TODAY'S LINKS!

• Lil' Ruthie sounds the alarm: the New Kids on the Court are trouble!
• Retirement just ain't what it used to be.
• Contrary to what Tucker Carlson and others might have you believe, the vast majority of American Muslims are not bloodthirsty jihadist psychopaths. Go figure.

TODAY'S LINKS!

• David Broder, aka Mild Mannered Pragmatist Extraordinaire, goes under the radar re: a debate over pay raises for the military.
• George Will's all worked up about cabbies.
• Tommy B's bullish on the Nats, bearish on the O's. Shocker.
• Count Arianna in the Draft Gore bandwagon. Shocker redux.

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: TODAY'S LINKS!

• MoJo seems to think that, in '08, you spell Nader thisaway: G-R-A-V-E-L.
• Sally Jenkins writes about a (sort of) gender-bending racecar driver.
• Looks like we won't have Cindy Sheehan to kick around anymore.
• Mental Floss helps us understand that nebulous unit of time: a dog-year.

LINKS YOU NEED TO READ...RIGHT NOW!

As the summer starts up, this blogger will be headed to the keyboard for the less immediate gratification of working on some more conventional writing projects. Hence, regular links and snippets of wisdom will have to suffice. To wit:

• The Economist reminds us that all it takes is a wayward astral body to screw things up for everybody.
• Slate confirms that there was, in fact, something up with Monica Goodling's hair.
• Butterflies!

GOP '08 ROLL CALL

Below you'll find some extemporaneous thoughts on where the Republican candidates stand right here, right now. They're rated in order of buzz or viability or momentum or my own personal whim. Or something. (No, I didn't stay at the Holiday Inn Express last night...but I do watch a lot of C-SPAN.) Stay tuned for periodic versions of this (for both parties) as the campaigns proceed.

1. RON PAUL

Okay, I'm not stupid enough to say that Ron Paul is now a viable candidate because he said that 9/11 was partly a result of "blowback" from our interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East (and, one might even argue, the Cold War, given bin Laden's roots in the Soviet-Afghan war). I'm not even stupid enough to say that a lot of people -- a majority, perhaps -- won't agree with Rudy's response: EVIL-EVIL-EVIL-EVIL-EVIL-EVIL! TAKE-IT-BACK! TAKE-IT-BACK! TAKE-IT-BACK! I will say this: Some people in that audience actually applauded when Paul said what he said. (Check the video if you don't believe me.) That's an audience of (likely) Republicans. In South Carolina. Then there's, well, the "blowback" today -- some folks say Paul's a crackpot, but some folks (and not just kooky liberals) are saying he's a gutsy truth-teller. Point being, such statements were off limits in 2004. Kerry couldn't even get away with saying our decisions to go to war should be able to pass a "global test." Admittedly, both Kerry and Paul could've wordsmithed their assertions a little better. But the fact that Ron Paul might actually get a little bump from this suggests to me that, even in the Republican party, it's no longer 2001 -- or even 2004.

T-2. RUDY GIULIANI

A couple of things: First, it's interesting to observe what happens when common sense arguments enter into a Republican debate. Those championing said arguments do so from a defensive posture. Hence, Rudy's position on abortion -- which he shares with a pretty solid majority of Americans, and I daresay a lot of Republicans too -- is again tacked up against the wall and shot at. But it's also interesting how adept Rudy himself is at using that very same tendency to attack basic common sense. His exchange with Ron Paul last night showed a great deal about hizzoner. He knows his political strengths and he's good at playing to them -- he saw an opportunity there and he took it. Scored some points. But two things struck me: 1) he was actually angry at Paul's comments, and 2) he tried to bully Paul into taking it back. That's the picture of a reactionary (which gibes with the composite sketch many of those in the know have offered of him). Now reactionaries do score points in some circles. Is that circle large enough to 1) garner him the Republican nomination even though he's a "social liberal" [perhaps] and then 2) win the general election [your guess is as good as mine]? I suspect the answers will say a lot more about our post-9/11 state of mind than they do about Giuliani's political acumen.

T-2. JOHN McCAIN

What's that you say? Tensile? Trenchant? Transgender? Oh, you mean "transcendent." Yeah, I guess that is a tongue-twister. Other than his usual trouble getting a few words out -- and didn't he say the drunken sailor thing in the last debate? -- McCain seems to be gaining in confidence. He's at his best when he's combative, so we'll see how long he waits before throwing down the gloves with Rudy. He did it with Mitt in last night's debate -- but only after Romney provoked him. One slightly weird observation: Standing next to Rudy last night, it seemed like McCain's head was way smaller than Giuliani's. Wonder what ye olde phrenologist would have to say about that.

