PJ O’Rourke has cancer. And he laughs in its face.

I looked death in the face. All right, I didn’t. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I’m told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it — as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound — my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.

…
I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.

Furthermore, I am a logical, sensible, pragmatic Republican, and my diagnosis came just weeks after Teddy Kennedy’s. That he should have cancer of the brain, and I should have cancer of the ass … well, I’ll say a rosary for him and hope he has a laugh at me. After all, what would I do, ask God for a more dignified cancer? Pancreatic? Liver? Lung?

I wrote the other day about how a few conservatives are starting to regret their earlier support for Palin

Kathleen Parker:

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn.

and contrasted that with the campaign to ’set sarah palin free’:

KLo:

You’re the one who is going to win this election. Be yourself. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Apparently, anything other than wholehearted support is tantamount to treason, as both Kathleens discovered from their mailbag:

To Parker:

Your article sounds more like a female on the rug. You don’t do yourself credit for the lousy journalism you displayed in your article. The article filled with so much BS, mud slinging, it came to a point it became unbearable to read any more drool from your part. So I must ask you, are you some pig that resembles Rosy O’Donnell, or do you hate real feminine, soft and powerful woman who has reversed years of corruption in Alaska, and fearful that she will do the same thing, but her problem that might shatter this dream is her poor performance in a few interviews?

and

My, My, Kathleen, what a nice conservative facade you have!! Truly, your aren’t fooling anyone with your so called concern for the betterment of the Republican Party by asking Sarah Palin to get off the ticket. What you did was embarrass yourself and negate every positive article you ever wrote about Republicans. See, I think you are a fake — a wolf in sheep clothing. A pretend conservative. Someone who can’t be relied on in tough times and has zero loyalty. Someone who lies in wait to attack. In your dark heart, that opportunity couldn’t come too soon. So, please, spare us conservatives, who actually care about supporting our party through smooth & rough roads, with your disingenuous regrets.

and to Lopez:

You belong on MSNBC. You’re no republican and should be ashamed of what you wrote. You’re a disgrace to this journal and the republican party. Everyone knows you are a democrat with a name Lopez. I don’t ever want to hear from you. Thousands of complaints about you have been expressed.”

Read the rest. Amazing.

I can understand that you might face the ire of the base if you criticize their heroine, but Ramesh Ponnuru got the hairdryer treatment for reporting the bailout as he saw it:

A reader:

Over the next few days I expect to see your posts—that the bailout failure should all be blamed on  Republicans (despite 40% of Dems not voting for it), and that Republicans deserve the blame for the coming Depression that you predict.

Comments like yours are gold to the MSM and to Democrats in the weeks before an election,  because when such comments come from the left they don’t have any sting.  But coming from you guys, they can really make the story and swing votes left.

I don’t get the point of it.

and Ramesh’s response:

Speaking only for myself, the point of it is to say what I think is true, whether or not it helps the candidates I hope win. Whatever value there may be to reading me would disappear if I wrote only comments that help Republicans.

Ramesh should know by now that truth has a liberal bias.

I don’t understand why McCain did not choose his best buddy Lindsey Graham as his running mate. Especially when he goes around saying smart stuff like this:

“I’m going to choose the bad choice over the catastrophic choice.” And then he said, “We don’t have the luxury of kicking this can down the road like we did with immigration or Social Security and dealing with it another day, hoping somebody braver than us will come along and have courage that we can’t muster to deal with immigration or Social Security. This is on our watch.”

Have y’all seen the I can do that woman? When you watch this, try not to think of Sarah Palin at the UN.

Sam Harris says it for liberal elitists everywhere.

Her fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that broadcast the good lady’s misfortune—and, above all, upon the “liberal elites” with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century, only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our nuclear arsenal.

…

Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world’s only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

“Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child’s brain?”

“Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I’m an avid hunter.”

“But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind.”

“That’s just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink.”

…

The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has “elitism” become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn’t seem too intelligent or well educated.

I have been checking the reactions to the debates on all the partisan blogs and it really is astounding how one-sided the commentary is on both sides. I saw a poll - which I can’t find again - saying  95ish% of democrats and republicans claimed that ‘my candidate won the debate’.

I wonder if the problem is group think? You are in a crowd watching your guy when someone shouts ‘Hell yeah!’ and you are like ‘hell yeah!’ and ‘that’s bullshit!’ and then you watch the remainder of the debate through partisan-tinted glasses.

Over at The Corner, they seemed to be watching an American Super Hero take on a North Korean Fifth Grader in a wrestling match. They certainly weren’t watching the same debate as me. Except one guy…

I have been hanging out at the corner for a few weeks now and they really are an odious bunch. They are allegedly the cream of the conservative intellectual movement but - with two shining exceptions - you’d never guess it to read them. The worst of the whole bunch is Jay Nordlinger who is from the why do liberals hate america school of conservative thinking.

So I was mightily surprised to read his debate summary which had gems like these

35. If I were an ordinary American — who didn’t know anything — I’d say, “Hmm, Obama sounds okay — a moderate fellow. And don’t we need a change?” Bodes ill . . .

