LOOK AWAY, LOOK AWAY. Because of my record as a culture war correspondent, some readers have goaded me to take on John Miller's "Top 50 Conservative Songs" nonsense at National Review. But my heart isn't much in it.

Not that Miller's list isn't a comedy goldmine. I would pay good money to see John Lydon onstage at a YAF Rally, leading a rousing chorus of "Bodies" (#7). And previously my readers and I have enjoyed our own alternate con-song suggestions (e.g., "Pray I Don't Kill You Faggot" by Run Westy Run) and alternate lyrics (here're some new ones: "While ol' Neil Young talks down the southland/As he goes in and out of key/Me and my roadies will get fucked up/And drive our plane into a tree -- aaah, fuck me").

Whence then my reticence? Partly from contempt. Miller's logic is so extraordinarily sheer that it is almost beneath my dignity to poke holes in it (and I'm wearing a cardboard belt!), and it is certainly beneath yours to watch me do it. Take his statement to the New York Times --

"Any claim that rock is fundamentally revolutionary is just kind of silly," he said. "It's so mainstream that it puts them" — liberals — "in the position of saying that at no time has there ever been a rock song that expressed a sentiment that conservatives can appreciate..."

I can't be bothered to touch this "argument," anymore than I can be bothered to explain to an annoying child why he can't live on the moon or shoot rockets from his fingers.

Part of it, though, is from pure fellow-feeling. I was a lonely little boy once, and spent many sad hours on my own. The world seemed cruel, savage, and stacked against me. Being small, I had no way to fight it head-on, so in my imagination I created an alternative universe, where all the Hobbesian brutalities I suffered or witnessed obtained an explanation favorable to myself.

I'm obviously not the only person who ever experienced something like that. Neither am I the only person to have outgrown it. It marked me, sure. My naive faith in the power of reason may be part of its legacy. But I did in time come to accept something very important for all adults to accept: that the explanation that was most comforting to my vanity was not necessarily the right one.

Most of our culture-warriors have a Joe Goebbels idea of art. Some don't even know what it is at all. And some special few of them aren't even aware that they are talking about art, because they see everything for which they have any feeling as an extension of themselves. Thus they spend pages explaining why their favorite dance tunes, or comic strips, or choc-o-mut ice creams are evidence of the superiority of their world view.

They excite our pity more than our contempt, because they have obviously missed a crucial step in their development. They are, as Harry Truman once said about Joe McCarthy, not mentally complete. Were it not for the largesse of Bill Buckley, Richard Scaife, and such like, they would probably be living in institutions.

So let's leave Miller be. alicublog is a straight-up joint; we don't beat up cripples here.

I KNOW I AM, BUT WHAT ARE YOU? Lloyd Bentsen died recently, and newspaper writers naturally recalled the old Texan's most famous moment: his "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" response to Dan Quayle in the 1988 Vice-Presidential debates. To normal, literate people, this is understandable. Conversely, to Tim Graham, it is an outrage.

Graham, the NRO kulture kop who thinks Hollywood is trying to destroy Christianity, seems also to think that witty putdowns are a liberal plot:

Copeland tried to make this [article] more balanced by noting Ronald Reagan's debate quips against Carter and Mondale, but "there you go again" and joking about not exploiting his opponent's "youth and inexperience" were much mellower in tone than Bentsen's "babyface" slam. Soon, she returned to the "beauty" of Bentsen's quip: "We don't feel bad for victims of verbal violence if we feel in some way they deserve it." Spoken like a true Democrat.

He also thinks that, because there are few Bentsen references in the JFK library, a "liberal media 'truth squad'" should have been dispatched to fact-check Bentsen's joke. (That always works. "Well, you know, rabbis rarely go into bars, and it is even more rare for them to go in accompanied by a priest.")

My very favorite segment of Graham's hissy-fit is this:

Left unexplored: how recent Republican candidates have resisted the urge to slam liberal opponents in presidential debates in front of liberal media. It wouldn't receive the same glorious treatment.

Is that why? Maybe it's because, with or without a transmitting device in his jacket, George W. Bush isn't anyone's idea of George Sanders. "Need some wood?" is more his sort of humor: frat-house in origin, aphasic in delivery.

