Daniel Larison says that Rick Santorum displays a very shaky grasp of reality, after Santorum tried to assert that the U.S. acquisition of western territories following the Mexican War paralleled the Israeli seizure of territories during the 1967 war.

Why did voters reject the GOP in 2005 and 2008? Paul Gottfried discusses Ramesh Ponnuru’s National Review column, which claims the ideological purity of some hard-line conservative Republicans is to blame.  Gottfried says the NR columnist has some valid points, but that Ponnuru is mostly off the mark. Daniel McCarthy replies that Ponnuru’s explanations for GOP losses are simply maneuvers to marginalize the role of foreign policy in taking the blame.

Rod Dreher talks about the decline of traditional eating habits (three square meals a day), and the rising trend of all-day grazing. Will this have negative ramifications for traditional culture?

The GOP primary race continues a flavor-of-the-week tradition, with The Washington Times now reporting Newt Gingrich claiming the top spot in a recent Quinnipac poll.

Occupy protestors butted in during an Obama appearance at a Manchester, New Hampshire school earlier today, heckling the president over the arrests of OWS protesters. A similar disruption happened at a Ron Paul appearance in Keane; Paul responded to the hecklers with disarming sympathy:

If you listen very carefully, I’m very much involved with the 99 [percent] … I’ve been condemning that 1 percent because they’ve been ripping us off. So, we need to sort that out. But the people on Wall Street got the bailouts and you guys got stuck with the bills and I think that’s where the problem is.