Or perhaps Melting Colossal Concrete Frying Pan. Whatever cooking-related metaphors you use to describe DC, it's nearly impossible to overstate the intensity of the heat down here. Yesterday the temperature hovered in the low 210s with solar winds blowing at 20 mph and a 45-50% chance of late-afternoon fire raining from the sky. Washingtonians have reacted drastically, removing the full-length peacoats that they wear for ten months of the year, an indulgence usually reserved for casual Fridays and sleeping. Metro employees are also feeling the heat, rerouting the air conditioning from the passenger cars to their cabins and continuously crashing their trains into concrete walls. The orange line, which bisects the city east-west and is the most convenient route to the Capitol, is particularly besieged. Crime is also on the rise, prompting the District Police to wildly overreact and establish coming and going checkpoints in problematic neighborhoods (see previous post). It makes one ponder: if you were hypothetically founding a nation, would you locate its capital somewhere temperate or, say, directly in the center of a swamp? My fondest affections for Washington, Jefferson, and the whole gang, but come on guys, there had to be some better real estate out there.

 

Meanwhile it's 72 back in Connecticut! Gotta miss home at a time like this.

And believe it or not, that honor doesn't go to Bush, who can only claim the honor of being our second worst Republican president. Or perhaps our third if you consider Rutherford B. Hayes. His muttonchops still summon a stark fear into the hearts of conservatives everywhere.

 

John McCain, in seeking an identity for his amorphous and somewhat unprincipled "maverick"-ness, has long been comparing himself to President Teddy Roosevelt, a politician for whom his admiration is no secret. Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901 to 1909, is one of history's most famous GOP statesmen and also a guiding light for self-styled "progressives". As a personality, he's hard to hate. A rugged frontiersman and energetic polymath whose hobbies included boxing, reading, and conservation, Roosevelt seemed to embody the best of the American spirit. But his overreaching policy prescriptions were far removed from the American Founding. Roosevelt was less a maverick than someone at total odds with his own party, an unapologetic statist renowned for his anti-business regulations and hurling America's military weight around the world.

 

McCain's most puzzling TR tribute is a web video that features a lengthy quote from the twenty-sixth president. The lefty blog Think Progress correctly noted that the excerpt was from Roosevelt's speech at the Progressive Party convention in 1912, after TR fled the Republican Party because it had nominated the more conservative William Howard Taft. At the time, Roosevelt's platform included a living wage, a public insurance program similar to Social Security, and a death tax. This followed a presidency during which he cracked down on business, instituted countless economic regulations (including instituting price ceilings on railroads), and passed the unconstitutional Antiquities Act which allowed for the creation of national monuments and public parks without Congress' consent. Roosevelt even had a slice of contemporary environmentalist killjoy in him, refusing to allow a Christmas tree in the White House.

 

This troubling record of government interventionism at home coupled with Roosevelt's equally overreaching record of government interventionism abroad (as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he was such a firebrand advocate for the Spanish-American War that he was later appointed William McKinley's vice president to keep him away from the military) suggests a record that is anything but traditionally conservative. McCain's TR fetish could be chalked up to his love of anti-establishment Republicans, but the similarities between the two mavericks runs deeper. Recently, McCain has stated loudly that he believes climate change is a threat to mankind and drastic action needs to be taken -- an emulation of Roosevelt's government-enforced conservation. McCain's so-called "national greatness conservatism" and belief in peace through strength resembles TR's famous "speak softly and carry a big stick" doctrine and his penchant for foreign interventionism. And the Arizona senator's insistence on meddling in the affairs from industry in the name of the people -- from his tobacco regulation bill to his Patient's Bill of Rights -- smacks of TR's famous trust-busting.

 

It's the transitive property: if McCain says he's like Roosevelt, and Roosevelt was a proclaimed progressive, then... And while bloating the government beyond its constitutional parameters is always wrong, at least TR had an excuse. The excesses of the Gilded Age are legendary and the trusts that Roosevelt targeted were legitimately corrupt. McCain lives in a world where the balance of power has shifted wildly from the corporations to the state, culminating in a federal government that can regulate the amount of water used in a flush-toilet. America doesn't need another Republican progressive itching to use the government to fight the "powerful special interests" in the name of the people. It needs an authentic conservative who understands the severe constraints that the Constitution imposes on the government and that freedom is defined by the lack of state power in the lives of individuals.

From the Washington Examiner:

 

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

 

So now Washingtonians will have to present "legitimate reason" to avoid being hauled off by police from areas of their own city. What's next, mandating that Americans present some sort of national ID card to avoid being hauled out of their own country? Oh yeah...

So much for hope and change and unity and love and peace.