4. MITT ROMNEY

Gotta admit: I've got a bit of a Mary-Hart-Epileptic-Fit thing going on with Mitt's voice. I think it's a nasal quality in certain intonations that just doesn't quite agree with my autonomic nervous system. Whatever. The second debate brought up a more chilling specter for the Romney campaign: Debate #1 was pretty much the whole arsenal. He's like that robot lady in Total Recall -- extend the conversation a little bit and his head explodes. Or at least his momentum dies because there doesn't seem to be any more there there. But then everybody already knew he was a robot. An aside: I think it's interesting that pundits are wringing their hands over whether his LDS affiliation will hurt him. That's easy. Sure it does. It hurts him a lot. For him to counteract the LDS reservation for a lot of conservative voters, he's got to eliminate every other reservation they might have. (It's fairly well established he hasn't done that.) And even still it'd be an uphill battle among conservative Christians. Polls and anecdotal evidence abounds to back that assertion up. I mean, when Al Sharpton says Mormons don't believe in God, you can bet there are folks in suburban megachurches all across the South who are nodding in agreement. Which is probably one of the signs of the apocalypse, but there you go. Hence, Romney's polling in the single-digits. Behind two guys who aren't even officially in the race.

5. MIKE HUCKABEE

Give the guy his props -- he's a polished politician who comes off as reasonable and thoughtful. That makes him a bit of a Trojan Horse because he's certainly no moderate. He's what would happen if you spliced W's born-again schtick with Newt Gingrich's "I'm-an-idea-guy!" wonkishness. Not my cup of tea. But, again, credit where it's due: Of the second-tier guys, he seems the most viable after the two debates. Traction? Now that's another story. Might have some veep potential in him, though.

6. DUNCAN HUNTER

Does anybody else get the impression that Congressman Hunter is running for some sort of spy-novel version of the presidency? Why else would he refer to a hypothetical Secretary of Defense as "Sec-Def" -- as if we're all supposed to know what that means? Or maybe we're supposed to be impressed that he knows what it means? One thing's for sure: Duncan's mad as hell -- at everybody -- and he's not gonna take it anymore.

7. TOM TANCREDO

Ah, the other Tommy T. Now this guy understands that if you're not an establishment candidate, then you have to 1) come across as entertainingly crazy and/or 2) be mean and divisive and/or 3) monger fear. Entertaining he's not, but he's got just about every other base covered! Craft a few more of those Road to Damascus vs. Road to Des Moines zingers, and look out, top tier!

8. SAM BROWNBACK

Here's an exemplary bit o' transcript, re: immigration and WWRD (What would Reagan do?): "The system isn't working. We've got to toughen the borders, and we need to do that. And we've got to somehow work together to see a work visa program that will allow people to get into a legal system, not an illegal system. I mean that's what people really get irritated about. It's not that people come into the country legally, it's that they come in illegally. And I think Ronald Reagan would work on those sorts of things." So let's review the platform here: Repetitive and rudderless rhetoric (oh, it's illegal immigration that sticks in people's craw!) . Thumbs down on evolution. Tough love for impregnated rape victims. (How 'bout the reflexive tummy caressing he did when he was talking about all that life teeming within the hypothetical victim's womb?) Yikes. Well, at least he drives a hybrid.

9. JIM GILMORE

Like Thompson, Gilmore suffers -- oddly enough -- because he's not exactly a crackpot. He's just out of touch with political reality. Case in point: Towards the end of last night's debate, he mock apologizes for "stirring things up." Uh, Jim, don't know if you were watching the same debate I was, but that was Ron Paul who got a vein to pop out of Rudy's forehead. Not you. Point being, if you're going to come off as out of touch with what's going on around you, then you better have a gimmick. Insanity. Xenophobia. A thinly veiled theocratic bent. Something. Gilmore thinks he's a legitimate, mainstream candidate but he really isn't. That makes him too easy to ignore.

10. TOMMY THOMPSON

1,900 vetoes. What, exactly, am I to do with that statististic? It means that you...like to...veto things? Mainly I'd like him to throw in the towel so I can stop having vicarious flop-sweat whenever a moderator starts to ask him a question.

DEMS '08 ROLL CALL

Below you'll find some extemporaneous thoughts on where the Democratic candidates stand right here, right now. They're rated in order of buzz or viability or momentum or my own personal whim. Or something. (No, I didn't stay at the Holiday Inn Express last night...but I do watch a lot of C-SPAN.) Stay tuned for the GOP version in the not-too-distant future.

