I got to follow Mike Huckabee around New Hampshire recently and the piece that followed is in the latest (9/10) issue of The American Conservative. Here is just a taste:

In style and substance, Huckabee is a different kind of Republican. As local GOP activists gather in the living room, the former governor of Arkansas remains on the patio with his hosts, discussing his own band, Capitol Offense, and how they opened for Willie Nelson. He tells Mary that he noticed her impressive audio equipment and just has to hear it before he leaves. He’s smiling and insistent. She is happy to comply. After all, Mike Huckabee has played Red Rocks.

Besides being an interesting and likable candidate - who could potentially do damage in Iowa, then slip into a VP role - there is was something else I discovered about the former governor of the Natural State

Huckabee’s policy naiveté, and his willingness to label as “unholy flames of racism” what most see as vigorous and honest disagreement, signal that he is a sort of character wonk—more concerned with the morality of the citizenry than with the laws that govern them. Unlike Obama or Bush before him, Huckabee asks us not only to rise above partisanship but to rise above ourselves.

Run out and grab a copy, or a subscription today. If that isn't enough, I also have a shorter piece about him in Comment is Free - the Guardian's very cool web-mag.

My piece on the recent conference held by Christians United For Israel is online now. There is a funny feeling when a writer picks a "hot" or "radioactive" topic. The last time I wrote something that could ruffle feathers, it was a big piece. I got compliments from the strangest places for weeks and weeks. Through back channels, I was told I was persona non grata by others. I found out that famous people in this business would get the issue of that magazine and flip immediately to my piece. I know why they did it.  It's like watching a young demolitionist handle the most eruptive chemicals for the first time in an open environment. "Is he going to destroy himself, or others?" They didn't read it primarily to discover something new about the subject - that's a bonus - but to find out about me. I survived that scrutiny, for now.

Even a few months later, I stood at the back of CPAC with two writers whose careers I would love to emulate. One of them had even vetted the piece a little before publication (without my knowledge). They speculated that I had done no damage to my career - which meant that I had done something good for my career. I said with a hint of regret, "I'm not so sure." They both leaned in almost begging to know what I had brought down on myself. "Either way, it's puff-pieces from now on," I joked.

Anyway, you'll discover that I didn't get "the Jew thing" John Derbyshire talks about. It's not all that hot, and besides Max Blumenthal's video ridiculing the conference attendees has been up for weeks. I'm safe.

As for Walt and Mearsheimer, like Matt, I've got a copy around here somewhere and plan to get to it and hope it sparks a debate. The problem with the issue of "the Lobby" is that it becomes not only a debate about American foreign policy, but Israel's policies in the territories. And soon people are accusing each other of sanctioning some kind of mass murder or another. One side believes the other to be the heir of "1930s isolationism" - which is considered to be operationally anti-Semitic. Then those people are accused of retreating from human rights, sanctioning all sorts of abuse and setting up a double standard. And who wants to sort out these veiled accusations of dual loyalties, or anti-Semitism? I just don't see any seismic shift in this debate coming soon - because its just such a pain to begin talking about it.

While I'm mentioning the Weekly Standard, I wanted to point out a fantastic piece by Michael Goodwin and Fred Siegel on Elliot Spitzer. For years we all had to endure these overblown profiles about Spitzer's boys in the A.G.'s office and how they were so much like crusaders, and so great, and so T.R.

Finally we see Spitzer as a pathetic, vindictive bully. Keep in mind, while reading this piece that Joe Bruno is not some great political figure in New York State. He's a kind of relic from the Saratoga Springs area of upstate New York.

Also, I realized that it is a consistently slow internet connection that keeps me from blogging more. It just takes a long time to call up the stories I want to link to and to construct a post. What would be done within 5 minutes on your average fast connection takes more like 20 or more on mine. I'll try to find a solution.

