goes red, I’d suspect one of the neighboring states, Iowa or Wisconsin would, but let’s leave them out for the moment. Taking Minnesota and holding North Carolina would hold onto a McCain victory even if Obama took both Pennsylvania and Michigan.

I’m going to err on the side of caution; it’s still Obama’s race to lose. Make no mistake; the Republicans are the underdogs. Polling aside, Obama’s got months of momentum to overcome; see McCain/Palin as the X-wing pilots and Obama as the Death Star. Mac ‘n Sarah are still battling uphill against not only that status quo, but the legacy of ’06. Can Mac and Sarah refocus the campaign?

Well, that’s up to all of us, isn’t it?

…you mean “no-talent has-been”, you might have a point.

You’re killing me.

Dump Biden. You’re losing your grip on Pennsylvania, certainly at this point the only compelling reason to have selected Blow Biden.

You can’t undermine Governor Palin without appearing sexist and rallying more women to Palin’s side.

Hillary is still available. You’ll make history.

Sincerely,

Your Candidacy

Charlie Gibson, spectacles dripping off the end of his nose, asked Governor Sarah Palin to offer an opinion on the “Bush Doctrine.”

In my interchanges with some of the most politically articulate people I know, Sarah Palin’s response to the question has come far less into question than the existence of a “Bush Doctrine” and the wisdom of Gibson’s attempt to trip up the Governor.

The consensus? There is no singular “Bush Doctrine.” Clearly, President Bush has articulated (admittedly a poor choice of words for G.W. Bush) America’s response to the attacks of 9/11 as a desire to secure America’s safety through the promotion and support of democracy throughout the world. This is an element of his neoconservative roots. He has also asserted that America now retains the unilateral right and responsibility to strike terrorists and hostile regimes before they strike us; but no one has consistently used the phrase “The Bush Doctrine.”

That is, until now.

From Wikipedia (emphasis mine)

The Bush Doctrine is a term used to describe the foreign policy doctrine of United States president George W. Bush, enunciated in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It may be viewed as a set of several related foreign policy principles, including stress on ending terrorism, spreading democracy, increased unilateralism in foreign policy and an expanded view of American national security interests. Foreign policy experts argue over the meaning of the term “Bush Doctrine,” and some scholars have suggested that there is no one unified theory underlying Bush’s foreign policy. Jacob Weisberg identifies six successive “Bush Doctrines” in his book The Bush Tragedy, while former Bush staffer Peter D. Feaver has counted seven.

Set back on their heels, Democrats on the talk show circuit are saying Charlie Gibson wasn’t tough enough.

The rest of America is putting themselves in that chair across from Charlie Gibson and saying (or at least thinking):

“Charlie, you’re an a**hole.”

We expect the media to conduct hard-hitting interviews and do their part in the “vetting” process. But to intentionally attempt to trip up Sarah Palin with a contrivance only serves to elevate the contempt the voter has for the media.

And it surely doesn’t help the Obama campaign because everyone is still talking about Sarah Palin. They are rooting for her because so many Americans are like her.

The Gibson interview is a bad omen for Obama. The Democrats are quickly realizing that there is no way to take down Sarah Palin without severe blowback. She is rubber, they are glue.

…and the best is yet to come!

The confluence of Joe Biden’s inability to control his diction and the strengthening warm front that is Sarah Palin’s candidacy portends The Perfect Storm for the Obama campaign.

No. Not the Vikings. They’re dead to me after 1998.

It’s this:

Minnesota Poll: Obama, McCain are dead even in state

The poll found that McCain has made gains across the board since a May Minnesota Poll that showed him trailing by 13 points. He has picked up considerable support among men and to a lesser degree among women. He also has boosted his standing with whites, young voters and all levels of household income and education.

I don’t know what to think about a poll from the Strib that shows a dead heat between their annointed One and the guy who can’t thumb an email.

RCP lists Minnesota as +7.0% for Senator Obama as of September 2.

Minnesota a Purple State according to the Red Rag? Does this mean McCain is doing even better than tied with Obammy?

…and on McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin v. Obama’s choice of Biden?

…John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin has moved independent voters towards the GOP ticket, while Obama’s choice of Joe Biden has bombed.

If Minnesota becomes a Red state, can Iowa and Wisconsin be far behind?

Point.

Counterpoint.

Disrespectful is the title…

…too much? “They” say this stuff works.

Polls on McCain v. Obama have swung in favor of the man that can’t email, not because he’s too old but because of injuries sustained during the time he became a national hero in his service to our country – but once again, I digress.

For the time being this is encouraging for supporters of McCain/Palin, especially given the source of these polls and their dubious design.

When it comes down to pulling the lever however, even exit polls can be inaccurate as the Bush/Kerry race revealed, and the current McCain/Obama race still hinges on whether enough American’s truly are post-racism and whether newly-minted young liberals will get off their second-hand Lazy Boy’s and actually vote.

When people put their money where their vote is however, the results are intriguing – and amazingly accurate. Using that measure, McCain is up over the 50% mark.

