Boot the Blue Dogs  —  IN 2008, Barack Obama's presidential campaign seemed to rewrite all the rules in electoral politics and herald a new progressive era in America.  Democrats assembled a huge Congressional majority and, in the euphoria that followed the historic election, were poised to enact sweeping change.

Lefty academics convene in Berkeley to try to make sense of the Tea Party movement.  —  BERKELEY, Calif.—On the night before we are scheduled to address this conference, the Tea Party experts are treated to a meal at the Faculty Club.  It sounds fancy, and it is, with the feel and décor of a Sundance ski lodge.

I SAID BEFORE THAT WIKILEAKS' JULIAN ASSANGE WAS CLEARLY A TOOL, BUT WHOSE?  Well, so far the two biggest scoops from the latest document dump are that the infamous Lancet study was bogus, and that WMDs were found in Iraq in quantity.  Neither of these stories is actually news to people …

Jerry Brown's lead doubles in a month; little change in Senate race  —  Meg Whitman's handling of housekeeper scandal and record-breaking spending have cost her support among women, Latinos and independents.  Barbara Boxer maintains an 8-point lead over Carly Fiorina.

What Happened to Change We Can Believe In?  —  PRESIDENT Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for averting another Great Depression, for saving 3.3 million jobs with stimulus spending, or for salvaging GM and Chrysler from the junkyard.  And none of these good deeds …

The tea party warns of a New Elite.  They're right.  —  The tea party appears to be of one mind on at least one thing: America has been taken over by a New Elite.  —  “On one side, we have the elites,” Fox News host Glenn Beck explained last month, “and the other side, we have the regular people.”

Hume: Race had role in NPR firing Williams  —  Fox News commentator Brit Hume asserts that race played a role in National Public Radio's decision to fire Juan Williams last week after he made a comment on a Fox show about being concerned when he saw airline passengers in “Muslim garb.”

Crist, Meek try to paint Rubio as too extreme in Sunday Senate debate  —  Kendrick Meek and Charlie Crist joined forces Sunday to try paint their opponent and the Florida Senate race front-runner, Marco Rubio, as too extreme for voters.  —  Appearing on CNN's “State of the Union” …

Huckabee blasts Rove, ‘elitist’ GOP establishment  —  Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee today broadened the assault on the Republican Party establishment — and former Bush adviser Karl Rove in particular — levied recently by Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, blasting the “elitism” and …

Putting a Price on Professors  —  A battle in Texas over whether academic value can be measured in dollars and cents.  —  Carol Johnson took the podium of a lecture hall one recent morning to walk 79 students enrolled in an introductory biology course through diffusion, osmosis and the phospholipid bilayer of cell membranes.

Now Isn't the Time to Cut the Deficit  —  THE clamor to cut the budget deficit is deafening.  Blue Dog Democrats, Tea Party Republicans and doomsday economists are calling for immediate action.  And the demands for austerity coming from abroad are even louder.

Homophobia-phobia and Carl Paladino  —  The Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco celebrated gay pride by featuring men in leather, posing as the disciples of Jesus at the Last Supper with whips, chains and sex toys on a Michelangelo-like table.  Gay men bumped and ground each other on floats...as others simulated oral sex.