So I guess we’ll be liveblogging the state of the union tonight. Jim will probably be slinging back the finest beer Turkey has to offer. I’m guessing Marshall will be sipping at his scotch. And I will be chugging the finest Robitussen money can buy.
This could be entertaining.
Cam adds: I’ve just been informed that Marshall may not be joining us. But the prospect of Jim blogging at 4 a.m. is just too good to pass up.
Have you finally seen the “24″ season premiere yet, Jim? It’s getting really hard not to blog about this season because I don’t want to ruin anything for you.
Still Cam:
Argh!
Must. Comment. On. Tonight’s. Show.
Damn you, Jim. Damn you and your Turkish address.
Jim: My mail is apparently sent by pony express. Actually, it comes in by plane, and Istanbul had a blizzard last week. So no American expat is getting much mail these days.
I know I’m going to be so lame when it finally arrives - “Hey, wasn’t it amazing when [SHOCKING EVENT X] happened?” And Cam will respond, “Oh, that’s nothing. That’s old news. What happens in the sixth episode will blow your mind.”
By the way, as if I didn’t have enough reasons to dislike Pat Buchanan, he spoiled one of the big surprises in the opening episode in his column. ARRRRGH. Damn you, Buchanan.
Dear Alito Opponents,
You’re in the friggin’ minority. Get used to it.
Best, Jim
PS: Say, have you heard anything about the health of Justices Stevens or Ginsburg? Just asking.
At an earlier time in his life, President Bush would have had a less polite response to the Kennedy-Kerry attempted filibuster.
Cam: “Screw ‘Em” strikes again. By the way, this is his expert advice on how to change the Senate.
We need more Dems, and we need more good Dems.
Gee, you think if you get more Dems in Congress that the Dems might be able to win votes? That is stunning political punditry. I can’t wait to hear what our resident political consultant has to say about that.
Marshall: It’s not overstating it to say today’s vote is a complete and total repudiation of a six-year strategy by Dems in the Senate (and a twenty year effort by liberal legal thinks like Laurence Tribe) to make ideology fair game in judicial confirmations. It’s also a total repudiation of the filibuster strategy. With any luck, we’ve seen the last of the filibuster’s use to block judicial confirmations — at all levels.
Politically, the Dems who opposed the filibuster and voted to end the debate are the smart ones. They understand that voters have repeatedly rejected the Democrats’ obstructionist tactics over the last two elections. They also understood that a return to the failed strategy of obstruction would harm them at the ballot box this fall. In that way, the impending election actually worked to smooth the way for Judge Alito’s confirmation — a fact that runs counter to normal conventional wisdom.
As for the Kossaks bemoaning the Democrats who wouldn’t toe the line — they’re right. Their strategy failed. They lost. The only way to make it succeed is to elect more Democrats. But the thing that the Kossaks don’t understand is that confirming Judge Alito is better for their party long term (and will be more conducive to electing Democrats) than obstructing his confirmation.
Marshall again: Here’s a question to comtemplate…
A lot of people like me spent years getting ready for this fight. Three years ago when I first started paying close attention to Supreme Court nominations, the propsect of getting Sam Alito on the High Court was a pipe dream. Now it’s a dream come true. Why?
Experts — myself included — expected this to be a pitched battle, on the order of the Thomas or Bork nominations. But in the end, Americans met this nomination with yawn. With the exception of the most vociferous partisans on the right and, especially, the left, most Americans just didn’t get into it. Why?
Jim, I bet you have an idea…
Cam: Ooh, ooh! Mistah Kottah, Mistah Kottah!!! I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that there are people out there that are actively trying to kill us?
Jim: Marshall, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the filibuster on judges, particularly Supreme Court nominations. The Democratic base now expects it. How will Reid or any other Democratic leader explain not using a filibuster on the next nominee? The Kossack/Deaniac/angry base never sees any result as a reason to stop a particular tactic; like a feedback loop, the answer is always, “Get angrier! Fight harder!”
