Friday, February 22, 2008

Quick Takes - 2-22-08

A few random thoughts heading into the weekend:

Maybe it's just me, but Barack Obama's rallies seem more like tent revivals than political events.

"We would like to restore William Wilberforce to his rightful place in history."

Diagramming a smear.

An attentive waiter saves a woman from the worst blind date ever. (Hat tip: Megan McArdle)

George Washington was a great hero, but also human (it's also his birthday):

We should give less slack to those who think of George Washington as a monument, perpetually frozen-faced as in Gilbert Stuart paintings. The danger of taking seriously the "I cannot tell a lie" fables about Washington's childhood is that we might deify him as sinless. But the "cannot" is also not fair to Washington, because the most impressive thing about him is that he had strong tendencies to sin, as do we all, but he fought them more successfully than most of us do.

Read the whole thing.

Portrait of a media junkie.

It's a 52-week television season. NBC decides to start debuting new shows all through the year rather than starting them all in the fall. It's just another sign of the eroding influence of network television. (hat tip: In the Agora)

How Democrats can lose the election.

The steroid scandal has given baseball a black eye, especially in Washington.

Have a great weekend.

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