I should preface this by saying that I really have enjoyed most of Matt Continetti's work. His piece on George Allen last year had all the great virtues of magazine journalism - it was thorough, stylish and timely. But in three out of four consecutive issues of the Weekly Standard, Continetti has been reporting on Rudy Giuliani. In the first, Continetti takes on Michael Gerson's assertion that Giuliani is Nixon. Fine so far. The latest, "Rudy and the Commitments", contains a section I find somewhat strange:

After the debate, Giuliani stayed two more days in Iowa, outlining his "Eighth Commitment to the American People": "I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children." Giuliani is pro-choice in a pro-life party, and every time he discusses the Eighth Commitment, he's touching on an issue that divides him from the Republican electorate. It's a bold move, befitting a politician who has never blanched at controversy. The problem here is that his disagreement is with the voters he wants to nominate him for president.

A senior policy adviser to Giuliani gives three reasons the mayor thinks his Eighth Commitment is important. Giuliani "cares about children," says the adviser, and he can point to his record of increasing the number of adoptions in New York City. More important, though, the mayor wants to emphasize common ground with pro-lifers and get practical about steps he can take as president to reduce abortions. - Matt Continetti

Giuliani "cares about children." I'm just not sure that it's worth quoting an unnamed adviser on this matter. It doesn't exactly distinguish Giuliani from other candidates (who don't care about children - or who only care about them in the womb? Let's say something here). Also, this assertion that he "has never blanched at controversy." I know we are engaged in the opinion journalism business, but I'm not even sure what this means. Giuliani creates controversy - for instance, when he made a routine of calling constituents crazy, or when he promoted Bernard Kerik's career without having vetted him - or a worse possibility, after discovering his mob ties.

Anyway, I'm no stranger to writing flattering profiles, but this paragraph from the second article is inexplicable.

The rap on Giuliani is that his candidacy is based entirely on his leadership during September 11, 2001, and the days that followed. The truth is that Giuliani rarely mentions 9/11 on the stump. He speaks of it allusively or as part of a list of terrorist attacks against the United States and U.S. interests stretching back three decades. He seems more interested in preventing future attacks than in reminiscing about past terrorist successes. - Matt Continetti

There is just nothing presented to support this. Give me an anecdote that reveals this conscious or unconscious interest of Giuliani.  The quote that follows doesn't support it at all. In fact, Giuliani's big essay in Foreign Policy would seem to contradict it as it begins and ends with several invocations of 9/11.

I really think the next piece from the Standard on Giuliani, should deal with the claims made by this piece.

I always forget the basic rule of blogging: always link to you own stuff. The kids are talking about a piece I wrote on Former Sen. Rick Santorum just before I went on vacation. It's a milestone article, for the Senator, I think - in that it is probably the first piece about him that was neither glowingly positive or referred to him as "Mr. Man on Dog." Progress, I think.

It doesn't come through in the piece but even though I think the former Senator's ideas about foreign policy are off the wall, he was an especially kind interview and I get the impression that he is a very decent man in his personal relations.

I'm heading up to the Granite State for some good old fashioned fun at Chowerfest, a cheap motel stay and work. Who knew that reporting required so many car repairs?

Fashion on FacebookSo Newsweek finally caught up to everyone else and did something about Facebook. I had avoided social networking sites until just a few months ago. For me it started in the same way it does for most people:  my best friend insisted that I must see a photo that he put on his myspace page. So I made up a Myspace page for myself in order to get access to his page. Eventually my page included a song by Whiskeytown. I started getting "friended" by all sorts of characters from my high school. But I hated how disorganized everything seemed to be. So, after discovering that nearly everyone that friended me on myspace also used Facebook, I switched over.

Here are some quick notes and observations. College-aged kids join in order to build their social network and have fun. College graduates do a little of that but also have immediate professional concerns. On my recent vacation, my ladyfriend's little brother's girlfriend (soon to enter college) took a couple of pictures in which I look like I spent the afternoon playing in the dryer before spending the evening playing with whiskey. Fun, yet not exactly the kind of thing I want all my peers and potential employers to see. No emergency, but I'm now determined to buy a fantastic digital camera so that I can accumulate enough photos to push hers way way down.

As for the Groups options - there are plenty. I'm a member of a group of people who expect that my girlfriend's little brother will die unnaturally and soon. I saw today that one of my friends no longer wishes to express his support for General Franco publicly. I started a group based on shared astonishment at Daniel Larison and his blog.  

