I meant to get to this yesterday, but it's still worth noting the Politico story about how the GOP is trying to figure out how to run against Barack Obama without looking racist, or to run against Hillary Clinton without appearing

... performing one more great service for his country.

Sarah Vowell has a delightful op-ed in today's NYT, deftly looking at the political secular-Christian divide in light of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. It is especially resonant for a liberal from Kansas.

A Kansas friend of mine writes about Obama's victory in Iowa:

I respect the opinions of my readers who have different politics, but I'd like them to consider that this is bigger than politics. This is not just (political) history; this is affirmation of our deepest values as a people--something I had come to fear we might have started down the darkening, descending way to losing.