Is it wrong to tweet from the audience at the State of the Union?

Tennessee House Democrat Steve Cohen was only trying to send a private message, but — like your ordinary-citizen reckless idiot — he released it into his public Twitter feed.

Embarrassing.

But in the modern world, how can people today be expected to sit through a 1-hour speech and not fiddle with their electronic devices? Personally, I would lose my mind.

And by the way, how can all these people — some of them quite old — sit still for 1+ hours? They have to be in their seats in advance and remain there for a while afterwards, so the President can make his big entrance and exit. What percentage of them worried about having to go to the bathroom? How many of them took the precaution of wearing adult diapers? How many of them employed the convenience and relieved themselves?

I don't mean to be rude. I just think it's important to recognize our shared humanity. As Marco Rubio said the other day: "I needed water, what am I going to do? God has a funny way of reminding us we’re human." What about the other end of our hydration-related humanity?

Bob Dylan sang: "Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." And I say: Even the members of the United States Congress sometimes must have to pee.

And tweet.

Congressman Cotton was excellent on drones and Benghazi on "Fox News Sunday."

(Transcript. Video.) I had never heard of the guy, but he impressed the hell out of me, in part because the host Chris Wallace, introduced Cotton — a Republican from Arkansas — this way:

Congressman Cotton, for people who don't know you, you are kind of an interesting figure. You went to Harvard, you went to Harvard Law School, and then you spent five years on active duty, on the front lines, in Iraq and Afghanistan, so you have got a lot of credibility on this issue on both sides of the equation.

I'm not a complete pushover for credentials, but this made me want to pay attention when Wallace invited him to respond to Senator Dianne Feinstein's idea that we need, as Wallace put it, "a secret drone court, where the president would have to go to get approval before putting terror suspects on his kill list.... How do you feel about this idea? Before the president could target someone for assassination, especially an American citizen, he'd have to go get approval from a judge?"

COTTON: We don't need federal judges involved in sensitive and urgent national security matters, and it would be an unconstitutional infringement on the president's rights to keep America safe. So, if you take up arms against America and you fight in a terrorist training camp or on the front lines in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Yemen, you shouldn't be surprised if America reaches out and exacts justice against you.

A while later, there was a discussion of Leon Panetta's testimony about Benghazi. Co-panelist Bill Kristol went first and laid out the criticism of Obama pithily:

KRISTOL: I think it is genuinely shocking. The president -- Leon Panetta walked out of the Oval Office at 5:30 that night, after a previously scheduled meeting. The president never called -- he knew -- he briefed the president on what was happening in Benghazi and that the American ambassador was missing, and it was clear there could well be sustained and ongoing attacks, and the president never spoke to the secretary of defense or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the rest of that night, and, interestingly, Secretary Panetta said he never spoke to the White House later this night. So it's not as if he spoke to the national security adviser, Tom Donilon, or the chief of staff, Jack Lew, and said, and conveyed a message to or from the president.

So basically, the president seems to have checked out. He spent an hour that evening on the phone with the Israeli prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, because there has been that flap about Israel at the Democratic Convention the week before, and I think he wanted for political reasons to show that he was in touch with the Israelis. They did a readout of that call, the National Security Council spokesman did. So they're busy talking to the Israeli prime minister, doing the readout of the call for the press, and he is not talking to Panetta and, insofar as we -- and Donilon, apparently, is not talking to Panetta. And it is really, I think, a dereliction of duty on the part of the president and his senior staff, and I think they should be asked about it. I think Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, and Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, should -- the president did not talk to anyone. Did they even talk to the secretary of defense, or did they just say, do what you can and then totally checked out for that evening, and then the next morning the president goes off to Las Vegas for a fund-raiser?

Cotton followed on, bringing in his military expertise:

COTTON: It is not just shocking, I would say it is outrageous as well, and it shows he has lack of preparation to be the commander in chief and lead troops when they are in combat. You know, you mentioned I was in the Army. At Fort Benning, where I spent a year, you learn the eight-step troop leading procedures. Step eight, the final step, is not issue an order. Step seven is issue the order. Step eight, which is the most important step, is supervise. He said in September that I issued a directive to take whatever steps are necessary to protect our troops and our assets. And then as Bill said, he never again followed up, he never asked, is my directive being executed? That is the essence of leadership, and this is a complete failure of leadership.

WALLACE: What about the argument, Congressman, and I don't know, and Bill raises a legitimate question, maybe he was doing this through his national security adviser.

