Election Reveals Intelligence

No, not in the people who voted for the GOP, but in bloggers who are thinking about the results and the aftermath.

• Steve Greene: Argues that the Tea Party folks may have given the Republicans more seats in the House (more than the models would have predicted) but cost them several Senate seats, including a majority.
• Andrew Exum a.k.a. Abu Muqawama does a nice job of revealing the hypocrisy of the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Buck McKeon.  "Buck"  (with a nickname like that, will he be next homophobe that is outed?) says that the defense budget should have less social agendas on it now, meaning no efforts to change Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  But Exum/Abu points out that keeping DADT "reflects a social agenda (in this case, a social agenda now out of step with the American people). In fact, everything about the defense budget reflects a social agenda: what kind of military we have and how we fund it says a lot about Americans as a society -- our norms, our values, our priorities."  Not only is war politics by other means, but defense budgeting is politics by, well, normal means.
• And more to come.