Matt Bai thinks national Democrats could learn a lot from Hank Hill and Gov. Mike Easley (D-N.C.). He’s probably right, although Tom Maguire has the Democrats’ likelihood of success with this theme pegged:

No more sneers? No more “Vote for my health care plan, you racist, homophobic gun nuts”?

Republican strategists can relax.

Or, to paraphrase another modern Southern legend, when the red meat your party activists want turns off the voters you need to reclaim that (oh-so-slowly) “emerging” majority, you might be a Democrat.

Update: Mr. Mike thinks Bai seriously misreads King of the Hill; not being a viewer of the show, I wouldn’t presume to know.

Another Update: Ann Althouse has more thoughts on KotH (þ: Instapundit).

James G. Lakely of the Washington Times compares the press reaction to Karl Rove’s recent remarks about liberals and/or Democrats with Sen. Richard Durbin’s apparent attempt to draw an equivalence between Gitmo and Naziism, but I think some of Lakely’s evidence is rather specious… including this item:

The White House press corps also handled both stories dramatically differently. Questions about Mr. Rove dominated the White House press briefing the day after the speech was delivered with spokesman Scott McClellan being peppered with 22 questions on the subject.

A solitary reporter asked for the White House’s response to Mr. Durbin’s speech—two days after it was delivered—and Mr. McClellan was asked about it just two more times.

Karl Rove works for the president of the United States; one would expect that the president’s representatives would be asked to answer questions about his comments. Durbin, on the other hand, is a member of the legislative branch. This disparity doesn’t show bias—it shows that one person works for the president, and the other doesn’t.

Well, almost nothing: I got my Flickr schwag in the mail today. Yay! Now to figure out what I’m going to do with this stuff…

I also got a report in the campus mail detailing the grade distribution in my classes last academic year. I don’t know what’s more disturbing: that my average grade assigned both semesters was a B (3.05 in the fall, 2.97 in the spring), or that this placed me well in the bottom half of the faculty in terms of average GPA (42nd percentile in the fall, 33rd percentile in the spring).