COTTON: What General Dempsey and Secretary Panetta said, indicates there was no further contact from the White House, and the president showed no curiosity at all. He had a conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu that was in the middle of [the] political season when he was receiving criticism for not being engaged with the prime minister, and then probably preparing to fly off to Las Vegas the next day for a fundraiser.

When you have troops in contact -- when I was in Afghanistan, we had troops in contact. I was right next to the radio, monitoring that at all times. When the president has troops in contact in an embassy that he knows is insecure, that has to be the very first priority.

Cotton also got my attention earlier in the show when Wallace asked whether the decision to have Marco Rubio deliver the GOP response to the SOTU makes him "the new face of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill."

COTTON: I wouldn't say that decision makes him. I think he has been an emerging leader on Capitol Hill for Republicans, and across the country for two years now. He's a generation of new leaders, not just Marco, but Paul Ryan and Scott Walker and so forth, who are emerging and who I think are going to be the leaders of our party going forward.

So, wanting to portray Rubio as not The One but part of "a generation of new leaders" and needing to name some names, Cotton comes up with Paul Ryan — the erstwhile VP nominee — and — of all the others — Scott Walker. I read that out loud and Meade deemed it time to play the Governor Walker anthem one more time:

Rubio: "The president clearly outlined that he was gonna push on [immigration], the media was gonna focus on this..."

"... the Senate Democrats were gonna push on this issue, and I thought it was critically important that we outline the principles of what reform is about."

Look, I think there's this false argument that's been advanced by the left that conservatism and Republicans are anti-immigrant and anti-immigration.  And we're not.  Never have been.

On the contrary, we are pro-legal immigration.  And we recognize that our legal immigration system needs to be reformed.  We also recognize, because conservatism's always been about common sense, that we do have an existing problem that needs to be dealt with in the best way possible.  Now, it was dealt with in 1986 in a way that was counterproductive.  Well-intentioned, but counterproductive because, A, they granted a blanket amnesty to three million people at the time, or that was the estimate, and, B, they didn't do any of the enforcement mechanisms.  And so our point is if we're gonna deal with this, let's deal with it once and for all and in a way that this never, ever, happens again....

In the absence of stepping forward with our own principles, the left and the president will tell people what we stand for, and it's not necessarily gonna be true.

Much more at the link. (It's an interview conducted by Rush Limbaugh.) You see what Rubio is saying: The President and the congressional Democrats, with the help of the media, have the power to forefront this issue and to make it work powerfully for their political benefit. If the Republicans hang back, they will get portrayed as villains. So it was necessary for Rubio to step forward and be the face of the Republican Party to give it some chance at looking at least somewhat good as this issue plays out.

Take the exam in Althouse's on-line class in media bias.

First, read this post about Dana Milbank's description of the way Senator Marco Rubio looked as he waited his turn to speak about the bipartisan immigration plan. Note the literary techniques he employs. He seems to be describing what he sees, but I implied that his descriptions revealed bias, and, indeed, that Milbank would like to destroy Marco Rubio.

Now, here's a video clip showing Marco Rubio giving his presentation. Feel free to listen to what he says, but I want you to concentrate on Senator Chuck Schumer, who can be seen at the left of the screen. Observe any gestures or expressions, because the assignment will involve describing him, deploying literary techniques of the sort we saw in Milbank's description of Rubio.



Here's the assignment. Write 2 descriptions of Schumer, in the style of Dana Milbank's description of Marco Rubio.

1. You are the equivalent of Milbank, but attuned to the goals of the Republican Party. You would like to impede the advancement of Chuck Schumer.

2. You are a Milbank-style columnist at a place like The Washington Post, and you'd like to further the political career of Senator Schumer.

Cast a critical eye on your work. Are your 2 descriptions equivalent? They should be equally accurate, equally presentable as journalism, equally in service to your political agenda.

What have you learned from this exercise? Has your respect for Milbank grown or shrunken? Explain.

Dana Milbank says "Marco Rubio was a bundle of nervous energy" who "poked his tongue into his cheek, he clenched his jaw, and he licked his lips."

"[A]s he waited his turn to speak about the bipartisan immigration plan he had helped to draft... He fiddled with his suit-jacket button once, then again, then a third time. He rubbed his fingers together, then interlocked them."

And I'm a bundle of nervous energy, poking my tongue this way and that, clenching my jaw, licking my lips, fiddling with buttons, rubbing and interlocking my fingers, as I watch to see how the media goes about accomplishing its plan to destroy Marco Rubio.

