Links and Minifeatures 2008 02 06 Wednesday

Wizbang on the ongoing implosion of Massachusetts' universal health care experiment.

Every once in a while, there's a time to stand on principle even if you get politically flattened in the process. If you're at all reasonable in general, you will recover politically, and if handled correctly, can actually score lasting points for standing up for principles. Romney blew this one, badly. As a businessperson, he should have known the likely effects even a best case scenario would have. As someone familiar with government programs and advocacy politics, he should have known the projections being made were hopelessly optimistic. As any kind of politician, he should have known how to make his disagreement work in his favor, even while he lost.

I want to snark to the effect of he's obviously betrayed conservative principles, but that would be misleading as well as fatuous because I don't care about conservative principles except insofar as they will work out to the country's long term good. Unfortunately for Romeny, committing this large a portion of government funds to a black hole like unrationed health care is fiscal suicide. And he wants to tell me he's a businessman first, or brings a business perspective to office? What utter nonsense, as this demonstrates.

An interesting email over at NRO

Debunking a popular myth: Livin' Large at Reason.tv

I don't think items of this nature can tell the entire story, but I just took this online candidate matching quiz and surprise! John McCain shows up first at 32, with Mitt Romney a distant second at 22. I'm not taking it as gospel, and I had already voted before encountering it.

Okay, I'm pleased at the results of Super Tuesday last night. I'm not going to call for Romney or Huckabee to quit because of those results, no matter how much I'd like Huckabee to quit. Both candidates scored well enough to still credibly win the nomination, particularly if the convention is brokered. Romney is supposedly consulting his congressional supporters, which is traditionally something candidates do when they're considering an exit. All things considered, I think I'd actually rather he stayed in at this point. Maybe it'll come back to haunt me. But just because I don't support him doesn't mean I don't think his supporters don't have valid points, and once they believe those points have been listened to, maybe they'll calm down.

On the Democratic side, Hillary had the stronger night, although not near strong enough for Obama to go home. I'd rather the Republican nominee faced Hillary than Obama, because too many people know too much about Hillary to deny her true nature, while Obama's record is sufficiently obscure that many people who are ideologically opposed to him might not understand it, and the mainstream press and media have shown themselves ill-disposed to illuminate the public on things he's said and done while out of the national spotlight. He sounds like Reagan, a perception the press is quick to encourage but when it comes down time to act, he has basically nothing in common with Mr. Reagan, or me for that matter. If somebody were to prove to me that the Democratic nominee will be elected, I'd rather it be Obama, but that's like choosing to be devoured by a slightly lesser eldritch horror, as far as I'm concerned.

Private Papers on the illusion of Muslim moderates.

I believe in judging people by what they do. By this standard, I have yet to see any credible evidence of moderates actually influencing other Moslems away from the eventual goal of conquest.