I can see why Graham makes up the excuse that, if ol' George chose to uncork his zingers, the Em Ess Em would wave their hands in front of the camera and yell "not funny!" It's what he would do -- in fact, it's what he just did.

Still, it's good to know that, like the Muhammed cartoon guys, members of our local chapter of the Villains, Thieves and Scoundrels Union cannot abide mockery.

IF I'M NOT MISSING SOMETHING HERE, if there is not some hidden meaning or level of irony that I have somehow overlooked, then I may just have to quit because, jaded as I am, I would never have imagined such a thing possible.

The next Orwell will have to be an absurdist.

(Thanks Atrios for the tip.)

UPDATE. Upon further review (thanks Felix) it doesn't seem so much crazy as malign. The DefendDelay folks seem to think the maker of Outfoxed and WalMart: The High Price of Low Cost let slip in the Colbert interview that his documentary has a political purpose (stop the presses). They portray this revelation as a result of Colbert's interrogratory skills ("Colbert Cracks the Story"). So it's a misrepresentation, but one that requires only selective reading and wishful thinking to believe -- not a wholesale denial of reality.

Which is not so reassuring when you think about it.

ANOTHER SAD SACK IN THE CULTURE WAR. Ol' Perfesser Reynolds writes about how society done made child-rearin' too tuff. The article clearly takes the POV that we whi -- uh, I mean Americans should get populatin' post haste. But while Dr. and Dr. Mrs. "Maw" Reynolds bravely do their part by raising a single young'un, despite the demands of tenure and podcasts, they insist that not enough clucks are having bushels o' brats "because parenting isn't prestigious in our society," as demonstrated by... the prevalence of SUVs:

People in the suburbs buy SUVs instead of minivans not because they need the four-wheel-drive capabilities, but because the SUVs lack the minivan's close association with low-prestige activities like parenting, and instead provide the aura of high-prestige activities like whitewater kayaking. Why should kayaking be more prestigious than parenting? Because parenting isn't prestigious in our society. If it were, childless people would drive minivans just to partake of the aura.

Alas, childrearing -- undone by an unfortunate aura! Like just about every scoundrel these days, the Perfesser says we must look to "culture" for solutions, then runs out the door before anyone can ask what the hell that means.

It amazes me that a person can attain adulthood in this century and civilization and continue to think that a "culture" more in keeping with his fantasies can be ordered up like National Guard troops or government cheese. Yet the Perfesser is obviously not alone in this. For further evidence -- well, just read my archives.

(The Perf's commenters are even funnier. For example, one W.B. Allen complains that when he and his wife had a third child, his fellow academics [!] treated him with "barely revealed contempt." W.B. takes heart that "the future Republicans and Libertarians out number the future liberal Democrats by a healthy margin." The populationist doom-cry can't be so urgent, I guess, if one can rejoice that in its death-throes American society will be, at least toward the end, liberal-free.)

ARTS AND LETTERS REPORT. Ross Douthat stands up for Ramesh Ponnuru's constitutional right to be reviewed by magazines that don't want to review him. This is in regard to Ponnuru's latest Regnery entry, All You Democrats Are Baby-Killing Monsters.

I challenge Douthat to read and review my buddy Howard Djeleikakik's latest, Ross Douthat Smells Like Fucked Ass. Refusal to do so means Douthat is intellectually dishonest. And no fair skimming it in Barnes & Noble.

UPDATE. Other like-livered conservatives whine like little bitches when their constitutional right to be on Google News is abridged. You don't see me complaining when Pajamas Media snubs alicublog. And they're the news aggregators of the future!

UPDATE II. Dan Riehl has been disaggregated by Google News. Worse, they responded to his repeated letters of complaint ("after my nth email with Glenn's post included") with what Riehl considers a "non-answer." (It looks like a form letter to me.) Standing on a storm-buffeted promontory and shaking his gloved fist, Riehl declares that "Google as a company will ultimately stumble, or at least need adult management one day," as the music swells. If self-delusion is the soul of comedy, this guy should have a series on NBC.

HISTORY'S GREATEST MONSTER!

"Let's play on this big piano -- Mr. Hanks sez it's okay!" Moments later the boy was sucked into a world of polygamy and free-thinking, where his only friend was a free-thinking polygamous volleyball named Wilson.