"A working group of senators from both parties is nearing agreement on broad principles for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws..."

3 Democrats and 3 Republicans — Durbin, Schumer, Menendez, Graham, McCain, and Rubio — "have been meeting quietly" and are about to announce their proposal, the WaPo frontpages:

The new effort was spurred in large part by the growing influence of Latino voters who strongly backed President Obama and other Democrats in November.

Interesting how that energizes both parties to act. A fascinating political game, which includes not only the reform itself but also — whether the reform occurs or not — the way various political actors look as they relate to the proposal for reform. It's sure to be a garish spectacle. In this political theater, who's most likely to take pratfalls on the public stage?

The senators are expected to call for normalizing the status of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, including allowing those with otherwise clean criminal records to obtain legal work permits, officials said. The group is also likely to endorse stricter border controls and a better system for employers to verify the immigration status of workers.

It was not clear, however, whether the final agreement will offer guidance on perhaps the thorniest issue in the immigration debate: what mechanism illegal immigrants could use to pursue full citizenship.

Here's a chance for Republicans to stop being "the stupid party" — as Bobby Jindal advised recently — and to become the truly smart party. Don't appeal to fears. Don't resort to ideology. Actually figure out the right answer on the basis of sharp economic thinking, and be prepared to explain it clearly. It seems to me, we have 11 million undocumented immigrants working in this country because they are serving our needs. My hypothesis is: We don't kick them out because we want them here, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. That's why we don't get tough. We still talk about getting tough and kicking them out — and walling out additional migration — because that appeals to emotion and tracks habitual thinking. But what's really happening? What have we really been doing all these years? How can we align the official policy with reality? That's how I'd like to see Republican politicians sharpen up, become the smart party, and show leadership.

74 conservative bloggers answer the question "Which of the following candidates would you most prefer to see as the GOP’s 2016 candidate?

There were 19 names to choose from, and Marco Rubio got a clear plurality, which was not surprising. What was surprising was Rand Paul at #2 and Scott Walker at #3. Have people heard that Scott Walker does not have a college degree? Could that possibly work? (I know I was disparaging college in another post this morning.)

Chris Christie is down at #10, with only 2 votes — including mine — and he's #1 on the list of who would you least like.

In 2008, the least wanted candidates for bloggers were…John McCain and Ron Paul.

In 2012, the least wanted candidates for bloggers were…Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.

So, going by those results, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush would have to be considered the early favorites for 2016 based on the fact that conservative bloggers don’t want either of them as a nominee.

"Marco Rubio’s Deceptively Pro-Science Answer on the Age of the Earth."

"Though asserting that science and theology disagree on the age of the earth... Rubio's opinion on the matter does slip through."

The meme-ready "I'm not a scientist, man" and the later "I'm not a scientist. I don't think I'm qualified to answer a question like that" may serve as convenient dodges, but they also indicate that Rubio thinks that science, as opposed to a theology, is the right way to answer the question, which it has.

ADDED: Rubio's answer reminds me of Obama's "above my pay grade" maneuver when asked about the humanity of the unborn. Both men said it's not my job to avoid conflict with religious people.

"Mitt Romney is losing 593 friends per hour..."

"... at least on Facebook today from 10 to 11 a.m. You can loiter on his page and watch them plummet by the second." That was written by a WaPo blogger yesterday:

Refresh the page – 12.08 million. Refresh again – 15 less. It would seem the defeated presidential candidate faces a problem unique to the social media age: The race may be over, but on the Internet his bid for president remains as a frozen digital relic....

Maybe the sudden follower fall-off supports criticism that Romney was not terribly well-liked by his party’s base and those partisans are now looking for new party leaders to follow. (Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has seen a modest jump.) The dropping-off effect also has not afflicted lesser profile third-party candidates. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson’s Facebook friend count rose during the same period that Romney’s fell. So did that of Green Party candidate Jill Stein. On Thursday, Stein was already posting again: “Our social movement is growing but there’s no time for rest,” she wrote. “Democracy doesn’t just happen on election day.”

Well, yeah. Stein and Johnson each embody a movement that goes forward. In fact, they only embodied a movement and were never possible winners. Romney was only ever a candidate and never any kind of a movement. There's nothing to follow now — even if you actually like the guy. But I'm sure many WaPo bloggers and others enjoy thinking that nobody ever liked Mitt Romney. And now everyone who ever Facebook-liked him is quick to unlike him, like liking him is like liking the unlikeable kid in high school which will get unlikeability on you. It's just Facebook. Well, but maybe that is how Facebook feels. You have your page, with the things you "like," and that makes a picture of you, a picture you must craft and edit to project likeability.

