The Commentariat -- September 25

** Larry's Not-so-Brilliant Career. Maxwell Strachen, in Salon, reports on Larry Summers' biggest blunders. CW: Summers is reportedly returning to Harvard to teach about job creation. How did this train wreck/blowhard get so arrogant?

Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times: corrupt Iraqi officials made off with $1.4 million worth of computers purchased by the U.S. & designated for Iraqi schoolchildren. The U.S. has forced the Iraqi government to investigate, sort of, & some computers have been recovered.

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar & Jennifer Agiesta of the AP: "President Barack Obama's health care overhaul has divided the nation, and Republicans believe their call for repeal will help them win elections in November. But ... a new AP poll finds that Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1."

My link to biographer Ron Chernow's excellent op-ed in yesterday's New York Times got lost in the ether, so better late than never. Chernow addresses the Tea Party's ahistorical view of the Constitution & its authors. "The truth is that the disputatious founders — who were revolutionaries, not choir boys — seldom agreed about anything." They definitely did not agree on how the Constitution should be interpreted, & George Washington himself came down on the side of a strong federal government.

The Republicans, I think, merged with the Tea Party, and in many instances they're finding out it's the Donner Party, because it's knocking off Republicans left and right. -- DNC Chair Tim Kaine

... Dana Milbank, a Donner descendant, thinks Kaine was unfair to the Donners (stranded in the Sierras & starving, the Donners resorted to dining on their own dead): "Republicans have been doing things to each other that would make a Donner's stomach turn." Milbank cites some examples of Republicans gleefully eating their own.

Gail Collins: Republican Sens. Jim DeMint & Tom Coburn, for no good reason, have put a hold on a bill that would allow the creation of a National Woman's History Museum which would be privately-funded. Coburn's "reason" is that there are already plenty of museums with women in them....

... CW: I liked Akhilleus' (#5) explanation: "National Women's History Museum. Now can you think of four things far right extremists like DeMint find more unappealing?" Karen Garcia (#4) thinks that if Meryl Streep, who gave $1MM to the women's museum & is playing former British PM & Reagan chum Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming film, should testify before Congress, in character, which will "bring back such fond memories of Uncle Ronnie the Republicans will ... give her whatever she wants."

Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post asks a question on the minds of many of us: why let Bob Woodward into the White House? She doesn't answer the question, but she does make some thoughtful observations about President Obama's decision-making process, as Woodward describes it.

A.G. Sulzberger of the New York Times: "Judicial elections that were designed to be as apolitical as possible are suddenly as contentious as any another race."

Andrew Lehren of the New York Times: "Experts say that weak oversight of the 2.7 million miles of gas pipeline in the United States has contributed to hundreds of episodes that have killed 60 people in the last five years."

Gardiner Harris of the New York Times: under the Obama Administration, the Food & Drug Administration has become more transparent & more flexible as demonstrated by their unusual decision on the controversial diabetes drug Avandia.

In 2003, Christine O'Donnell vowed to "stop the whole country from having sex. Yeah, yeah.... Kids are not dogs in heat":

"Evolution Is a Myth." As promised, Bill Mahar has more. From his ABC show, "Politically Incorrect":