The Times Wants Pelosi Replaced

Today's editorial:

"If Ms. Pelosi had been a more persuasive communicator, she could have batted away the ludicrous caricature of her painted by Republicans across the country as some kind of fur-hatted commissar jamming her diktats down the public’s throat. Both Ms. Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, are inside players who seem to visibly shrink on camera when defending their policies, rarely connecting with the skeptical independent voters who raged so loudly on Tuesday."

It's possible they thought that selling Democratic achievements to the voters was the president's job. But Pelosi has been minority leader before -- and in that role, led the party to a majority. In any event, the Times doesn't tell us who would be a good replacement.

DADT Survives

(Sigh):

"The drive in Congress to repeal the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy appears all but lost for the foreseeable future, with action unlikely this year and even less likely once Republicans take charge of the House in January.

President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he wants to overturn the policy, which bans gays from serving openly in the armed forces. Advocates on both sides believed the issue had a chance of coming up in this month's post-election session of Congress. Now that looks unlikely."

Tell me again what Obama has done for gays? Besides make them wait?

Voter Fraud

Adam Serwer:

"In the modern era, there's never been a proven case of someone stealing an election through the deliberate casting of fraudulent ballots, although in the conservative media it's a given that it happens all the time. That's because conservatives think Democratic victories are inherently illegitimate, if not by the letter of the law at least in the sense that liberals and Democrats aren't genuinely American. But the selective nature of voter fraud claims is another hint at the self-conscious nature of this scam. Voter fraud only 'occurs' when Republicans lose, and even then only as an explanation for why a Republican lost."

Net Neutrality and the Election

From the "correlation does not equal causation" files, we get L. Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal:

"As a reminder of unpredictability in politics, consider what happened when the Progressive Change Campaign Committee last month announced that 95 candidates for Congress had signed a pledge to support 'net neutrality.' The candidates promised: 'In Congress, I'll fight to protect Net Neutrality for the entire Internet—wired and wireless—and make sure big corporations aren't allowed to take control of free speech online.'

Last week all 95 candidates lost. Opponents of net neutrality chortled, and the advocacy group retreated to the argument that regulation of the Internet wasn't a big issue in the election.

The broader lesson may be that people fear government regulation of what has been a free and open Internet more than they fear what any other institution might do to the Web..."

An even broader lesson might be that almost nobody was thinking about net neutrality when they entered the voting booth last week. Try as I might, I can't find an exit poll where the issue ranked among voters' top concerns last week. And though I favor net neutrality, broadly, it wasn't even really on my mind when I went to vote.

But no mind. It's pretty easy to make election results say what you want them to say -- even if the election results were silent on the issue. At the very least, opponents of net neutrality legislation can take comfort that voters aren't paying enough attention to punish them if they let corporations have their way on the web.

Aren't Tasers Supposed To Be Non-lethal?

Third person in the region to die from Tasering in the last couple of months:

"MOUNT JOY, Pa. - Authorities in central Pennsylvania say an autopsy is planned Monday on the body of a man who died over the weekend after being subdued by police using a stun gun.

State police say officers in Mount Joy were called to a home shortly before 4 a.m. Saturday by a man who said he was being harassed. Police say 61-year-old Robert Neill 'became combative and aggressive,' and officers used stun guns after repeated attempts to calm him failed and he 'moved aggressively' toward an officer."

South Street Bridge Reopens: The Pictures

On Nov. 6, 2010, the South Street Bridge in Philadelphia was reopened after a two-year closure to rebuild the structure. Center City and West Philly are linked again -- and the community celebrated.

Abraham Lincoln's Anniversary

John Miller at The Corner:

"Exactly 150 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln was elected president. His Republican ticket received only about 40 percent of the popular vote but it did carry an electoral-college majority."

Starting a grand Republican tradition!

(I kid, I kid.)