Iraq update – “Numbers show Iraq constitution approval likely”: “Iraq's constitution seemed headed toward passage Sunday despite strong opposition from Sunni Arabs, who turned out in surprisingly high numbers in an effort to stop it. The apparent victory was muted, though, by the prospect that the result might divide the country further.”

Meanwhile: “Al-Qaeda propagandist caught”: “A propaganda cell leader for Al Qaeda in Iraq was captured in a raid on a suspected terrorist safe house in Karabilah last month, Multi-National Forces said in a statement issued Sunday.”

Support the troops – Betsy recounts the experiences of her student and her father.

Last throes? – Yesterday, I suggested the Iraqi insurgents were getting lazy. Tonight, GOP Vixen notes that during the last round of elections in Iraq there were 347 terrorist attacks - today there were 13. That's the way it should be - people everywhere just wanna be free.

The new gender gap - As the father of two boys, I always cringe a little at stories like this about the widening education gap. My book review of “The War Against Boys” stirred up some interesting comments over at Blogcritics.

Sunday morning lineup – Condi, Condi, Condi, Biden!

Big time – I saw Lorie Byrd and Erick with a K on CNN tonight discussing the Harriet Miers nomination. Good for them. Despite Lorie’s self-criticism, I thought they both did a fine job.

Scooter Libby off the hook…or is he?

From Fox News: “Miller 'Can't Recall' Who Leaked Name in CIA Case”

In a first-person account released Saturday on The Times' Web site, Miller recounted her recent grand jury testimony, which focused on her conversations in 2003 with Cheney's closest aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Miller said she "didn't think" she heard covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's name from Libby. "I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall."

Yet here’s Miller’s account of her testimony on the NY Times.

My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the C.I.A.

My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative," as the conservative columnist Robert D. Novak first described her in a syndicated column published on July 14, 2003. (Mr. Novak used her maiden name, Valerie Plame.)

So Miller didn’t hear the name “Valerie Plame” from Libby although he hinted that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. This doesn’t seem like a mitigating factor to me, even if Libby was trying to counter “selective leaking” by the CIA which was trying to cover up for pre-war intelligence. But then, given that the White House was trying to discredit Joe Wilson well before his NY Times article, it indicates they had concerns about an agent of the government actively working to undermine White House policy. As it turns out, those concerns were justified:

On July 22, 2005, the New York Times published a lengthy, front-page article detailing the work of two senior Bush administration officials, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, on the Niger-uranium story. A seemingly exhaustive timeline ran alongside the piece. In 19 bullet points, the Times provided its readers in considerable detail with what it regarded as the highlights of the story. The timeline traces events from the initial request for more information on the alleged Iraqi inquiries in Africa to Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger; from the now-famous "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union to the details of White House telephone logs; from Bush administration claims that Karl Rove was not involved in the leak to the naming of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and on from there to the dates that White House officials testified before the grand jury.

As I say, seemingly exhaustive. But there is one curious omission: July 7, 2004. On that date, the bipartisan Senate Select Intelligence Committee released a 511-page report on the intelligence that served as the foundation for the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq. The Senate report includes a 48-page section on Wilson that demonstrates, in painstaking detail, that virtually everything Joseph Wilson said publicly about his trip, from its origins to his conclusions, was false.

John Hinderaker of PowerLine believes that Libby is in the clear:

In general, Miller's story seems to exonerate "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, with whom Miller had a series of conversations about Joe Wilson. In the course of those conversations, Valerie Plame's name was mentioned a couple of times, but there is no suggestion that either Libby or Miller had any idea that she was a "covert" CIA employee, rather than an analyst. (In fact, as far as I know, she wasn't.) Reading Miller's account, the impression that this investigation is much ado about nothing is only strengthened.

It does seem that Peter Fitzgerald’s case for indictments is getting more difficult. If Libby didn’t tip off Judith Miller and Karl Rove didn’t tell Robert Novak, it’s not at all clear how this implicates the White House.

Iraq votes

From the NYT – “Polls close in Iraq’s Constitutional referendum”: “Iraqis walked through silent streets this morning to begin voting on a new constitution that, if passed, would mark a major step toward the formation of the country's first full-term government since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.”

Early reports indicate that turnout is high, even in Sunni areas. Good news. More up-to-the-minute blogging at Iraq the Model – keep scrolling.

Irony overload – Environmentalists sue to shut down wind farms in California. It’s for the birds.

Hang ‘em high - Who needs evidence? It’s Tom DeLay!

Every once in a while, Massachusetts does something right

From the Boston Globe: “Engineering gains a younger following” about how the Bay State is pushing for more engineering courses in middle and high schools:

Responding to a national need for more engineers, Massachusetts is moving faster than other states to bring engineering into primary and secondary schools. It was the first state to recommend that engineering be taught at all grade levels and is the only state to have an engineering exam as part of statewide testing.

I’ve imagined that you could teach a class called “How to build a bridge” running through the gamut of engineering disciples from the tensile strength of steel to the load bearing on a truss. Something like a year-long project with blueprints and everything. Better than dissecting a frog in my opinion.

In the news - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia says he may let women drive someday. In an unrelated story, cell phone sales doubled in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

The latest wacky Fitzgerald grand jury theory – What if it’s really all about the forged documents about uranium in Africa? The American Thinker lays out the case. (HT: Tom at Libertarian Leanings).

Chillin’ with my homey

Mark and I think alike on a lot of different subjects. Above all, we’re cool as cucumbers. I haven’t written much on Harriet Miers because she deserves at least one day of hearings before we throw her off a cliff. Who knows: maybe she’s the female John Roberts with a dazzling knowledge of Constitutional law. But all this hand-wringing and tearing of shirts – oy, get a grip people. Here’s Mark:

If the conservative movement is torn asunder by a Supreme Court appointment, it wasn’t a hell of a movement to begin with.

Well put. Look, I’m not crazy about Harriet Miers, either. But let’s review some salient points:

#1 – There is no chance that President Bush will withdraw the nomination. That’s not how the Bush family operates.
#2 – There’s no way that Harriet Miers would voluntarily withdraw her nomination. A cursory review of her career reveals an ambitious, headstrong personality; nothing on heaven or earth would force her to turn back now.
#3 – Unless Miers makes some huge gaffe in the Judiciary hearings, she’ll be voted out of committee.
#4 – Despite grumblings from the right, all the Republican senators will support the President and vote for Miers.

If you follow this sequence, Miers will be confirmed to the SCOTUS. Whining about the choice, now that it’s been made, is useless.

Follow-up – Point #3 may be in danger: Andy McCarthy doesn’t believe Miers will get enough votes on the Judiciary committee. Byron York says that doesn’t matter.

Extra – From Opinion Journal: “Give her a break - Bush's judicial picks have been great so far. Why should Miers be any different?” We’ll see.

Color him unimpressed - Expat Yank on Harold Pinter’s Nobel prize: “A Pin-head wins.”

A star is born – One of my favorite bloggers, Lorie Byrd, will be on CNN tomorrow night talking about Harriet Miers. Welcome to the big league!

Next up: ringing the Centcom doorbell and running away – The Iraqi insurgents are really getting lazy if they think a power outage will stop the vote tomorrow.

Time to build the ark

It has been raining almost non-stop here in New England for a week now. On my commute home today the display outside the local Springfield newspaper, which normally just reads the time and temperature, read: "Enough already."

Just then "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)" by Nine Days played on the radio: "This is the story of a girl, who cried a river and drowned the whole world." How appropriate.

Ugh – Waterlogged Northeast braces for more rain

Today’s must read – From Sergeant Ron Long about the so-called “staged” interview with President Bush:

It makes my stomach ache to think that we are helping to preserve free speech in the US, while the media uses that freedom to try to RIP DOWN the President and our morale, as US Soldiers. They seem to be enjoying the fact that they are tearing the country apart. Worthless!

