For about four months now I’ve had a copy of Ted Kennedy’s memoir, True Compass, sitting on my nightstand. So far it has served as a coaster and as a paperweight – and as an acceptable pile-topper when I don’t feel like cleaning old newspapers and half-read magazines off the table. But I’ve never cracked it open. I’m not really sure why – actually, I can think of one reason – but now I’m wondering if I’ll ever read it at all. Since Tuesday it has come to seem decidedly less necessary, historically speaking … like a rock band’s phenomenal debut album that was followed by a dozen shitty ones, or like Tiger Woods’ pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’ record for major championships.
In fact, something interesting happened on Tuesday night. Remember that scene near the end of Back to the Future, when Marty’s hand begins to disappear as chances of his parents getting together become less likely? Well, on Tuesday night an entire section of True Compass vanished from my nightstand. It was Teddy’s health care legacy. Will Democrats somehow find a way in the coming days and weeks to restore those pages to the book, or are they – and, with them, the usefulness of the Democratic Party as a governing coalition – gone for good?
Ted’s legacy is hardly the most important potential casualty of Massachusetts’ idiotic decision to place Scott Brown in Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, but it’s hardly the least important, either. Symbolically speaking – and we may as well speak of symbols, because reality flew out the window a long time ago when it comes to the health-care debate – Tuesday’s vote represents the (overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning) people of Massachusetts marching en masse down to Arlington Cemetery and pissing on the eternal flame. One day very soon, Brown will cast an inevitable, lockstep “No” vote on an issue that hasn’t yet been utterly poisoned by demagoguery — an issue for which Teddy would have been leading the fight, on behalf of the huge majority of people in his state who favor progressive action rather than the conservative let’s-do-nothing approach. A jobs program, maybe? On that day, some significant number of currently spiteful, moderate Massachusetts voters will think to themselves, and not for the last time, “My God, what have we done?” (more…)
I note this contradiction not merely for an ironic chuckle – though I must say, I did spend a half hour guffawing after I read it – but also to preface the peculiar challenge I’ve set for myself now that I’ve finally finished Ayn Rand’s rambling rhapsody of (supposed) rationality. I must, of course, complete the task of synopsizing the novel – which is easy enough, except for the requirement of posting the phrase “Spoiler Alert!” for the benefit of anyone who’s just now stumbling across 
There’s something joyous, even heartwarming, about hearing Freedy Johnston’s distinctive voice again. It’s been easy to lose track of him over the last decade; after all, he hasn’t released a new studio album since 2001’s 
I’m sure some of you are quite pained to learn that my heretofore sincere quest to devour Rand’s magnum opus has, temporarily at least, devolved into openly mocking pillow talk with the missus. But don’t despair! Thanks to that magical Internet phenomenon known as the “pingback,” I learned this week that one of our nation’s most respected investigative reporters, the extravagantly mustachioed John Stossel, has picked up this hot potato and run with it — preparing an hourlong program on Atlas Shrugged and Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, to be broadcast this very evening at 8 p.m. EST on the Fox Business Network! 
Right now, two paragraphs into a column that’s supposed to be 
That said, I must admit that Atlas Shrugged is far more gripping than I expected it to be – even if, half the time, it’s gripping in the way that a gruesome five-car collision commands the attention of passers-by on the freeway. I’m a sucker for stories full of workplace intrigue and political manipulations, so I’m having a surprisingly easy time tolerating Rand’s endless exposition and the most unfathomable attempts at dialogue I’ve ever read. As for the Objectivism … I suppose if I’m to read one work of delusional right-wing fiction this holiday season, I’m glad it’s this rather than, say, Going Rogue. 
It’s understandable, at a moment when the GOP is in such a shambles that citizens self-identify as “conservative” at twice the rate they identify as “Republican,” that increasing numbers of fiscal conservatives are searching frantically for something to say “yes” to even as they scream “no” at everything else. But what most of Rand’s new teabag followers probably fail to recognize, at least to this point, is that 