On the question of, why did Americans generally react with a yawn? Three big reasons. One, it ain’t 1987 anymore, and Borking is dead and buried. Ted Kennedy can’t define a nominee within minutes of his naming by bellowing “segregated lunch counters” from the floor of the Senate. Amazingly, the Democrats attempted the Borking tactic against Alito, as if there had been absolutely no changes to the media, political and technological environment since the 1980s.
Two, Alito really is in the mainstream of American political thought, or at least he’s way closer to the middle than Kennedy, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, etc. These deep-blue state Dems walk around with a wildly exaggerated sense of how popular their views are.
Three, Alito himself, particularly as he appeared in the hearings, is a boring, milquetoast guy. Both parties have activist groups that feel really, really intensely about the judiciary. But at the end of the day, these activist groups can only persuade the American people so much. When a guy who is as smart, well-regarded, and let’s face it, dry and dull as Alito comes along, the American people are not going to look at him and say, “Oh yeah. Definitely the second coming of Torquemada.”
Cam, hate to spoil your “Horshack moment”, but this is the one case out of 100 where I won’t say, “Everything in today’s politics has been affected by 9/11″ and then blatantly plug the book.
Cam: Ah, but Jim… you’re forgetting that Sam Alito has been nicknamed “Machine Gun Sammy” by the folks at the Brady Campaign. This has all been part of a plot to drop Alito deep into the wilds of Afghanistan, armed to the teeth. The last words Osama bin Laden will ever hear will be… “Justice is served.”
Okay, maybe not. I just wanted to give you a chance to plug the book.
Friday afternoon I received one of those forwarded emails from a buddy of mine. The subject: asking people to sign on to John Kerry’s petition to filibuster Sam Alito.
The email was started by a KaufNYC@aol.com, with the message “forward away, my liberal friends”. One of those who received the message was a guy named David Kaufman, a Vice President of Affiliate Relations for ABC Radio. He forwarded on the email with his own message: “Help stop the craziness!”
Oh yeah, one more thing. He forwarded the message from his abc.com email account. I contacted Mr. Kaufman by email and asked him if he would like to comment. I received a reply this morning telling me no.
Now, this raises an interesting conversation. Sean Hannity, employed by ABC Radio, could certainly say, while on the job, “You should not support this filibuster.” Mark Levin, while on the job, could say the same thing. Should Dave Kaufman be able to say the opposite while he’s on the job?
Jim: It amazes me what people do from their work computers. I was a legislation-summarizing reporter drone at Congressional Quarterly back in 1998, during the height of impeachment. CQ had a strict policy – they had a reputation for being nonpartisan, fair, detailed and perhaps a bit boring, and protected it with relish. Of course, every reporter who covers politics has opinions about the issues and people they cover – but at CQ, the world wasn’t allowed to know.
Well, some temp worker didn’t bother to read that memo or company policy, and one day mass-e-mailed an anti-impeachment e-mail petition to everyone in the company. (I think it might have been MoveOn.org.) This temp sent the e-mail at 10 a.m., and was fired by 11 a.m.
I don’t know if Kaufman’s e-mail is a firing offense at ABC, but companies have the right to set policy, and can warn their employees that if they behave in a manner that harms the company’s image, they’re out of there. At the very least, don’t do this kind of thing from your work e-mail account.
Marshall: To me, it continues to confirm what we already suspected about big media companies — they’re ranks are dominated by folks with a liberal point of view.
Was it inappropriate for Kaufman to use his work e-mail account for his personal correspondence? Depends on his company’s policy. But certainly, he ought to be cognizant of the implications for his employer when he does so.
A school in London has barred students from raising their hands to answer questions in class, and has barred teachers from calling on students who do so. Why? Because England is dedicated to raising a nation of prats, apparently.
“Some pupils are jiggling so much to attract the teacher’s attention that it sometimes looks as if they need the lavatory, then when it is their turn they often don’t know the answer. Boys — and it is usually boys — are seeking attention, so they put their hands up before they have had time to think about the question.”
