Not exactly a classic (in fact, I think that more than anything else it's just an indication of the writers' desire to burn off the leftovers from this piece from a couple of years ago), but it's from The Onion and it's about John Edwards, so I'd be derelict not to link to it:

"Many bad things are not just bad—they're terrible," said a beaming Edwards, whose "Only the Good Things" proposal builds upon previous efforts to end poverty, outlaw startlingly loud noises, and offer tax breaks to those who smile frequently. "Other candidates have plans that would reduce some of the bad things, but I want all of them gone completely."

Progress.



(This is pretty much everywhere at this point, but I first saw it here.)

Oliver Stone, on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

"I wish the Iranian people well, and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours."

(Thanks to AMERICAblog.)

Matt Bai's New York Times Magazine profile of John Edwards (which I meant to link to a couple of weeks ago, but apparently didn't) ends like this:

It took 40 years after Robert Kennedy's death for another establishment Democract to summon the courage to build a campaign around economic injustice. If Edwards should win the nomination but lose the White House, it might well be another 40 years before anyone tries again.

That's reason enough to vote for him right there.

Not up my usual alley at all, but worth noting all the same: Lawrence Lessig is leaving the IP world and embarking on a quest to save politics. Really truly.

Joe Biden drinks Republican-flavored Kool-Aid? (I can't find a [This Week] transcript to link to, so I'm just copy-and-pasting from Lexis.)

Stephanopoulos: After the president's veto of the funding bill, you voted to fund the troops. Your colleague, Senator Obama, opponents, as well, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton voted the other way. I know you don't want to criticize your opponents but it's clear you believe that a no-vote puts the troops at additional risk, correct?
Biden: Absolutely, positively, unquestionably it would have delayed - let's say we had 51 no votes, it would have kicked the can down the road another week, month, month and a half and in the meantime, George, we would have built 300, 500, 1,000 less of the mine-resistant vehicles that are taking 70% of the lives and 70% of the injuries. It would have just delayed that with no possibility, emphasize, no possibility of overriding the presidential veto. I wasn't prepared to play chicken with the lives of the American troops. Bush maybe, not me.

Now, look. I understand the need to separate yourself from your primary opponents, I really do. But to do so by buying into the laughable GOP premise that it was Congress holding the strings here, and that it was Congress who would bear the responsibility for placing the troops in harm's way... give me a break. I hope Obama elbows you in the mouth.

Update: Still no transcript, but here's a post about it from The USA Today's politics blog (...).

Mike Gravel is also a hoot, though perhaps in a slightly more intentional way than Lurita Doan.

Lurita Doan is a hoot.

TPM points to this essay, in which FindLaw columnist Vikram Amar argues that the Wisconsin statute directing the governor to keep Craig Thomas's Senate seat in GOP hands is quite possibly unconstitutional.

There is a very strong textual argument that the Seventeenth Amendment prevents the Wyoming legislature from dictating the Governor's choices in making a temporary appointment: The Amendment's language differentiates between a state "legislature" and a state "executive" authority, and allows a state legislature not to make or constrain any temporary appointments itself, but rather only to "empower the [state] executive to make [the] appointment."

The essay's a bit boring (in the grand tradition of law professors), but it makes a pretty compelling point.

Those pesky former generals are giving Bush all manner of trouble.

Creationists are funny.

Fox News doesn't actually know who Bill Jefferson is.