Intrade is not a poll, it’s a free market wherein people place bets on the outcome of future events by buying or selling “contracts.” The more likely the market thinks–at the moment–that the event is to happen, the higher the price of a contract.

…no one is going to lie when they bet on Intrade. And having to put up real money, like the prospect of being hanged, concentrates minds wonderfully.

Many believe that traders simply reflect conventional wisdom and lack predictive value while at the same time consider them to be more accurate than polls. The truth is somewhere in between but consider this…

In 2004, Intrade correctly predicted the outcome of the presidential election in every single state, even those the pollsters thought too close to call.

Intrade is tracked on Real Clear Politics and may just be another source of data on the leanings of voters if not a predictor. Either way, it bodes well for McCain right now.

So it is interesting that while Obama has been consistently in the 59-61 range (peaking in mid-July, just before his foreign trip, at about 67) ever since the primary season ended in June, he has suddenly fallen to 48.1 as of this morning. In other words, while 60 percent of the traders thought Obama would win two weeks ago, now only 48 percent do.

In political discussions of late, I have maintained that the only way Obama is going to turn things around is to dump Biden, admit his weakness, and put Hillary on the ticket. Do you want to win or not?

Sure enough, although trading is thin, Intrade is showing a rising market value on this event as well although as of this moment there is not enough volume on Hillary Clinton to be on Democratic ticket on Election Day to depict a trend.

Greed is Right. Greed Works. Greed clarifies, cuts through..

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 11AM-5PM:

• Volume I “The First Team” –Brian, Chad and John kick off from 11-1.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I hold forth from 1-3. I betcha dimes to dollars we’ll be talking about the poll turnaround, the incredible shrinking Barack Obama campaign, and Palin Derangement Syndrome.  Or, y’know, not.  Tune in!
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will be dishing the Minnesota smack from 3-5.

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity. On the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

And don’t forget the David Strom Show, with David Strom and Margaret Martin, from 9-11!

(Title courtesy Cool James)

It was Monday, September 12, 1988.

I’d been settled into the new digs, over in Swede Hollow, for almost two weeks.

It was pretty friggin’ awful. Wyatt was…well, Wyatt, only moreso. More women. More booze. More ugly scenes; Teresa had this unfortunate knack of catching Wyatt with other women, lately. It’d always boil into a huge fight, with screaming and smashing things.

I tried to spend most of my days out and about the city – biking, walking, whatever, just to stay out of the house until it was time to come home, clean up and get to whatever bar I was working. There was some good news, there, anyway; I’d gotten a bit of a raise, and they were putting me in some other bars. Not necessarily “better” bars, but other ones, bars that, unlike Jams and City Limits, I wasn’t bored stiff with yet. At least, not individually. All the bars were more or less the same; Silks in Woodbury, Mingles in Brooklyn Park, Websters in Bloomington, Shooters in North Saint Paul, the White Bear Inn in White Bear, Whispers in Minnetonka, J.P. McPicklesh***ers in Burnsville…

…oh, wait. That was from The Onion, as a spoof of that same kind of dismal bar with its atmosphere of contrived fun covering a veneer of Bergmanesque emotional barrenness.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway – lots of bars. The sleazy DJ service loved me because they could put me into any kind of bar – R’nB, rock, biker, country, boring, what have you. So I went into all of them.

My other solace? Maybe, just maybe, getting my radio career back.

I called Charlie, at WMCA in New York. “Yeah, I like your tape!”, he said – five words that almost stopped my heart. “Y’know – it’d be great if you could stop by in New York sometime. We might have a need coming up, and I’d like to talk with you about it”.

Go to New York?, I thought. That’s crazy. I can’t afford that.

“I think I might actually be coming out to New York fairly soon on…other business”, I vamped.

“Good”, said Charlie. “Tell you what – keep me posted. I’d love to meet”.

I hung up, and started looking for cheap airfare. As it happens, I’d never booked an airline ticket before.

A few months ago, I predicted that if Congressional Republicans went into next year with more than 20 seats in the Senate and 100 in the House, it’d be a huge defeat for the Democrats; things were looking that bad. (It was pointed out to me that there are not that many potential GOP Senate seats to lose in the election.  My response; who said anything about elections?  I figured if a huge swath of Republican Senators didn’t resign in fear, it’d add to the Dems’ moral defeat).
Now – it seems Mac and Sarah have some coattails:

A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters’ “generic ballot” preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year…

…The new results come from a Sept. 5-7 survey conducted immediately after the Republican National Convention and mirror the resulting enhanced position of the Republican Party seen in several other indicators. These range from John McCain’s improved standing against Barack Obama in the presidential race to improved favorability ratings of the Republicans, to Republican gains in party identification. The sustainability of all of these findings is an open question that polling will answer over the next few weeks.

The positive impact of the GOP convention on polling indicators of Republican strength is further seen in the operation of Gallup’s “likely voter” model in this survey. Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.

I’ll stick with my prediction, of course; there’s almost two months ’til the election, and the Dems are running against four years of awful GOP history.