Emphasis in original. Michelle Malkin has more comments and links in “Lights! Camera! Projection!”

“A deeper level of junk”

Boy, you don’t see a phrase like that very often. From the Economist: “Delphi's bankruptcy highlights the danger of ballooning legacy costs—namely pensions and health care—and is further bad news for its main customer, General Motors.”

Reckoning that GM will not be able to escape a) supply disruptions if Delphi plunges into open warfare with its workforce and b) some contribution, perhaps as high as $11 billion, in pensions and benefits to Delphi’s past and present employees, both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch have cut the carmaker’s bond ratings to a deeper level of junk.

And here’s a related article – “Now for the reckoning”:

The numbers are awful. GM's credit rating was lowered again by Standard & Poor's on October 10th. GM expects to spend over $5 billion this year on health care alone, up by $1 billion since last year. That adds up to about $1,500 for each car made by GM, or some 3% of the firm's revenues. Much of this money is for GM's former workers: it now provides health insurance to over 1m retired Americans.

And from the WSJ, excerpted on Free Republic:

General Motors Corp. has signaled to the United Auto Workers union that an agreement to cut GM's $5.6 billion annual U.S. health-care bill must come within the next few days, or the company could act unilaterally to cut UAW health-care spending, among other cost-cutting moves, according to people familiar with the matter.

Analysts at the Bank of America now estimate that there’s a 30% chance that General Motors will declare bankruptcy, up 10% after the Delphi announcement.

The religion of global warming

Here’s some more grist for the environmentalism mill from Fox News: “What Arctic warming?”

Over the last 30 years, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide increased by about 15 percent, from about 328 parts per million to about 372 parts per million. But the Antarctic temperature trend for that period indicates a slight cooling. Thisobservation contrasts sharply with the relatively steep Antarctic warming observed from 1949 to 1974, which was accompanied by a much more modest increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.

The hypothesis of global warming alarmism posits that increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide should lead to increasing temperatures, particularly with respect to Antarctica’s super-cold, super-dry air mass. But the data seem to indicate just the opposite.

For extra fun, go back and read this Senate testimony by author (and doctor) Michael Crichton on the “politicization of research.”

It’s a baseball metaphor – I’m only a casual viewer of “The Apprentice” but Trump’s acolytes are absolutely addicted to the phrase “step up to the plate.” “He/she really stepped up to the plate this week” and “We needed you to step up to the plate in this task.” Once you notice it, it’s distracting beyond belief.

Andrew Stuttaford on Harold Pinter: “Under these circumstances, Harold Pinter's signature on this letter should be seen for what it is, a particularly tasteless attack on an America he despises, whose hospitality he has recently accepted, whose checks he has just cashed and whose dead he now insults.”

Here I go with my Cassandra act again

“And indeed, the burden of Cassandra's "gift" is evident in mythology. She predicted the outcome of many disastrous events. In one memorable example, Cassandra announced the dire consequences of the Trojans accepting the infamous Wooden Horse from their Greek opponents. But as Apollo made certain, no one believed Cassandra when she warned her companions about the future. And this, in the end, was to be Cassandra's tragic fate.”

Oh well. Here are some stats from the Heritage foundation, shamelessly lifted from The Conspiracy to Keep you Poor and Stupid:

Unless Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are reformed, lawmakers face three options:
A) Raise taxes every year until taxes are 60 percent ($11,000 per household) higher than today.
B) Eliminate every federal program except Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by 2045; or
C) Do nothing and watch the federal debt expand so much that even a minor interest rate response would induce a spiral of rising debt and interest rates, threatening the entire economy.

I know, I know. Move along. There are some “boobies” posts on Fark today.

Don’t go away mad – From the UK Guardian: “Schröder bows out with swipe at Blair”

What letter? What constitution?

Here’s Little Green Footballs:

Has anyone seen the letter from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri to holy head-chopper Abu Musab al-Zarqawi covered at Daily Kos: State of the Nation?
No?
Me neither.

I did see this post on Sunday about last minute changes to the Iraqi constitution: “Fat chance now. Just idiotic how this was done.” Alas, no recent updates on this story either: “Iraq Parliament OKs Constitution Compromise.” Oh well.

Things that can’t continue, don’t – a lesson for Social Security

This past week, auto parts maker Delphi filed for bankruptcy. The facts of the case are culled from this WashPost article:

- Delphi lost $4.75 billion in 2004.
- “Workers at Delphi plants make about $27 per hour in wages alone. With health care and other benefits added in, Delphi workers' compensation amounts to about $65 per hour.”
- “When a factory is idled or closed, Delphi and the other Detroit-based auto companies have to pay union workers nearly at the same level as if the plant were fully operating.”

Nice work if you can get it. Unfortunately, consumers are less-than-thrilled to pay for the union premium attached to every new GM car:

Furthermore, foreign auto companies, including Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., BMW AG and Hyundai Motor Co., now have U.S. factories. They have generally put down roots in Southern states where jobs are scarce. Because the factories are new, they do not have the burdens of pension and health care costs that bedevil the American auto companies. The UAW has not had much success in bringing these workers into the union.

WashPost house liberal Meyerson wallows in nostalgia and blames Delphi, GM, and “the combined onslaught of globalization, de-unionization and deregulation” for the problem – everybody except for the virtuous UAW union. It seems to me that a company losing $1 billion a quarter can’t be credibly accused of stiffing its workers. Delphi can’t raise the price of their parts yet they can’t reduce the cost of their production. This industrial welfare state cannot continue, so it’s off to bankruptcy court.

The grim realities at Delphi are paralleled in the Social Security program which will see it’s own revenue-expense imbalance crisis starting in 2017. From Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe “Social Security still needs fixing”:

Social Security is hurtling toward a cliff; that is clearly one of the ways in which it is getting worse over time. Because it is a pay-as-you-go scheme, with current retirees' benefits paid from current workers' taxes, it can remain solvent only as long as the ratio of workers to retirees stays comfortably high. But that ratio is plummeting -- from 17-to-1 in the 1950s to only 3-to-1 today. In little more than a decade, payroll taxes will no longer be enough to cover benefits. Social Security's deficits will rapidly explode. By 2020, it will be losing $72 billion a year. By 2030, losses will be $275 billion a year. To keep the system from collapsing, Congress will have no choice but to massively hike taxes, slash benefits -- or both.

General Motors, Delphi, and the United Auto Workers should have looked to the future and made gradual changes in wages and benefits to conform to fiscal realities. By failing to act, workers face an abrupt and sharp drop in wages and benefits. When Social Security and Medicare start gobbling up every federal dollars we can tax and borrow, Americans are going to look back and wish that reformers had done the same.

Good news – From Fox News: “Iraqi negotiators say deal reached on Constitution”: “It boosts the chances for a constitution that Shiite and Kurdish leaders support and the United States has been eager to see approved in Saturday's vote to avert months more of political turmoil, delaying plans to start a withdrawal of U.S. forces.”

More – From the WashPost: “Deal in Iraq Raises Hopes For Passage of Constitution”

Captain Ed wonders “Will the changes be enough?”

Austin Bay notes: “In February 2004, Zarqawi acknowledged a democratic Iraqi state would mean defeat for Al-Qaida in Iraq. To defeat democracy, he has pursued a strategy of relentless, nihilistic bloodbath. It's a brutal irony of war: In doing so, he is losing the war for the hearts and minds.”

And Mark Coffey found some polling numbers you may not have heard of: “A recent survey by the Iraqi Center for Development and International Dialogue found 79 percent of Iraqis favor the draft constitution while only 8 percent opposed it.”

