Notes and Quotes from the Dish

If you aren't reading Andrew Sullivan's blog, the Daily Dish, you are missing out. He's a perennial favorite of Cooper's as a wonderful libertarian/conservative spokesman. He's also extremely quick witted, well read, consistently interesting, and the rare independent who's not afraid (in fact, he's eager) to call a spade a spade.

Perhaps my fondness for his commentary grows when we're in full agreement, but that's not the point. Sullivan is a highly insightful and original voice of the blogosphere. The past several days have seen a slew of great posts. Here are some selected highlights from his site the last few days, but click on the links to read the posts in their entirety, or just go over and scroll:

(1) Bush ponders what's possible at the UN.

(2) "No liberal Democrat would ever have managed to spend as much and as incompetently as this administration." What was Howard Dean's line about balancing the budget? Oh yeah: "No Republican president has balanced the budget in this country in 34 years. If you want to trust somebody with your taxpayer dollars, you'd better elect a Democrat because the Republicans can't manage money."

(3) Also: "This is what conservatism has now come to mean: the worst aspects of big government liberalism with the worst aspects of meddling in the moral decisions of people's private lives." Another blistering, concise attack on the Republican clowns in charge. Why can't the Democrats make the case just as easily?

(4) The Onion predicts the future.

(5) "After all that money poured into homeland defense, we still have no capacity to act swiftly to save lives after a major attack. This is not only a betrayal of his campaign promises; it's a betrayal of war leadership; and, much worse, it's an invitation to our enemies to attack." In that sentence, along with a cry for fiscal sanity, you have the first Democratic talking points for 2006.

(5) Tom Delay visits a shelter post-Katrina: The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, ``Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?''