Yet another NY Times editorial about the New Isolationism. There isn’t really a new isolationism, in that no one is advocating that the US abandon the international arena. Some are advocating that it abandon its international responsibilities, but that is another matter entirely. What they are saying is that the US won the cold war and can do anything it wants, including forcing other countries to do whatever we want them to, but without any pretense of ideology, or any of the duties that accrue to power. And that is my final word on the New Isolationism.

Monty Python once envisioned elections fought by the Sensible Party, the Slightly Silly Party, and the Very Silly Party. I think we’ve got something like that now. I saw several headlines about the new Argentine president that used the word “boring.” Now about three years back one of the genres that could be spotted in my e-mails was the wacky South American politician story. You couldn’t be elected mayor of Lima or president of Ecuador without getting married inside a lion’s cage and calling yourself El Loco. Now the old election-o-meter has swung back to the boring party. I think this country needs to scrap the existing party system and switch to the Boring Party and the Entertaining Party. Gore versus Ventura. Hell, the only way Gore will ever get elected president is in a massive reaction to four years of rule by the Silly Party. A modest proposal for 4 in the morning. Or 3 in the morning, but I’m entirely in support of the guy in the Czech Republic who’s trying to stop Daylight Savings Time in court. He calls it genocide, I’m not quite sure why, but I know what party he supports.