Hastert to Retire

So far only the Sun Times has picked it up, perhaps because everyone knew it was coming and thus it's hardly newsworthy, but former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is expected to announce tommorow that he's not going to seek reelection.

Rove Out

In the biggest news of the day, White House evil genius in residence Karl Rove has announced that he'll be resigning his post as Deputy Chief of Staff at the end of August. I'll be posting more on this as the day progresses, but for the time being I think it's safe to say that he chose to leave and wasn't pushed out - this is the Bush White House, after all, where loyalty between the chief and the tribe is the foremost virtue. He says he won't get involved in any presidential campaign, so it remains to be seen what he'll do with his retirement (no doubt write a book).

Oh and in the linked article (and also in a worthwhile interview with WSJ's Paul Gigot), Rove foresees a brighter future for the Republicans, with them holding the White House, the President's approval rating rising, and the situation in Iraq improving.

"Ideological Agitprop"

Or so runs Brendan Nyhan's assessment of one of Kos-founder Markos Moulitsas's (many) logically fallacious arguments this morning on Meet the Press. I haven't watched his "debate" with DLC Chair/Archenemy Harold Ford just yet, but given the arrogance of his column in yesterday's WaPo, I'm not sure I can stomach it. His overall argument is that the DLC is bad, that the netroots are good, and that Americans are all a bunch of peacenik socialists in denial. [The state of journalism is reflected in the fact that pompous clowns such as him get inches on the op-ed page of a "respectable" rag like the Post]

UPDATE: I'm not going to bother embedding it, but Allahpundit has had some fun with today's debate, interspersing it with clips from an interview with Kos at last weekend's YearlyKos; watch it here. And he just sounds condescending, in the worst stereotype of a liberal.

Ames Straw Poll

I didn't bother blogging during the event (largely because the outcome was a foregone conclusion), but yesterday was the heralded Ames Straw Poll. Amid the barbecue and Iowa-style pageantry, there were the politics. It was assumed that Mitt Romney would win easily, but the real question was how the rest of the field would shake out - whether a second tier candidate could have the sort of showing to catapult him into the first tier; whether any of the non-participating candidates (Giuliani, McCain, Fred Thompson) could still finish well without any overt campaigning.

Once the 14,302 ballots were tallied, the winner was no surprise. However, Romney took only 31.5% of the vote, far less than some had expected he'd get (and it would have been declared a major victory had he taken a true majority), but a win's a win, right? Second-place finisher Mike Huckabee's showing (18.1%) was quite respectable, especially given that Ames was more or less make-or-break for the former Arkansas governor.

The event's conservatism is evidenced in the support for Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo (15.3% and 13.7% respectively); its weirdness in its 1,305 (9.1%) for votes for Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Chris Cilizza was apparently live-blogging from the event, and most of his commentary is worth reading (no independent links, just check out the Fix).

Oh and for what it's worth, Ames just claimed its first victim - Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson dropped out, his sixth-place finish sealing his fate. Not that it makes a big difference, just that it won't confuse people when Fred Thompson jumps in next month.

A Free-Styling Marine

This is why I love YouTube, and why I have the utmost respect for the men and women who defend this country.