But there just might be a shift in momentum, here…

…and I want it for free. 

Dear Starbucks, 

Screw you. 

Caribou, Bruegger’s, Dunn Brothers and a host of ma/pa coffee shops and restaurants give me WIFI access to the Matrix for free. I got it this morning while waiting for my oil change at Walser.

If I buy an Americano for three dollars plus, I expect you to throw in a few Megabits. 

I’ll not access your Web, if it’s not for free. 

No!  – No, Thank You to thee 

I need this great wonder invented by Gore 

But make me pay, and I’m out the door 

I do enjoy your extra burnt Espresso, 

But when I am surfing, you’ll not get my American Expresso. 

Regards, 

JRoosh 

PS Say “Hi” to Howard 

What is the Matrix?

In the Flesh… 

Dodge Challenger

6.1 Liter Hemi V8

425HP

…this one’s for you Kermit.

(more…)

…when the likes of the Minnesoros “Independent” thought this was a real ding on Mac.

Now that Obama is using it…

John McCain is mocked as an out-of-touch, out-of-date computer illiterate in a television commercial out Friday from Barack Obama as the Democrat begins his sharpest barrage yet on McCain’s long Washington career.

The new fighting spirit comes as McCain has been gaining in the polls and some Democrats have been expressing concern the Obama campaign has not been aggressive enough. Obama’s campaign says the escalation will involve advertising and pushes made by the candidate, running mate Joe Biden and other surrogates across the country.

If Obama can’t play guitar, he should just stop.  Because that’s what’s really important.

Bill Clinton and Obama release joint statement 

Clinton: I didn’t inhale.

Obama: I still do.

…keep moving folks. Nothing to see here.

A few years back, a mass of bloggers participated in the “2996 Project”, writing blog commemorations of each of the victims on 9/11.

Sheila got Michael Pascuma, and did her usual amazing job, then and now.

Me?  Well, I never got the invite, but I took one anyway – Ann Nicole Nelson, of Stanley, ND.  Practically a neighbor in that big wide-open place, and she looked like she’d not gotten a writer (I was gratifyingly wrong).

I wrote about Ms. Nelson two years ago.   I was honored – and a little overwhelmed – to see her mother left a comment way back when.

Remember.

8:46:26 a.m (Eastern Time): American Airlines Flight 11 impacts the north side of the North Tower (1 World Trade Center) of the WTC between the 94th and 98^th floors. American Airlines Flight 11 was flying at a speed of 490 miles per hour.

More of this, please.

It’s doing our work for us.

Thanks. That is all.

UPON REFLECTION:  Seriously, lefties – especially “feminists”; does Cintra Wilson speak for you, or resonate in any way?  Why?

…the “whole world” would elect Obama.

On the other hand, they’re all truthers.

Thus, in other words, paying attention to “the whole world’s” views on this election is like listening to your crazy John Bircher neighbor.

That is all.

Feminism, at one point, was about “empowering women”; making them legally and socially equal to men”, or things to that effect.  I’m usually loathe to try to actually define feminism, since for most of the past thirty years most “feminists” have been more concerned about the semiotics of defining degrees of victimization than about actually doing anything useful for women.

Of course, the Clinton years – where organized feminism dropped all pretense of being about women in favor of being about the politics of infanticide – stripped away a good chunk of the canard for those who were paying attention.  And if the organized “feminist” movement had any remaining credibility, the Palin episode should have fed it into the wood chipper.

“It’s not about actually being able to go where your merits take you“, the message has become; “it’s about abortion, and about institutionalizing victimization, and not a lot else.”

And so the kinds of women that feminism would have held out as dreams and ideals a generation ago – Sarah Palin, Condoleeza Rice and others – are excoriated by organized “feminism”; while they’ve succeeded, and done it their way (Rice by leading an academic and political life not tied to any particular guy, Palin by having a family and a wildly successful political career), they have neither supported the civil sacrament of infanticide nor equated federal funding and programs with achievement.

And so, behind the backs right in front of the eyes of Big Feminism a crop of real feminists – women who actually embody the higher original ideals of feminism, merit and equality – have grown up and taken their places and, to the mortification of Big Feminism, realized that the Empress has no clothes is so 1972:
R Tammy Bruce, writing at RCP:

Make no mistake – the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party’s increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic.

The party has moved from taking the female vote for granted to outright contempt for women. That’s why Palin represents the most serious conservative threat ever to the modern liberal claim on issues of cultural and social superiority. Why? Because men and women who never before would have considered voting for a Republican have either decided, or are seriously considering, doing so.

They are deciding women’s rights must be more than a slogan and actually belong to every woman, not just the sort approved of by left-wing special interest groups.

Palin’s candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

Big Feminism traded a benevolent husband for a huge, uncompromising, unthinking, hidebound “movement”.  Little feminists, like Palin and Rice and a whoooole lot of women who are deserting the Democrats today, have worked out the details with hubby and – I get to be optimistic sometimes, don’t I? – ditched the movement.