THIS ALMOST MAKES SENSE: Obama To Hire Keith Olbermann As Press Secretary?

OUCH: Columbia Journalism Review to Salon and Max Blumenthal: You Can’t Just Make Stuff Up.

JOEL KOTKIN: Don’t Overestimate China — Or Underestimate America. “It is a sign of the times that conservatives as well as liberals often underestimate the Middle Kingdom’s problems – in addition to America’s relative strengths. . . . The Japanese experience best illustrates how wrong punditry can be. Back in the 1970s and 1980s it was commonplace for pundits – particularly on the left – to predict Japan’s ascendance into world leadership. At the time distinguished commentators like George Lodge, Lester Thurow and Robert Reich all pointed to Europe and Japan as the nations slated to beat the U.S. on the economic battlefield.”

MISUNDERSTANDING THE TEA PARTY: “The Tea Party movement is a political Andromeda Strain to the media, a baffling outbreak of viral unhappiness which has thus far defied every attempt at diagnosis. This is unsurprising, since the media has little interest in listening to what the Tea Party is actually saying. Instead, they attempt to stuff this remarkable grassroots movement into a variety of scary costumes, so they can be conveniently dismissed.”

Related: It’s The Constitution, Stupid.

WOMEN SKI JUMPERS AND THE OLYMPICS: Their rejection is our loss.

CHANGE: Republicans Surge in New ABC News/Washington Post Poll.

PJTV: I talk with John Avlon about his new book.

VIDEO CLIP: Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths.

AFTERBURNER WITH BILL WHITTLE: Grand Old (Tea) Party: The People Are Furious And The Party Must Understand Why.

IOWAHAWK: Heart Of Redness. Joseph Conrad would approve.

JIM MEIGS: Target Toyota: Why the Recall Backlash Is Overblown.

CHANGE: Special elections net Republicans two new seats in New York Assembly. “In Tuesday’s 4 special elections to fill vacant NYS Assembly seats, Republicans won 3 of the 4 races – and garnered a net gain of 2 seats. While this is not enough to affect the overwhelming Democratic majority in the Assembly, this will have an impact on the political landscape immediately ahead – particularly in the race for Governor and for control of the NYS Senate.”

GREG GUTFELD’S RED EYE beating out Larry King and Anderson Cooper.

DAVID FREDDOSO: Tea Party Favorite Debra Medina Gaining In Texas Race.

MATT WELCH: Back To The Drawing Board.

In just about every speech at their 2008 convention, Democrats promised voters that a change in the White House would, in Barack Obama’s formulation, restore “our moral standing” in the world. Replace the unilateralist cowboy at the top with a humbler multilateralist, and the path would finally be cleared to fix vexing international issues such as curbing carbon emissions and dealing with the mullahs in Iran. Like many of the party faithful’s long-nurtured beliefs, this hope has disintegrated on contact with reality.

“America is losing the free world,” said a January headline in the Financial Times. While that statement is exaggerated, the sentiment behind it has been gaining traction around the globe, especially in the wake of the climate conference debacle in Copenhagen. It’s not just that the less confrontational American president has been unable to deliver results. He can’t even get his phone calls returned.

Some find this development more surprising than others.

BYRON YORK: Poll: Republicans gain on Obama, public welcomes GOP power to block.

HMM: China Dumps US Asset Backeds and Corporates.

CLIMATEGATE: MoveOn’s Triple Whopper.

THE SEIU FAILED ON THE BECKER VOTE, but it was certainly in the loop.

RON BAILEY ON Malthusian objections to life extension.

MORE ON THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AND THE NEW BLACK PANTHERS: “A Feb. 2 letter from Glenn A. Fine, inspector general for the Justice Department, to Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican, ought to give pause to lawmakers of any party. In effect, the letter says there is no independent authority that can investigate any decision by the department to stonewall congressional inquiries. If the department refuses to answer congressional questions by asserting legal privileges that have never been recognized in U.S. history, the IG is powerless to assess allegations of certain sorts of departmental misconduct.” They told me if I voted for McCain we’d have a rogue Justice Department that worried about politics more than law. And they were right!

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: NY Times Swings, Misses At IPCC Story: Readers Still In Dark.

SCHUMER’S WALL STREET DONORS look for revenge.

WELCOME TO the harem.

CATHY YOUNG: A Rand Revival?