M. Gordon "Reds" Wolman

I was lucky enough to have Reds as my undergraduate adviser at Johns Hopkins, and to this day I count him as one of my strongest influences in mind and attitude. A preternatural charm, combined with equanimity, generosity, and intellect is how I best remember Reds, not to mention the trademark bow tie. Many of us try to emulate Reds, but I doubt any of us had the full package. Anyone who has not been lucky to have met this incredible spirit may wonder at the ready use of superlatives in remembrances discussing Reds, but more than anyone else I have met -- and I have know my share of world-class researchers like Reds -- Reds's spirit electrified the space around him. Even at 85, Reds remained a rock star.

Decades later, as fortune would have it, I returned to Hopkins with a doctorate to serve in his division at JHSPH. A great homecoming. And I doubt very much I would have made it that far without his example to follow. I'll never forget my job talk at Hopkins when, after a few minutes into my presentation, I saw that iconic bow tie topped with red hair and a smile enter the lecture hall. I was happy that he had remembered one of the dozens of undergraduates he has advised over the years, and my confidence soared.

An exceptionally gracious letter from Hopkins's new president is one of many remembrances.

Thursday's HCR Summit: Calling the conservative bluff

EJ Dionne hits it on the head with this money quote:

And that's whose bluff Obama is really calling with this summit. He's saying: Please, establishment media, look honestly at what the Republicans are doing. Instead of offering lectures about bipartisanship or nostalgia for some peaceable Washington kingdom, look at the substance of our respective proposals and how they match up against the problems we're trying to solve.

Steven Pearlstein - The myth of Washington bipartisanship and the art of true compromise - washingtonpost.com

Steven Pearlstein - The myth of Washington bipartisanship and the art of true compromise - washingtonpost.com

Not bad for the business columnist:

The only way a democratic system like ours can work is if the majority party acknowledges that winning an election means winning the right to set the agenda and put the first proposal on the table, though not the right to get everything it wants. By the same logic, if members of the minority party want to influence that policy, they have to understand that it will require them to accept some things they don't like to get some things they do.

Daily Kos: The 2010 Comprehensive Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Self-Identified Republicans

Daily Kos: The 2010 Comprehensive Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Self-Identified Republicans

Judging from the answers, it would seem that 25-50 percent of Republicans are hard-core on every issue: Palin is more qualified than Obama, Obama is a socialist, Obama wants the terrorists to win, et fricking cetera. It makes you wonder what Independents are thinking. There will be no so-called post-partisan era simply because the boundaries of reality are at issue, not just policy. There will be no post-partisan era where we agree to disagree, as in a healthy democracy. What there will be will be -- if Obama rhetorical approach is successful -- is a persistent co-opting of the "independent" voting faction, and I think he might be on to something. Maybe. On the pessimistic side, Reagan's success did not come from simply cultivating the right-of-center independent vote and disaffected liberals, his lasting victory was in defining the Democrats as representing the discarded ideas of the past. So far, Obama has not turned his rhetorical gifts to the historic task Reagan set for himself, and that will leave a legacy as fragile as Clinton's when Gore decided to run from Clinton's accomplishments. At this point in history, Republicans should have no credibility on foreign or domestic policy, but somehow Bush's eight years are off-limits as an object lesson on the failure of Republican policy. By comparison, after Reagan's first year in office, it was fashionable to associate Carter with failure and weakness. Certainly, Bush is a failure and an embarrassment to the Republican establishment, but the Democrats are too polite to show that Bush's failures were a failure of ideology, not simply of one administration. Essentially, the Democrat's rhetorical task is to viscerally associate the Republican ideology with weakness and confusion, just as Reagan successfully did against the Democrats. By the same token, Democrats must avoid trying to paint the Republicans as merely "wrong" or "incorrect" in their views, which is entirely too intellectual a position for politics and entirely unsuitable for the opponent. The Democrats should say, "We've tried it their way for eight years, and their deficit has weakened our country, and their wars have weakened our country, and their policies have weakened our moral standing around the world. It's time to return to the values of civility and common interest that has made our country strong." Or something like that.