The Children of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Thoughtful people will start taking the Obama White House seriously when they learn manners and start acting like adults.

The latest comic attempt, by senior adviser David Axelrod, was in front of alive audience for National Public Radio's "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me" quiz show. Axelrod, who bristles at comparisons to Karl Rove, said that one of the potential names for the White House pooch was "Miss California."

Sure, it's a joke.

Sure, the audience (NPR's type of people) laughed.

But it wasn't funny.

Britain's Brain-Dead Ban on Michael Savage

I probably wouldn't invite him to dinner -- but only because I'm not sure how happy Mrs. Oklahomilist would be about it -- but the British ban on Michael Savage should be seen as a national insult.

This news broke Wednesday.

Sixteen people banned from entering the UK were "named and shamed" by the Home Office today.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to make public the names of 16 people banned since October so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

The list includes hate preachers, anti-gay protesters and a far- right US talk show host.

[SNIP]

"This is someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country," Ms Smith told BBC Breakfast.

At the risk of falling prey to Ms. Smith's "name and shame" tool, she must be one of the dimmest bulbs of British history, and that's saying something. Michael Savage isn't everyone's cup of tea, but he's not the evil hatemonger his critics like to paint. His stock in trade is the constitutionally protected (in America anyway) right of free and direct speech about those things he says as dragging this nation into the dust bin of history.

I don't listen to him a lot because his radio signal at Oklahomily HQ is faint and Cardinal baseball trumps politics in the evenings, but I have never heard him say anything that could be construed as advocating violence. Tension, maybe. A lot of liberals get their panties in a twist over Savage's comments, but I think they secretly enjoy it.

Also named are American Baptist pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Snr and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, who have picketed the funerals of Aids victims and claimed the deaths of US soldiers are a punishment for US tolerance of homosexuality.

I find the Phelps reprehensible, and it's probably a good thing they can't go to England now. Doing so might inflame war fever against us that has only begun to calm now as Brits get over Obama's DVD snub to Gordon Brown and the Queen's iPod.

My other question to Ms. Smith is this: Did any of these Americans actually say they wanted to go to England in the first place, or is your "Name & Shame List" purely pre-emptive?

If so, you are a shameless, as well as a brainless, twit. Are you running for something?

Some Would Rather Gripe than Govern

Amity Shlaes, the author of "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," has written a piece at Bloomberg discussing the unusual vitriol of the left in the wake of an election that they won.

So Michele Bachmann’s version of history is “from another planet.” Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, is “chronically stupid.” And Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking Republican in the House, is “busy lying constantly.”

That at least is according to posts on three left-leaning blogs.

Writers who are not pro-Barack Obama are suffering character assassination as well. George Will of the Washington Post, the nation’s senior conservative columnist, has been so assaulted by bloggers that his editor, Fred Hiatt, recently wrote, “I would think folks would be eager to engage in the debate, given how sure they are of their case, rather than trying to shut him down.”

The disconcerting thing isn’t that the bloggers or their guests did this slamming. We’re used to such vitriol in campaign time. What is surprising is that the attacks are continuing after an election.

In the past, politicians and policy thinkers tended to be magnanimous in victory. They and their friends focused, post- victory, on policy and strategy -- not on trashing individuals.

She goes on to make the case that it is usually the people out of power who harp and carp, not the winners. But Obama's supporters would rather bully than govern, attack rather than analyze, discuss personalities, not principles.

Amity is a very sweet gal, and her book is tremendous. I fear that she does not recognize progressive tactics for what they are: the personal is political. Identify your target, isolate your target, attack and destroy your target. Find a new target.

But she's right about one thing. The American people are basically good and decent. They will tire of all this eventually, and demand results, not rhetoric.