The Council's Christmas and Hanukkah selections are up. There's about about as much holiday cheer as you'd expect given the combination of foreign military instability, domestic political stupidity, and global economic recession. Although the Glittering Eye has a small way to cope with that last one.

The kind of political discourse coalescing around the gay marriage controversy is making me long for the days when the country's next civil war was going to be fought over abortion. Cheat Seeking Missiles examines the left's histrionics about Warren while the Rhymes With Right blasts Jerry Brown's move to use the California Court to overturn Prop 8. I'm actually inclined to believe that Warren was a genuinely bad choice. But litigating Prop 8 is a terrible idea even - especially (?) - from a progressive point of view. The point of the electoral system is to relieve pressure in between elections, allowing people to let off steam and reevaluate their position. Highhandedly and unilaterally deciding social issues is a recipe for backlashes and counter-movements. Cf. Mickey Kaus's Newsom Rule.

Speaking of populist leftist movements: Bookworm Room goes after the property-destroying means that liberal activists often avail themselves of. As far as ends are concerned: the Razor extensively explores the proto-fascist history of leftist anti-war sentiment. Small wonder that they often end up objectively on the side of domestic Islamic anti-progressives and foreign tyrants. See Right Truth on that first point and Soccer Dad on the second. And then see one of my increasingly pedantic posts on the idiotic faux sophistication that they draw upon from ostensible experts.

The Colossus of Rhodey takes apart the MSM's newest eye roll inducing Obama hagiography, the vaunted parallels between Obama and Lincoln. This is a theme that would be obnoxious on its own terms even without the make-believe Office Of The President Elect fully embracing it. Plus - per the Provocateur's post - it's particularly silly in a political environment where Obama has been undeniably tarnished by Blagogate. Not that you expect reasonable evaluation and analysis from media outlets who treated Biden like a genius - a theater of inanity that JoshuaPundit explores in the context last week's delicious Cheney interview.

References and previously after the jump...