• Jonah Goldberg on the Tea Party  The Los Angeles Times columnist gives the movement a more fitting name--"Restorationists"--and vehemently objects to the main criticisms leveled against it. "The restorationists are neither anti-elitist nor anti-intellectual," he argues, listing intellectuals and elites alike revered by the Tea Party. What exactly is the movement, then? "A political restoration movement, one that reflects our Constitution and the precepts of limited government."

• Bret Stephens on Israel's Existential War  Though The Wall Street Journal columnist agrees Israel's settlement expansion is inflammatory, he insists critics are looking at the issue the wrong way (read the Wire's coverage of the expansion issue here).
  
  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn't territorial. It's existential. Israelis are now broadly prepared to live with a Palestinian state along their borders. Palestinians are not yet willing to live with a Jewish state along theirs.

• The New York Times on Education Policy  The Gray Lady's editorial board praises Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who "seems keenly interested in ending the odious, widespread practice under which poorly qualified teachers are shunted into schools serving the neediest children." The Times hopes Duncan can bring a measure of civil rights to public education, giving low-income and minority students better opportunities to learn. "If the secretary follows through, states and localities that have historically shortchanged these children — by saddling them, say, with watered-down curriculums and unqualified teachers — will be required to do better or risk losing federal education dollars."

• Fareed Zakaria on Little Victories in Pakistan  The Newsweek analyst offers a case for qualified optimism in Pakistan, "where Barack Obama's foreign policy is working." Zakaria cites a recent uptick in Pakistani cooperation and aid in capturing wanted Taliban figures, and credits the shift to the Obama administration's shrewd approach to American-Pakistani diplomacy. However, he cautions that this is no time for laurels-resting: "Pressing Pakistan is a lot like running on a treadmill. If you stop, you move backward, and, most likely, you fall down."

• The Boston Globe on Saint Patrick's Day Revelry  An unsigned editorial in The Boston Globe defends the city's Saint Patrick's Day Breakfast, which Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker will beg off this year. "The event survives because it represents an enduring Boston subculture, and because it injects a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor into Massachusetts’ cutthroat political culture," the editors write. But they admit that "the breakfast does go on too long... [so] Baker’s decision to skip this year’s breakfast shouldn’t weigh too heavily on his reputation."

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