Live-blogging Day 3 of the GOP Convention.

6:04: Settle in. It's going to be a long night. Are you looking forward to anything other than Rubio and Romney?

6:30: A Mormon invocation, from Ken Hutchins, thanking God for "the beauty of the heavens and the earth... a lasting testament of Thy love for us."

6:43: "Once again, it's morning in America!" announces Connie Mack, gesturing exuberantly.

6:47: Another story of an immigrant who started a business. It's the American Dream, Mack tells us. "It's morning in America," he repeats, and the tribute video to Ronald Reagan begins.

6:53: "Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone," says the  voice of the departed President, "I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence, rather than your doubts. In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal. America's is." And so, we hear the theme of the night: hope, dreams... the very words that won the last election for the other party.

6:59: It's Callista and Newt Gingrich, here to liken Romney to Reagan and Obama to Carter. It's like 1980 again, you must understand, and it's striking how President Carter and President Obama both wrecked out hopes and dreams within only 4 years. They're speaking in this slow, methodical way. I think this would have been livelier without Callista, but she's bringing the woman... and the beauty... very crisp beauty.

7:03: Hispanics: We love you! We really, really love you. Your values are Republican Party values. Hard work. Entrepreneurship. The American Dream. The successful Hispanics have been Republican.  Identify with success, o Hispanic people! [This was a video. I'll post it here when I find it.]

7:06: It's Craig Romney, the youngest Romney son. He speaks at some length in Spanish, and it sounds fluent to me. He's really handsome too, by the way.

7:12: Jeb Bush comes out and speaks his first few words in Spanish. I'm picturing the Democrats suddenly scrambling to put more Hispanic in their convention.

7:40: Grant Bennett, a friend and fellow church member of Romney's, explains the work Romney did within the LDS Church. This is beautifully stated, explaining a life of service to others. Meade says, "Community organizing!" And I say, "No, he was ministering to individuals." There was no organizing.

7:47: An array of church members testifying to Romney's religious ministry. [This is very touching, parents with children who suffered and died.]

8:37: More testimonials from businesses that were helped by Mitt Romney and from Olympians who benefited from Mitt's leadership. This section is well-done. I'm not particularizing it, but let me say I'm impressed by it.

9:03: Clint Eastwood!

9:10: Clint's talking to an empty chair representing Obama. Oh, I don't think it's possible for him to do that to himself.  

9:13: We own this country... Politicians are employees of ours... When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go. Note the echo with Mitt Romney's famous: "I like being able to fire people."

9:14: Marco Rubio! About Obama: "Our problem is not that he's a bad person. It's that he's a bad President."

10:42: And now, Romney has given his speech. It was a Romney speech.

Obama calls Marco Rubio "boy": "Tell your boy to watch it. He might get his ass kicked."

He said that to a woman he knew was "close to" Rubio after she said "maybe" to his question "Is your boy going to go for [vice president]?"

That's one story in Politico's new e-book "Obama's Last Stand."

There's other interesting stuff at the first link, including Obama's disrespect for Romney — who stands for “nothing” — and his fear that Romney will get to "take credit when the economy turns around." There's also a lot of fairly generic material about the troubles in the Obama campaign. Axelrod got mad at Stephanie Cutter. An internal polls showed people don't like hearing from Debbie Wasserman Schultz. That sort of thing.

"Go bold, Mitt! Pick Paul Ryan, the Republican party’s intellectual leader..."

"... the man who’s laid out the core of the post-Obama policy agenda and gotten his colleagues in Congress to sign on to it."

Or pick Marco Rubio, the GOP’s most gifted young politician, the man who embodies what is best about the Tea Party and a vision of a broad-based Republican governing majority of the future. Barack Obama was right about this (if only this): Modern democratic politics is about hope and change. Ryan and Rubio, more than anyone else, embody Republican hopes and conservative change.

(I'm not agreeing with this... just pointing to it.)

"The Tea Party's Senate Insurgency Hits Texas."

Have you noticed Ted Cruz?

A former state solicitor general and clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the 41-year-old Mr. Cruz... is a staunch defender of states' rights, or what he calls the "forgotten Ninth and 10th amendments." He was the lead lawyer representing Texas before the Supreme Court in Medellin v. Texas (2008), after the International Court of Justice had tried to override Texas's justice system, and in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) he wrote the amicus brief on behalf of 31 states challenging a gun-control law on Second Amendment grounds.

