I’m hearing that Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) has suffered a stroke. No word yet on how serious it is, and here’s hoping that it’s minimal, and that he recovers soon.

But if it’s serious, and he dies or has to step down for health reasons, Republican Governor Mike Rounds would almost certainly appoint a Republican in his place, giving control of the Senate back to them (or rather, if it happens before new Senators are sworn in in January, allowing them to retain control, since the new leadership hasn’t been elected yet).

[Evening Update]

Good news for the Senator and his family (and yes, incidentally, for the Dems)]

It appears that it wasn’t a stroke. Glad to hear it, Senator. Get well soon.

[Morning update]

Not so good news. Sounds like it was an aneurysm, or some other kind of brain hemmorhage. He just had surgery, which was reportedly successful. No word on the prognosis, but right now he’s in critical condition.

A four-year-old boy was suspended from school for sexual harassment–of a teacher’s aide:

A letter from La Vega school district administrators to the student’s parents said that the boy was involved in “inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment” after he hugged the woman and he “rubbed his face in the chest of (the) female employee” on Nov. 10.

Must be education majors.

With Pinochet now in the grave, Vladimir Dorta republishes his 2003 historical essay on Chile and the fantasies of the left.

…and clueless kids are still cheering on vile leftist and academic fraud Ward Churchill.

…and clueless kids are still cheering on vile leftist and academic fraud Ward Churchill.

…and clueless kids are still cheering on vile leftist and academic fraud Ward Churchill.

Here are two more appropriately caustic reviews of Jimmy Carter’s viciously anti-semitic and clueless new book, from Jacob Laksin at the conservative FrontPage Magazine, and the liberal Michael Kinsley. Apparently, Carter is a uniter, not a divider.

[Update at noon]

Rich Lowry writes about our creepy former president:

Carter argues that more people would see the Middle East his way if it weren

From a surprising source (the WaPo) an editorial about dictators and double standards.

The contrast between Cuba and Chile more than 30 years after Mr. Pinochet’s coup is a reminder of a famous essay written by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, the provocative and energetic scholar and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who died Thursday. In “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” a work that caught the eye of President Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick argued that right-wing dictators such as Mr. Pinochet were ultimately less malign than communist rulers, in part because their regimes were more likely to pave the way for liberal democracies. She, too, was vilified by the left. Yet by now it should be obvious: She was right.

Dennis “Tinfoil Hat” (boy, now there’s an old post…) Kucinich is running for president again.

Our Anonymous Moron troll whines that I don’t talk about Darfur.

Well, here’s an editorial by Ralph Peters about Darfur with which I agree, though I doubt if Anonymous Moron does:

Europe wrings its hands – as Europe always does – but declines an invitation to the dance. After all, “responsible” governments can’t play fast and loose with another state’s sovereignty. No dictator or president-for-life would be able to get a decent night’s sleep.

So Sudan’s Islamo-fascists continue to kill with impunity.

Our own left mourns theatrically for Darfur’s dead – but no one has formed a new Lincoln Brigade to take on Sudan’s Muslims fanatics. And the uncomfortable fact that Arab Muslims are slaughtering black Muslims goes ignored. It doesn’t fit the left’s comfortable worldview.

Oh, yes: Those on the left demanding that we “bring the troops home” from Iraq would be delighted to send American troops to rescue Khartoum’s victims. But our military is occupied with other cases of fanaticism and genocide in the Muslim world this holiday season.

Isn’t it curious that, when it comes to liberation, Iraq didn’t count? For the endlessly hypocritical left, there’s one magic difference between the half-million dead of Darfur and the 1.5 million people killed by Saddam in his internal massacres and neighborhood wars: Bush.

To be fair, I think that there’s another one. In the minds of many deranged leftists, Arabs can do no wrong, because they’re fighting against the evil West, capitalists and Amerikkka. And they only want us to liberate people when we have no national interest in doing so. And even then, of course, they’re not truly liberated unless they’re yoked to socialism.