Mistah Kurtz, he nuts:

The battle is radicalizing. Big Love and The Da Vinci Code are far more direct and brazen attacks on tradition than we might have anticipated just a few years ago. Conservatives are the targets, and Hollywood is aiming and shooting repeatedly. Give credit to Tom Hanks, by the way. As producer of Big Love and star of The Da Vinci Code, he is clearly one of the captains of the not-so-secret conspiracy.

The Da Vinci Code is bullshit, but a not-so-secret conspiracy against conservatives led by Tom Hanks is the God's honest truth.

Somebody explain to Kurtz that movie stars are not appointed by the Illuminati (well, except for Steve Guttenberg), that "control of our critical cultural institutions" is won by talent and ambition, not by whining, and that the pills he keeps spitting up are for his own good.

UPDATE. Kurtz may be mollified to learn that, according to Michael Long, there is such a thing as "conservative rock songs," from which scraps and shards of culture a new civilization may be built.

Long's primary example is "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys, because

...Brian Wilson and Tony Asher do not say: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have sex? These cultural mores have got to go!”... No, these are kids who accept that there is a place and time for everything, and that some urges are best delayed—even if we don’t see any good reason past faith to do so. They are looking forward—something rarely done anymore—to a time when what they want comports with the rules they trust, rules more important than an impulse or a wish, rules that preserve civility and order and life.

Long probably hasn't heard the latest re-issue of Pet Sounds, featuring the alternative lyrics: "Wouldn't it be nice to be on mushrooms/With lots of rum and fresh fruit juice to drink/And sit inside a sandbox, play piano/And talk about the martians with my shrink?/You know I'm scared a giant bug will eat me/I still have bruises where my old man beat me..."

UPDATE II. This is turning into one of The Corner's crazier days. Goldberg tries to conciliate the agitated Kurtz ("And, more simply, the book is by most accounts a lot of fun to read. Surely that explains some of this too"), but Kurtz won't have it: "I also think the popularity of the book says something about where we are as a culture," he insists -- which is something you could say about just any book, including The Gospel According to Peanuts, Interview with a Vampire, and The South Beach Diet. Saner minds would append to the observation the old Latin phrase, so what? Kurtz, though, ruminates darkly on "the number of folks who see themselves as unconnected to any organized religion... especially in blue cities and counties." Time perhaps for Kurtz' Destroy America to Save It plan.

The crown goes to K-Lo, though, with this (warning: if you are not aware of current trends in conservative arts criticism, this may blow your mind):

I haven't seen [Oliver Stone's] World Trade Center... I had at least one problem with the trailer... Nicolas Cage has a moustache, for instance, in the movie, to establish "working-class bona fides." But John McLoughlin, the Port Authority police sergeant who Nicolas Page plays in the movie actually has a moustache. So it doesn't strike me as too odd...

I can't believe I'm defending an Oliver Stone trailer...

And I can't believe these people are walking around loose.

HOW THEY DO. A Republican gets booed at a graduation ceremony. Gateway Pundit calls him a victim of "typical liberal rudeness," and the event evidence of "the intolerant Left today."

A Democrat gets booed at a graduation ceremony. Gateway Pundit praises the hecklers, denounces the speaker.

The posts come just a few days apart. Maybe Gateway Pundit had a really wild weekend, or a brain injury, and forgot today what he wrote on Saturday. Or maybe he doesn't give a rat's ass about logical consistency. There's a lot of that going around.

UPDATE. Gateway Pundit responds that the Democrat deserved heckling because his party "does not respect religion or the 10 Commandments." He also thinks Reason's Dave Weigel is a "Leftist," and that I am "young."

WELCOME (BACK) TO THE MACHINE. The Perfesser is displeased by news of New Orleans Mayor Nagin's reelection:

I predict substantially less support for New Orleans reconstruction. Betweeen the Louisiana delegation's absurd overreaching in demanding a huge amount of pork-laden funding, and this, they've managed to squander a lot of the sympathy that was present in in September. Louisiana's political class isn't just greedy -- it's greedy and stupid. Louisiana will pay the price. And probably complain of unfairness when it does.