39. Amazing to have Obama, a left-wing Democrat, denounce “tremendous spending” and “an orgy of spending.” He’s a very good campaigner, sadly.

43. Obama said, “General Petraeus has done a brilliant job” — will that sit well with the “General Betray Us” people? But I imagine they’ll sit still for anything in a general election, just to get Obama in.

and his conclusion…

70. I think many people will take away the following impression: “They would both make a good president. They’re both solid, centrist, centered, informed, capable. But if I want a change — and Lord knows this country needs a change — I should vote for the Democrat.”

More here. Go read them. They are actually pretty good.

It was almost as if he had convinced himself that the conservative talking points about liberals were true and - for the first time ever - he was hearing a real liberal speak. What? They don’t hate the troops? I thought that liberals were all tax and spend !! Why does he want to kill Bin Laden when everyone knows the democrats love terrorists!

I wonder if this…

As is my custom, I’m writing my comments without hearing any other commentary — I am unaffected by other opinions.

…made any difference?

Apparently many of his readers were shocked too.

Many, many readers have written that my quick points on the debate depressed them — why did they have to be taken down, after being so up after McCain’s impressive performance? No one need be depressed: McCain did very well. He held up our end, as I said at the bottom of my notes. Of course, he has the advantage of the better positions.

But Obama’s more like a pro — more like a professional debater than a politician who happens to do all right in such settings. Not that that is necessarily the most effective thing, politically: There is such a thing as being too smooth.

And his rationale - when he is finally exposed to liberal policies instead of conservative talking points about liberal policies?

Obama is pretending!

What’s depressing, to a person like me, is that Obama has mastered the trick of coming off as perfectly moderate…

Wait until he finds out that we really DO love the terrorists and we want to tax the middle class and give the money to crack whores and we really DO want the government controlling your doctors! Mwuhahaha!

BTW I woke with a start during the night realizing that I missed a bit in my write up of the debate. I would be delighted with either man as president except for the fact that I disagree with 60% of McCain’s policies.

That’s a good thing though. They actually debated policies instead of making fun of the other candidate’s leisure habits, salad preferences or collection of mariachi figurines.

But no doubt The American People will have noticed that one candidate touched his nose four times and, in their wisdom, will decide that, we can’t have Presidents Who Touch Their Nose Four Times In Debates and the other candidate will win in a landslide. Or maybe one candidate used a word which means ‘I hate gerbils’ in Swahili and the race will be decided by gerbil-fanciers picketing on election day.

I am impressed with the candidates but the electorate have yet to demonstrate that they are competent to choose leaders.

I just watched two deeply impressive men who finally lived up my hope for a respectable campaign. This is the first time since I arrived on these shores that I have seen a political debate worthy of the name. After the farce of the primary debates and the sham debates of four years ago, I found this quite refreshing. If it weren’t for all the crazy people lurking behind McCain I would be delighted with either man as President.

As an unashamed elitist, I am glad that they spoke intelligently and seemed to pitching at people who understood the issues rather than the people who feel that the president should be an average mum. But this same elitist has no idea what effect the debate had on people who aren’t familiar with affairs of state.

If you buy into the narrative that Obama just had to appear as a credible commander in chief, he did the job despite McCain’s weak attempts to pin the label of inexperience on him.

Well done both men - but most of all, well done Jim Lehrer! Not once did he ask ‘How would you help me as a black woman?’ nor ‘you are not wearing a lapel pin. why do you hate america?’.

What’s clear is that the results of the vice presidential experiment are already in. Palin, the “regular citizen,” is running a flawless campaign. Biden, the man of “prudence” and “experience,” is making a fool of himself two or three times a week.

Forbes

I expect that this is before he watched the Couric interview.

One of his commenters makes a nice observation, pulling separate quotes from the article.

“As far as I am aware, she has committed not a single gaffe.”

” ‘A gaffe,’ as Michael Kinsley once noted, ‘is when a politician tells the truth.’ “

UPDATE: In a gaffe of my own, I screwed up the link. It was in Forbes. Not WSJ.

UPDATE2: He had not seen the interview. In a post at NRO, the author - quoting a reader - said:

I desperately want Sarah Palin to continue to be an asset to the ticket.  Having said that, I don’t see how you can possibly publish the statement ” In just under a week, she had mastered the interview format” with a date of September 26th.   Did you not see the Couric interview?    I would suggest that she has not only not mastered the format but is, in fact, regressing.

No, to be honest, I didn’t see the Couric interview—I had to file the column before the interview aired.  Do the emails in my inbox make me eager to watch the interview on YouTube?  No they do not.

During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country’s scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government’s scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.

We have watched Senator Obama’s approach to these issues with admiration. We especially applaud his emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation’s competitiveness. In particular, we support the measures he plans to take – through new initiatives in education and training, expanded research funding, an unbiased process for obtaining scientific advice, and an appropriate balance of basic and applied research – to meet the nation’s and the world’s most urgent needs.

A Bunch of Scientists