Michael Steele has been elected...

...the new chairman of the Republican National Committee. While he promises to aggressively rebuild a party in dire need of rebuilding, I can't for the life of me figure out what he stands for. I think it's great that the Republicans tapped an African-American for the job, especially when they are in danger of becoming a party limited to old, white, Southern, Christian males. And I'll continue to scour the web for info on exactly who he is. But for now I'm afraid he may be just old wine in a new bottle, or maybe no wine in a new bottle.

I can't decide who's dumber...

...Tom Daschle or Michael Phelps. I've already mentioned Daschle's sin of not being careful enough with his taxes. Phelps wasn't careful enough about how he was photographed. Doesn't he realize that his sponsors might be a little reluctant to pay millions of dollars to someone without the "correct" image? Doesn't someone of his generation realize that we live in an era of cell-phone cameras and YouTube videos? Even boring old white guys know that. He probably thinks he has a right to some privacy, but that's not the Faustian bargain he's made. If he wants to cash in on his Olympic success, he'll have to live by the sponsors' rules. And that means not being photographed breaking the law. Duh!

I just saw another picture of Ron Howard...

...wearing a hat indoors. Ron, I've got some news for you: not only are you bald, but everyone else knows it. So unless you're outside, take off the hat.

NFL fans of a certain age might remember Bum Phillips, father of Dallas Cowboys' coach Wade Phillips and one-time coach of the Houston Oilers. He was a good ol' boy that always wore a cowboy hat on the sidelines except when coaching at home in the Astrodome. When asked about this he explained that his mother once told him never to wear a hat indoors. But this isn't about the bad manners of wearing a hat indoors--another pet-peeve for another time--but more importantly of the silliness of some men who insist on wearing hats to conceal their baldness.

As a follicly-challenged male, I feel qualified to comment on this practice. I myself am rarely seen outside without a hat or a cap of some kind (no berets just yet). But this is more to shield my head from the elements than from any desire to deceive anyone into thinking I have a full head of hair. I take a fair amount of grief from my family members over the way I look in a hat, but it keeps my head warm in the winter and prevents it from getting sunburned in the summer. Once inside, however, I always remove my hat. I've heard all the bald jokes and, like references to Dick Tracy, learned to live with them.

The point I'm trying to make here is that there are worse things than being bald (although none come immediately to mind). Okay, here's one: trying to fool everyone into thinking you're not. Trust me, people are going to find out eventually (are you going to wear a baseball cap to a funeral?) and then you have to endure all the gasps and stares at your forehead while you're trying to carry on a serious conversation with someone. Also bald men of the world, I have some news for you: chances are, you weren't all that much better looking when you had hair. Most of us are average-looking to begin with, and having hair or not doesn't make that much difference anyway. And in at least Ron Howard's case, the world cares a lot more about how well he makes movies than in how he looks. If it were the latter, he would have been a footnote as Opie a long time ago.

So bald men of the world, take your hats off already (at least when you're indoors). Not only is it bad manners, but no one else cares what you look like anyway.

If you were Tom Daschle...

...an old Washington insider, and you had some inkling that you might want to return to public life at some point, wouldn't you tell your accountants to be extra careful? Don't you think someone might want to look at your old tax returns and don't you think they might notice if you failed to pay over $100,000 in taxes?

I read that Howard Dean may be Obama's next choice for HHS. That ought to make Republicans apoplectic.

I wonder if Bill Kristol has ever seen...

..."The Best Years of Our Lives?" It's one of my all-time favorite movies and I'd be happy to lend him the DVD. He could make some popcorn, take his shoes off, and watch it with his kids some time since it's suitable for the whole family. I'd like to draw his attention in particular to the scene in the drugstore where Fred Derry ( the ex-fly boy played by Dana Andrews) is talking to Peggy Stephenson, the daughter of Al, another returning serviceman. He's showing her the vanishing cream display, which includes a product that removes vanishing cream. In a low voice, he lets her in on a little secret, "If you don't use the vanishing cream, then you won't need the vanishing cream remover." They both enjoy a good laugh, but there's some wisdom in what he said.

I was reminded of this scene while watching Fox News Sunday this past weekend. Chris Wallace brought up the subject of the Iraq elections:

WALLACE: And that is the elections, the provincial elections, in Iraq yesterday. And it is amazing that the situation has gotten so much better there that an election in which millions of people voted, in which there was very little -- almost no incidence of serious violence we're talking about in the final moments of the show.

We don't know the results yet. There are early reporting that al- Maliki -- the prime minister's party has done well. But just the fact that this vote was held, and held so peacefully, and with the Iraqi security in the lead, not U.S. security -- how important in terms of the development of Iraq in its political stability?

