After his less-than-inspiring response to President Obama’s address in February to a joint session of Congress, Gov. Bobby Jindal (La.) appears to be engaging the first stage of rehabilitation, leaning hard into the “question policies not motives” meme. Good for him. Love him or not, it’s the right thing to do; the cornerstone of civilized debate.

Ben Smith spotlights the list put together by Mark Halperin. From what I’ve read, I think Mr. #10 is a more significant factor in this equation than his position on Halperin’s list suggests.

You get this and this. Gut reaction: Grow up, people. Life’s too damn short. Post Script: I read Sullivan daily and Althouse rarely, but I enjoy both and think both are intelligent and generally clear-headed people. Even then, I found this little spat embarrassing. That’s not to say there weren’t real offenses committed in this exchange; there were. So be it. Turn the other cheek and move on. And yes, I could have just ignored their debate, but I was fascinated by it for...

From Politico this morning: A small group of freshman Democrats think they’ve found a simple but effective way to signal to their constituents that they aren’t part of the problem in Washington: frequently reaching across the aisle to co-sponsor bills with Republicans. Nate Silver suggested yesterday that, for Obama, bipartisanship is “a process rather than an outcome.” Apparently, for this new generation of members of Congress, it’s both.

One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers offers an inside look at “the gap.” In comparison, my “conservative family” seems rather mild.

One Michigan auto dealer is about to find out. Eric Zimmermann has the details at The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

Eric Zimmermann of The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room reports that the National Republican Senatorial Commitee (NRSC) is using “the bow” to juice fundraising. Perhaps Senate Dems should stop trying to explain this away and, instead, respond in kind … times two.

Chris Cillizza writes “The Fix” blog for WaPo. Late afternoon yesterday, he published a list of reader-nominated “best state blogs.” Checking that list for blogs in my home state, Missouri, I noted the blog of one of TMV’s own, Jill Miller Zimon, which not only made the cut for her home state, Ohio, but was also recognized as one of the “best named blogs.” Congrats to Jill. Note: If I missed any other TMV contributor’s blog on “The Fix”...

Entertainment Weekly broke the story more than 24 hours ago. Ben Smith picked up on it around 11 a.m. yesterday. I first saw it at OTB later in the day. In short, actor Kal Penn — of the “Harold and Kumar” movies and the hit FOX series “House” (an Abel family favorite) — has left the latter for a much different house: He’ll be an associate director in the White House office of public liaison, the team responsible for building bridges between the President...

Walt Minnick was one of the 22 budget-dissenting Democrats I wrote about last week. Today, Politico profiles him, shedding light on the reasons for Minnick’s resistance to the Obama administration. Minnick is one face of the Democrats’ larger governing dilemma, which Sean Trende reviews, in length, at RCP. Trende’s conclusion: Obama still has a number of members from conservative districts who will have to watch their backs with their constituents. Until Democrats find a way to...

I value constructive compromise. I also value dissent, especially intra-party dissent. After six troubling years of a compliant Republican majority handing a less-than-competent Republican administration virtually everything it wanted, I left (returned to and left again) the Republican party and joined the ranks of independent, unaffiliated voters. In the process, I (eventually) vowed to celebrate party dissent and resist party unity because I saw how unity can lead to less-than-ideal if not disastrous...

Almost lost in the shuffle of today’s news about the polarized votes approving President Obama’s budget is the fact that former presidential candidate and UFO spotter Rep. Dennis Kucinich was among the 20 House Dems who voted against the budget. Asked to explain, Kucinich replied: This budget is a statement of principles for the upcoming year, and I cannot accept it in its entirety. I will not vote for a budget that ties military spending to the operational funding of our government....

Double Take #1: Despite trying, Andrew Sullivan can’t seem to quite get out of the “makers and takers” hole he dug. And it probably doesn’t help matters when his readers keep knocking him down a notch or two. That’s the funny thing about readers: They insist on keeping writers honest. Double Take #2: Columnist Froma Harrop was motivated enough by my ignorance of her and her work to email me an introduction — and to subsequently share another column in which...

The Cagle Post identifies her as “an independent and witty voice.” The bio at her blog informs us that, per Media Matters for America, she’s among the top-20 syndicated columnists. Yet I had never heard of Froma Harrop until I read her RCP column today — an oversight that suggests either (a) it’s increasingly difficult to achieve broadscale name recognition in this country, or (b) I’m hopelessly out of touch. Let’s go with (b) for now, to avoid a distracting...

