Thanks to a long conference call with Monthly folk I was on, the schedule’s a little hinky today, so apologies for a Late Lunch. I’ll try to make it tasty, though:
* Haven’t been watching CPAC, but Twitter reports Marco Rubio made it through an entire speech without mentioning the word “immigration.” Ah, what a brave truth-teller is our Marco.
* Meanwhile, the fanfare for Rand Paul’s CPAC speech was Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” I didn’t know Rand went to Virginia Tech.
* John Allen, the closest thing we have to a Nate Silver of papal elections, analyzes Bergoglio’s path to victory in the College of Cardinals, suggesting alliance of Latin Americans, European/American “moderates,” and former Vatican diplomats did the trick.
* Chris Hayes to replace Ed Schultz in MSNBC’s weekday prime-time lineup. I don’t watch much political TV, but if I did, I’d watch Chris.
* Congressional Progressive Caucus collectively freaks at rumors House/Senate Dem leadership are moving towards supporting an Obama move to include Chained CPI in a “grand bargain.”
And in non-political news:
* At Wonkblog, Brad Plumer and Dylan Matthews discuss implications of the death of Google Reader.
Back within 30 or 40 minutes.
