BET Founder Slams Obama in South Carolina  —  COLUMBIA, S.C. — Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, who is campaigning today in South Carolina with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, just raised the specter of Barack Obama's past drug use.

Deplorable Campaigning  —  Mike Huckabee: “Many of us who have been Republicans out of conviction . . . the social conservatives,” he told reporters, “were welcomed in the party as long as we sort of kept our place, but Lord help us if we ever stood forward and said we would actually like to lead the party.”

The Noxious Fruits of Hate Speech laws  —  (updated below)  —  I've written several times before about the oppressive, dangerous hate speech laws which are common — increasingly so — in both Canada and Europe, whereby the Government is empowered to punish as criminals citizens …

Sex and the Teenage Girl  —  THE movie “Juno” is a fairy tale about a pregnant teenager who decides to have her baby, place it for adoption and then get on with her life.  For the most part, the tone of the movie is comedic and jolly, but there is a moment when Juno tells her father about her condition …

Liberal Fascism And Its Critics  —  Here is some free advice for liberals who don't care much for Jonah Goldberg or his (bestselling) new volume: Either confine yourself to dismissive snark, of the sort perfected by my colleague Matt, or buckle down and actually read the damn thing.

Cloudy Fortunes for Conservatism  —  Well, this wasn't the plan.  —  As pretty much everyone has noticed, the Republican race hasn't exactly followed any of the scripts laid out for it.  Mitt Romney has been hacked apart like the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

A GOP Numbers Crunch  —  The first year of the 2008 campaign — think about that — has clearly established that the Republican Party's prospects are cloudy.  In the first two major contests, Mike Huckabee has finished first and third, John McCain fourth and first, Mitt Romney second twice.

THOSE ENDORSEMENTS ...  Endorsements don't usually count for much.  But if they're big enough and come at critical moments they can count for a lot.  And this string of endorsements Obama has picked up since his narrow defeat in New Hampshire four days ago is, I believe, a major story that has not gotten the attention it deserves.

So We Thought.  But Then Again . . .  HARRY S TRUMAN once said he wanted to talk to a one-armed economist, “so that the guy could never make a statement and then say: ‘on the other hand.’ ” Yet economic knowledge continues to progress in unexpected ways.  Here are a few of the things we learned in the last 12 months:

Romney leads McCain in Michigan, poll shows  —  Mitt Romney leads John McCain days before a potentially pivotal Republican primary in Michigan, according to a new McClatchy-MSNBC poll.  —  The rise of the economy as an issue and Romney's new strength after two losses underscored how volatile …