Garren Shipley and his NV Daily colleagues have put together a wide-ranging podcast on the Bell case -- interviewing family members, politicians, law enforcement officials...it's worth listening to in its entirety.

The sense of betrayal in the voice of Sgt. Timbrook's father is palpable -- as is the sense of relief in the voice of the grandmother of three of Edward Bell's children.

It's easy -- too easy -- to say that Governor Kaine has smugly allowed his personal dislike for the death penalty to intrude on the legal process. That's especially so in this case, which reached a heightened degree of notice during the 2005 gubernatorial election.

Perhaps he did allow it to happen. But I'm not so sure. And maybe that's desperately naive on my part. However, the only other conclusion is that Kaine not only deliberately lied to the people in 2005, but he's also used executive fiat to make that lie the law -- however temporarily -- in 2008.

Sen. Barack Obama is getting a bit of guff for an ad where he slaps around oil companies. Fair enough. But let's look at the point he makes about those evil oil companies again, shall we?

They’ll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We’ll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil. I approve this message because it’s time that Washington worked for you. Not them."

They'll pay a penalty for making all that dirty, dirty money.

Rarely has a candidate so candidly, even proudly, exhibited such profound ignorance of economics.

If the good Senator wishes to advocate punishing businesses who make a profit, he is free to do so, just as long as he understands that the bulk of those profits do not end up in a heap in the basement. Oil companies, for example, funnel the bulk of that money back into finding more oil. What's left over, they pay out to shareholders (like the Leahys) and some even finds its way into the coffers of governments in the form of taxes, fees and royalties. If the Senator wishes to squelch those profits, I can only hope he is prepared to see one or all of those profit outlets severely curtailed.

You remember, like happened the 70s and windfall profits taxes were all the rage? When we had gas lines and rationing?

Good times.

Old Zach has, quite rightly, taken all sides to task for their coverage of, and reactions to, the tawdry collapse of Eliot Spitzer. But in this piece, we get a perspective that has been lacking so far:

Eliot Spitzer is a timeless example of the basic conundrum of government: the fact that anyone who really wants to wield power is, by that very fact, the last person who should be allowed to do so. I call this the Washington Conundrum, named after George Washington—who is arguably the first man in history to demonstrate the solution: the only person who can safely be allowed to wield power is someone who seeks it out of dedication to the cause of liberty.

But take away the love of liberty—and the ideological framework of individual rights that supports it—and we return to the squalid pattern of most of human history: power not only corrupts, but attracts, rewards, and promotes the most corrupt types of human character.

Without the love of liberty and the principles of liberty, we don't get George Washingtons in public office. Instead, we get the Emperor's Club VIPs—self-aggrandizing thugs like Eliot Spitzer.

While this may be painting with a pundit-sized brush, I think the larger point is true not only for the Spitzers of this world, but for the political class as a whole.

There are those good people, of high principles and determination, who enter public life with the intention of acting on those principles and then returning home to live under the laws they made. Such individuals have always been rare, but they are virtually extinct today.

But it is often said that we get the government we deserve, populated by the people we choose to elect. The lament that there are no good alternatives at the ballot box, that we are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, is commonplace.

However, part of the blame for this condition lies squarely on the voters' shoulders. We -- the irrational, the easily-swayed, the uninformed -- allow those who seek power for its own sake to get it...repeatedly. But rather than take steps to correct this, we choose alternatives that only make the problem worse, encouraging those who are even less informed and more easily swayed to go to the polls and fulfill their sacred duty so we can all feel good about how many people participated. We fail in our most basic function as sovereign citizens: Conducting due diligence.

This is the hard part of being a citizen. It takes energy, time, sustained effort. But without that effort, the system naturally spirals toward entropy. And the results are predictable: Those who have the desire to rise above will do so, regardless of their motives, because the rest of the system is passive, more willing to accept than to challenge. Once there, they expend their energies in perpetuating themselves in power and expanding the boundaries -- both public and personal -- of what that power can achieve.

Some, like Spitzer, get too greedy and fall. But the more careful survive. And thrive...to the self-inflicted detriment of us all.

This is just delightful:

Casey Knowles is the sleeping 8-year-old girl appearing in a recent TV ad for Hillary Clinton about the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call. It's old footage; Knowles is about to turn 18.

And if you think her appearance constitutes an endorsement of Clinton, think again: Knowles supports Barack Obama, and has been campaigning for him.

Even better is that the footage the Clinton campaign used in their spot was originally shot for a railroad company ad. But now it's stock footage...and fair game for anyone willing to pony-up the dough and stick it into an entirely new narrative.