1. HILLARY CLINTON

Hill's chief pollster, Mark Penn, thinks she's inevitable. For whatever that's worth. I kinda think she is too. Which, of course, is worth even less. So forgive me if I count my chickens, but I have to admit I'm thinking general election. To wit: There's been a little attention paid recently to a third-party run, presumably by NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg and Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel. Some pundits think this prospect would cripple Hillary. I'm not so sure it would. Look at it this way: In the likely event that the Republican nominee isn't distancing himself from the Iraq war (...and he's John McCain... or he's a pro-choice adulterer who's a deadbeat dad... or he used to be pro-choice and he's still a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints... ) more than a few anti-Hillary-at-all-costs Republicans would find Bloomberg-Hagel an attractive alternative to someone who's probably a less-than-perfect choice for them. In other words, it doesn't split the pro-Hillary vote; it splits the anti-Hillary vote. Hagel and Bloomberg are Republicans, after all. In the end, Bloomberg wouldn't deliver NY and Hillary won't get Nebraska no matter what. Sure, a few Independents might peel off. But I think it's important to entertain the suspicion that Independents, whether they'll admit it or not, loved the first Clinton administration. They're the reason he had approval ratings in the 60%-range in the midst of impeachment proceedings. Throw the growing influence of the women-voters bloc into the mix and, again, I wouldn't write Hillary off if Bloomberg and Hagel try to elbow their way past her.

2. JOE BIDEN

Biden and Bill Richardson have a great deal in common. Smart, experienced, personable guys who -- maybe because they know/talk a lot and definitely because they're instinctively informal and direct -- are always a hair's breadth away from saying the wrong thing. Biden did well in the first debate ("You guys can have your happy talk..."). We'll see if that means anything. In the end, like Richardson, it's probably more a matter of angling for an influential position in the next administration. If HC's the next prez, Biden could very well get just that (VP, State?), provided he doesn't say or do something really stupid in the interim.

3. BARACK OBAMA

Barry may have jumped the shark when Sharpton's Blackberry went off during his speech at the National Action Network -- which, by the by, he incorrectly addressed as the "Urban Action Network." Obama got off a good line -- "Is that Hillary calling?" -- but, more and more, the answer to that rhetorical question is clear. Yeah, it is Hillary calling. What are you going to do about it? Lately, he's picked up where he left off at the "Urban Action Network" with a few more notable gaffes: overstating the death toll in Kansas by 9,988 and offending fuel-efficiency wonks everywhere by saying Japanese cars get way more MPG than they really do. Couple his fairly consistent tendency for misstatements and an odd propensity to sometimes come off as boring (not the greatest attribute for a supposedly inspirational candidate with vast rhetorical gifts), and it's pretty clear that Obama is precisely what he seems to be: a work-in-progress.

4. BILL RICHARDSON

Still unlikely that Richardson wins the nomination -- but... 1) I thought his first debate performance was sweaty, clumsy, at times even pained [anybody else catch him pop a handful of what I hope to God were analgesics in the spin room immediately after he sparred with Tucker Carlson?] and yet it didn't seem to do him any harm. 2) He's getting a little buzz here of late, what with his cheeky and savvy new ads. And 3) if you believe Tim Russert [juries seem to], the southwest is going to be a big player in the Democratic electoral college calculus. I admit I'm biting my nails for Richardson to keep his inner bombast under wraps, but all things being equal, I'm feeling pretty good about my Clinton-Richardson prediction.

5. JOHN EDWARDS

The reason the dude paid $400 for a haircut? 'Cuz it wasn't just a cut. If I was a betting man, I'd wager at least a ten-spot that it was a color-and-cut. Which begs the question: Doesn't the guy understand that a little gray hair would actually help his image? I'm not an Edwards basher, per se, but I think his own personal vanity -- literally how he looks in the mirror -- does probably trump just about everything else in his life. And while that's not unusual in American life, it is a little off-putting in a candidate for president. A "populist" one, at that.

6. CHRIS DODD

Don't know that Chris Dodd's got much of a chance at the nomination, but isn't it great that -- far from shunning them for their (admittedly precocious) lifestyle choices -- he lets his kids help out with the design of his campaign buttons? He doesn't just teach tolerance, he lives it!

7. DENNIS KUCINICH

Lots of ink (and even a goofy Chris Matthews question in the first Republican debate) about the whole two-fer-one aspect of HC's campaign. Well, what about ol' Denny-and-Liz? They're nothing less than a bizarro Billary, if you ask me. To wit: She towers over him (literally, in this case, whereas Hill's tower is admittedly more figurative) and clearly he has a taste for younger women. Guess that means it's just a matter of time before she has her Tammy Wynette moment. So far she's playing it safe, blogging about the Queen and cucumber sandwiches. Question is, will the inevitable slings-and-arrows aimed at the candidate and his super-strong better half (or would that be his better two-thirds?) derail the seemingly unstoppable machine that is Kucinich '08?

8. MIKE GRAVEL

So it looks like Mad-Mike has taken another baby step towards his ultimate goal of...what, exactly?