Sorry to add another post, but "technical difficulties" prevent me from updating the previous one.

Matthew Yglesias has become a blogosphere fixture by writing many sharp observations and arguments. Given the quantity/quality trade-off that lowers his batting average, however, no one could wish that his posts were more numerous. His weakest entries tackle important questions with the haste of a postcard from summer camp written just before the start of archery class.

Here, for example, is the entirety of his examination of the policy and constitutional questions raised by Roe v. Wade: “I think the effort to convince even pro-choice people that there’s something legally dodgy about Roe ought to be resisted.” Should it be resisted because Roe is a good decision, or a bad decision that was the only way to bring about the results Yglesias favors? That detail is left unaddressed.

And here is Yglesias refuting libertarianism: “[T]o me the idea of [a] state committed to neutral and effective administration of justice around laissez faire lines seems like an illusion. The alternative to reasonably effective democratic institutions and a viable left-wing political movement isn’t free markets but the capture of the state by large economic interests as during the Gilded Age or, indeed, the Bush administration.”

Yglesias has an obvious gift for saying too little; many haikus dig deeper than his discussions. Yet he also has the ability to say too much at the same time. Both of his hit-and-run arguments reveal the same core belief: Politics is about power, and the concepts of right, law and justice are just pretty, empty words meant to confuse us. There is no justice, only outcomes we like or dislike, groups we favor or oppose.

My son and I attended this year’s Together for Life rally and march, featuring Mike Huckabee, who was very generously introduced by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. (For more on the politics of Huckabee’s sojourn under Georgia’s gold dome, see this piece.)

Huckabee’s speech was first-rate, not only well-delivered but well-thought. I can’t find the text anywhere, but the core was is riff on Lincoln’s thought that "if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." He understands that a Human Life Amendment is the culmination of a strategy that could surely begin with overruling Roe v. Wade, and does not overstate the President’s role in the process. The crowd (a few thousand on a cold, rainy day) responded very well.

A few thoughts. First, Huckabee clearly deserves this endorsement. He feels this stuff in his bones. If you’re a single-issue voter, or think the culture of life is an important issue, he deserves a close look.

Second, he’s a darn good public speaker, much better than any other candidate or President I’ve seen in person. (More immediately, he blows Rudy out of the water.) He’s comfortable, fluent, and establishes an easy rapport with his audience. Of course, this wasn’t exactly a tough crowd, but he’s just as at home among them as Bill Clinton was, the time I saw him speak (as an ex-President) at Ebenezer Baptist Church (not yesterday, but a few years ago).

Third, the fact that Sonny Perdue introduced him and that Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle was on the platform moments earlier is, I think significant. Huckabee isn’t anathema to the Georgia Republican establishment. He’ll likely have some significant high-level support, especially now that Fred Thompson has left the race. Huckabee was comfortably ahead in the last Georgia poll (about 10 days ago), and could well hold at least some of that lead, especially if his competitors don’t bother to do much in Georgia.

Rob Jeffrey is underwhelmed by McCain’s victory in South Carolina, pointing out, for example, that he received fewer votes than he did in 2000--despite the support of much of the S.C. establishment. I’d add: the lower turnout, despite rapid population growth in the state, is an ill portent for Republican chances in the fall. As if we needed another.

He was here today and will be back tomorrow, participating in this event, which I will likely attend with the Knipp kids. (To be clear, this does not imply an endorsement; we’ve also seen Rudy Giuliani, for whom I’d only vote in a general election.)

As for the group of African-American pastors who endorsed Huckabee, their leader, Rev. William Owens, is a down-the-line social conservative and penetcostal who has earned the ire of the right people. The endorsement is unlikely to send many voters Huckabee’s way.

I really thought Ron Paul was the guy for me. I like his principled opposition to the current administration’s foreign policy. In fact I agree with nearly everything he stands for, so I was able to overlook the fact that he seems to attract a lot of conspiracy-mongers and crackpots to his banner. Heck, I’ve been a libertarian fellow-traveler for years, so I have a higher tolerance for cranks than most people. So I supported him. I sent his campaign some money (not much, but some), wore a Ron Paul t-shirt, put a sticker on my office door. I even joined Academics for Ron Paul.

Then came this article in The New Republic, revealing the sort of racist trash that appeared for years in newsletters bearing Paul’s name. I was glad to hear that he denied responsibility for writing them, and I believe those denials, but there’s no getting around the fact that he allowed them to appear under his name. I don’t want someone in the White House who has exercised such poor judgment, no matter what I might think about his views on drug legalization. Respectable libertarian organizations like the Reason Foundation and the Cato Institute had already begun to distance themselves from Paul; this editorial by David Boaz puts it as well as any I’ve seen.

Rod asks some good questions, and comes to some of the same conclusions I came to here.

Our friend Jon Schaff posts a generally favorable review of Liberal Fascism.

Our friend John von Heyking sends along this characteristically rich and thoughtful contribution to the discussion of religion and politics north and south of the border.

I especially liked his discussion of the role of our common sense of vulnerability in developing a "culture of life" (my words, not his). Here’s his criticism of the great Canadin public intellectual Michael Ignatieff:

[I]s it any wonder that the inspiration for human rights develops in cultures that have long contemplated the meaning and mystery of human vulnerability in “denuded human suffering”? Does Ignatieff not recognize in this language the figure and suffering of Jesus Christ and the “suffering servant” of the Israelite prophets, not in terms of an abstract species but in the concrete person? Do we not need rights precisely because we are so fragile, because the autonomous agent is in fact a “moral fiction”? Superman does not need human rights. Ignatieff reveals his Prometheanism when he fails to see this mystery in “nakedness,” and chooses “agency” and “difference” instead. This turn toward agency, while tentative, might reveal not so much skepticism toward instincts as contempt toward weakness.

John points to the way in which the Promethean element of contemporary liberalism relies, in effect, on a kind of magnanimity as the basis for respecting the rights of others and assisting the weak. Needless to say, this is diametrically opposed to genuine compassion and even has a hard time with mutual respect.

...next Thursday, the 24th, to speak on Tocqueville on greatness and justice. For more details, go to Dr. Pat’s "Tocqueville Forum" website. There you can check out Deneen’s great series of lectures on Alexis, and I’m proud to be between the genuinely great Mansfield and Delsol. The time Thursday is 5 p.m, and the location is 3700 N Street. This is the best reason ever for you think-tankers and bureaucrats to knock off an hour early. It’s not like you’re really doing any work anyway.