Substitute Teacher

Since the Prof is off junketing in NYC today, it’s up to me to cover Slate for you.

First, we have Will Saletan on Dick Gephardt leaving his post to pursue the White House:

Let’s recap. The old, hamstrung Gephardt was forced to fight for a losing agenda of health care for all, world-class education, secure retirement, and a secure America. The new, authentic Gephardt will fight for an exciting agenda of health care for all, world-class education, secure retirement, and a secure America.

Failing upward was a popular career track in the late ’90s. A CEO could mismanage his company, tinker with the books, and move on to a new company before the mess was exposed. Those days are over in business. They’re over in politics, too.

It was craven of the CEOs, and it’s craven of Gephardt. I still think the Dems will select a relative unknown for ’04. It worked in ’92 against another man named Bush, although the political climate has obviously changed since then.

We also have Christopher Hitchens making the anti anti-war case:

Saddam Hussein is not going to survive. His regime is on the verge of implosion. It has long passed the point of diminishing returns. Like the Ceausescu edifice in Romania, it is a pyramid balanced on its apex (its powerbase a minority of the Sunni minority), and when it falls, all the consequences of a post-Saddam Iraq will be with us anyway. To suggest that these consequences