McCarthy presided last year over an intimate group of congressmen, strategists and pollsters who sought to chart a rebirth of the GOP over a multi-year course. One product of their meetings were “WhiPods,” iPods that every member of Cantor’s Whip team received in order to listen to weekly podcasts on their way home to their districts about the minority’s agenda. A technology embrace and increased communication were two of the ways the GOP tried to put itself on equal footing with the more plugged-in Democrats. Operatives said the tactics were necessary, but even party stalwarts like RNC committeeman Saul Anuzis warned that the GOP’s path back would be “long and ugly.” Some scolded time and again, “An e-campaign is not a strategy.”

[B]loggers and partisan commentators have not hesitated in using this incident to score political points. Whether liberal or conservative, the bloggers argue that Lee represents the opposite end of the political spectrum and is thus the responsibility of that bloggers’ ideological opponents.

Numerous eyeroll-inducing examples follow.

What demographic group, exactly, is this supposed to appeal to? Socially awkward boy-men who have trouble growing mustaches and still like to play Dungeons and Dragons?

Young Guns is a nickname. If someone else gives you a nickname, fine. But giving yourself a nickname? That always ends badly. . .

Not that I’m sensitive about glasses or anything.  Just sayin’.

In January 2008 Chesapeake cops raided the home of 28-year-old Ryan Frederick. Days earlier, an informant had broken into Frederick’s house. He spotted several marijuana plants and stole some of them, giving police the probable cause they needed to obtain a search warrant. During the raid, police put a battering ram through part of Frederick’s door. Frederick says he awoke, saw someone breaking into his home, remembered the burglary of several days earlier, panicked, and fired his gun through the broken door. His bullet struck and killed one of the police officers, Det. Jarrod Shivers.

[snip]

So what did the Chesapeake Police Department announce in April? It won’t be reconsidering its policy of sending cops on volatile, forced-entry raids into the homes of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders. Nor will it change the way its narcotics officers deal with drug informants. Instead, the department announced, Chesapeake narcotics officers will be using a new and improved battering ram. 

become the conservative Andrew Cuomo, using the AG’s position to advance an aggressive agenda linking events in Virginia to hot button national matters.

Nice analogy.

The piece opens with an extended 2004 anecdote about a strategy meeting between five billionaire Bush-haters about how to depose 43 after his first term. . . .