Palin's Prospects  —  She dashed her chances of winning the 2012 nomination, but a path to the presidency remains open to Sarah Palin.  —  Forget about Sarah Palin as the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 and probably ever.  She may have no interest in seeking the GOP nomination.

The Not-So-Useful Idiot  —  Ross chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of the biggest farce in American politics in living memory.  The column is yet another rehash of the Nixonian class resentments and Rovian cynicism that dominate what passes for the GOP's thinking classes: if only she'd waited and …

Sarah Palin's surprise  —  From my latest American Spectator column: … Please read the whole thing.  Sunday morning, I was driving back from Lake Weiss — where we'd shot our fabulous annual Fourth of July fireworks show — when the editor called asking me to write the column.

Republicans Should Reexamine the Public Good of Private Citizens … In that phrase, “just being a private citizen,” Senator Grassley encapsulates both why Sarah Palin is so phenomenally appealing to the Republican base and how divorced the national Republican apparatus is from the core values of party members.

HELP Is on the Way  —  The Congressional Budget Office has looked at the future of American health insurance, and it works.  —  A few weeks ago there was a furor when the budget office “scored” two incomplete Senate health reform proposals — that is, estimated their costs and likely impacts over the next 10 years.

Robert McNamara, Architect of Vietnam War, Dies at 93  —  Robert Strange McNamara, the former secretary of defense whose record as a leading executive of industry and a chieftain of foreign financial aid was all but erased from public memory by his reputation as the primary architect …