Lightning Round: Pining for the Days When the Grown-ups were in Charge of our Foreign Policy.

• Just so we're clear, Obama shutting out Fox News is some combination of a) tearing up the Constitution and Bill of Rights, b) the brutal thuggery of "Chicago-level politics," c) censorship and an abuse of power, or d) a litmus test for executing people. Don't say we weren't all warned.
  
• I believe that under very specific circumstances (viz this James Fallows piece from four years ago) a third-party candidate could emerge as a credible alternative to Barack Obama and whatever hero the GOP pits against him, but this won't be fueled by the "rise" of independent voters. Fortunately, Cillizza gets that virtually all self-described independents are actually Democratic- or Republican-leaning voters, and notes the tremendous institutional hurdles facing third-party candidates. I would add that the truly "independent" voter has never been (and probably can't be) adequately defined, which means they're always going to be all things to all people.
• I suppose it was inevitable that public attitudes about global warming would eventually begin to cite a lack of "solid evidence" as reason to turn against the need for action. After all, even under the worst-case scenario, the effects of dumping millions of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere won't be felt for decades, and the effects will be highly concentrated in the poorest parts of the world. That isn't a recipe for getting Americans concerned that maybe we ought to be taking steps to avert this catastrophe.
• These two items from National Review's "Off the Page" truly capture the strength of imagination in today's "conservative" mind. Item 1: "What If the GOP Were in Charge? Yuval Levin describes what could have been -- had the other guys won last fall. Tune in to today's episode of Off the Page for a thought-provoking alternative history." Item 2: "End Women's Suffrage? John Derbyshire examines the effects that female voting has had upon our culture in this episode of Off the Page."
• Remainders: I'm curious how Olympia Snowe is going to explain support for a health care filibuster to her constituents; Mary Landrieu is an uninformed hypocrite; Alan Grayson discovers the intellectual limits of his House Republican colleagues; keep your eyes on this "gas tax" nonsense; and this ought to be the final word on the risks involved with contrarian arguments.

--Mori Dinauer