Amazing Race Family Edition update – The Weight

Teams departed in the middle of the night for the next city: Charleston, South Carolina. In the first airline trip of the Race, all teams left from Dulles and took staggered flights to Charleston where they needed to find a gazebo at The Battery. Detour: Forrest Gump or Muddy Waters.

In this Detour, teams had the choice to either de-head 200 pounds of shrimp on a shrimp boat, or drive a 4x4 Jeep across a muddy field. Most of the teams headed to the ocean while the Weaver, Aiello and (later) the Gaghan families tried the mud bog. There’s nothing exciting to report about the shrimping; teams performed the task and got the next clue. Oh but there was dirty, dirty drama at the mud bog. The Weavers started out first but after a dozen attempts, simply gave up and headed to the shrimp boat. The Aiello men, however, kept at it and were on their 13th attempt to cross the field when the Gaghan family arrived. On the first episode of the Race, the Gaghan family ran ahead of the Aiellos while pulling Amish buggies most likely because Mom and Dad Gaghan had to pull about 300 fewer pounds than the Aiello men. In the mud field, a Jeep loaded with 500 lbs. of Team Rugrats sailed through the Detour in a single try while 900 lbs. of Team Male Bonding looked on helplessly. Eventually, the Aiellos made it through (I think on their next try, actually) and they raced to the next route marker.

After the Detour, teams headed to the Charleston Visitor Center and signed up for one of two buses, staggered at 3 and 5 pm, leaving for a mystery location. Teams Linz, Schroeder, Godlewski, and Bransen were on bus #1; the rest were on the second. Hopped up on adrenaline and not knowing when they might have to jump and run, teams were restless and exhausted. Little did they know it was an eight hour drive to Huntsville, Alabama and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. The Weavers in particular were frazzled and bewildered when the bus stopped at a Waffle House for nourishment.

At Huntsville was the Roadblock: two team members must ride in a centrifuge until it achieves 3.2X gravity (3 “g”s). It wasn’t really much of a challenge and teams arrived and departed in the order they arrived at the centrifuge. They might as well have said: “stand on this spot for five minutes before continuing.” The remainder of this leg was the same: teams had to go to some museum and – in a shameless plug – log onto AOL to get the next clue which was “go somewhere else.” Yawn. So after this desultory step, teams had to find the space shuttle Pathfinder which was the Pit Stop. With minimal suspense, the first four teams off the bus arrived in the order they completed the centrifuge. Fun.

(One semi-humorous aside: was that the Star Trek “Amok Time” theme song playing during the centrifuge rides? "Da-da-daaa-daaa-daaa-daaa-da-da-de-da!" I think it was!)

The second bus pulled up two hours later and, after driving from the bus stop to the Space Center, the last four teams all pulled up to the clue box simultaneously. The teams that skipped down to the “first come, first served” section of the clue quickly realized that this would be the bottleneck and raced for the red tags indicating order on the Roadblock. The not-so-fleet-of-feet Aiellos were smoked by the younger teams and pulled tag #8 – not good. What more to say? The TAR editors tried to make it look like the other teams were lost finding the Pit Stop but seasoned viewers know better. Team Aiello lumbered up to the mat last and they were eliminated.

Final standings – Leg #3

#1 – Bransen family – Team Powerpuff (and Wally) – Prize: free gas for life (!!!)
#2 – Linz family – Team Cincinnati
#3 – Schroeder family – Team Nawlens
#4 – Godlewski family – Team Scream
#5 – Weaver family – Team Florida
#6 – Paolo family – Team Joisey
#7 – Gaghan family – Team Rugrats
#8 – Aiello family – Team Male Bonding – PHIL-LIMINATED

Next week – In an attempt to wring the tears out of Team Weaver, who recently lost their husband and father in an accident at the Daytona Speedway, teams head to Talladega Raceway.
Last week’s update.

Extra – This space reserved for Kris at Dummocrats and Brainster’s updates.

Thanks and good luck, Patrick! Don’t forget about all us lowly bloggers while you’re reclining in your leather armchair smoking a fat cigar and twirling brandy.

Do hybrid cars save money? Short answer: no. (HT: Scrivener)

You and me both, brother

Here are comments from Delphi CEO Steve Miller who related the pension problems at the now-bankrupt auto parts maker with the towering obligations of federal entitlement spending:

My worries go beyond the auto industry. What I am describing is also embedded in our debates over Social Security and Medicare. The overwhelming voltage in the political third rail of touching these entitlements will forestall corrective action for years, but the problem will only grow. I fear something like inter-generational warfare, as young people increasingly resent having their wages reduced and taxed away to support social programs for their grandparents’ income and health care concerns.

The analogy that Miller makes is that a business cannot long endure when a premium must be passed on to consumers to pay for retirees, some of which spend more time in retirement than in labor. By the same coin, expanding entitlements cannot be dumped on younger workers without incurring resentment, especially when there’s little chance that they will see those benefits in the future.

Who are you going to believe: the MSM or the bloggers? – Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff suggests that Karl Rove may be in trouble for a recently uncovered E-mail. Frankly, I don’t see how since the message to deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley confirms much of what has been leaked about the Rove-Cooper conversation. Is this late piece of information the sole reason for Rove’s fourth appearance before the Fitzgerald grand jury? The Minuteman (natch) provides more background than you can shake a subpoena at. Meanwhile, by way of Strata-Sphere, Macsmind floats the theory that it will actually be Joe Wilson brought up on charges for engaging in the “most elaborate scheme ever devised against an Administration.” That kind of twist would turn Washington inside-out, I'll tell you what.

What might have been

With Social Security reform nearly dead, it’s time to look back with perfect hindsight and see what could have been done differently. From USA Today: “Bush's plan dies quietly, leaving lessons for next time”

The failure of Bush's plan no doubt delights Democrats. In the past five years, they've been routed on issues ranging from tax cuts to Medicare. They never unified behind their own plan to bail out Social Security, nor did they have much incentive to do so. Merely killing Bush's protected their interests.

For the American people, though, there is less reason for cheer. All the problems that existed before the president's proposal still exist. However flawed his solution, he deserves credit for taking on the basic problem: Without reforms, Social Security will start running a deficit in 2017 and be unable to meet its obligations by 2041, according to the latest estimates from its trustees.

USA Today suggests that next time reform should start with 1.) a real bipartisan commission, 2.) a focus on solvency over personal accounts and 3.) “laying the groundwork honestly.” I’ll agree that President Bush was high-handed in his reform plan and unprepared for the pushback by the Democrats and their allies in the AARP. But I take exception at the “lay the groundwork honestly” bite. Bush laid out all the immutable facts about the “guaranteed” benefit, as clearly outlined by the Social Security trustees. In response, the Democrats offered nothing but criticism and absolutely no alternative to what even they admit is an expanding and unavoidable problem.

But then setting an agenda has never been part of the Democrats’ agenda. Here’s an article in the Economist, excerpted on Red State, about the institutional drift of the Democratic party:

Can anyone name a single exciting Democratic idea for dealing with poverty? Or crime? Or reforming the public sector? Or winning the Kulturkampf with Islamic extremism? In fact, can anyone name a single exciting Democratic idea, full stop? The Democrats have squandered their years in opposition railing against the Republicans rather than recharging their intellectual batteries. They may be winning a few political battles of late—largely because of Republican incompetence. But they are losing the vision wars.

In the ideological battle, the Democrats are largely unarmed.

Funny - The only problem with this joke is that the Boston Herald would never twist a story to conform to a politically correct point-of-view. You must be thinking of the Boston Globe.

Zinger of the day

Goes to Jon Henke of Q&O responding to Kevin Drum’s quote about expanding Medicare: “[Most] people do look forward to the day they qualify for Medicare. If national healthcare is such an abomination, why is that?”