Besides my admiration for Eunomia - people can learn that I root for the New York Mets, the New Jersey Devils and the Sydney Swans; that I'm interested in wine and tariffs; that I'm currently reading Scoop by Evelyn Waugh; that I really like Ryan Adams' latest album "Easy Tiger" and that I am willing to affiliate myself with people who claim they would "wear John Stockton shorts if it were socially acceptable."

There is an under-appreciated side to Facebook and its mass following. It is re-introducing some social stigmas and reversing the former web trend of anonymity. New York magazine long ago noted that young people were making a spectacle of themselves online. It's all so new and scary, they said. But in a way, there is something quaint about it.

For instance: Your status on Facebook can function as a big public promise ring. Don't flirt with that girl at the bar, she may check on your status and send a message to your mate. Where once a man could hide his wedding band, now his marriage may be as public to the entire net as it would have been in a small 19th century village.

This is a stunning reversal in many ways. Back when I sported a bizzare screen name on Prodigy, the internet was a landscape shaped by anonymity. We discovered that anonymity allows people to be cruder than they normally would be - more argumentative, more raunchy, more like a jackanapes. In some ways, chat rooms and online forums retain that character. But Facebook, Myspace and to a lesser degree blogs are making us all much (perhaps much too much) familiar. I wonder if it will make us more tame - and not just in matters of fidelity. After all, I want those pictures pushed down or crowded out and they aren't all that bad. It's just that they aren't part of what I would show someone at first - a first date or a first interview. Facebook, in many ways, makes your first impression for you. It also gives your first impression a kind of permanence and sterility by always being available and always being static. You can change your profile, for sure. But people don't experience those changes in the same way as they experience discovering something new in your personality. Online etiquette guides suggest you treat your Facebook page like a resume. The big difference is that your personal life is now as much a part of that resume as your previous jobs and education. The meritocratic urge to do all the right things that could appear on a resume certainly changed the behavior of a generation that is just getting out of the Ivy League schools it sought. Now that the drunken kissing photos, the allusions to marijuana, and other "interests" are part of our permanent record, I'm willing to bet a certain type of person will take as much care with their personal credentials as they have with their academic and professional career.

Just got back from my first real summer vacation as an employed, health-insured adult. Jenny from Chicago wanted new posts. I will  get to my thoughts on public matters like the "NAFTA Superhighway", Robert Putnam, and Facebook soon. First, I'm guessing you all want to know about some of the things I did on this vacation. At the beach house in Sea Isle City, NJ, being occupied by one of the great established families of Brewster, New York and their hangers-on (me included), we had laptop computers for the first time. Six in all. Almost one laptop for every three people. And there were several wireless networks floating around. Here is a rule: If you want to keep up your bandwidth when you are "down the shore" in Jersey. Don't name your network "linksys" or "wireless" or "beach" and neglect to protect it with a password. If you do, you can't complain when college students lay online role playing games, or download episodes of Entourage on your dime.

Click to read more ...

If you haven't been checking out Inside Washington Weekly, the podcast of the America's Future Foundation, please do. This week I appeared with Anastasia Ugolva of Politalk , Peter Suderman of The American Scene and the host, David White. We talk about the politics surrounding the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Obama's foreign policy speech, the latest polls out of Iowa and the YearlyKos convention.

The best part of the show is that it includes many of the smartest people from all points of the right. Take a look at the list of contributors. Each week, one or more of the major magazines is represented, Dave Weigel of Reason, Matt Continetti from The Weekly Standard, Jamie Kirchick from The New Republic, David Fredosso (now at National Review Online) and then there is me, from The American Conservative. Along with these fellows you have Amanda Carpenter of Townhall.com; J.P. Freire of Brainwash; Sarah Longwell of Berman and Company; Kristen Soltis of the Winston Group;  Jonathan Williams of the American Legislative Exchange Council and my co-panelists this week.

Using the 1986 Mets as my springboard, I have a casual little piece in The American Spectator today about our current sports scandals. I have to say, the funniest part about this story is the waiting game I had to play last night, to make sure A-Rod and Bonds didn't smash their records and ruin a few of my sentences with them. After watching my Mets beat up on the Brewers, I had to keep Sportscenter on in the background until midnight safely rolled around.