The Guardian on Gilbert & Sullivan: "a kind of late-Victorian Monty Python."
Second-rate productions can, undeniably, be tedious. Speech and music have to be seamless; timing is vital; the mechanism is as precise – and as likely to malfunction if done hamfistedly – as Rossini. The plot moves forward by way of the dialogue: do it badly and the show will grind to a halt. G&S can never work as a series of short, disconnected musical numbers; it is an integrated work of divine lunacy, propelled by an inner logic, or it is nothing.
Larry Kudlow asks important questions:
President Obama thinks his "remoteness and detachment" are the problems. This is nonsense. Obama's tax hikes and spending explosion are what caused the populist tea-party revolt that was punctuated by Scott Brown's extraordinary victory.And that leads to the next question. Are the Republicans listening? Do they really understand why Scott Brown was victorious? If they do, why aren't members of the Republican leadership loudly campaigning for an end to tax hikes, just like Scott Brown?
The cornucopia of tax hikes currently on the table includes higher levies on capital gains, top earners, dividends, investment (via the payroll tax), carbon, millionaires, banks, stock transactions and estates (via the death tax). It's a long Democratic wish list of anti-growth policies, and Scott Brown's triumph should signal the end of it. But it won't happen unless GOP congressional leaders make a big deal about it.
Not optimistic about the old guard at this point.