Norm Ornstein calls out the Clinton Rules

Good for him.

Prime time - readiness division

We can already confirm that reports of Jeb Bush's political death are post-mature. It's not just that his out-of-touchitude is immediately being underlined by the data -- as in the wire-service pieces on his gaffe -- but that it plays into an already strongly-held existing narrative, the congenital out-of-touchness of his family: 41's supermarket scanner gaffe, Dubya after Katrina, and Jeb's own flubbing of the most obvious question he would be given as he began his campaign, on Iraq.

Further, the great sucking sound we're hearing is of the air rushing out of the GOP clown car and into the lungs of epic-fail candidates. So far, it's the Donald and the Jeb! and the, er, Tanned One. The others will follow. In fact, that sucking sound is the noise that an institution and culture in decline makes.

Gail Sheehy nails it

Didn't expect to write a headline like that -- but she's right on the money. This is why Hillary will win in a romp -- and why she'll be a great president.

Want to get depressed?

We live in primitive times.

Will wonders never cease?

Maybe it's MoDo's promised exile to the Sunday magazine -- for which all sane people are deeply grateful -- that has prompted Gail Collins to drop her obsessive quipping and offer a reasonable take on the Hillary Atlantic broohaha. Maybe Elba, like the hangman's noose, concentrates the minds of non-exilees. Dowd, of course, continues her CDS drivel, as does Frank Rich. But, then, that's who they are.

As to the interview itself, it is, as anyone who reads it soon sees, nuanced and thoughtful in ways the headline writers -- and Goldberg himself, in his overhyped intro -- fail to capture. And what it really demonstrates is what Collins, amazingly, gets right -- that Hillary is saying what she really thinks, and feels free to do so. That's what we can expect from her candidacy, and her presidency. Which will be quite refreshing.

On not giving a fuck

Good piece in The Guardian that gets Hillary's situation just about right. The turning point was when she teared up just before the New Hampshire primary in 2008. That was the moment of epiphany... and liberation. She, and we, learned that she could be herself in public and not only survive, but be embraced by the world. That's what put her in the situation she is in today -- unique in American history for a woman: She can be President of the United States if she wants to. Full stop. It's up to her. That's empowerment.

Things fall apart...

... The right cannot hold.

Okay, that is going too far. But Krugman's post on Eric Cantoring into the sunset does align with my long-held perception that the institutional structure of the "permanent governing majority" that Rove, Norquist, et al. built has largely dissolved. This doesn't say anything one way or the other about whether our politics will become saner -- they could spin out in all kinds of ways. But it does say that the K Street Project and its associated plans have gang agley.