He favors school choice, personal accounts for Social Security and a "low uniform tax rate—either a flat tax or the FairTax," he says, and his goal in the Senate would be to "cut federal spending as much and as quickly as possible." He's contemptuous of congressional Republicans who suggest that some of the popular features of ObamaCare can be retained. "I will work to repeal every last word of the law," he insists.

Mr. Cruz's Hispanic surname also isn't a liability when many Republicans seem to be searching for the next Marco Rubio. Like the Florida Senator, Mr. Cruz is of Cuban descent and has a gift for communicating his conservative credentials to right-leaning audiences. (At the same time, some Texans grumble that the Princeton and Harvard Law grad has the Barack Obama disease of coming across as a slick know-it-all, "the smartest guy in the room.")

Too smart? Not the right kind of Hispanic? We shall see. The primary is tomorrow. The "establishment" guy is David Dewhurst, the Lt. Gov. He calls Cruz "Washington lawyer Ted Cruz."

Sarah Palin, who seems to have the magic touch, has endorsed Cruz. I'm making a tag for Cruz (and not for Dewhurst), so that's something like making a prediction.

ADDED: You can listen to Cruz arguing for the independent power of the states in Medellin here. (His turn begins about halfway through.)

"Ann Althouse remembers it..."

Cool of Instapundit to remember things I said that I've forgotten. And I'd even set up a "meme watch"!

Paul Ryan endorses Romney.

The Wisconsin congressman embraces the frontrunner on the eve of the Wisconsin primary.

This, just days after the endorsement from Congress's other biggest GOP star: Marco Rubio.

The gesture Cain made that, he says, brought a complaint about sexual harassment.

On Greta Van Susteren's show, he spoke of an employee in her late 30s or early 40s who accused him of sexual harassment:

"She was in my office one day, and I made a gesture saying -- and I was standing close to her -- and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife.  And I brought my hand up to my chin saying, 'My wife comes up to my chin.'"  At that point, Cain gestured with his flattened palm near his chin.  "And that was put in there [the complaint] as something that made her uncomfortable," Cain said, "something that was in the sexual harassment charge."

Supposedly, the woman and her lawyer asked for a "huge" settlement, but she got very little, just enough to induce her to terminate the lawsuit.

Rush Limbaugh's reaction today:

Now, we don't have any evidence of ice packs on a busted lip as we had with Juanita Broaddrick and Bill Clinton.  Yeah, Bill Clinton and Juanita Broaddrick, "Hey babe, you better put some ice on that, you're bleeding at the lip."  We don't have any of that.  This story appears to me to be a close relative of the hit job that the Washington Post is doing on Marco Rubio.  It's not a news story.  This is gutter partisan politics, and it's the politics of minority conservative personal destruction, is what you've got here.  Rubio and Cain unfit to lead, don't you see. We cannot have a black Republican running for the office of president.  We can't have one elected.  We can't have an Hispanic.

The left owns those two groups, and those two groups are gonna forever be minorities. Those groups cannot ever be seen to be self-sufficient or rising above, on their own. Those two groups are owned -- lock, stock, and barrel -- by the Democrat Party and anything good that happens to any black or Hispanic in American politics can only happen via the Democrat Party....

This is how the mainstream media keeps the Republican Party in check: They're scared to death of this kind of thing happening to them. Pure and simple. It's also why (I'm just predicting) you're not going to see too many people in the official Republican establishment rise up to Herman Cain's defense. You know, if this exact circumstance (as I just mentioned) had happened in a conservative publication, not only would the Democrats and the media be going after the women -- as James Carville did and others during the Clinton years -- they'd be going after the reporters. They'd be going after the publication. Anybody who had anything to do with the story, it would be search-and-destroy. Our side will not do that.

Republicans Rush Limbaugh wants to see run in 2012: Allen West, Bobby Jindal, and Marco Rubio.

Blatant racial politics from the right, right?

Righty bloggers pick their Conservative Of The Year: Chris Christie.

Second Place: Sarah Palin. Third: Mark Rubio.

TV on! Election night! Liveblog!

1. It begins:



2. "... Rand Paul projected by CNN to win his Senate race in Kentucky and another conservative, Dan Coats, projected to win the Senate race in Indiana."

3. "I'm more comfortable with Fox," say I, after watching CNN for a while and then switching.

