Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with an essay by Myron Magnet.

Both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees won today. Boston’s magic number to eliminate New York is down to 57.

Law professor John Yoo argues that, on the question of executive privilege, President Bush has the Constitution on his side. What Professor Yoo doesn’t understand is that this carries little or no weight with progressives. They believe that law is just politics in disguise. In other words, they don’t take the Constitution seriously.

Here is a scene from today’s stage of the Tour de France, won by Alexander Vinokourov. The Kazakh rider averaged 21.84 miles per hour on the 121.7-mile course. Here is the story. Here is the New York Times report. Tomorrow is a rest day. Here is Wednesday’s decisive stage.

Addendum: Yesterday, Vinokourov finished almost 29 minutes behind the winner of the stage, Alberto Contador. He began today’s stage more than 34 minutes behind the overall leader, Michael Rasmussen. Someone might say that it’s too bad Vinokourov lost all that time yesterday, or today’s performance would have put him in contention for the overall victory. This has it backward. Had Vinokourov not lost all that time yesterday, he would not have been allowed to win today. He began the day so far behind that nobody worried about him.

There are three presidential candidates I can wholeheartedly support, and two of them have not yet announced. I like Mitt Romney very much, but I don’t think he can overcome resistance to his Mormonism. The two who haven’t announced, but who show signs of wanting to run, are Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich. Here is a column about Newt.  How can you not like a man who disdains Chris Matthews?

Here.

To the Editor:

In “A New Populism Spurs Democrats on the Economy” (front page, July 16), you are right to point out that economic insecurity is driving many Democrats to take a more populist tone this year. But those fears—stemming from the challenges of global interdependence—are nothing new.

In 1992, Gov. Bill Clinton promised to put people first by helping Americans win in the global economy. If Democrats long to bring back the prosperity of the 1990s, we can’t lose sight of the fundamentals that produced the growth and opportunity in that decade—or the need to apply them to the economic havoc the last six years have produced.

This means restoring fiscal discipline, lowering health care costs and expanding coverage, giving Americans the tools to compete, and enforcing trade laws the Bush administration has ignored while expanding trade—not restricting it—by opening markets abroad.

To be successful today, Democrats once again need to heed the aspirations and address the fears of the middle class. That’s a proven New Democratic formula to helping ordinary Americans get ahead.

Al From
Founder and Chief Executive
Democratic Leadership Council
Washington, July 17, 2007

Here.

Would somebody please do me a favor? Tell me whether you get Versus on television. When I got up yesterday to watch the Tour de France, the channel was gray. It was gray all day. It’s still gray. I’ve called my cable channel several times to complain. They don’t know what’s going on. All they say is that it must be a networking problem, since all of my other channels are fine. What does that mean? Does that mean that nobody in the United States is getting Versus? Does it mean that my cable company, Charter, isn’t getting it? It’s maddening. Nobody knows what’s going on. Nobody cares.