It is interesting that the Perfesser portrays the voters of New Orleans as part of the "political class." Given the general American non-involvement in political decision-making, maybe they do qualify. From that point of view, voters who pull the wrong lever are as blameworthy as their politicians, and as deserving of retribution. In fact, from the Perfesser's formulation, we may further infer that the minority that did not vote to reelect Nagin -- and the rest of the state's residents, I guess -- deserve what they get, too.

Vote right or lose your Federal aid -- an intriguing new vision of political reform. It puts the Perfesser's Porkbusters enthusiasm in a whole new light.

UPDATE. The Perfesser directs us to the ravings of Vodkapundit:

Here's the deal, Louisiana. We're going to help you. We really are. You are our neighbors and our countrymen and our friends, and we love you today as much as we ever did, in spite of and in no small part thanks to all the weirdness and flaws down your way. It's hard to see it from where you are, but we're helping you now, in our slow and ponderous way. We're not going to let it end like this.

But like every deal, this one has two parts, and I'm going to state yours very bluntly: You people are going to have to get your act together...

Get it? They're like drunks! And Vodkapundit's dishing out the toughlove. Not knowing how much vodka was involved in this punditry, I can't say if VP intends to go down there with a bullhorn and a whip and implement this plan himself, or whether he expects someone else to do it, like the Federal Government, or Superman.

CODE RED. Tour the right-wing websites this morning and you will see that their minions are out in full force to denounce The Da Vinci Code. Some of them have actually seen the movie they discuss, which shows how seriously they are taking it.

Were this a sign that these normally antiaesthetic characters have suddenly taken a lively interest in the arts, it would be charming. Unfortunately it is just the same old Culture War crap that constantly provides a subtheme for alicublog. Some writers overtly accuse the film of "Catholic-bashing," but most just pretend to be real movie reviewers, cheerfully pointing out the inevitable plot holes while throwing gang signs for the One True Church.

Their endlessly-proven bad faith aside, I have no god in this fight. I haven't read the best-seller nor do I expect to see this nor any more Ron Howard movies than it has already been my misfortune to see. (I do respect the Night Shift advocates among my readership, but that's as far as I go.) So I will leave the thing alone.

But I want to run an idea by you: The Kiwanis Code. A strangely-arranged corpse found in a suburban Illinois union hall sends a world-famous corporate philanthropy consultant and the dead man's daughter to Hagerstown, MD, where a marker on Kemp Hall contains the key to the true identity of the Six Permanent Objects. I will say no more, except that our heroes will be rescued by an equally shadowy order, riding to the rescue in little cars.

UPDATE. "Recently, the Nation Film Preservation Association voted to use Howard’s films to wrap around and protect other better films."

THEN SHE PRAISED CALCIUM SUPPLEMENTS FOR WOMEN -- AND NO ONE QUESTIONED IT! Tim Graham at The Corner:

On the occasion of the final episode of NBC's Will & Grace, Katie Couric insisted, "on a serious note," that it's one of her daughter's favorite shows, and it's so important to teach tolerance of "people who are different" at a "very early age." Anyone who expected a fair and balanced anchorwoman at CBS on the hot-button social issues, shred your illusions now.

I am in some sympathy with Graham. I would have gotten up early to see him attack the proposition that it is "important to teach tolerance of 'people who are different' at a 'very early age'" on national television. I would have happily written his talking points for him, e.g., "When a child smacks around feebs and wimps, that builds competitive spirit. Hell, every week I give Jonah Goldberg a wedgie just to keep my edge."

And I'm sure Focus on the Family has a study somewhere showing that kids who call other kids fags and pummel them are happier than kids who get called fags and pummelled. Further proof of the self-destructive homosexual lifestyle!

A REFRESHING NEW P.O.V. One of the many humorous side effects of the current conservative malaise is that it spurs even the dimmer National Review writers to reach for more adventuresome ideas. Mark Krikorian, heretofore known mainly as just another argumentum ad ignorantiam type, offers an interesting take on Bush's immigration policy, of which Krikorian disapproves:

President Bush is a conviction politician and sincerely believes this, which is why he sticks to his anti-enforcement guns despite potentially catastrophic political damage. This is unlike President Clinton, who was actually better on immigration in many ways precisely because he was (is) completely amoral and willing to embrace almost any position.