 

According to the New York Times, Barack Obama's campaign is stepping up the heat on John McCain now that liberal fellow-traveler Hillary Clinton has been vanquished. Their first move? Obama '08 has hired Dan Carroll, who gained notoriety and a reputation for ruthlessness as chief opposition researcher for the DNC in 1992. Among the slime leveled by the Democratic Party that year was the absurd and thoroughly unsubstantiated claim that George H. W. Bush cheated on his wife with his secretary Jennifer Fitzgerald. Bush furiously denied the allegation and it ultimately faded into the memory sinkhole. Meanwhile, the DNC was working past 5 to obfuscate Bill Clinton's verifiable affairs, particularly with Gennifer Flowers.

 

The notion that a presidential campaign would hire an opposition researcher is neither shocking nor immoral. But that a political goody-two-shoes like Obama -- who has grabbed the nation's consciousness by relentlessly emoting about Uniting America and Running a Different Kind of Campaign -- would hire a scum peddler like Carroll gives you a headache from all the cognitive dissonance. I'm not feeling the hope and change, in other words. Even the Times demurely remarked that, "for all the talk on both sides about a new kind of politics, the general election campaign is likely to be bloody."

 

Somewhat ominously, the Obama campaign also let it be known that they planned to venture into red-state strongholds like North Carolina and Missouri. Such a "50 State Strategy" has been tried by Democrats before: DNC chair Howard Dean burned money on it in the 2006 election and Rahm Emanuel had to step in and save the party. This time around though, the Democrats are far better funded and can scream about the failing Iraq war and skyrocketing gas prices to potentially-sympathetic blue-collar Republicans. The GOP should take note: Obama intends to run a brutal campaign. The usual suspects and strategies are in play and the Democrats have wind in their sails. For all his vaunted moderation, McCain is at a disadvantage and will get no honeymoon from the left.

Now that Obama has all but clinched the Democratic nomination (although Mike Gravel is insisting his campaign still has gas left), his next immediate task will be to contemplate his vice presidential nomination. Hillary Clinton's name is predictably being bandied around the media, but she doesn't fit the campaign's "hope and change" bill. Better for Obama to nominate a fresh face, someone who will blend right in with the novelty of his campaign. After all, Obama has only been in the public consciousness for two years. Hillary Clinton collectible nutcrackers have been around longer than that. In the interest of bipartisanship, here are several examples of the Democrat Party's youngest and hippest, all of them natural selections for Obama's veep.

Senator Amy Klobuchar -- The feisty (and legitimately witty) senator from Minnesota is a ripe 48 years young, an underage minor as far as the octogenarian-ridden Senate goes. Elected in 2006 against a hapless GOP challenger, Klobuchar is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, a proponent of universal healthcare, a critic of the Iraq war, and a Gemini. She's also a card-carrying woman, which would help pacify the Geraldine Ferraro-Erica Jong wing of the Democrat Party.

Keith Olbermann -- Don't let that grey hair and propensity for dementia fool you. Olbermann is only one year older than Klobuchar and one of the least aged opinion-makers on cable news today. In addition, he wields hegemonic, Emperor Palpatine-like control over the young whippersnappers in the liberal blogosphere. His main contribution to the public discourse consists of screaming bromides like "Mr. Bush, shut the hell up!" and "You're a fascist! Get a t-shirt that says 'fascist' on it!" into the camera, all of which have the potential to liven up an otherwise bland presidential speech. Additionally, he has ranted and raved against Hillary Clinton's tendency to campaign "like a Republican."

Meghan McCain -- Unlikely seeing as how she's dedicated to electing her father, but she voted for John Kerry in 2004 and claims to be "liberal on social issues." Plus she's widely sought for her trenchant political analysis ("Mitt didn't keep it real.") and her hip cultural opinions (on Tila Tequila: "It's a bisexual dating show! It's hilarious!"). And can you imagine what a shot across the bow an Obama-McCain ticket would be to her father? As Meghan might say, oh snap!

Dalton Hatfield -- America's most fervent 11-year-old Hillary-supporter could spell doom for Obama's successors. According to the AP, the young West Virginian sold his video games and his bicycle to raise money and personally presented Bill Clinton with a $440 check. The potential fallout is alarming: if 11-year-olds start following Hatfield, they could swing the momentum towards Hillary when she runs for the third time in 2016. Obama needs to appoint Hatfield his running mate now to avoid a future electoral bloodbath.

The Girl in the 1964 Daisy Ad -- The little girl in the President Lyndon Johnson's most notorious campaign ad -- portrayed picking daisies and counting their petals in a field as a nuclear bomb goes off -- remains one of the Democrat Party's most powerful images. Although she's six, Daisy Girl is a survivor and could provide President Obama with wise counsel on a number of relevant topics, particularly what to do if Barry Goldwater decides to fire an atomic weapon at you and why America's enemies think flowery meadows are a prime target for a nuclear strike. Definitely a solid choice if Obama wants to challenge McCain's reputation as the "security candidate."