Well, why do most people "look forward to the day they qualify for Medicare"? What is it about a lifetime health insurance plan that's paid for by somebody else that people find so agreeable?

Good point! I mean, what’s the upside? Sheesh. Read the rest of the post about Medicare’s spotty record of service.

Miers: “no” – After a brief pause to review, the conservative blogosphere is turning against the Harriet Miers nomination. What was Bush thinking?

Extra – By the way, the guesses are all over the map in the Hedgehog Report’s Miers prediction contest from an outlandishly optimistic 96-4 vote in the Senate to “no vote” due to a defeat in the Judiciary committee. For the record, I’m guessing 12-6 in committee and 65-35 in the Senate for confirmation.

After the eight-count

Michael Barone believes that President Bush could rebound by focusing on an aggressive, invigorated agenda:

On domestic policy, Bush has been pursuing the plans he set out in his 2000 campaign, some of which seem blocked, temporarily or permanently. His gas tank is running low. Of course, the Democrats have little in the way of specific proposals, aside from repeal of the Bush tax cuts -- they've been running on empty since Bill Clinton left office.

That invites the public to say a pox on both parties. But it also provides an opening for Bush to lay out a more robust agenda -- maybe in his State of the Union next January -- one geared to the years ahead, instead of his priorities in 2000. Bush seems beset now, but he has a chance to rebound and confound his vitriolic critics once again.

The very first thing I would recommend is a one-year delay of implementation of the massive prescription drug benefit.

Today’s must read - From the LA Times “Peace is not the answer”: “It is the promise of freedom that the fascists who murdered the Iraqi teachers last month want to destroy. It is astonishing and discouraging that those who think they were taking the high ground in marching though Washington do not understand this.”

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – Howard Dean borrows GOP ideas for DNC

Tragedy - More than 20,000 dead in Asian quake. The Great Satan is sending millions of dollars in emergency supplies.

Update – Now over 30,000.

The rain falls without refrain - Man, I can't remember the last time it rained so relentlessly. My poor dog has been holed up inside all day because I can't find a window to take her out for five minutes.

Sunday morning lineup – As if we haven’t had quite enough, members of the Senate Judiciary committee say stuff about Harriet Miers. You know, I’m not crazy about her either and would have much rather had Emilio Garza or Priscilla Owen, but she’s the President’s nominee. Let’s see how she does in the Senate hearings before we all start calling for her withdrawal, which ain’t gonna happen anyway.

Extra – Alexander over on Polipundit makes some good points on the realpolitik of the Miers nomination.

My kids are named “Isosceles” and “Seven”

Joanne Jacobs links to an LA Times article about what celebrities call their children. Stories about wacky baby names always remind me of this “Saturday Night Live” skit where Nicholas Cage (who recently named his kid "Kal-El") keeps talking his wife out of names for fear their kid will be teased at school:

Wife: Okay.. fine.. what about Ben?
Husband: Ben! Oh, fine, we're giving birth to a big bear? Great! "Gentle Ben!" "Hey, Ben, where's Jerry? Get me some ice cream, or I'll beat the crap outta ya!"
Wife: We could call him "Benjamin."
Husband: Sure. Benjamin. Harrison! "Hey, Benjamin, how's that tariff coming? Montana a state yet?"

Nobody ever teased me for my mighty moniker since you can’t spell “America” without “Eric”. Plus it’s Teutonic for “all-powerful king” or something.

Massachusetts representatives help to pass energy bill

By their absence:

Republicans muscled the bill through by a single vote, only after 40 minutes of arm-twisting on the House floor persuaded several moderate Republicans to change their minds and vote yes. The measure is designed to spur construction of new oil refineries through relaxed environmental standards and by opening up abandoned military bases to construction of refining facilities.
. . .
(Three Massachusetts Democrats -- representatives William Delahunt of Quincy, Richard E. Neal of Springfield, and John W. Olver of Amherst -- missed the vote. Delahunt is traveling in Mexico and Neal was attending a funeral in his district, according to spokesmen for the congressmen. Olver's office did not return calls.)

Olver is my representative. Every two years he runs the same TV commercial with him traveling all over Western MA as if being peripatetic is some kind of virtue. But he’s a Democrat so he’ll hold that seat until he dies.

No way! – Stanford’s SUV wins DARPA robot race

From the Mercury News:

A customized Volkswagen SUV entered by Stanford University became the first autonomous vehicle to cross the finish line of a $2 million Pentagon-sponsored race across the rugged Mojave Desert on Saturday without help from a human driver or remote control.

The race announcer did not immediately declare a winner because 22 out of the 23 robots left the starting line at staggered times at dawn, racing against the clock rather than each other.

Stanford's Stanley started in second, but passed the pole position vehicle, a converted red Hummer named H1ghlander, at the 102-mile mark of the race. Stanley was closely trailed by H1ghlaner and a customized Humvee called Sandstorm, both by Carnegie Mellon University. Four other vehicles remained on the course.

A group of Stanford engineers and scientists erupted in cheers as Stanley passed the finish line.

Official site: DARPA Grand Challenge. Congrats to Stanford!

From IgNobel to Nobel

The IgNobel awards were just held at Harvard and here’s a great story (by roundabout way from Scrivener):

GLAUBER'S SWEEPING SUCCESS: Roy Glauber, who for ten years has humbly swept paper airplanes on the stage at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, has just won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics. In this photo taken at the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Professor Glauber serenely sweeps while Nobel Laureates (left to right) Dudley Herschbach, William Lipscomb, and Richard Roberts wear gigantic shoes in tribute to the 1998 Ig Nobel Statistics Prize winners. Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow can be seen in the distance at left as he rushes to join his colleagues. [Photo by Eric Workman]

He’s paid his dues!

Flying fish – The salmon-thirty-salmon (but was it really done on the taxpayers dime? – see comments)

Follow-up – It’s true: “The Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, created by U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens in 2003, made a big splash this week with a high-profile project: a $500,000 grant to Alaska Airlines, mostly to paint a giant king salmon on one of its jetliners.” OMG. It's times like this that I almost (but not quite!) wish the Democrats would gain control of the House. Maybe divided government is the answer.

Can’t possibly be true – Hey, I hate the American press too but Al Gore is just making stuff up. Twenty-seventh? C'mon already.

It ain’t me, babe

From Fox News:

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told President Bush and others that he never engaged in an effort to disclose a CIA operative's identity to discredit her husband's criticism of the administration's Iraq policy, according to people with knowledge of Rove's account in the investigation.

I’m trying to remember the context of the Matthew Cooper conversation but, if I recall, Cooper telephoned Rove and started talking about a completely different matter. Then he (Cooper) steered the conversation to Valerie Plame and that she worked at the CIA, to which Rove replied something like “Oh, you know about that.” Although Rove may have slipped into illegality, this exchange (if true) hardly evinces much “effort” on Rove’s part.

Extra – More updates on Memeorandum

You can’t spell “controversial” without R-O-V-E

I’d like to believe this scenario from Macsmind that Karl Rove will be cleared and instead Matt Cooper will take the hit, but it’s too perfect. Then again, if Rove is guilty, why would he testify before the grand jury without immunity instead of taking the fifth? (Probably because it would be interpreted as a sign of guilt.) Even the estimable Minuteman is baffled and bewildered: “Our crystal ball goes dark.” We’re just going to have to wait and see at this point but it seems highly likely that somebody is going to get indicted.

