Three readings on the election

The best, most thorough, and most straightforward account of how Obama did it appears, aptly enough, on the website of Reader's Digest, written by my friend and former colleague Carl Cannon.

For a supplementary reading on how my profession disgraced itself this year see Harold Evans (no knee-jerk conservative) in The Guardian.

If the administration would like a blueprint for screwing up the next four years, John Judis has written it for them at the New Republic. The Republican party is destroyed, the Democratic party now owns the country outright, the post-industrial United States is a center-left country. (Can membership of the European Union be far behind?) To remain in power for decades, all liberals need is the nerve to be bold. Judis makes some excellent points. He is right that the Republicans are in even worse trouble than you might think--but I suspect that the surest way to help them out of their hole would be to follow his advice.