Are Conservatives AWOL on Health Care?

The discussion Jim Geraghty has with his readers unfortunately points out a key problem: thoughtful, pragmatic conservatives are often AWOL in the health care debates -- -- except to say, "Let's have the free market work!" All fine, but how about a little more time and attention from thoughtful writers and academics (Joe Antos at AEI, Robert Moffitt at Heritage and AEI have a couple of top-notch folks) in the magazine itself? Ramesh Ponnuru writes about health care from time to time, or posts something in NRO's The Corner , but for the most part, National Review and other conservative havens care about other topics. Meanwhile, health care is 16 percent of our economy and liberals occupy most of the public conversation. It would be better if conservatives joined in more frequently.

Art Buchwald, RIP

A most fascinating obit in The New York Times because of the video, where the humorist announces his own demise. This has to get the award for the most amusing bit of new media inserted into the Old Media today.

New David Stanton blog

For those who track South Carolina politics, David Stanton of WIS-TV now has a blog. So far, it doesn't have a whole lot of breaking news or interesting analysis, but stay tuned. David will be a "must see" for the key presidential candidates in 2008, so his insights will be worth checking. He's an honest broker, too.