KRISTOL: Oh, it's awfully important. Every brigade commander I've talked to who's come back from Iraq has said the key -- now that we won the war, basically, now that the surge succeeded -- and let's just remind everyone this would not have happened if the Democrats had had their way in 2007. We would have chaos and terror in Iraq, not a peaceful democratic election.

Neocons, like Kristol, love to bring up the surge and say I told you so. Conditions in Iraq have definitely improved in the last year or so and someday the neocons may achieve their dream of a Western-leaning, freedom-loving Iraq. I hope so; it would be good for America. But to paraphrase Fred Derry, if you didn't blunder your way into this war in the first place, you wouldn't have needed the surge to bring the violence back down to pre-war levels. And 4,000 Americans and untold tens of thousands of Iraqis would still be alive.

My vote for best...

...Super Bowl commercial? The one with the three mob guys sitting around breakfast discussing a possible hit. The boss (who bore a slight resemblance to a young Martin Scorsese) kept getting interrupted by a ditzy waitress putting whipped cream on his pancakes. I had to drag my wife away from the computer to watch it and we replayed it about three times. The one immediately following had a nice sight gag about a guy who had to work under the back half of a moose. And honorable mention goes to the one with Alec Baldwin, who makes me laugh a little just by reading his lines (gotta start watching "30 Rock"). Other than that, I thought the ads were kind of lame. In fact, Super Bowl commercials in general haven't been great for years.

I'm going to repeat myself...

...I can't help it, it's in the Tracy DNA. But the more I think of it and read about it, the more I think Obama is consciously and shrewdly making Rush Limbaugh the de facto head of the Republican Party. Limbaugh has a huge following in absolute numbers but only from the 30% or so that still approve of George Bush. He's the perfect straw man.

As everyone knows, the Republican Party is in disarray. The neo-con foreign policy of the Bush years has been largely discredited and in domestic policy they have abdicated their traditional role as the party of small government. So where does that leave them and who are their leaders? Who knows?

While John McCain is a has-been and Sarah Palin lacks credibility with all but a small base, it's difficult to determine who the next leader of the party will be. Michael Steele, an African-American, was just voted the new chairman of the Republican National Committee. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are the minority leaders in the House and Senate, respectively. All are capable and serious men but also drab and colorless. The GOP has a crop of rising stars in the governor's mansions, including Bobby Jindahl and Tim Pawlenty, and in the House, such as Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, but none are exactly a household name just yet. Newt Gingrich is probably the leading intellectual in the party but comes with a ton of baggage. My guess is that he will play the role of kingmaker in 2012. So who does that leave?

Consider the case of Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia. Never heard of him? No matter; no one else has outside of his district. But in an appearance on Hardball last week he said:

"I think that our leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are taking the right approach," Gingrey said. "I mean, it's easy if you're Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or even sometimes Newt Gingrich to stand back and throw bricks. You don't have to try to do what's best for your people and your party. You know you're just on these talk shows and you're living well and plus you stir up a bit of controversy and gin the base and that sort of that thing. But when it comes to true leadership, not that these people couldn't be or wouldn't be good leaders, they're not in that position of John Boehner or Mitch McConnell."

Big mistake. Gingrey received a high volume of phone calls and correspondence and had to go on Limbaugh's show and beg forgiveness:

"I clearly ended up putting my foot in my mouth on some of those comments, and I just wanted to tell you, Rush — and all our conservative giants, who help us so much to maintain our base and grow it to get back this majority — that I regret those stupid comments."

He also published this on his web site:

As long as I am in the Congress, I will continue to fight for and defend our sacred values. I have actively opposed every bailout, every rebate check, every so called "stimulus." And on so many of these things, I see eye-to-eye with Rush Limbaugh. Regardless of what yesterday's headline may have read, I never told Rush to back off. I regret and apologize for the fact that my comments have offended and upset my fellow conservatives--that was not my intent. I am also sorry to see that my comments in defense of our Republican Leadership read much harsher than they actually were intended, but I recognize it is my responsibility to clarify my own comments.

Now more than ever, we need to articulate a clear conservative message that distinguishes our values and our approach from those of liberal Democrats who are seeking to move our nation in the wrong direction. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and other conservative giants are the voices of the conservative movement's conscience. Everyday, millions and millions of Americans--myself included--turn on their radios and televisions to listen to what they have to say, and we are inspired by their words and by their determination. At the end of the day, every member of the conservative movement, from our political commentators and thinkers to our elected officials, share an important and common purpose in advancing the cause of liberty, reigning in a bloated federal government, and defending our traditional family values.

Does Gingrey sound afraid of Limbaugh? I think so. He should be; Limbaugh has millions of listeners. But he remains an entertainer, not a serious leader. If Obama can keep the focus on him and not the more legitimate Republicans, he should improve his odds in the forum of public opinion.