HE’D HAVE TO BE BETTER THAN HARRY REID, but this proposal does kind of complicate things:

If Hillary Rodham Clinton wins the presidency, some top Democrats would like to see her husband, former President Bill Clinton, appointed to serve out Hillary’s unexpired Senate term.

“As a senator, he’d be a knockout,” said Harold Ickes, who was once a top White House aide to Bill Clinton and now gives behind-the-scenes advice to Hillary. “He knows issues, he loves public policy and he’s a good politician.”

Some Democrats and political analysts say Bill Clinton would thrive in the world’s greatest deliberative body, much like Lyndon Johnson did before he became president.

“President Clinton would excel in the Senate,” said Paul Begala, who helped Bill Clinton get elected and served in the White House as a top aide.

But does a “twofer” argument help or hurt Hillary?

ROMNEY VERSUS THE CHRISTIANISTS.

A case of regulatory overreach. If this is all the folks at ATFE have to worry about, then their budget can stand some deep cuts.

RASHOFITZ: I think I would have preferred “Fitzomon.”

A PROBLEM FOR BARACK OBAMA:

What followed, Obama says in a memoir, was a life-altering experience, an early taste of his ability to motivate the powerless and work the levers of government. As the 24-year-old mentor to public housing residents, Obama says he initiated and led efforts that thrust Altgeld’s asbestos problem into the headlines, pushing city officials to call hearings and a reluctant housing authority to start a cleanup.

But others tell the story much differently.

They say Obama did not play the singular role in the asbestos episode that he portrays in the best-selling memoir, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” Credit for pushing officials to deal with the cancer-causing substance, according to interviews and news accounts from that period, also goes to a well-known, pre-existing group at Altgeld Gardens and to a local newspaper called the Chicago Reporter. Obama does not mention either one in his book.

“Just because someone writes it doesn’t make it true,” said Hazel Johnson, a longtime Altgeld resident who worked with Obama on the asbestos campaign, and who began pushing for a variety of environmental cleanups years before he arrived.

U.S. Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) said it was Johnson’s work, as well as asbestos testing conducted by the Chicago Reporter, that sparked the interest of Chicago officials and prompted Rush, who at the time was a City Council member, to launch an inquiry. While he has not read Obama’s memoir, Rush, who has been a political rival of Obama’s in recent years, said Johnson’s role was so prominent that he was “offended” by anyone telling the Altgeld story without including her.

Big problem, or little problem? I’m not sure, though anything that makes Obama look like an ordinary, credit-grabbing politician probably does disproportionate damage by undermining his above-politics appeal. Read the whole thing.

A PROBLEM FOR RUDY GIULIANI. Big problem, or little problem? Depends, I think.

THOUGHTS ON the role of wine in American class warfare. Plus, “we can trace the modern academic symposium to Greek wine-drinking parties.”

A LOOK AT THE Clinton Iraq trajectory.

ILYA SOMIN SAYS that if you like Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism, then you’ll love Lanny Ebenstein’s new biography of Milton Friedman. I haven’t read it, but Somin says it’s great.

NEWT GINGRICH:

Republican Newt Gingrich has a message for all the presidential candidates: it’s just plain stupid to start running this early. . . .

“I think the current process of spending an entire year running in order to spend an entire year running in order to get sworn in January 2009 is stupid,” Gingrich said . . . . The only reason to start this early, he said, was to line the pockets of the high-paid political consultants.

Indeed. Plus, the sooner you start, the more time you have to screw things up. If campaign-ending gaffes are partly a function of simple bad luck (and I suspect that they are), then the longer you campaign, the more chances you have for a deadly gaffe on the part of the candidate or the staff.

“UNPARALLELED PERFIDY.”

UPDATE: Okay, several readers think I should stress the poll data that accompany the piece. So I’m linking them to the right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts from Neptunus Lex.

MORE: The Oxford Union precedent.

STILL MORE: Further thoughts from Capt. Ed and Blue Crab Boulevard. Plus this comment at Blue Crab: “In Oct, Nov and Dec all we heard about was the Culture of Corruption, exemplified by Mark Foley. The pundits were incredibly busy telling us that this election was not a referendum on the war. Yet as soon as it became apparent that the Democrats had no intention of ethics reform the media drumbeat shifted. Suddenly this was an election that acted as a mandate on the war. Why?”

MORE STILL: James Miller says the war resolution is equivalent to short-selling: “When you short sell a stock you make money when the price of the stock goes down. The Democrats seem to be short selling the U.S. military in Iraq. . . . We don’t allow members of corporate boards to short sell the stock of their own company because it creates too many conflicts of interest. It’s unfortunate that the only real way the Democrats can oppose Bush’s Iraq policy is for them to politically short sell the U.S. military in Iraq.”

TRAINING FOR A PAGEANT is like military service. Except there’s no “take all you want — eat all you take” rule.

“DON’T DO IT, Hillary!”

OUTDOOR LIFE COLUMNIST JIM ZUMBO’S anti “assault rifle” statement doesn’t seem to be playing very well with the commenters.

UPDATE: A later post by Zumbo: “I was wrong, BIG TIME.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tamara weighs in, with an unimpressed take on Zumbo: “Your attempt to throw me out of the sleigh, hoping that the wolves would be satisfied with my AR and would leave your precious bambi-zapper alone, is the most craven act of contemptible cowardice I’ve seen in a while.” Ouch.

MORE: Wow, this is harsh: “Remington Arms Company, Inc., has severed all sponsorship ties with Mr. Zumbo effective immediately. While Mr. Zumbo is entitled to his opinions and has the constitutional right to freely express those options, these comments are solely his, and do not reflect the views of Remington.”

STILL MORE: Zumbo’s blog has been pulled. This seems like overkill to me.

AT SAMIZDATA, the case of the disappearing letter-bombs.

WAS ELIZABETH EDWARDS behind the blogger hirings? William Beutler takes a look.

OUCH.

IN THE MAIL: Michael Burleigh’s Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror. Looks quite interesting. From the blurb: “Covering a vast canvas, Michael Burleigh examines the many secular religions the twentieth century produced, analyzing how successive totalitarian leaders coveted and mimicked the hierarchy, rites and ritual of the churches in the desire to return to the day when ruler and deity were one.”

KENNETH ANDERSON looks at class interests of the internationalized New Class. “This essay is strongly critical of the universalist claims of liberal internationalism and the international human rights movement, while also not accepting moral relativism as a critique of human rights claims.”