It is to laugh.

Could be:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

An affidavit in the federal investigation into a prostitution ring said that a wiretap recording captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a hotel room. The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9.

Mr. Spitzer today made a brief public appearance during which he apologized for his behavior, and described it as a “private matter.”

This ought to be enormously entertaining.

Peggy Noonan uses her column to make a point about the state of the Democratic contest. It ain't pretty:

What the Democrats lost this week was the chance to paint the '08 campaign as a brilliant Napoleonic twinning of strategy and tactics that left history awed. What they have instead is a ticket to Verdun. Trench warfare, and the daily, wearying life of the soldier under siege. The mud, the cold, the dank water rotting the boots, all of it punctuated by mad cries of "Over the top," bayonets fixed.

The imagery is simply delicious. If nothing else, the 2008 contest has defied the expectations of political hacks on all sides. It was supposed to be over early. Nope...and perhaps not until the convention itself will a Democratic nominee be chosen (making those torpid affairs worth watching for the first time in a generation).

It was supposed to be a Clinton coronation or, perhaps the second coming, with Obama leading the angelic host. No on both counts.

Instead, it's a slugging match. Put your money on the fighter with the better cut man. That means Michelle Obama v. Bill Clinton and in spite of each one's verbal gaffes, Bill wins that match-up hands down.

Not that this means anyone ought to rejoice in a Clinton nomination victory. Noonan quotes the quotable Christopher Hitchens on what her nomination will bring:

Hillary is the next president, he told radio's Hugh Hewitt, because, "there's something horrible and undefeatable about people who have no life except the worship of power . . . people who don't want the meeting to end, the people who just are unstoppable, who only have one focus, no humanity, no character, nothing but the worship of money and power. They win in the end."

Perhaps they have. And in this case, Mme. Clinton's worship of power may yet vault her into the general election. But does that necessarily mean she wins in November?

I don't think so. While Clinton appeals to many, she repels even more. I like to think that in their bones, the American people retain both a mild dislike for dynasties and a much stronger one for those who thirst too openly for power.

This election will thoroughly test my assumption.

From Selwyn Duke at the American Thinker:

Most of us agree that having an educated populace is a prerequisite for a sound democratic republic. We also know that not everyone is well-educated. Thus, it cannot be a good thing for everyone to vote. For those of you who had trouble following that line of reasoning, please remember that Election Day is November 5.

And one needn't be disenchanted with universal suffrage to agree. It's one thing to have one man, one vote; it's quite another to have one man, one obligation to vote. Yet we still hear that it's our "civic duty" to go to the polls. Well, no, actually, it's a civic duty to make ourselves worthy to do so.

And thus, is the first of many large bricks tossed through the voting glass.

I've tended to be of two minds on this matter. Once I firmly believed voters could be trusted to make sensible choices, largely based upon the idea of the wisdom of crowds. But the more I read on the topic, and the more I apply that reading against experience, I've come to see the point some make, as Duke does here, that encouraging everyone who can legally cast a vote to do so may inflict more damage on the Republic than having fewer, but more informed, people head to the polls.

Does that make me an elitist? Probably. But in light of the creepy Obama phenomenon currently underway, I begin to wonder whether it might not be wise to step away from the voter registration drives for a cycle or two and instead focus all that energy on creating a more educated, informed electorate.

A very tall order.

As a sidebar...an old theory on voter turnout is that the happier people are with the status quo, the lower the voter turnout. Conversely, high voter turnout shows discontent or, in the case of some totalitarian states that hold dog and pony show elections, universal fear.

The Republican Study Committee has a posted a list of Representatives who have sworn off earmarks.

It's not a long list, to be sure. And, regrettably, only one member of Virginia's delegation can be found on it: Eric Cantor.

I find it fascinating that so many self-described Virginia conservatives aren't on the list, but arch-Liberal Henry Waxman is. Imagine...Goodlatte, Forbes, Drake, Whittman..they are all to the left of Waxman when it comes to pork. Seems like that fact would make a fine television ad for some enterprising challenger.

That's AdAge's Ken Wheaton's take on the latest version of the "Will.i.am" video touting Barack Obama:

It's one thing for a stadium full of drunk people to shout out the name of a rock band. I'll even give a pass to people who've worked hard in a campaign getting riled up during a victory speech. But it's another thing entirely to use a politician's name, being chanted over and over again, as the backdrop for a slick and empty-headed production.

Wheaton goes on to lard his post with caveats, many of which I can accept -- the approach here will probably be quite effective with its intended audience and yes, some of the imagery is quite stunning.

