If I weren’t filled with so many pills--including slightly more Percosets than Im supposed to be taking--I would try to have something smart to say about the Iowa caucus. But, lo, I am filled with these drugs and I don’t have the power to wade through any greater meaning to the surprises. Suffice it to say, though, that the situation is, were it played on a national level, as nightmarish as I could imagine. The only good news is that Thompson stays in the race and Ron Paul did more poorly than many were expecting.

Iowa is Iowa. I don’t know how meaningful these results are--but it certainly isn’t meaningless.

Update: What he said.

Update 2: That’s gonna leave a mark.

Tonight is a sad one for America. It marks the triumph of sentiment over substance. Mike Huckabee’s speech was nothing but empty platitudes. Obama’s is not much better. Again, this is a comment on their substance, or lack thereof. On an emotional level, they connect with people. Their tone is right. That’s why all year long I have warned people to watch Huckabee—because I knew he was a threat to win the nomination. But if he does, Susan Estrich is right: The Democrats will be dancing on inauguration night, because they will make mincemeat of this unethical, insubstantial, unconservative rube from Hope, Arkansas. Of course, it also shows that the people of Iowa aren’t serious about electing a president; they are serious only about “sending a message” about the tone of politics. That message is a correct one—the tone does need to improve—but the inexperienced and unaccomplished Obama (what, pray tell, has he actually ever achieved as a legislator?) and the money-grubbing, parochial governor full of more demagoguery than of knowledge are NOT, repeat NOT, men who have any business sniffing the Oval Office.

Read it all. It’s brutal.