Center for a New American Security

The Economist once called it "enlightened mountain Republicanism." For whatever reason, Tennesseans have long looked to retired Sen. Howard Baker (McCallie '43), a moderate Republican who forged compromise across the aisles until retiring from the Senate to be Reagan's chief of staff after Iran Contra, as the model for how senators should behave. When Republican senators have lurched too far to the populist right, as Sen. Bill Frist did during the Terry Schiavo mess, their approval ratings have plummeted. The same explains why the once admired former Sen. Al Gore lost the state of Tennessee in 2000 after he was perceived to have lurched too far to the left in the 1990s. Regardless, Sen. Lamar Alexander reminded me yesterday why I supported him in his last campaign, and Sen. Bob Corker (Chattanooga City High School '70) locked up my support for his next election campaign. It would have been all too easy for my two Republican senators to have been petulant drama queens about the New START treaty, but instead here is what Sen. Alexander said yesterday:

And here is Sen. Corker:

It almost makes up for Basil Marceaux:

I had dinner with an old English Literature professor of mine last night (along with his English Literature professor wife), and while I'm not trying to get all Michel Foucault on the blog's readership this morning, the long-dormant literary critic in me has been watching this unintentionally hilarious Heritage video on missile defense and counting the number of phallic symbols. Let's see ... missile, missile, missile launch, Maggie Thatcher, missile launch, missile, missile ...

So the connection between this Heritage Foundation advertisement for missile defense and Dr. Strangelove just grows. Dr. Strangelove, of course, was filled with all kinds of sexual and imagery linking nuclear war to sex. This Heritage Foundation video, meanwhile, has me convinced that whoever put this thing together would keep the DC area's Freudian analysts busy until at least 2034.