Andrew Sullivan clarifies his thoughts on the “new cultural divide” between “the producers of wealth and the recipients of redistribution.” In the process, he augments David Frum’s recent notes on an adaptive, big-tent conservatism. Frum writes that conservatism: … will only be successful to the extent it is knowledgeable, to the extent it is public-spirited, to the extent that it is based on evidence and research, to the extent that it advocates the greater good...

According to David Frum, Niccolo Macchiavelli identified “the tragedy of man” as a failure to adapt to change. Thus Frum concludes an essay, posted Saturday, in which he rebuffs fellow conservatives. For those who lean right but believe the current Right is lost in the forest, there’s much to like in Frum’s self-defense. The Economist’s Lexington spotlights one notable excerpt; Andrew Sullivan focuses on another. For me, this was the crux of the essay (emphases added)...

Too many people attempt to shift the message of Christ away from its original focus on individual reformation toward a mass political movement. My father, who died last week from pancreatic cancer, resisted that tendency, as I explained in my eulogy at his memorial service Sunday. I share that eulogy here, in edited form, as a tribute to my father’s exceptional life and example.

Last week, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) launched a blog, expanding on her already well-documented use of social media. Toward the end of her first week of blogging, McCaskill published a post hinting that she, like Sen. Bayh (D-IN), is not entirely sold on President Obama’s budget; however, because she respects the President’s ability to listen, she is confident he’ll take reasonable criticism of his budget to heart and compromise accordingly. That hint, and its timing, strikes...

This commentary on embryonic stem cell research caught my attention for two reasons. First, its tone is perhaps the most even-handed and civil that I’ve read to date; it pays considerable respect to all points of view on the subject. Second, its author, Eric Mink, is a journalist who was not-long-ago caught in the crosswinds battering the newspaper industry. I have great respect for Eric. His columns are regularly anchored by more fact than opinion, a trait that strikes me as increasingly...

Chris Cillizza tosses a spotlight on Sen. Evan Bayh, whose centrist instincts are making the once-rumored VP contender a fly in the soup of Obama’s administration: Bayh’s actions have caused some grumbling — privately, of course — among some in the White House who view his freelancing as less than helpful in seeking to push Obama’s legislative agenda through Congress. A friendly suggestion for these anonymous grumblers: Re-read the frickin’ Constitution. Neither...

I’m a little too late to the Chas Freeman dust up to add incremental value to the postmortem. But the debate surrounding Mr. Freeman and his attitude toward Israel did force me — even as a consistently, instinctively pro-Israel observer — to ask: Is it ever appropriate to criticize Israel’s government? If it is, under what conditions; i.e., who can articulate such criticism, and how they can do so without getting reflexively trashed? Those questions prompted me to recall a book...

(Warning: Imbedded in this post is an act of shameless self promotion.) Despite my flirtation with Web 2.0, I’m a bit old fashioned. My favorite media remain newspaper and radio — especially intelligent, reasonable, non-Limbaugh radio, which explains (in part) my growing love affair with National Public Radio (NPR) and its affiliate in my area, KWMU. Late last year, this love affair induced an “itch.” Twenty-four months earlier, a similar itch drove me to start blogging....

That’s how one reader characterized my recurring hope that the Republicans will regain the Senate in two years and thus provide the counterbalance every great President needs, even one with the exceeding skills and exceptional character of Barack Obama. This reader/critic has a point. Thirty-five Senate seats will be contested in 2010. (Normally, it would be 34, but VP Biden’s vacated Senate seat will be subject to a special election in 2010. His named replacement, Democrat Ted Kaufman,...

David Brooks updates today his Tuesday column of concern, which I commented on not once but twice that day. Tuesday, Brooks argued that “the Obama budget is a liberal, big government document that should make moderates nervous.” This argument apparently riled up the Administration enough that they called Brooks in for a convincing session. But the columnist wasn’t easily dissuaded from his starting assessment: I didn’t finish these conversations feeling chastened exactly. The...

Stephen Chapman misses him. So do I. Even during the 90’s, when I was still an adamant Republican, I had great respect for President Clinton’s modest approach to government — an approach that stood in stark contrast to the immodesty with which he conducted the rest of his life. And yes, I thought the Republicans at the time were idots for trying to make Clinton’s personal immodesty a focal point of their campaign to return to the White House, ignoring the productive relationship...