"The Constitution is the rules; politics is the game."

"The alternatives to organized political contention are anarchy or sheep-like passivity."

Richard Brookhiser speaks in one aphorism after another in this dialogue with Kathryn Jean Lopez about his new book about James Madison, "James Madison." (Buy it here. I just did.)

The headline on the interview is "Politics Is Madison," and I was delighted to see, that it wasn't about my crazy little city in the Midwest.

More from the interview:

LOPEZ: What accounts for Madison’s scorn for John Adams and his love for Thomas Jefferson? Does either man’s relationship with Madison provide essential insight into Adams or Jefferson?

BROOKHISER: Madison never spent much time with John Adams, and could not see beyond his obnoxious qualities to the good ones. Thomas Jefferson was the cool older brother Madison never had — brilliant, eloquent, quirky — but at the same time a fellow Virginian and an ideological soul mate....

LOPEZ: What might Madison think about Barack Obama?

BROOKHISER: Jefferson’s vices, without the charm.

K-Lo leaves NRO and TBogg makes an anti-Hispanic joke about it.

That's the way I read this.

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Gawker speculates that National Review is hurting for cash after the death of William F. Buckley.

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Sadly, No! goes with the sexist approach to the news.

"We're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him."

"Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

When is the press going to force Joe Biden to explain what the hell he meant by that? And, generally, when is the press going to pay attention to Biden's mistakes? Kirsten Powers would like to know.

The stock answer is: "It's just Biden being Biden." We all know how smart he is about foreign policy, so it's not the same as when Sarah Palin says something that seems off....

And Biden is the foreign-policy gravitas on the Democratic ticket, so his comments are actually even more disconcerting.

Even those who support Obama -- not all, but some -- are getting nauseated by the press bias. And it's not just the bias. I'm really queasy about that future Biden is foreseeing. He has access to all sorts of reports of threats that we can't be told. It's as if he's taunting us with his inside knowledge. There will be -- what? -- attacks? And is Obama already planning to respond in ways that they know will dismay us? Tell us more. Is it about Israel?

ADDED: Kathryn Jean Lopez thinks maybe Biden means that Obama wants a draft.