When Gingrich stood up to oppose hysteria over Mexican participation in our country, he got credit for courage and then talking about allowing children or adolescents to work brought out a lot of applause from those who found work throwing papers as kids. Romney responded to the first action by slip streaming behind him as I understand it. Well, when Romney said he should return the $1.4 million he got from Fannie, Gingrich didn’t find this a useful criticism but made a grandiose justification for it. He’s not going anywhere IMHO. He’s a tribune without power who will not have power though, yes, some may enjoy his talking back to the judicial teacher of Roe v. Wade and homosexual marriage being embedded in various constitutions, etc.

From my 2 cents.

The DNA of the United Kingdom.

Christopher Hitchens solves a mystery for me and gives me some German to pass along to my son. Freud said something like Nietzsche new himself best or had the best grasp of psychology in the previous generation. Nietzsche died shortly after having jumped in a river yelling some wild statement; so this didn't make sense to me. Hitchens points out that he had tertiary syphilis (which doesn't preclude you being sane earlier). Having addressed this mystery, there comes up the idea that Nietzsche would seem to have addressed issues of narcissism whereas Freud was more into dynamic understanding, anyway a lessor problem.

When I saw this review of the biography of George Kennan, I thought of how the U.S. might have done better with him as Secretary of State during the Kennedy period. I see that Kissinger had some recent comments on Kennan also.

For Gingrich

I'd have to agree. What bothers me most about Romney is his attitude that he's going to tell China what to do about their currency and remind Iran that it forgot to grovel, not to mention running over Perry on humanitarian issues. I'm afraid it's the fat man with the sexual past. Here are the reviews of books he has done on Amazon; the beginning of them, the most recent, are about the campaigns of Grant & Lee in the last phase of the Civil War.

Peggy Noonan had a column in the WSJ yesterday that resonated with me. Perhaps more later. In brief, the product vs. salesmanship.

I read the review of this, And the Show Went On, in the WSJ and read part of it at my daughter in laws house, fascinating. Riding also wrote a book on Mexico, Distant Neighbors, I'd like to look at.

The Recent Chinese Transformation

Book on Deng Xiaoping recommended.

Tom Maguire argues for Huntsman at this point.