MARTYRDOM as a weapon of mass destruction.

MORE PROBLEMS FOR NIFONG in the Duke rape case:

The second dancer in the Duke rape case has said for the first time that the accuser told her to “go ahead, put marks on me” after the alleged attack.

Dancer Kim Roberts made the new allegation — which she has not shared with authorities — in an interview with Chris Cuomo that aired today on “Good Morning America.”

Roberts’ allegation comes after Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong’s admission in court last week that he has not yet interviewed the accuser “about the facts of that night.”

This case seems awfully weak.

SO IS THIS GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS FOR THE REPUBLICANS?

A quarter century after the Reagan revolution and a dozen years after Republicans vaulted into control of Congress, a new CNN poll finds most Americans still agree with the bedrock conservative premise that, as the Gipper put it, “government is not the answer to our problems — government is the problem.”

The poll released Friday also showed that an overwhelming majority of Americans perceive, correctly, that the size and cost of government have gone up in the past four years, when Republicans have had a grip on the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House. . . .

Queried about their views on the role of government, 54 percent of the 1,013 adults polled said they thought it was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Only 37 percent said they thought the government should do more to solve the country’s problems.

I think the answer is “yes.”

MAX BOOT IS GUESTBLOGGING at The Volokh Conspiracy. His first post is here.

A FAKE AD? Or a fake fake ad? Or a fake, fake, fake . . . . the mind reels.

A “JESUS-LOVING GUN-SUPPORTING” SENATOR from Tennessee! I was talking to one of my colleagues about Harold Ford’s run to the right, and he said he’d vote for Ford in spite of his disapproval of Ford’s opposition to gay marriage, support for posting the ten commandments, hard stance on immigration, etc. Anything’s worth it, he decided, to get a Democratic Congress. Ford’s strategy is obviously to hope that a lot of left-leaning Democrats feel that way, while pulling in people who would otherwise vote Republican. It could work.

But what do the Dems do if they win?

UPDATE: Heh: “Afterwards, we hear tell he went a’swimmin’ with Ellie Mae and Jethro in the cement pond.”

WILLIAM BEUTLER looks at Ned Lamont, the Netroots, and Barack Obama.

JOSH TREVINO HAS THOUGHTS on being unselfconscious.

TIGERHAWK IS READING IAN BURUMA’S NEW BOOK, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, and has a post on what he thinks so far.

And, in the spirit of writing book reports on books one hasn’t finished, I’m about halfway through blogosphere legend Arthur Chrenkoff’s new novel Night Trains, and so far it’s terrific — it’s like a mixture of Harry Turtledove and Ken MacLeod. Is there anything he isn’t good at?

UPDATE: Another Buruma review, and more on Van Gogh, here.

IT’S JIHAD, Charlie Brown!

KARL ROVE’S SECRET PLAN, REVEALED:

Rove is giving a virtuoso performance designed to prevent the Democrats from taking control of the House and Senate or, if that is no longer possible, to hold down the size of the Democratic victory to make it easier for the GOP to come back in 2008. His plan is three-pronged: to reenergize any conservatives who may be flagging; to make sure the GOP’s carefully constructed campaign apparatus is functioning at peak efficiency; and to put the resources of the federal government to use for political gain. . . .

In 2002, Rove’s system outperformed the Democrats’ in mobilizing voters and is credited with giving GOP candidates the narrow edge that secured victories for the party in 2002 and 2004.

For 2006, Rove and Mehlman hope a turnout advantage could help them eke out victories in tight House and Senate races that they believe will determine control of both chambers.

Will it work? We’ll know in just over a week.

DICK ARMEY on where the GOP went wrong.

But Ali Bubba says Armey’s leaving something out.

ELIOT SPITZER’S sugar Daddy.

MICHAEL BARONE: “What’s with the polls?”

HOWELL-O-WEEN: This week’s Blawg Review is up.

THE PRO-NUCLEAR HAROLD FORD: I think he’s right on this, and I’m glad to see more Democrats — as Mark Warner did in our interview last week — looking seriously at nuclear power.

THE NETROOTS ARE ALREADY assigning blame for a Lamont defeat: “The American people know this. They know that Democratic Senators are moral lepers, weaklings, and that is the only reason we aren’t further ahead when the Republicans screw everything up. The Democratic Senate leaders will sell us out at every opportunity, be it torture, Iraq, Alito, Lieberman, the Bankruptcy Bill, or stopping war with Iran. They aren’t poll-driven, they aren’t fear-driven, and they aren’t driven by strategic differences. They are simply driven to beat us down, their voters, by any means necessary. That’s why they cheered Joe. . . . We can win this fight, as the polls are tightening. But it would be a whole lot easier without that knife in our back.”

UPDATE: TigerHawk emails:

The Matt Stoller piece you linked is the traditional rant among defeated true believers. Although I was but a toddler at the time, my recollection of the history is that Barry Goldwater’s supporters had much the same reaction in 1964. On the one hand, they spent a lot of years in the desert after that. On the other hand, it inspired them to build a dominant political force 15 years later. The question is, will today’s lefty activists accommodate themselves to the compromises necessary to do that, as conservatives did?

Well, they haven’t lost yet, though calling Democratic Senators “moral lepers” and “weaklings” just before a big election on which the balance of power rests is probably unconstructive. . . . But I think that the Netroots blogosphere will probably make the kind of necessary political compromise that TigerHawk describes harder to achieve. When you’ve got an empowered and connected network of boss-haters it’s much more difficult to pull that sort of thing off.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader James Somer emails:

I had to laugh at the rant you linked to assigning blame for Lamont’s expected loss in Connecticut. I live in Connecticut’s Farmington Valley, which up here is what passes for a Republican redoubt. You wouldn’t believe how many yards I’ve seen in my town this fall that have a “Sticking With Joe” sign right next to a sign for the GOP incumbent congresswoman, Nancy Johnson. Meanwhile, the Republican candidate for Senate, Schlesinger, may not even hit double-digits on election day. The Netroots wanted to punish Lieberman so they saw to it that he was booted in the primary. But in so doing, they drove up Lieberman’s popularity with Republicans and independents who are dubious of such ideological hatchet jobs. Even worse (or better, if you’re Karl Rove) the Angry Left’s savaging of the moderate Lieberman also gave Connecticut’s three endangered GOP congresspersons cover, as it created a confusing, three-way Senate race in a state where a very popular, moderate Republican governor (Jodi Rell) was already running at the top of the ticket. In a year where Democrats should be insisting on a black-and-white referendum between Republicans and Democrats, the netroots filled Connecticut’s politics with many shades of gray.

I’ve never understood how targeting Lieberman squares with the goal of getting a Democratic majority.