Biographer John Dean offers Warren Harding what he would not Richard Nixon: complete exoneration.

Also in the NY Sun: a review of the Norman Podhoretz Reader.

Max Boot writes in Foreign Policy on Neocons as Wilsonian idealists:

Wilsonians are not all alike. Liberal “soft Wilsonians,” such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and, previously, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson himself, share a faith that multilateral organizations such as the League of Nations or the United Nations should be the main venues through which the United States promotes its ideals, and that international law should be the United States’ main policy tool. They are willing to use force, but preferably only when (as in Haiti or Kosovo) the intervention is untainted by any hint of national interest.

The neocons have scant regard for Wilson himself, whom they regard as hopelessly naive. Instead, they are “hard Wilsonians,” who place their faith not in pieces of paper but in power, specifically U.S. power. Their heroes are Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan—all U.S. presidents who successfully wielded power in the service of a higher purpose. Neocons believe the United States should use force when necessary to champion its ideals as well as its interests, not only out of sheer humanitarianism but also because the spread of liberal democracy improves U.S. security, while crimes against humanity inevitably make the world a more dangerous place.

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Abel Lamb Stewer! Hurrah for Abel Lamb Stewer!

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My favorite entry so far among NRO's Deanisms:

From the People magazine January 8, 2004 interview with Howard Dean and his wife, Judith Steinberg:

Question: Is there a silly, playful, affectionate side, like if you're cooking does he come up behind you with a tickle or something?
Dean: Certainly we're not going to discuss THAT!
Steinberg: I don't cook.

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Dean as seen from Down Under, in The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald

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Worth noting: A piece by the New York correspondent of the Australian newspaper The Age on the American electorate: "They like Bush and they are not stupid" * On the other hand, there are some who would turn out in sub-freezing weather for a MoveOn-sponsored Al Gore speech on global warming, and they're the subjects of the latest man-in-the-street video report by Evan Coyne Maloney