GOP Nation – Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute examines the political trends: “However, barring events of this kind, and assuming the Democrats remain captives of the left, the results of the 2004 presidential election seem consistent with a trend toward the Republican Party that has all the earmarks of the early stages of a long-term political realignment.” Lord Rove finds your lack of faith most disturbing. (Hat tip: B4B)

The Democrats’ philosophy in a nutshell

I was listening to C-Span radio on my drive home (yes, I’m a political junkie) and I caught part of Nancy Pelosi’s weekly press briefing (Real Player required). She whined for five minutes about the energy bill to be debated in the House tomorrow and how the Democrats have a chimerical dream to make America independent on foreign oil in ten years, apparently without increasing domestic production. The very first question in the press conference illuminates the chronic lack of ideas or initiative among the Democrats:

Press question: “Are there any specific amendments to the energy bill that Democrats will be making on the energy bill, to make it better, things to be addressed?”

[snip “the Republicans hand out breaks to oil companies” blather]

Pelosi: “I don’t have any specific amendments.”

There you have it: they have nothing. Nothing. They’re so incensed by the direction the GOP is taking the country, they’re proposing…nothing. I’d love to see the details of that “declaration of energy independence” bozos. Love it. Send it over. I know drilling in ANWR is unpopular but, you know, it's "reality-based." Let's see the nuts and bolts (or is it "fruits and nuts"?) of your proposal.

Follow-up - Speaking of clowns, here’s Howard Dean on “Hardball”: “Well, certainly the president can claim executive privilege. But in the this case, I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called.” Um, it’s not called that.

We pause for this important message – A guy I work with has a side company building these wicked mountain bikes. Go on over and give them some traffic and maybe he’ll give me a free T-shirt.

Which adjective is correct: “illegal” or “improper”? – It probably depends on the political party of the perpetrator. Newspaperman Matt Hoy carefully dissects the structure and language in a NY Times article about how the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee accessed the credit report of Maryland’s lieutenant governor Michael Steele.

The Democrats do indeed have ideas – Vague, unformed, yet extremely expensive ideas. McQ writes: “I've got to tell you, if this is the best they can muster, they're in for a very long election season.” My hard and fast rule is that any party calling for a “summit” or a “bipartisan commission” is seeking cover for massive tax increases.

The people have spoken: to the courts!

In 1993, the Western Massachusetts town of Greenfield voted down a re-zoning that would have allowed a Wal-Mart in town. So instead the behemoth was erected in Hadley to the south and…all the Greenfield shoppers drove there. So in 2004 when the issue came up again, Greenfield voters overwhelming voted for Wal-Mart (2-1 margin) and against the “smart growth” activists. Sometime after the vote the local arts weekly ran an article that said it was now up to the mayor and the new pro-growth city council to decide whether or not to move forward with the Wal-Mart plan.

I found this to wicked hilarious: why wouldn’t the pro-growth councilmen support the very issue that got them elected? Wouldn’t – didn’t – the electorate demand it? Imagine if the voters rejected the Wal-Mart store but the Greenfield council overrode the will of the people and voted for re-zoning. The hippies would be apoplectic.

Jeff Jacoby makes a similar point in today’s Boston Globe on gay marriage – “The people’s voice on gay marriage”:

When California lawmakers narrowly passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he would veto it. Not because he opposes legal rights for gay and lesbian couples -- he doesn't -- but because he opposes treating California elections as meaningless. Five years ago, Californians went to the polls and approved Proposition 22, a ballot initiative confirming the traditional definition of marriage. Unless they change their minds or are overruled by the Supreme Court, Schwarzenegger said, their decision ought to be binding. As his spokesperson put it in a statement, ''We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote."

Jacoby reviews the battle here in Massachusetts and notes:

In an earlier era, liberalism and respect for the vote went hand in hand. Liberals fought to extend the franchise to women. They were leaders in the civil rights movement, raising their voices -- and sometimes laying down their lives -- for the right of Southern blacks to vote. A century ago, progressives championed the direct election of US senators, a movement that culminated in the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913.
But today liberalism all too often displays a strong antidemocratic streak, and nowhere is it more blatant than on the issue of same-sex marriage.

The reason that Democrats have fought so tenaciously to keep conservative judges off the bench is because judicial fiat is their last refuge.

Eyewitness account from Chequer-Board: John Bolton at Yale

Indictments coming in the Plame Case? - Radar says 22 (!); the American Spectator blog hinted at some movement this morning.

Amazing Race Family Edition update – Lost in D.C.

Teams started out from Amish Country in Lancaster, PA and headed to the Shoe House outside York. (My wife is originally from the Gettysburg area, so this was a familiar sight.) At the house shaped like a shoe, teams picked up the next clue: head to Washington D.C. and the Reflecting Pool outside the U.S. Capitol. Note that this is not the famous reflecting pool next to the Lincoln Memorial but a smaller one way across the Mall. Some teams completely ignored the “U.S. Capitol” portion of the clue and walked endlessly around the larger pool. The Gaghan family in particular lost all their advantage by ambling around looking for the clue box.

Once teams found the clue box at the Capitol, they were instructed to retrieve a briefcase from a limousine parked on 3rd Avenue. “Mr. X” handed them the satchel and then teams needed to head to the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. Once there, teams hit the first Roadblock of the Race: one team member needed to walk around and approach people carrying similar briefcases and say the codewords: “The sky is blue.” If the secret agent responds “The sea is green” they exchange briefcases. This is goofy fun as frenzied teams run up to TAR actors and yell out “The sky is blue!” Not very surreptitious, Mr. Bond.

The document drop completed, our would-be spies must now head to Middleburg, Virginia and find an antebellum mansion called Welbourne Manor. Cannonfire greets the teams as a full Civil War re-enactment is in play. Detour: teams must either retrieve five “wounded” soldiers from the battlefield and bring them to the surgeon’s tent or fill twenty lanterns with oil and light them for the quartermaster. At first I thought the lantern detour was more difficult but when you have four hands working instead of two, it moves along much quicker. The Pitstop was immediately following the Detour and the Weaver family arrived first to the battlefield, picked the lanterns and headed at the mat as Team #1.

Meanwhile, the Rogers family just couldn’t catch a break all day. First they head in the wrong direction to take the highway south to Washington D.C. Once in D.C., they also circumnavigated the wrong reflecting pool and burned off more time. Last at the Tidal Basin, last to the Manor, and last to complete the Detour, they were simply too far back to catch up. Dad gamely took responsibility for his poor navigation, but his son Brock didn’t seem consoled. In TV Guide, host Phil Keoghan of the mighty eyebrow said that the eliminations were going to be tougher than in the past due to the family component. To which I say [Tom Hanks in “A League of their Own”] “There’s no crying in The Amazing Race!”

Final standings – Leg #2

#1 – Weaver family – Team Florida – Winners of a Travelocity trip to somewhere warm
#2 – Linz family – Team Cincinnati
#3 – Godlewski family – Team Scream
#4 – Schroeder family – Team Nawlens
#5 – Aiello family – Team Male Bonding
#6 – Bransen family – Team Powerpuff (and Wally)
#7 – Gaghan family – Team Rugrats
#8 – Paolo family – Team Joisey
#9 – Rogers family – Team Shreveport – PHIL-LIMINATED

Next week: Centrifuge time at NASA = more needless screaming.
Last week's update: "And they're off!"

Extra – Of course, here’s Kris at Zebrality with the team breakdowns. And here's Brainster also.

Nice call

Prediction from Lawrence O’Donnell on “The McLaughlin Group” last Sunday:

MR. O'DONNELL: “This weekend, when "The West Wing" moves to its Sunday time slot at 8:00 p.m. on NBC, its ratings will go through the roof.”

From the NY Post:

NBC's "The West Wing" is having a tough go of it in its new Sunday-night timeslot. This week's episode averaged around 7.7 million viewers — and was soundly thrashed from 8 to 9 p.m. by timeslot winner "Cold Case" on CBS (16.2 million viewers), "Extreme Home Makeover" (ABC) and Fox's "The Simpsons"/"War at Home" combo. Not good.

I predict the ratings for that other Oval Office fantasy show will plunge once the “look at all the extra challenges a female President has to face” shtick runs thin (about four episodes).