Read it and weep -- with laughter! For Comrade Krikorian has proposed that Bush is just too nice a guy to do his job well. And this isn't your usual nice=wimp formulation -- it is Bush's inner goodness that makes him a miserable failure; whereas sociopaths such as Bill Clinton do better at policy because their souls are black with unrepented sin.

I hope this gets around. As our Republic tumbles into chaos and ruin, I should like to see Denny Hastert wandering the wreckage, crying "I am too childish-foolish for this world." When the next hurricane/tsunami/ice age hits, I look forward to the President's address: "Americans have a choice. We can respond quickly and efficiently to this crisis, like depraved criminals; or, we can listen to that small, still voice of conscience, and fuck this up like we fucked up everything else." And during the next Presidential campaign, Giuliani can complete his expected conversion on gays, abortion etc. by announcing that he only ran New York City with some competence because he was having marital problems, but "since coming to Jesus I couldn't run an ice cream stand in hell, so filled am I with grace."

I mean, any explanation at all would be nice, but Krikorian's has the added benefit of being hilarious.

SHORTER PEGGY NOONAN: George Bush is an elitist. Also, God's will is expressed through film critics.

UPDATE. The Crazy Jesus Lady's commenters are in fine form. One Lindsay White of Tampa, FL promises vengeance against "18 Senate Republican turn-coats" who "need to enjoy D.C. while they still can" -- I imagine Linsday stumbling around outside the Washington Convention Center, screaming "I bring not peace but a SWORD!" while fishing around in his pants -- and Ken Zwick of Ocala states that "the DaVinci Code producers are misreading America's receptiveness to blasphemy," which receptiveness presumably peaked with Oh, God! You Devil during the corrupt reign of the divorcee Reagan.

SUNRISE SERMONETTE. Lot of talk recently at The Corner about how atheists=leftists=spiritualists. (Here is the inevitable, anchoring "I know I'm full of shit but I know a guy says I'm right but anyway it's late and oh look, a cold burrito" post from Jonah Goldberg.)

The discussion, such as it is, is highly personalized: "atheism=leftism=spiritualism" would not encompass it better. It's mainly about silly people, real or imagined, doing/believing silly things, rather than a debate on the merits of any particular creeds. I don't see why they restrain themselves. Why not assert the objective superiority of eating communion wafers to putting rocks on one's back? Think what heights the dialogue might reach. It could be like the Diet of Worms, only with Buffy references, and of course snickering over "Diet of Worms."

This nonsense provides an opportunity for me to express my own religious-spirtual-spiritous belief:

There is a God, and He is not doing His job properly.

I am compiling a bill of particulars to send Him. The list is very long and not nearly finished, but I will share some of my complaints with you now.

• Negative side-effects to all the best things in life, e.g. money (inflated self-worth, false friends), sex (diseases, marriage), food (a large and ever-changing array of attributable health conditions). While we’re at it, thorns on roses and blow-cards in magazines.
  
  
• Evolution. Contentious, messy way of going about things. Will take forever to figure out, thanks to that stupid Adam & Eve red herring. I suppose You thought it was funny.
  
  
• Uncertainty. For example, I can’t tell if You’re even going to get this. Or whether it will please or displease You. Or how You will react if it displeases You. Or if you’re a retarded child like on "St. Elsewhere." If You’d let me know I could have dumbed this down, or commissioned an illustrator.

I'll let you know if I hear anything.

(NB: Capitalized masculine pronouns used for clarity of expression.)

MORE KUDOS. His archiving is shit, so before they escape living memory I must link here and here to Harry Hutton's extremely great posts on Britain's John Prescott scandal. Excerpt:

I would go further: I would say that screwing his secretary is his main achievement since taking office, and one of the things that sets him apart from monomaniacs and cyborgs like Blair, Brown and Straw. Blair would no more fuck his secretary than he would read a novel. Why? Because he’s a lunatic and a freak, with no more sense of proportion than a Saudi cleric. Brute that he is, Prescott is one of the few members of the establishment who is still recognisably earthling.

High style and good sense -- that's all I ask, and more than I deserve.

