Stanley Kurtz makes the argument that Pakistan is not, and never was, a democracy. Therefore, we should not fall for the line that supporting Nawaz Sharif, who returned to Pakistan yesterday to the acclaim of his supporters, will automatically mean a return to democracy in that troubled nation. According to Kurtz,

Led by a naive media, the United States and Europe are being sold a bill of goods. We hear a lot about a “genuine return to democracy,” “the restoration of full democracy,” or the “restoration of the constitution.” All of this will supposedly follow an end to the emergency and the advent of free and fair elections. This is nonsense. Democracy and the constitution cannot be restored in Pakistan because, in any serious sense, neither democracy nor constitutional rule has ever existed there.

Read the whole thing.

Stephanie Coontz argues that the state should get out of the marriage business. I agree.

Michael Barone examines a dizzying array of possibilities for the 2008 election.

John Distaso has it right when he examines where we are after all the fuss concerning the New Hampshire Presidential Primary...

So, after nearly four years of Democratic anxiety and jockeying, after the appointment of a special commission to recommend a new configuration of the early nominating calendar, after months of deliberations by the Democratic National Committee's rules committee, after a vote last August by the full DNC to move New Hampshire from second to third in the calendar, and after criticisms and threats by the likes of national Democratic players, New Hampshire's primary remains first-in-the-nation by a week _ behind only the Iowa caucuses, as it has been for three decades.

The Republican National Committee's decision to sanction the state GOP for selecting its delegate earlier than allowed by RNC rule also has had no impact, as expected.

The lesson for both national parties is that they simply can not control the nominating process. They can't control what the states do _ least of all New Hampshire. They make candidates stop coming to New Hampshire and they certainly can't stop the media from covering the candidates here.

If Gardner is right that the battle is truly over for this cycle, then New Hampshire wins again, despite literally years of effort to dismantle, or at least, dilute, the primary.

It's thanks in part to Gardner, who not surprisingly refused to blink or even flinch. It's thanks in part to the state primary protection law, and it's thanks in part to the candidates and media, who keep on coming.

Looking ahead, it's impossible to imagine a scenario tougher than this one, a scenario that would force New Hampshire to knuckle under to outside forces and give up the first primary.
And it's impossible to imagine a scenario in which the candidates and the media ignore it.

Amen, Brother.

Bob Novak says Mike Huckabee is a false conservative.

Amity Shlaes has a plan to fix Social Security, the FDR way.