“Dad, do a little dance! The crowd will love it”


Jack Roberts, son of US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, whispers to his dad at the Supreme Court.

Sure, why not? - DeLay Indicted on Money Laundering Charge
Hey, let’s pile on: GOP loses candidates for North Dakota and West Virginia Senate races.

Opportunities lost

I know it’s fashionable and all too easy as a Republican to criticize President Bush now that he’s safely re-elected, but what happened? He seems to believe that “compassionate conservatism” is all compassion in the form of wild spending sprees and no conservatism, at least in the fiscal sense. Now, with re-election and a comfortable party majority in Congress, Dubya has an unprecedented opportunity to shape federal policy and the judiciary. Harriet Miers? C’mon already.

And whatever happened to “spending political capital” to reform Social Security before it engulfs us? Gone in the wind of Katrina. The Republicans in Congress are complicit in the spending spree and the failure of political nerve. It’s depressing.

Very related article: “The GOP could lose in ’06 – Have Congressional Republicans lost their way?”

Extra – I agree/empathize with almost everything on the Corner today, along with this GOP Bloggers post.

You heard it here first – I don’t know what’s the latest buzz on the next Supreme Court nominee, but J. Michael Luttig is up +16% (a huge jump) on the Tradesports market.

Update – Nevermind, it’s Harriet Miers.

The ole Gray Lady ain’t what she used to be - Here’s the New Criterion with “Beyond parody at the Times”: “The truth is, deterioration at the Times is a rich subject, full of cautionary tales about how a great liberal institution can go rancid by making a caricature of its principles and adulterating its work.” Hey, at least they’re still coming up with snappy headlines.

Sunday morning roundup – Mark Kilmer has it on Red State. I need to see the transcript but Tim Russert revealed a flash of exasperation when he asked Rahm Emmanuel (twice) “What are the Democrats’ ideas?” Emmanuel rattled off some broad positions but it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to take a stand on Iraq or any other issue (esp. tax increases).

Wedding songs

My local newspaper has started listing wedding songs in the wedding annoucements; I find this piece of information the most interesting and insightful piece of trivia about a couple. Here are the songs listed today:

"Come away with me"
"Kaleohano"
"Songbird"
"Perhaps love"
"When you say nothing at all"
and the triple-negative "There ain't nothin' about you that don't do somethin' for me"

My wedding song was "To be loved" by Jackie Wilson which is, quite simply, the greatest wedding song ever. On this there can be no debate!

Sorties continue over Iraq’s “no-fly zone” – Victor Davis Hanson presents the alternate reality if we had not deposed Saddam Hussein. Of all the potential scenarios, this one is a no-brainer: “On the domestic scene both conservative and liberal spokesmen voiced disappointment with President Bush’s apparent vacillation and willingness to let Saddam violate the sanctions and U.N. inspections.”

Numbers up – I’ve recently become addicted to Sudoku puzzles

Policy trumps scandal – In an article with parallels to my post below, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol reminds us that the GOP sweep in 1994 hinged on conservative positions and not Democratic scandals. In other words, there no reason to believe the Dems will be able to pull off the “anti-sweep” in 2006. (HT: GOP Bloggers)

The 2nd amendment diaries – School time

So today was the firearm safety course that I’m required to take before they’ll let me have a gun here in Massachusetts. There were a dozen fellow citizens packed into a community room and we listened to a police officer go through the different kinds of handguns, the meaning of “license to carry” and various Massachusetts laws. I won’t bore you with the details, except to note that I only got three questions wrong on the qualification test, so I’m on my way.

Regarding an issue of hot debate, during a break I asked the officer: “I want a firearm primarily for home protection. Half the people I talk to say ‘get a shotgun’ and the other half say ‘get a handgun.’ Which would you recommend?” He fell into the handgun camp, stating that for quick accessibility in a crisis (e.g. “what’s that sound downstairs?”) a handgun can be retrieved more quickly. He then went on to regale us with his performance at a Smith & Wesson-sponsored event here in Western Massachusetts. In one particular challenge, he had to start in a prone position, retrieve a handgun from a quick-access safe, and shoot several intruders. He claimed (with noticeable pride) that he completed this task in 4.5 seconds. I’m tempted to say “no way” except I know I’ll get all sorts of E-mails and comments insisting it can be done.

Anyway, I’m still moving forward with this. Sometime this week I’ll pick up my safety course certificate and (hopefully) get my firearm ID and my class A license to carry.

Terrorism in Bali – “A string of blasts on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on Saturday killed at least 24 people and wounded about 95 others, hospital officials said.” Fox News is reporting that two Americans were among the wounded.

Ain’t no stoppin’ us now

James Taranto joins the Coalition of the Chillin’ in “Filibuster Bluster - Liberals threaten a fight over Justice O'Connor's replacement. Mr. President, call their bluff”:

The Democrats could filibuster [the Supreme Court nomination], a dilatory tactic that allows 41 senators to block a vote. This they did in 2003-04 to prevent the confirmation of a dozen or so appellate court nominees. But in May, under threat of the so-called nuclear option--a GOP maneuver that would have changed Senate rules to abolish judicial filibusters--seven Democratic senators agreed to a compromise in which they disavowed the filibuster except in "extraordinary circumstances."

That exception carries the potential for mischief, but it is unlikely to be realized. Five of the seven compromising Democrats come from states President Bush carried last year, as do 11 other Senate Democrats. These senators are no doubt mindful that their former leader, Tom Daschle, lost re-election in November in substantial part because of his obstruction of judicial nominees. With constituents much more conservative than Mr. Schumer's, they are far less inclined to do the bidding of extremist groups like People for the American Way.

The other day, Harry Reid sent a letter to the President warning him that judges who were part of the “Gang of 14” compromise were off the table in the minds of the Democrats. Bush should nominate one of them, preferably Janice Rogers Brown. (Hat tip: Polipundit)

Very funny - Via Logical Meme, here’s the new feel-good family comedy – “Shining” (warning: high-speed connection recommended)

Why did Judith Miller stay in jail?

I think this NY Times article says it all:

Mr. Libby's side says he gave Ms. Miller unequivocal permission to testify about her conversations with Mr. Libby concerning his role, if any, in the disclosure of the identify of the officer, Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame.

In a letter from Mr. Libby to Ms. Miller this month, he expressed surprise that her lawyers had asked him to "repeat for you the waiver of confidentiality that I specifically gave to your counsel over a year ago." He added that he expected her testimony to help him.

Can’t have that!

Democrats slogan for 2006: “_________”

Mort Kondracke writes that the Democrats are going to try to re-create the 1994 Gingrich revolution by offering up a positive agenda right before the 2006 midterms: “Democrats do plan to ‘go positive’ – but not until 2006”:

House and Senate Democrats are delighted with the apparent defeat of Bush's Social Security "privatization" plan - the political equivalent, they think, of the Clinton 1994 health debacle - and Senate Democrats are planning to replicate the tactics and structure of that campaign on other issues for 2006.

This is both pretzel logic and wishful thinking. The Clinton health care plan involved a government restructuring of one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy. Cooked up in secret meetings, the public worried about whether the proposal would make things worse and it was defeated in a Democrat-controlled Congress.

How the Democrats will engineer the 1994 scenario with Social Security escapes me. Most Americans know that the current system is unsustainable, especially workers under 40 who will almost certainly see a portion of their Social Security benefit shrink. In 1994, Republicans said: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In 2006, the Democrats are going to flip that into “it is broke, let’s not fix it.” This is not a blueprint, or even a scribbled napkin, for victory.

