NOW UP: Part 2 of my Steven Pressfield interview.

POLITICO: The DNC’s New Surrogate: Jon Huntsman. That’s pretty much how most Republicans think of him, I suspect — if they think of him at all, which I rather doubt.

Hey, maybe if Obama dumps Biden he can name Huntsman as the new Veep. I think he’d be a worthy successor to Joe Biden.

SHORT AND DIRECT: Koch to Buffet: Who are you to think Government is a better judge of spending money then the earners of that money?

FROM STEPHEN GREEN, it’s The Week In Blogs.

“MASSIVE” WHITE HOUSE PIPELINE PROTEST draws dozens.

Continuing Jane Hamsher’s record of abject failure in this department.

IS ED SCHULTZ RACIST? “I mean, what about ‘big black cloud’ says Barack Obama to you?”

Yeah, but Janeane Garofalo is a bigger racist. “She’s basically the Bob Hope of brainless left-wing race-baiters. . . . Even as a conspiracy theorist, she’s terrible. But good enough for ‘Countdown,’ I guess.”

UPDATE: Reader Brian Gates objects:

Calling Bob Hope just an “old performer” who ran through a routine, presumably on the basis of tv appearances he made in his 90s, is like judging Michael Jordan’s basketball talent from tapes of his fantasy basketball camp. You know the difference between Bob Hope and Janeane Garafalo? Bob Hope was an American icon, the only person ever named an honorary veteran of the US Armed Forces for decades of USO tours that have won praise from everyone from John Steinbeck to Bill Clinton, a man who could sing with Bing Crosby, dance with Jimmy Cagney, and act opposite virtually every leading lady of Hollywood’s Golden Age including Katharine Hepburn, Jane Russell, Lucille Ball, and Hedy Lamar, and who had the confidence and talent to ad lib an entire episode of the most-watched tv show in America, a man whose show business career spanned seven decades – and Janeane Garafalo’s a racist.

PS A few weeks ago I happened upon a 1941 Bob Hope movie called “Louisiana Purchase”. It’s a thoroughly Republican picture, with several anti-Roosevelt lines. The best joke comes when the female lead has just completed the typical Hollywood transformation from dowdy to knockout. Several guys are in her hotel room drooling over her, and an African-American hotel employee walks past the open door. He does a double-take and walks away shaking his head, saying, “If she were black, she’d be beautiful”. That’s what guys like Bob Hope were doing for racial humor back when members of Janeane Garafalo’s party were enforcing segregation and anti-miscegenation laws across the country.

Good point. And she’s certainly carrying on that racist, Jim Crow tradition today — as is Ed Schultz.

REPORT: Libya Rebels in Tripoli as Qaddafi’s Defenses Collapse. “Libyan rebels raced into Tripoli Sunday and met little resistance as Muammar Qaddafi’s defenders melted away and his 42-year rule rapidly crumbled. The euphoric fighters celebrated with residents of the capital in Green Square, the symbolic heart of the regime.”

UPDATE: On Martha’s Vineyard, Obama monitors Libya news. Hey, that’s what I’m doing here in Knoxville, too!

MORE: Libya war news draws Obama statement from vacation. Plus, bonus golf photo.

CHINA’S UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR GREAT WALL: “In March 2008, China’s state-run CCTV network broke the news about a 5,000-kilometre-long network of hardened tunnels built to house the Chinese Second Artillery Corps’s increasingly modern force of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. Tunnelling evidently commenced in 1995. Located in, or rather under, mountainous districts of Hebei Province, in northern China, the facility is reportedly hundreds of meters deep. That makes it an exceptionally hard target against conventional or nuclear counterstrikes. . . . What should have been a blockbuster story occasioned barely a peep in the Western press, and elicited little response even in Asia. For lack of a catchier metaphor, call it the dragon that never roared.”

AT AMAZON, markdowns on action sports clothing.

CLARICE FELDMAN: “I think sentient Democrats are watching their party’s chances in 2012 slip away, and had they not made such a big deal of claiming all opposition to Obama was racist in motivation and effect (see, e.g., this) , they would now be urging him to quit and seeking a new contender for his office. Like Coleridge’s ancient Mariner, however, they can only stand on deck with that albatross around their neck watching both the White House and the Senate slip from their grasp just as did so many state governorships and the House of Representatives.”

Obama an albatross? I thought he was a creepy robot.

PERSONALLY, I PREFER THE FEELING OF HAVING A GUN AND NOT NEEDING ONE: Question of the Day: Have You Ever Felt You Needed A Gun and Didn’t Have One?

AT AMAZON, markdowns on editors’ picks for Best Books Of The Month.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ FOR YA? Houses In Baltimore Selling For Less Than $10,000.

I REMEMBER THIS FROM AN EPISODE OF BIG BANG THEORY: Telepresence Robots Seek Office Work.

EVERYONE’S A DJ: Group Listening Rooms Turn Up Volume on Web Music. “Turntable.fm turns your browser into a virtual dance club where users swap turns at the DJ tables and rate songs ‘awesome’ or ‘lame’ (Rolling.fm is almost identical).”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Man Wins Handgun Lawsuit Against Chicago. “Jesus Duenas says he knows the law and he says he knows his rights. He has a Firearm Owners Identification Card. Now the full-time paralegal wants his gun back so he can protect his wife and 14-year-old son.”

DARPA LOOKING AT interstellar travel.

MARK STEYN: The Imperial Presidency: European royals make do with a less lavish lifestyle than the supposed citizen-executive of a so-called republic.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Be Realistic About Planning For College Costs.

After many families carefully mapped out a plan to pay for college costs, the economy’s downward spiral forced them to rip it up.

State-budget cuts forced many colleges and universities to make huge tuition hikes. Job losses siphoned money for college savings accounts.

When home values nose-dived during the housing bust, students and parents lost the ability to tap home-equity lines for extra cash. The Dow’s wild swings have chewed up balances in 529 college-saving accounts, which often include stocks.

“Parents are desperate,” said April Osborn, executive director of the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education, which administers several federal and state grants that go to Arizona college students.

Don’t be desperate. Look for cheaper alternatives, which abound. If they miss out on the “college experience” because they start out at a community college and then finish as commuter students at a public university, well, that’s too bad but it’s not tragic, and it’s certainly not worth bankrupting yourself to avoid.

BEWARE THE .357 Magnum doughnuts of doom!

BIG BEAR TERRORIZING TOWNSEND WOMAN: “For about two months now a bear — one she estimates to be about 7 feet tall and at least 400 pounds — has been coming around her house, sometimes as many as three times a day. . . . Shibley is a little scared herself, so much so that she just about doesn’t go outside. She is even worried about cooking. She woke up one morning to bloody claw marks on a screen.”

I’m thinking it’s bearskin-rug time.

IN TEXAS, THE FASTEST GROWING GROUP APPLYING FOR GUN CARRY PERMITS? African-American Women.

AN ECONOMIC BRIGHT SPOT: Despite Economy, Ohio, U.S. Gun Sales Defy Gravity.

ENDANGERED SPECIES: Where Have All The Millionaires Gone?

A. BARTON HINKLE: Airport Security vs The Constitution: Government critics deserve their day in court.