So was "Triumph of the Will," a gorgeous visual symphony set against one of the most horrific back stories in history. But as is often the case, it's the style, not the history, or the inescapable message, that still draws people (including soul-less ad types) to the form:

What really gets my goat (and, really, I'm down to my last goat, so please stop), is that Will.i.am seems to be slightly ignorant of pop history as well. I'm not the first to make this comparison, but didn't he see Living Colour's video for "Cult of Personality"? (Thanks, Sony, for not allowing us to embed that one.)

But maybe it's just this sort of chanty, fascist-appearing (and sounding) messaging is hot right now. After all, Under Armour's Super Bowl spot -- from the chanting, to the whiff of genetic superiority, to the red and black colors -- looked like little more than something from the History Channel's 1932 reel with a multicultural cast thrown in.

It's almost a truism that the first person to shout "Hitler" in a political race loses (ask Jerry Kilgore). But what happens when a group of people, in an effort to pump-up their candidate, dips into a quasi-fascist imagery well to make their point? Or for that matter, a clothing company, a car manufacturer, or even a peddler of kids' cereal?

One of the towering figures of modern conservativism died last night at his home in Connecticut.

UPDATE (OldZach): I don't want to hijack Norm's post, but I will anyway. Here's a portion of the National Review's tribute to their founder:

He inspired and incited three generations of conservatives, and counting. He retained his intellectual and literary vitality to the end; even in his final years he was capable of the arresting formulation, the unpredictable insight. He presided over NR even in his “retirement,” which was more active than most people’s careers. It has been said that great men are rarely good men. Even more rarely are they sweet and merry, as Buckley was.

Read the rest here. Conservatism has truly lost one of its bright and shining lights today. Yet, we can take comfort in the fact that the ideas, and truly the movement inspired in part by the life's work of Mr. Buckley, lives on. Yesterday I mentioned some of the "Young Guns" of the Virginia GOP who seem poised to make some noise in the next few years. I have no doubt that some of them were likely influenced by Buckley. I also know that there are still more behind them, in my generation, who have been equally influenced.

Wherever true intellectual curiosity is permitted to thrive, the words and ideas of William F. Buckley, Jr. will as well. You shall be missed, sir.

Old Zach's post below on the budget, as well as those of my colleagues at Bearing Drift and Bacon's Rebellion show that something actually quite useful and long missing has been restored to the GOP members of the state Senate:

Principle.

The refusal of Senate Republican budget writers to accept the Democrat's new spending, tax-hiking, rainy day raiding budget is the closest thing to a closing of the Chichester era as we have yet seen. As Jim Bacon noted:

Chastened by conservative unrest during last year's primaries and freed from the Rasputin-like influence of Chichester, Republican senators appear to be taking up the banner of fiscal conservatism.

Yes, without Chichester's whip cracking over their heads, Senate Republicans seem to have discovered that, perhaps, there are alternative ways of looking at the budget. And, miracle of miracles, the House budget seems to take this new found freedom a step further, proposing to actually cut spending (in what is still a bloated budget).

The Democrats aren't happy about this. And well they shouldn't -- because what we may -- just may -- be seeing is the beginning a of return to fiscal restraint on the GOP side. This would not have been possible without the departure of Chichester and his acolyte, Russ Potts (how is that patronage job, Russ?) and the electoral chastening of Walter Stosch. It would not have been possible without the flurry of conservative primary challenges in the last cycle that claimed two incumbents and put the rest of the caucus on notice.

The question, thought, is whether this new found move toward restraint in a time of economic uncertainty will endure. There will be an enormous amount of pressure put on Republicans to accept the Democratic budget. Train wrecks, deadlocks, shutdowns, lions, tigers and bears will all be coming our way very soon.

But for now, it seems as though the lesson taught last November might actually have started to sink in. I'll enjoy it will I can.

From the New York Times' Matt Bai:

I was surprised to find that a friend of mine, a lifelong Democrat who had been pledging his allegiance to Barack Obama all year, had stepped into the voting booth and suddenly changed is mind. He voted, instead, for Hillary Clinton, and here’s why: he’d watched that video online —you know, the one starring celebrities like will.i.am, Scarlett Johansson and Herbie Hancock—and he thought it made Obama look Hollywood smug, as if supporting him were this year’s version of wearing an AIDS ribbon on your lapel. My friend didn’t want anything to do with the latest chic cause, and he just couldn’t bring himself to pull the lever for the guy who now symbolized the things he liked least about Democratic politics, starting with all those stars who think they know more about America than the people who live in it.