Oh, and I don’t believe for a nanosecond that the Democrats will emerge with a new “Contract with America” a month before the midterms. It’s almost bizarre how an American political party can be so paralyzed by special interests that it can’t formulate a coherent position on any topic:

[Democratic pollster Stan] Greenberg and other Democratic campaign strategists have complained for months that their party's leaders, Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and their leading presidential contenders have been unable to reach a unifying party consensus on a campaign agenda.

After crunching exhaustive voter preference numbers, Mr. Greenberg is telling party leaders that the present "Democratic margin reflects Republican slippage but no subsequent gains for Democrats, who have not yet defined themselves or what changes they would bring."

A lot of bloggers on the Left are salivating over the string of GOP scandals, but mark well these words by Kevin Drum:

I've long been of the opinion that although Democrats are obviously in trouble these days, it's still the case that they're losing elections by only a few points — and even a moderate change in the political climate could turn that around. Well, this is it. If Democrats still can't win in 2006, then we've got serious problems.

Political parties exist to represent an ideology; a road map of government for the public to decide upon. Aside from chronic Bush-hatred, the Democrats don’t seem to have one. Furthermore, if they think opposition to Social Security reform presents the image that they’re fighting for working Americans, they’re even more deluded than I thought. From Howard Dean on down, the Democrats have serious problems indeed.

Follow-up – Mark Kilmer concurs: “The Dems are coughing up blood, running on fumes which double as hot air. They are leaderless and agendaless, powerless to do much more than throw little rocks at Tom DeLay and have their buddies in the press write about how awful the Republicans must be feeling.” Yeah, it sucks being in charge of every branch of the government. Try winning an election.

Air America dropped in Philly - A true “I wouldn’t worry about Boston – it’s not a big college town” moment: the liberal radio network was yanked from WHAT-AM in Philadelphia. It doesn’t get more direct than this: “Ratings were abysmal.”

Extra – Ryne says: “If you can’t make it in Philly, you can’t make it anywhere.”

Morning politics - This morning on C-Span’s Washington Journal the call-in question was “Are the Democrats devoid of ideas?” Almost all the callers to the “Democrats” line said the problem was that the Dems need more “conviction” and “backbone” yet couldn’t name a single idea or position when pressed.

I sense a trend – Check out this mini-poll on Right Wing News of conservative bloggers and who they don’t want Bush to tap for the next Supreme Court slot.

BTW, on the TradeSports Supreme Court market, there are only three candidates who are trading above a 10% probability in a large field: Harriet Miers, Karen Williams and Connie Maria Callahan.

Is there a problem here? – “Strip away "Into the Blue's" perfunctory, agonizingly drawn-out story line about an attempt to salvage a pirate vessel parked beside a downed plane full of cocaine, and one would find maybe 40 minutes of footage brazenly concerned with [Jessica] Alba's topography and underwater lap dance.” Sounds like a great movie!

The paper of record - The NY Times: sloppy, biased and sometimes just plain stupid

Update - Throw “insane” on the fire: “I hope some day somebody writes all this down, because the whole story is unbelievable. Miller never writes a story about Plamegate, but insists she must keep her sources secret, even though the name of her primary source, Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby, has long since been a matter of public record -- and has publicly released her from her pledge of anonymity. She decides to go to jail to protect the principle of source anonymity, and is only weeks away from being sprung (because the grand jury she was refusing to talk to will go out of business in Ocrober [sic]) before she abandons her stand on principle and decides to talk. And all this in relation to a matter that may well not have been a crime to begin with. Weird wacko crazy bananas.”

Extra – OK, “economically illiterate” too.

I should get the punditry silver medal, if such a thing exists

Although I didn’t win the John Roberts confirmation prediction contest, I came awfully close with a guess of 12-6 on the Judiciary committee (actual: 13-5) and 77-23 on the Senate vote (actual: 78-22). Congrats to Bill W and, of course, our 17th Chief Justice, John Glover Roberts.

Reform Thursday - Will Franklin runs the numbers: Longer lifespans + a shrinking workforce = trouble for Social Security

Bluffers and the bluffy bluffs they bluff – Mark Coffey beat me to the post with “Filibuster showdown – I don’t believe it.” Neither do I. Despite the problems for the Republicans, the Democrats are simply too fractured to maintain a judicial filibuster, especially for such a high-profile position.

A Tom Delay flashback

From PBS’s News Hour, December 2001:

JIM LEHRER: All right. Another big move today, a big story in the Congress this week was the announcement by Dick Armey that he is not going to run for reelection to his seat in Texas. That means he will no longer be the House Majority Leader. How significant is that, David?

DAVID BROOKS: It's significant because Tom Delay is going to replace him, and that's pretty sure. And it's a great Christmas story because it brings joy to the world.
Democrats love the fact they'll have Tom DeLay to beat up for the next however many years. And Republicans like the fact because although when Tom DeLay's name is mentioned in Washington, you're supposed to hide the women and children because he is such a monster.
He is in fact the best legislator alive on the planet. He delivers vote after vote for the Bush Administration for the Republicans. He holds the Republicans together. He has been a devastatingly effective whip. Not the most attractive guy in the world but incredibly effective, incredibly good at his job.

OTOH, John Hawkins of Right Wing News says: “It’s time for Tom DeLay to go.”

Spiffy - GOP Bloggers is finally re-designed. Much better.

“A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich”

I’m coming in late to the Tom Delay story, but it doesn’t look good. Combine this with the Bill “Blind trust” Frist, and you have all the makings of an “abuse of power” narrative for the Democrats. Still, there’s a lot of indication that this case is extremely weak and perhaps impossible to prosecute successfully:

Media Blog: “Bottom line: Even people who aren't fans of Tom DeLay should show some intellectual honesty and admit that this is an out-of-control prosecutor and a phony charge.” And this: “I doubt that the case will go to trial.. It would be a difficult and technical prosecution.”
NRO’s Corner: “The more I analyze this, the more outrageous this appears.”
Jeffrey Toobin on CNN: “Conspiracy charges are very hard to prove without an insider.”
PowerLine: “[The indictment] is pathetic. The only time it mentions DeLay's name is when it alleges that he agreed to toll the statute of limitations! The indictment contains no suggestion of what he supposedly did that was illegal.”
Captain Ed: “Don't be surprised to find this indictment quashed within a few weeks.”
And here’s a huge roundup on Michelle Malkin's blog.

It’s all part of my Social Security fantasy

Robert Samuelson argues that the economic plight of Germany and Japan (average growth rate over the past 8 years: 1%) are a prelude to the institutional problems that face the United States:

A successful democracy gives people a chance to protect their interests and lifestyles. But when these protections try to deny unalterable economic realities, they become self-defeating. Still, it's hard to adjust to shifting realities, because changes offend voting blocs that benefit from the status quo. So it is that Americans have a massively complex tax system, because powerful constituencies protect many dubious tax preferences. So it is that huge U.S. budget deficits persist; any combination of spending cuts and tax increases arouses a coalition of the angry.

And so it is that -- despite a gradual aging of the population that will require huge and probably damaging tax increases -- no one has seriously attempted to contain these costs. It is easier to pretend that there will be no ill effects. The Japanese and Germans took the same attitude toward their problems. They hoped there would be no day of reckoning. They were wrong.

Katrina and Rita have only underscored the entitlement mentality that there’s no problem too great or small that cannot be buried under a mountain of spending. The crisis of entitlement spending is that while the Gulf Coast will be rebuilt someday, Social Security and Medicare will go on forever.

9/11 as a corporate philosophy

From a Fortune magazine article on the culture of Korean electronic giant Samsung:

The VIP Center—which stands for Value Innovation Program, not Very Important Person—is definitely a guy’s kind of hangout. The hospital-drab walls are decorated mainly by flow charts, timelines of technological achievement, and above every urinal in the men’s room, a picture of a jet exploding into the side of the World Trade Center in New York City. (The Korean text over the pictures warns of the importance of maintaining top security and reminds the viewer that disaster can strike out of the blue.)

