Jon and I are sitting in a Reagan Washington National Airport Starbucks waiting to catch a flight home. A few minutes ago an older gentleman wearing khakis, a golf cap and a denim shirt sat down across from us. Jon whispered, “Isn’t that former attorney general John Ashcroft?””By gum, it is!”He was alone (no entourage). And that denim shirt had a Promise Keepers logo on it.We thought about introducing ourselves but chickened out. 

Columbus, Ohio last night. Headed to D.C. tonight. Sitting in an airport lounge having to listen to Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty bloviate on one of the ubiquitous flat panels carrying all-CNN, all the time.

As an expert in branding and marketing, I can say that Jack Cafferty absolutely owns the “Crusty Gasbag” position among the dozens of Bill O’Reilly wannabes that populate cable news.

If news guys could still smoke like they did in the old days, Caffert would surely have a Lark dangling from his lips as he blasted the Bush Adminstration for its manifold shortcomings.

It could be worse though. It could be Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on every screen.

I attended a luncheon in Dallas yesterday hosted by the NCPA (National Center for Policy Analysis) a Dallas-based think tank.

Jonah Golberg was the guest speaker and he was great. Jonah’s new book, Liberal Facism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, is causing the left no small amount of teeth gnashing and clothes rending.

Portuguese air traffic controllers monitoring a short wave band picked up a scrambled transmission that has turned out to be communication about an Islamist plot to blow up the Eiffel Tower. So says this report in London’s Evening Standard.

So I’m wondering. What do the “Truthers” and the “9/11 was an Inside Job” conspiracy-mongers do with news like this? I would guess: Develop a preposterous theory about it being a disinformation setup by the some ultra-secret, clandestine arm of the Zionist-Neocon intelligence apparatus.

By the way, this is additional evidence that Ron Paul is completely full of . . . er . . . is profoundly mistaken in his consistent assertions that 9/11 was blow-back resulting from U.S. military aggression in Iraq.

We’re in a battle for Western civilization and the fact that Paul doesn’t recognize should be an instant disqualifier.

Ms. Magazine refused to run this ad:

The refusal points up how overtly anti-Israel and covertly anti-Semitic the American left has become. The Volokh Conspiracy blog has more on Ms. mag’s bizarre double standard.

Republican debate tonight. Couldn’t watch it because pressing projects. . .well, pressed. But the 8 or 10 eminent pundits live blogging it over at The Corner were all praising Fred Thompson’s performance to the heavens.

 And Jim Geraghty over at the Campaign Spot recapped the debate like this:

Tonight, Fred Reminded Me of Roy Hobbs.

Winner: Thompson. This performance was so commanding, I wanted his last answer to echo back to the lights in the back of the auditorium, blow out all the lamps and spotlights, for the theme to “the Natural” to play, and for him to trot around the stage in slow motion while sparks showered down in the background.

So…a good night for Fred then. Hopefully it will translate into a lot of South Carolina evangelicals voting with the heads rather than their identities.

 

 I have seen lots of joking and jesting about Fred Thompson’s so-called trophy wife, Jeri, who is 24 years younger than Fred and, I suppose, relatively easy on the eyes.  But I had never heard her speak until yesterday when I was watching Fox News’ “Big Idea” while on a treadmill at the gym.

 The woman is sharp, articulate and quite conservative in her own right. Fred should get out of the way and let her do more talking.

Later on, I played the interview for my wife and then asked her if she thought she had just listened to airhead, arm-candy as Jeri is being portrayed. She was incensed that people were talking about her that way.

Here’s the interview. Have a look.

. . . the other candidates will be focusing their fire on him. So, I think it’s time to bring the McCain Temperament Modulator device back out.

Boy, 10, Glues Himself to Bed to Avoid School