GOOD CATCH. Though it pains me to admit it, I am not alone, nor even foremost, in mapping the twists and turns of the warblogger spirochette. For example, Belle Waring has found her a doozy of a specimen:

I think all three [conservatives who have broken ranks with Bush over runanway deficit spending or his immigration policy] may be suffering some variant of PTSD, worn down by defending difficult positions at the forefront of the battle against irredentist Democrats in Congress and their fifth-column in the media.

Even making an allowance for poeticism (though further reading at the Democracy Project shows we are not dealing here with poets, to say the least), this is rich. We are accustomed to hearing Fightin' Keyboarders compare themselves to combatants, but to suggest that they suffer actual casualties in the line of duty is a new one on me. Will they be getting Purple Nurples in lieu of Purple Hearts? Should we buy PayPal poppies to ensure their care?

I also see we're back to the fifth column stuff. Just in time for the new wave of blogger civility!

MEXICAN STANDOFF. The most interesting thing about the President's speech was its conciliatory , come-let-us-reason-together passages:

America needs to conduct this debate on immigration in a reasoned and respectful tone. Feelings run deep on this issue -- and as we work it out, all of us need to keep some things in mind. We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone's fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain. We must always remember that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions, and that every human being has dignity and value no matter what their citizenship papers say...

Our new immigrants are just what they have always been -- people willing to risk everything for the dream of freedom. And America remains what she has always been -- the great hope on the horizon...an open door to the future...a blessed and promised land. We honor the heritage of all who come here, no matter where they are from, because we trust in our country's genius for making us all Americans -- one Nation under God. Thank you, and good night.

Bush rarely speaks like this, because usually he benefits politically from dissension. The country has been sharply divided for practically all his tenure. Yet even when he stood on the stage of Madison Square Garden in 2004, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators held from his throat by unprecedented security, it seems not to have occured to him to talk about binding up the wounds of his country, because he and his party were then profiting from the exacerbations of that red-blue division.

Now, of course, dissension is working within his own "base" and against him, so the President is trying to strike the mystic chords of memory. Unfortunately, his passable rhetoric comes with a gimcrack plan involving Mission: Impossible security devices (cue music as Jorge rolls under the electric eye), an increase in jail bunks, and what promises to become the National Guardsman's least favorite duty: muscleman for the Border Patrol. And no one believes it will make a damn bit of difference.

I did appreciate what I hope was some speechwriter's deliberate attempt at deadpan humor:

For many years, the government did not have enough space in our detention facilities to hold them while the legal process unfolded. So most were released back into our society and asked to return for a court date. When the date arrived, the vast majority did not show up.

Bush's comic timing was good there, too.

Wingers seem outraged that Bush did not come out brandishing a machete and crying "I'ma deport me a Mescan." Some conservatives have rushed to the President's defense; John Podhoretz finds a particularly interesting argument in favor:

This may not be the equivalent of the fence Israel is building to create a separation with the Palestinians, but it is a significant step in that direction.

Well-fed fashion models is the Israeli fad I would prefer to see us adopting, but to each his own.

GOING TO CULTURE WAR UNARMED. "I think that [John Kenneth] Galbraith, like Oliver Wendell Holmes, has benefitted excessively from having an excellent prose style." -- The Ole Perfesser.

Conservative contempt for aesthetics has officially found a new top to go over.

Maybe the Perfesser is trying to say that Galbraith's style is obfuscatory. This is unlikely, as the Perfesser clearly finds impenetrability a virtue -- he has been a tireless promoter of the windbag Steven Den Beste, whose ramblings make Tristram Shandy look like an instruction manual. Conversely, Galbraith was a genuinely skilled writer, pellucid in style and memorable in content -- two traits which surprisingly often go hand in hand.

More likely the Perfesser, like all his tribe, notices that many of his adversaries are talented and articulate, and this leads him to the conclusion that talent and articulateness are negative qualities. Well, that would explain a lot of the ass-paste that passes for sparkling prose in wingerland -- maybe it's deliberate!

SAME AS IT EVER WAS. The conservative comeback is outlined by Mark Tapscott. Heading the agenda is "Immigration reform, including building the wall and whatever other measures are required to secure our borders and disavowing any form of amnesty for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now in America."

Okay for the white people in border states ascared of Mescans -- who have been voting GOP forever. What else you got?

Federal spending must be brought under control, starting with an end of all earmarks...