Subtle.

Amazing Race: Family Edition – And they’re off!

Yes, yes, it’s time again for a brand-new season of “The Amazing Race” which, for the third year in a row, won the Emmy for best reality show. Instead of eleven teams of two, this season’s race involves ten teams of four family members. There are too many to describe in detail right now, but I’ll get to them in turn.

All teams started out from a park under the Brooklyn Bridge and the first clue directed them to jump into their (sponsor-approved!) GM Yukons and find (sponsor!) the EMS store in Soho where they will pick up camp equipment. Nothing to note here other than the standard scramble that Race fans have seen for years. After teams pick up sleeping bags and such, they’re directed to “find frank” at a hot dog stand on 91st street in New York City. At the hot dog stand are two heavy-set guys with thick accents, ready to hand out TAR clues. Wait a second: it’s Kevin and Drew from season one! They hand over a clue directing teams to Washington Crossing State Park on the Delaware River.

Teams drive out of New York City over the George Washington Bridge, across New Jersey and to the park where rowboats are waiting. Teams must take a boat across the Delaware River, retrieve a 13-star American flag, and return back to the other side. The Aiello family – a father with his three sons-in-law – finish first in a possible signal that the children-heavy teams are going to fall aside. We’ll see.

The next clue after this first task sends teams 34 miles away to Philadelphia where they need to find Fairmont Park and the Beaumont Plateau. This is a mini-pitstop and teams will be camping here for the night before continuing this leg of the race in the morning. The third team to arrive is the Gaghan family with two young children and another team exclaims: “How did the little kids beat us here?” Ah, the vagaries of the Amazing Race. No teams are eliminated at this point, but the departure times in the morning are staggered between 10, 10:30, and 11 a.m.

Heavy rain the next morning and the teams leave in bunches on their way to the next stop: Brubaker Farm in Mt. Joy, Pennsylvania. Here the teams find the first Detour: Build it or Buggy it. Teams must either build an Amish-style waterwheel with materials provided or pull an Amish buggy over 1.5 miles. Several teams start out with the buggy before they realize how far the distance is (plus, the ground it wet and muddy from the rain). Building the waterwheel presents its own problems for those teams who are not mechanically inclined. The teams that finish up are then instructed to head to the Rohrer Family Farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania – this is the first Pit Stop of the Race.

The last twenty minutes of this leg is a jumble with teams still building, pulling buggies, or racing to the Pit Stop. Here’s the final order:

#1 – Team Gadlewski – first place and $20,000 bonus
#2 – Team Gaghan
#3 – Team Weaver
#4 – Team Rogers
#5 – Team Schroeder
#6 – Team Paolo
#7 – Team Bransen
#8 – Team Aiello
#9 – Team Linz
#10 – Team Black – ELIMINATED

Next week: Teams are heading to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (or maybe Antietam, Maryland) for a Civil War re-enactment. Also, clever names are assigned to the remaining teams.

Extra – Here’s the review from Zebrality (aka Dummocrats) and Brainster. Clearly, I committed a faux pas by using the word “eliminated” instead of the more appropriate “Phil-liminated.” Also, did you catch Phil’s enormous eyebrow arch at the start? It was unworldly!

The SCOTUS scuttlebutt

Red State says it’s Priscilla Owen (or maybe Alberto Gonzales)
Confirm Them hints at Miguel Estrada (or maybe Diane Sykes)
K-Lo has a thing for Michael Luttig
Viking Pundit continues to stick by Emilio Garza but believes that Janice Rogers Brown would be the most fun.

Update – Now the buzz is back to Karen Williams.

Would you believe…I used to be a huge “Get Smart” fan?

Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, Don Adams has passed away. My favorite bit was when Max was bluffing to get a KAOS agent to give up. It usually went something like this:

Max: “At this very moment there are 50 CONTROL agents on their way.”
Bad guy: “I find that very hard to believe.”
Max: “Would you believe a cop and a German shepherd?”
Bad guy: “No.”
Max: “How about a Boy Scout with a BB gun?”

Classic. More “Get Smart” quotes here.

The most dangerous job – Al-Qaeda/Zarqawi’s #2 killed in Iraq

The Democrats got nothin’ – a continuing series

Here’s NY Times columnist David Brooks on “Meet the Press”:

You look across the party and you see some Democrats who really are working on policy ideas. I think of John Edwards, Steny Hoyer, one of the House leaders who had a foreign policy document come out this week. But most Democrats seem to be acting as if the main problem with the country is that the country doesn't hate George Bush enough. And if we only shout louder, they'll hate him more like tourists in Paris who think they'll understand us if we scream a little louder. And to me, it's led to the brain death of the Democratic Party. I don't know where the party stands on Iraq. I don't know where it stands on entitlement spending. On issue after issue, I really don't know where that party stands.

As if to accentuate this point, liberal columnist Maureen Dowd was asked by Tim Russert what exactly Bush should be doing and she responded with a vapid, ad hominem attack that left Jonah Goldberg fuming: “Dowd once again seemed to revel in her unseriousness.” Now there’s a documentary coming out of John Kerry’s run for the White House (HT: Ex-Donkey); here’s the press release with emphasis added:

A press release claims the movie - which won't be shown publicly until Thursday - "turns a harsh but deeply revealing mirror on the campaign ... a disorganized, contentious, self-absorbed team that thought they could win by 'not making mistakes,' and keeping their candidate in the public eye without clarifying a position on anything."

I’ve long been critical of the Democrats for failing to take any coherent position on that cornerstone of the New Deal, Social Security. The debate and vote over John Roberts will further reveal them as a party that is slavish to George Soros and the MoveOn moneymakers. Move along, no policies to see here.

It’s a lock – USA Today: “John Roberts appears to have at least 64 votes, a clear Senate majority, for confirmation as the nation's next chief justice after Sen. Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat, announced Sunday that he will back President Bush's nominee.” It would be nice to think that Salazar voted for Roberts because he was eminently qualified rather than the fact that the Senator is from a very conservative state.

The new math – How many war protesters in Washington this weekend? Silent Running has an illustrative comparison.

Extra – Byron York goes “Inside the anti-war demo”: “Stop the war. Impeach Bush. Destroy Israel. Remember Katrina. And don’t forget Florida and Ohio.”

A new day for nuclear

From the Boston Globe: “The pendulum swings back towards nuclear power”

Fast-forward to today. In case you hadn't noticed, the price of oil has gone up a lot -- to about $64 a barrel. The price of natural gas -- the most popular fuel source in New England's power plants -- has gone up even more sharply. Utilities that venture out to buy electricity in the spot market are paying three times as much for power as they did a year ago. Consumers could pay about 20 percent more for electricity this winter, largely because of higher oil and gas prices.

On “Meet the Press” this morning, NY Times columnist Tom Friedman explained why an Apollo-style mission for energy independence is critical for our national security. He’s not wrong. Unfortunately, nobody wants to make the sacrifices necessary for genuine independence including building more oil refineries, boosting domestic production of oil and natural gas and, yes, nuclear power plants. If anything, our energy problems will be exacerbated as nuclear plants, which provide 20% of all electricity in America, are decommissioned over the next quarter-century.

What’s a fiscal conservative to do? – Betsy has a mini-roundup of conservative columnists complaining about ballooning government spending. She notes that Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway bill but the veto was overridden by Congress and thus it’s hard to drive pork out of Washington. Perhaps, but President Bush hasn’t made even a token effort to limit spending. I don’t think it’s sufficient or responsible to say that the Democrats would be worse. We need to cut spending with a machete, not tweezers.

Sunday morning - Mark Kilmer has the lineup for tomorrow's talk shows. Mary Landrieu will be on Late Edition so tune in to see if she's off her meds again.