Not-Boring Republicans

Say what you will about the post-Bush decline of the GOP, its current shenanigans make Democrats look like the Partridge family. Compared to Obama's solemnity, last night's Washington fundraiser was a hoot.

After rounds of will-she, won't-she speculation, Sarah Palin turned up, not as the keynote speaker but to stroll the stage of the ballroom as the body-language answer to Newt Gingrich's hour-long flood of words.

If the faithful, who donated $14.5 million to the cause, were bored by the former Speaker's logorrhea, they had the option of slipping out to watch Palin on Fox News, telling Sean Hannity how right she was about branding Obama as a wealth spreader.

With her usual eloquence, the might-have-been vice president summed it up, "Kind of a 'We told ya so.'"

In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank reports that in the ballroom, "The master of ceremonies, actor Jon Voight, tried to fire up the minority party with the standard bromides directed at the majority: 'We are becoming a weak nation...Free the nation from this Obama oppression...Bring an end to this false prophet Obama.' The applause was polite but didn't entirely replace the sound of cutlery on china."

Voight may be an apt spokesperson. As a celebrity, he rates a "Is he still alive?" response, and his own daughter, Angelina Jolie, who works for humanitarian change in the world, hasn't been willing to listen to a word he says for years.

Just like the Republican Party and the rest of America.

Petraeus, al Maliki and Angelina

If reconciliation is going slowly in Iraq, an OpEd piece in today's Washington Post suggests an overlooked answer--box office appeal.

As a good will ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina Jolie writes about her meetings with Gen. Petraeus and Prime Minister al Maliki, both of whom promised to provide more resources to help resettle the 2 million Iraqis who are refugees in their own country and the additional 2.5 million who have fled, mostly to Syria and Jordan.

Now, Jolie calls on "the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy."

Gen. Petraeus has said we "can't kill our way out of Iraq,"
but kindness may be an effective weapon

Cynics will see this as photo-op diplomacy, but since nothing else is working, why not? Bring on the superstars, if they can be passionate and persuasive about turning a botched war toward humanitarian efforts.