Lightning Round: I Didn't Hold Nixon in Contempt Until Obama was President.

• John Kerry is rightfully receiving accolades for successfully getting Hamid Karzai to agree to a runoff election to address the clear irregularities in the recent Afghan elections. But at National Review, this diplomatic victory is an excuse to bash Richard Holbrooke and describe meaningful small-d democracy promotion as "bringing around Hamid Karzai to the Obama administration's point of view." Wasn't this the same magazine that believed the U.S. government should intervene in Iranian affairs during their disputed election in the name of democracy promotion?
• The fact that the Obama White House is aggressively going after critics of his administration is not going over well with conservatives and Republicans accustomed to mercilessly assaulting more passive opponents. Dana Perino thinks calling out Fox News is dictatorial behavior, although she herself is on the record going after MSNBC, among other networks. She also believes that Obama is "burning his bridges" with conservatives, as if there were any bridges in place to begin with. But strangest of all is the meme that Obama is "Nixonian" and is keeping an "enemies list." Only when I see evidence of Obama ordering the FBI to spy on his enemies and using the IRS to launch tax-audit vendettas will I have any reason to take this nonsense seriously.
• The conservative effort to whitewash the reputation of George W. Bush is quite the spectacle to behold. The latest riposte to the fact that Obama did in fact inherit problems that were initiated by or allowed to fester under Bush is that Obama is some sort of whiner who can't go two minutes without blaming everything on his predecessor's actions. A good example is an exceptionally dishonest editorial by NR chief cheerleader Rich Lowry, who paints Obama in this light without mentioning a single example of "Obama's perpetual campaign against Bush." Moreover, the editorial doesn't even mention the gravity of the problems Obama was handed on Jan. 20 -- nope, the important thing is that we recognize Obama's constant evocation of his "eternal foil," George W. Bush so we might all start to conveniently forget the utter disaster the Bush presidency was.
• I think Pat Buchanan's shockingly honest lament for white racial superiority has induced others to offer up candid summations of anachronistic world views. How else to explain a Goldman Sachs adviser's remarks that "we have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all" or an Oklahoma state representative's explanation that in the Sooner State "we have a very strong feeling that women aren’t capable of making reproductive decisions when it comes to terminating a pregnancy."
• Remainders: Be on guard when Senate "centrists" get together; Congress votes against further funding for an ineffectual Great Wall; this "Martin Eisenstadt" character is pure genius; and does progressive legislation have an aura of inevitability?

--Mori Dinauer