Was hesitant to leaf through the latest New Republic. I had taken a few days off, during which I resisted, pretty successfully, the temptation to revel in the other side’s sobbing and tantrums.

What did reach me during this quiet time—Jane Smiley’s fanatical anti-Americanism for instance—only encouraged me to return to my housework and catch up on my fiction reading (which did not include A Thousand Acres).

The not-so-militant truth about this opinion journalist is that I find real partisan hatred, when I’m aware of it, stultifying.

But I had to laugh when I saw the New Republic cover of this woman with raccoon eyes, weeping over the Kerry defeat. I assumed it was unintentional self-parody–until today, when I gave the new issue a good going-over (quite different from an actual read-through).

Jeff Rosen has an ultra-civilized piece (sorry, offline only) on what it’s like being married to a Republican (the talented writer Christine Rosen). Mr. Rosen bemoans our culture’s “addiction to emotions and images.” He says it makes our political differences “worse by encouraging voters to evaluate politicians in personal terms.” And: “This leads people to exaggerate their hatred for any candidate to whom they don’t feel personally connected.” It’s not hard to imagine the Kerry supporter on the cover felt some of this.

I also enjoyed Ryan Lizza’s election night piece and Jason Zengerle’s article on the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote effort in Ohio. Lizza is to be congratulated on his embarrassing disclosure of Election Day euphoria as Kerry appeared to be sweeping Bush, though he’s got be kidding when he writes: “Like Al Gore in 2000, Kerry was at his best and most gracious in defeat.”

That’s not the Al Gore I remember in 2000. And it’s not the Al Gore we read about in The New Yorker recently.

As for Brian Kennedy’s piece on hackers (to answer JVL’s query), it seems like a solid article. It informs me on some issues I wanted to know more about, though I found the lede graph very confusing. Truth is, I’d rather see the New Republic publish interesting work like this and demonstrate their Stephen Glass shame by, say, not painting themselves as innocent victims of a very bad kid by promoting films that acquit them of any wrongdoing.

While I’m sure you wanted to, I’ll bet you didn’t page through CBS’s 78-page response to the FCC. Lisa de Moraes did. She’s got all the amazing CBS denials. Here’s a tease:

The commission in September referred to MTV.com’s pre-show “news” story in which Jackson’s choreographer promised that her performance would include some “shocking moments.”

In its response, CBS said the “out-of-context quotation” that appeared in the online story “did not suggest that anything untoward might take place, nor did it put the network on notice that it should take precautions beyond those already in place.”

CBS also said that MTV management personnel who reviewed that online story believed the “shocking moments” promise was a reference to the fact that Timberlake was going to be Jackson’s surprise duet partner.

De Moraes has more.

For those of you who carry irrational ill-will towards Ana Marie Cox in your hearts, Tom Maguire continues his polite, gentle, yet firm, mini-jihad.

This must drive Andrew Sullivan just nuts: Hugh Hewitt called the election from a mile away, got the correct analysis of the first debate, and understood the ongoing political realignment in the face of all contrary opinion. For his trouble, people have tried to brand him as some sort of Rush-clone.

And now Hugh is leading the charge to save Arlen Specter.

You can find Hugh’s extended argument here. I find it quite persuasive. The costs of replacing Specter as chair of the Judiciary Committee are quite high, and have a good probability of coming to pass, should the assault on him succeed. The benefits of replacing him seem to be mostly psychological–and hence quite fleeting.

But there’s more: Replacing Specter would be a signal that Republicans might be headed down the same path towards moral absolutism that Libby Sternberg rightly sees as having hobbled the Democrats. If Republicans are going to be a majority party, they have to continue to tolerate–and even encourage!–some level of internal dissent.

Hugh Hewitt is right: Leave Specter alone.

The New Republic has a piece up today by Brian Kennedy called Going Pro: Hackers Sell Out. Wow. Good for Beinart & Co. for not being spooked by that little problem they had last time they did a story on a computer hacker who went to work for corporate America. You know what they say: Gotta jump right back up on that horse.

Does Skinner have anything more to say about this?

Libby Sternberg has a very interesting piece up about how the Democrats have become the party of moral absolutism. It sounds counter-intuitive, but I think she’s right.

If you go down the list of values issues from the last election–gay marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, affirmative action–the Republican party really was the big-tent party. There are prominent Republicans who disagree with the party line in every instance.

This heterodoxy gives Republicans a two-fold benefit. First, as Sternberg makes the case, it presents a show of tolerance to voters who aren’t comfortable with moral absolutes on these complicated issues. Second, it allows Republicans to have a vigorous, internal debate on the issues–something the Democratic party hasn’t had since welfare reform.

I’ve long suspected that one of the keys to Democratic revival is for the party to drop its all-or-nothing stance on abortion. The Democratic shunning of Bob Casey was a seminal moment, and one which needs to be righted.

Democrats don’t need to become a pro-life party. But as a party, they need to countenance and be able to embrace pro-life Democrats. This would be a first, and healthy, step towards reentering the political mainstream.

Once upon a time I wrote a little essay about Maine’s Rumford Falls Times, my favorite American newspaper. The editor of the Falls Times, very kindly comped me a subscription. So now, every Monday, I get to sit at my desk in Washington, put my feet up, and spend a few minutes catching up on the comings and goings of Rumford, which is about as idyllic a place as there is in our great land.

Today’s edition carries this wonderful front-page headline: “Doctor waits 86 years before Red Sox win another World Series.” The story, by Bruce Farrin, will warm your heart:

If you’ve been a faithful Red Sox fan long enough, you’ve no doubt used a phrase common to all of us–wait til next year.

Dr. Peter Aucoin is one fan who, it seems, has been forever hopeful. Now 101, he remembers Boston winning the World Series back in 1918, and has been patiently awaiting a repeat for 86 years.

But that all changed last Wednesday when Boston completed a four-game sweep of St. Louis. Watching each and every inning was Aucoin.

Beautiful, right? It gets better.

“I was surprised to see them win in four games, but if this was repeated, you have to wonder what would happen,” [Aucoin] said, adding that he felt bad for the Cardinals in the World Series, which had one bad thing happen to them after another . . .

He watched the Red Sox religiously in 1986, in 1975 and in 1967, when they lost Game 7 of the World Series to the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals, respectively. Aucoin cheered them on in 1946–which was his favorite Red Sox team–when they lost another Game 7 heartbreaker to the Cardinals.

And then he remembers the 1918 World Series when the Red Sox won the World Series against the hapless Chicago Cubs.

At the time, Aucoin was a 15-year-old student at Assumption Prep in Worcester, MA, waiting in line to read the Worcester Telegram so he could follow the Sox in that World Series. . . .

“My brothers made a Red Sox fan,” he said, noting he was the tenth of 12 children, and they all were Red Sox fans.

Aucoin also remembers the winter of 1919-1920 when Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for a then large dollar figure of $125,000.

“That’s his property. If he wanted to sell him, that was entirely up to him. It wasn’t a mistake as he needed the money. But I didn’t agree with him,” said Aucoin.

Rumford and Dr. Aucoin–America at its best.

Ah, those lovable Hoosiers! Jason Blosser has pointed me towards his excellent blog, the I.R.O.V.R.W.C.. In case you’re wondering, that’s “The Indiana Regional Office Of The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.”