4. Oh, CNN is better. Better graphics. Lots of people saying things. Annoying much of the time, but more detail. Mary Matalin enthusing about Portman winning in Ohio, a state Obama won.

5. DeMint already making his victory speech. Kitty Dukakis in trouble for seeming like "a walking billboard."

6. CNN says Coons wins. We won't have Christine O'Donnell to kick around anymore.

7. Rubio! David Gergen enthuses about "a Republican Latino with star power."

8. "Wow, the first time one of the fictional Althouse characters actually had a complete story arc! Bravo!" (Scroll up.)

9. It's so sad for the Democrats. They gave us so many things. Gifts. Expensive gifts. That we didn't want. That they bought with our money.

10. Tim Kaine blabs on and on, making a happy face. Eventually, Wolf Blitzer cuts hims off with "It's going to be a long night for you.

11. CNN's music for tonight is the same (or just close) to what was used in the HBO John Adams series. It's about the Framers, no? As the Tea Party clinches it.

12. Drudge says: "REPUBLICANS WIN SENATE SEATS: AL, FL, GA, IN, OH, KY, MO, NH, SC... DEMS WIN: CT, DE, MD... TOO CLOSE TO CALL: PA, IL..." Hey, what happened to California? Earlier he was calling it for Boxer.

13. Manchin. "Huge win" for the Democrats, says Wolf Blitzer, about the hot West Virginia race.

14. The GOP takes the House. It's outside of the margin of error, says NBC. Pelosi is gone. Ding dong. [UPDATE: Now MSNBC is calling that "a mistake." MSNBC is awful.]

15. NBC says Wisconsin is "too close to call," as the polls close.

16. Rand Paul victory speech: "I have a message! A message from the people of Kentucky! A message that is loud and clear and does not mince words! We've come to take our government back!"

17. MSNBC is hilarious. They're near meltdown. Rand Paul will destroy America. The Republicans "salivate at the thought" of worldwide economic collapse.

18. O'Donnell conceding. Very cheerful. Chirpy. I listened to Marco Rubio's victory speech a few minutes ago, which was, by contrast, very mellow.

19. Scott Walker has, it seems, won the Governorship here in Wisconsin. That's supposed to mean — that must mean — no to the high-speed train boondoggle.  Also in Wisconsin, Russ Feingold is way behind.

20. Feingold has lost, quite decisively. I'm sorry to see him go. He's a good man. But I should admit that I voted against him. I had to vote for the Party of No.

21. Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin appear side-by-side on Fox News, analyzing the elections, denouncing sexism, and then ending on this adorable, ultra-girlie note:



22. Screen shot:



23. I just thought that was amusing, the way YouTube inserted my face into the Fox News. By the way, did you notice, at the end of the clip, when Geraldine said she wanted to go on "Dancing with the Stars," Sarah said "I'll hook you up"?

24. John Boehner tears up talking about American values, which he's chased all his life. Then, talking about his business, he sobs. Keep it together, Boehnsy!

25. That got a little... weird. I hope Boehnsy is ready to lead. Anyway, here in Dane County, Feingold's campaign manager George Aldrich is not giving up: "Russ is down by 80,000 votes, but...up to 1.4 million votes haven’t been counted." None of the Madison votes were in when he said that: "We are confident that this race is going to tighten, it is going to tighten quickly, and we may be in for a long night here."

25. Over at Drudge, it's the 3 Rs:



Rubio, Rand, and Ron.

26. Charles Krauthammer on Fox News: "The Obama agenda is dead." The Democrats have retained the Senate, apparently, but, looking forward to 2012, they will, self-defensively, distance themselves from Obama — says the Kraut.

27. Feingold has conceded. NYT:

Quoting Bob Dylan, he said, "My heart is not weary, it's light and free, and I've got nothing but affection for those who have sailed with me."

It is not clear what he will do next, but Mr. Feingold, 57, told the crowd: "It's on to the next fight, it's on to the next battle, it's on to 2012 and it is on to our next adventure, forward." He raised his fist in the air and left the stage.

The Times misses that "Forward" is the state motto. And maybe that "fist in the air" was posing as the Wisconsin "Forward" statue.

28. Karl Rove exclaims that he's "exhausted." I was just saying he looked tired.

29. Speaking of tired, it's interesting that Harry Reid will be sticking around. There's something so dreary about him. Does his victory cheer Democrats? Or would they have had more fun kicking Sharron Angle around?

30. I'm tired too. See you in the morning.