Conservative Nathaniel Blake at Human Events Online links positively to John Derbyshire’s post, then writes that the students at Virginia Tech should feel “heartily ashamed” for not acting more bravely:

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.

Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that. …

Like Derb, I don’t know if I would live up to this myself, but I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t. Am I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing? I don’t know; but I should hope to be so when necessary.

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Dana Goldstein has highlights from the Harvard Institute of Politics poll of 18-24 year-olds:

* Young Democrats are more independent of their elders than young Republicans are. Like their older counterparts, 18-24 year old Republicans prefer Rudy Giuliani as the next president. But while older Democrats support Hillary Clinton (42% to Obama’s 24% and Edwards’ 17%), young Democrats prefer Obama (35% to Clinton’s 29% and Edwards’ 9%).

* Dovetailing nicely with Ronald Brownstein’s Obama-skeptic analysis of “beer track” and “wine track” Democratic candidates (the six-packers make more likely winners), Obama is more popular among the highly educated. Obama leads Clinton by only 3 points among 18-24 year olds not enrolled in a 4-year college, but by a whopping 17 points on campuses.

* And don’t discount gender. Obama leads Clinton by 20% among young Democratic men, but young Democratic women prefer Clinton by 6 points.

We already knew, of course, that Obama’s appeal skewed young, male, and educated. It’s interesting, however, that age beats education (leading Clinton by only 3 points is small, but it’s sill leading) perhaps because there are fewer white people in the youth cohort, but gender trumps age. Indeed, that gender gap, though expected on some level, is pretty astoundingly large when you consider that women are more dovish than men.

“President George W. Bush and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine will lead tributes to the victims of yesterday’s shooting at Virginia Tech’s memorial service today. Bush, joined by his wife Laura, will appear on campus ‘as representatives of the entire nation,’ White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said at a briefing this morning. … The event, to take place at the Blacksburg, Va, university’s Cassell Coliseum, will begin at 2 p.m. with a musical prelude by the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadet’s band, the Highty Tighties.”

UPDATE: Many media organizations have turned to the blogs and social networking sites for news on what happened. But other news organizations, such as ABC, NBC, and the Times of London, have started pages on Facebook soliciting interviews from students in hope of scoring “the big ‘get’” — an interivew with someone who “knew Cho Seung-Hui”:

UPDATE II: Right-wing reaction to the shootings: The National Review’s John Derbyshire asks, “[W]hy didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake–one of them reportedly a .22.” Right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel speculated that Cho Seung-Hui, “who had been identified at that point only as a man of Asian descent, might be a ‘Paki’ Muslim and part of ‘a coordinated terrorist attack.’”

UPDATE III: “An English professor recommended that gunman Cho Seung-Hui receive counseling after the Virginia Tech student submitted a violent one-act play that featured scenes of murder and pedophilia as part of a creative-writing class, according to The Smoking Gun, a website that features original documents and reporting.”

In a recent interview with GQ magazine, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proclaimed that he can ignore American public opinion polling on Iraq because he knows “what’s best for the security of this nation:”

GQ: Then how can you support sending the military on a mission that the American people don’t support?

MCCAIN: Because I know what’s best for the security of this nation. And if we don’t show signs of success, the American public will force us to pull out.

Here’s a quick review of McCain’s credentials for “knowing what’s best” for U.S. national security:

– Declared Muqtada al-Sadr’s forces were “not contesting American forces,” just as tens of thousands of Sadr loyalists rallied to oppose the U.S. occupation

– Proclaimed Americans could “walk through” Baghdad neighborhoods, evidencing his stroll through a Baghdad market accompanied by 100 soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, and 2 Apache gunships

– Said Gen. Petraeus rides “almost every day in an unarmored humvee” in Iraq, but later acknowledged “obviously, that’s not the case”

– Drew “laughter down the line” from U.S. forces in Iraq over his comments about the effect escalation was having

– Said a “date certain” for withdrawal was the “orderly way” to stop the U.S. campaign in Somalia, but now calls it “surrender” when applied to Iraq

When forced to confront the unpopularity of his Iraq position, McCain told GQ, “I think Americans don’t pay close attention.” He certainly must have to think that in order to publicly claim he knows what’s best for the security of this nation given the record he has.

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The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will meet tomorrow to consider whether to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has repeatedly blown off Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) requests for information on her pre-war claims about Iraq’s WMD programs.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) said last week that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is wrong when she says “it takes a village” to raise a child. “I think it’s time for us to recognize every child deserves a mother and a father,” Romney said. “The statement, however, runs counter to what The Boston Globe quoted him as saying in 1998: ‘Hillary Clinton is very much right, it does take a village, and we are a village and we need to work together in a non-skeptical, no-finger-pointing way.’”

UPDATE: We would be loathe not to mention Romney’s explanation: “On Monday, Romney’s campaign said his Globe comments were about public-private partnerships, not families. Romney was referencing corporations, not parents, the campaign said.”

Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) compared himself to the Duke lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape by district attorney Mike Nifong. “I haven’t been found guilty of nothing [sic],” DeLay said. “I’m presently under indictment for laws that don’t exist in Texas by a Nifong of Texas called Ronnie Earle, undermining our justice system here in Texas.”

DeLay has been indicted on money laundering and criminal conspiracy charges — yes, those laws exist in Texas. Ronnie Earle, whom DeLay frequently tries to paint as a bloodthirsty partisan, has prosecuted four times as many Democrats as Republicans during his career. Moreover, the indictments against DeLay weren’t even brought by Earle, but by multiple Texas grand juries made up of DeLay’s peers.

Nevertheless, DeLay’s “defense” won praise from O’Reilly. “See, I don’t think you even have to justify [the] statement with that,” O’Reilly said. “The record shows that, you know, you served your country. They may not like you, but you’re a public servant who’s walking around free right now.” Watch it:

In his new book, DeLay also writes that by repeating the “big lie” that he violated campaign-finance laws in Texas, “liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler.”

O’Reilly and DeLay agreed on another point last night: that “left-wing blogs” are on their way to silencing all political discussion in the United States. As O’Reilly put it, “I’m getting to the point now where I’m seeing what the left-wing blogs are doing and what they’re doing is trying to wipe out people, like you said, carpet-bomb them, and if this starts to domino down, then you’re not going to have any commentary at all.”

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“George W. Bush’s presidency reaches a milestone of sorts on Thursday as he completes his 25th quarter in office. But his 25th quarter is not one on which he will look back fondly, given that he averaged only a 35% job approval rating, the lowest quarterly average of his presidency to date.”