Of course, this is but a single instance (which in marketing terms, is good enough to launch a national campaign). Still, I think we'll see a lot more of this...but with so much of the electoral abjectly surrendering to their irrational impulses, it make take a while.

Via Reynolds comes an AdAge post offering unsolicited advice for Sen. Clinton in her struggle against the weird Obama propaganda machine.

The itself advice is extremely silly. But the description of the "Yes We Can" ad is right on target for its use of traditional propaganda techniques:

Aside from utilizing a lot of empty-headed celebrities, it also does a stellar job of using the techniques of propaganda, including: the bandwagon call, the use of beautiful people, euphoria, glittering generalities, intentional vagueness, repetition, slogans, virtue words and gratuitous use of Scarlett Johansson. In other words, it's almost the perfect ad.

Are there really any gratuitous uses of Scarlett Johansson? I think not. Nevertheless, this is of a piece with the Jake Tapper post on the deeply strange habits of the Obama-philes.

Do they think they are supporting a political candidate, or a prophet?

Redstate's Erick Erickson has the text here. Snip:

I began by assuring you that we share a conception of liberty that is the bedrock of our beliefs as conservatives. As you know, I was deprived of liberty for a time in my life, and while my love of liberty is no greater than yours, you can be confident that mine is the equal of any American's. It is a deep and unwavering love. My life experiences in service to our country inform my political judgments. They are at the core of my convictions. I am pro-life and an advocate for the Rights of Man everywhere in the world because of them, because I know that to be denied liberty is an offense to nature and nature's Creator. I will never waver in that conviction, I promise you. I know in this country our liberty will not be seized in a political revolution or by a totalitarian government. But, rather, as Burke warned, it can be "nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts." I am alert to that risk and will defend against it, and ta ke comfort from the knowledge that I will be encouraged in that defense by my fellow conservatives.

You have heard me say before that for all my reputation as a maverick, I have only found true happiness in serving a cause greater than my self-interest. For me, that cause has always been our country, and the ideals that have made us great. I have been her imperfect servant for many years, and I have made many mistakes. You can attest to that, but need not. For I know them well myself. But I love her deeply and I will never, never tire of the honor of serving her. I cannot do that without your counsel and support. And I am grateful, very grateful, that you have given me this opportunity to ask for it.

It's worth the time to read the whole thing. I'm not sure how it came across live, but it certainly reads well -- and actually has a certain Peggy Noonan quality to it.

Will this speech change any minds? By itself, no. Actions, as always, are more important.

Though judging by the accounts I've read, McCain could do himself an immense amount of good by conservatives if he let it be known that one of his first actions would be to tap Tom Coburn as his VP.

Roger Simon has a observation and a suggestion for conservatives who believe John McCain has a lot to prove to them when he attends CPAC. First the observation:

Speaking bluntly, it may be that the search for ideological purity anywhere on the political spectrum is a fool’s game (unless you’re trying to sell books or drive ratings). Anyway, it’s clear from Tuesday’s returns the Republican electorate isn’t buying it. Across much of the country, the man advertising himself as the perfect conservative ran a poor third to a “maverick” Republican and a Southern populist. And that purist of purists, Ron Paul, simply disappeared from view.

I plead guilty to playing this very game right here in Virginia. Many people I know and respect play it as well. The results, however, have been mixed at best. This is not to say that conservatives should bow down and accept whatever the GOP throws there way in the form of candidates and policies. I remain a big fan of primary challenges because they can be both clarifying and cathartic...if not always successful. And given that so many of the state's legislative districts are so cleverly gerrymandered, primaries are often the only way to generate discussion or change direction.

But the notion that somewhere out there is a politician who will always vote the way I want, all the time, is foolish. Politicians, like the rest of us, are fallable creatures who respond to the incentives around them. That actually makes a case for changing the incentives and the political culture as much as it might changing the candidates (but that is a debate for another time).

Which brings me to Simon's suggestion regarding conservatives and John McCain:

So I have a suggestion for the attendees at CPAC. You are expecting John McCain to meet you at least halfway (or maybe more) on Thursday. Why don’t you think about meeting him halfway as well? He has something to do that you don’t. He has to win a presidential election. The American electorate is in the middle. If you force him too much over to your side, in the name of ideological purity you will have elected your opponents.

There is a good case to be made that McCain has little choice but to meet the CPACers half way. But make the attempt he must and will. For conservatives, then, the question becomes whether they will show the same degree of outreach. Or at least give him the courtesy of a hearing.