Entitlements must be controlled. We simply cannot afford to pay the benefits promised to the Baby Boomers (of which I am one) under Social Security and Medicare...

Similarly, the current system in which government bureaucrats make the basic decisions about the nation's health care must be replaced with one that puts the power of consumer choice in the hands of health care consumers and the integrity of treatment choices in the hands of doctors....

Any of this sound familiar to you folks? Why, yes, it's the usual GOP talking points, restated in more strident and less equivocal language than usual. Apparently the old ways are the best ways, if shouted in a hoarser voice.

References to "Repeal McCain-Feingold" and "the Cornyn-Leahy Open Government Act of 2005" may be dismissed as filler. As to the threat, "if the GOP majority fails to act or merely continues to talk about it, conservatives then have an obligation to find or create a new party" -- honky, please.

Why do they bother? The return to power of Republicans in 2006 will rely strongly on gay marriage, swears on the TV, and the aggregate Democratic advertising budget. And maybe gas prices. The Dems are on a fundraising roll, but still must overcome the well-engendered perception that they are potty-mouthed Bunburyists -- no small challenge.

As for the petrol issue, Democrats don't seem able to do much with it, owing perhaps to their general reluctance (with some rare exceptions) to be accused of class warfare.

I think the GOP has a good chance in November just by playing defense. Especially if the opposition persists in running the ball up the middle.

EXIT THE PRESIDENT. (JOSIAH BARTLET’s study. He is sitting at a polished oak desk, surrounded by Presidential mementoes and bric-a-brac. He wears a royal blue bathrobe over a stained white t-shirt, and looks annoyed.)

BARTLET: (Shouting) Abby! For crying out loud, where are you?

(ABBY BARTLET runs breathlessly in.)

ABBY: I’m here, Jed! I’m here! What is it?

BARTLET: (holds up the New York Times) Abby, have you seen this intelligence? Russian troops massing at the Ukrainean border, and Secretary of State Vinick’s cocker spaniel kidnapped! And I can’t get through to the Joint Chiefs!

( JOSH holds up the receiver of a red PlaySkool phone)

ABBY: Oh thank God! I thought you were having an attack!

BARTLET: Attack? They’ve attacked? (hurls away the newspaper) I need fresh intelligence! (shouts into the PlaySkool phone) Hello? Hello? This is your President speaking, dammit! (slams receiver down) They’re trying to cut me out of the loop, Abby. Where’s Charlie?

ABBY: Jed, President Santos is taking care of everything.

BARTLET: Santos! Get him on the line!

ABBY: Why don’t you come down to breakfast, Jed? There’s cranberry pancakes.

BARTLET: Cranberry? No! Massachusetts is a lock; what we need is the Deep South. Get me biscuits and gravy! (Runs to the window, shouts) How all y’all doin’? (flashes thumbs up) Bartlet for America!

ABBY: Jed. Jed. Look at me. (takes out penlight, shines it in his eyes) Try to breathe. Listen to me, Jeb. You are no longer President of the United States.

BARTLET: I rescinded that order. Now that our little girl’s back, I think I can do the people’s business.

ABBY: Alright, Jed, if you won’t come down, you have some visitors and I’m going to bring them up.

BARTLET: What is this? A walk-through? Foreign dignitaries? That’s not on the schedule -- (consults an old copy of Entertainment Weekly) Aha! There it is! Crisis in the Ukraine! Right after "Scrubs."

ABBY: It’s your senior staff, Jed. Very important meeting.

BARTLET: Fine, get ‘em in here. We’ll sort this thing out.

(Several cast members of The West Wing shuffle into the room.)

BARTLET: (standing, majestically flipping off his half-glasses) Alright, what have you got for me?

TOBY: Mr. President… (holds up two fingers; thoughtful pause) How… (thoughtful pause) many fingers… (thoughtful pause) am I holding… (thoughtful pause, quizzical turn of head) up?

BARTLET: I’m not sure I take your meaning, Toby. Speak frankly.

JOSH: (stepping forward) Sir, the thing is… you… are not the Commander in Chief. You never were Commander in Chief. You’re Martin Sheen, an actor…

C.J.: A very fine actor.

JOSH ... and you played the President for seven wonderful years, but they’re over and it’s time to… give it up.

BARTLET: (gives a blank look; then chuckles, puts hands on hips) So that’s how it is, huh? I see. Well, you won’t catch me pulling a Nixon. I’ll go with dignity.

JOSH: It might help if you put on some pants, sir.

BARTLET: (wags finger at JOSH) That’s good. Pants. Send someone in here to pack up my things.

(HE rummages through some papers; the others look around, then silently file out, leaving ABBY with BARTLET. She goes to him.)

ABBY: Maybe you should do some theatre, Marty. When you think about it, TV’s not very fulfilling.

BARTLET: Ah, but it was, Abby.

ABBY: Stockard.

BARTLET: (smiles) Doctor Bartlet. (Puts his arm around her.) It’s a heady thing, running the country, even on TV. Hell, maybe it’s not so different from running the country for real. Who could blame me if I had a hard time letting go? (Kisses her forehead, walks to the corner, drops his robe, pulls on some Levi’s, tucks in his t-shirt; ABBY sits against the edge of the desk) I remember when I was kid, watching Jimmy Dean, thinking, "That’s what I want to do." Forty years later, I’m President of the United States. But what I really wanted was to be James Dean. (runs his fingers through his hair) Is that strange?

ABBY: No. It’s just a different kind of… power.

BARTLET: (sits by her; in a lower, less articulate voice) Yeah. It’s about being misunderstood. Down in the polls. No one on your side. That's when you got to be the decider. (points to the Times on the carpet) Lookee, there’s a piece of paper on the sidewalk. Probably blame that on me, too.

ABBY: (Uncertainly) Yeah.

BARTLET: Listen, now that this is over, I’m gonna sit down and buy you a big, thick steak.

ABBY: I don’t want a steak.

BARTLET: We’ll see about that.

ABBY: (v.o.) Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with his bean.

(Music: "Trois morceaux en forme de poire," Satie)

BUSHWICK MIX. Played a show in Bushwick tonight. A first for me: back in the day, Bushwick was for Mike Tyson, Bushwick Bill, and other criminal acts. An ensemble of our acquaintance called Demo Moe, made up of sculptors and musicians, had a forge out there then, but the rest of us stayed clear, content with Lower East Side mischief. Real estate values have since done their work in Bushwick, I'm told, and I did see white, well-appointed youngsters on bicycles and in clusters, but otherwise it was as I imagined. The envrions are still stained with graffiti, and empty lots leave the industrial buildings (some with the warm orange glow of gentrification in their windows) and residential tenements standing lonesome and forlorn in the great shadow of the Projects.

Our venue, the Wreck Room, stood near the Life Cafe -- two well-appointed embers smoldering in a dark stretch. The young folk at the Wreck Room were Friday-night giddy. They dressed well, as all young New Yorkers do, but they seemed easier and less self-conscious than the inland versions I was familiar with. The more famous semi-demimondes of New York are brightly lit stages, and those who trod them tend to notice that they have a role to play.

We did get some pressure from the short, cute singer of Hollis, which is also her stage name. She worked the crowd aggressively-friendly to get people to stay for her set. She said she had just taken a share in Queens ("In Hollis?" I asked; "No, Astoria," she said, "though that would be really cool"), having recently graduated with a double major in art history and communications, which I told her was an excellent pedigree for a rock star, her freely admitted ambition.

But I couldn't stay. Bill the drummer and I trudged up Morgan to our train, and were joined on the station bench by two young hiphopsters wearing baseball jerseys over t-shirts and white pants. They asked about the musical apparati we carried. They were more familiar with all-in-one sound producing units like the Triton Workstation, but they had a sincere interest in our old, clumsy gear. They liked music. The more voluble one, wearing a tight doo-rag and sporting a grey, metallic bottom row of front teeth, said he had a Yamaha acoustic that he played a bit. They were relaxed but polite. I asked about the neighborhood these days. "You got the white people coming in," the talkative one said, "and they got the lofts, and you got people like me. But it's cool."

Well, yes it is. They're working with a fellow called Heater. I wish them well, and Hollis well (May 27 at the Continental), and the hard-rockin Saint Bastard and all the rest of tonight's acts well. All musicians, except for those at the tippy-top, are slumdwellers in spirit or in fact. We could all use a break.