Buck said the same children often wave their arms in the air, but when teachers try to involve less adventurous pupils by choosing them instead, it leads to feelings of victimization, the Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.
To spare embarrassment of the students who do not know the answer, the school has incorporated a “phone a friend” system, allowing one child to nominate another to take the question instead.”
This follows another school in England that’s decided to let students drop the f-bomb on their teachers, but only five times per class period.
Byron York noticed that Daily Kos has declared Democratic political consultant and lobbyist Steve Elmendorf persona non grata for suggesting that his party’s lawmakers and candidates need to harness bloggers and online donors “energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left.”
You know, as Kos became a bigger and bigger influence in the Democratic Party, I kind of figured that sooner or later, somebody big would come along and push back. Some Elder Statesman would say, “Look, you’re good at what you do, which is fundraising and rabble-rousing the base. Stick to that. You’re not the fountain of all political wisdom, and nobody’s elected you to a damn thing. Shut up and stop telling other Democrats what they can and can’t do.” But so far, it hasn’t happened.
Hey, it’s their party. If the Democrats want to follow the political advice of Kos and his readers/posters, that’s their business. But based on the way Kerry and Co. post on the site, Reid’s plan to address the Kossack convention, and the fact that few on that side will rebuke Kos in the slightest, it’s easy to get the idea that most Dems either agree with Kos, or they’re afraid of him.
One other oddity? Most of the Democrats I know despise Daily Kos.
Cam: I hope he backs Cindy Sheehan in her bid to unseat Dianne Feinstein, but somehow I doubt that “Screw ‘Em” is that crazy. But the sad thing is, he’s been so wrong in his support of candidates in the past, yet it seems as if Dems bend over backwards to court him. He’s (in the immortal words of The Hollies) King Midas in reverse.
He’s not the one to hold your trust
Everything around him turns to dust
In his hand
Nothing he can do is right
He’d even like to sleep at night
But he can’t
He’s King Midas with a curse
He’s King Midas in reverse
Looks like James Frey isn’t the only writer making stuff up.
The publisher of two memoirs by Nasdijj, an award-winning Navajo author whose identity has been strongly challenged, said Friday that it would no longer ship his books and would accept returns of copies from book sellers.
“This looks pretty conclusive,” Ballantine spokeswoman Carol Schneider said after The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C., reported Friday that Nasdijj‘s Social Security number matched the number of a white man, Timothy P. Barrus, who had a prior career writing gay pornography.
Wow. Next we’ll find out that Wonkette isn’t really an anal-sex obsessed redheaded tart, but an anal-sex obsessed assistant prosecutor or something like that.
Jim: I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that Frey isn’t the only big name memoirist found to have stretched the truth, and/or made stuff up.
I think my all time favorite was Robert Reich’s Locked in the Cabinet, which as Jonathan Rauch revealed in Slate, was full of doctored quotes, “mis-remembered” events, and accounts of Washington hearings and press conferences that don’t jive at all with records like C-SPAN’s videotapes. That fight is worth remembering, because Robert Reich, much as I may disagree with his politics or economic views, always seemed like a nice, decent guy. And then we learned, when it came to his memoir, Reich was willing to invent anecdote after anecdote painting his opponents as craven and corrupt, and himself dedicated and principled, and then chalk it all up to a “differing memories” in the ensuing brouhaha.
I trust Reich’s accounts about as far as I can throw him. Actually, less, since Reich is a twerp and I could probably throw him pretty far.
No. I’m not kidding.
Can you think of a better reason to vigorously defend your constitutional rights and liberties?
HT: Instapundit.
Cam adds:Is it beaver fur that’s being banned? And can I sign up to be a part of the enforcement unit?
I don’t have a dog in the fight. My Redskins got knocked down by Seattle a couple of weeks back. But like most of the rest of America (where does Turkey come down, Jim?), I’m going to rooting for Pittsburgh next week. Bettis deserves a ring. So does Cowher. The organization has put together a great team with players who respect each other and respect the game. (Yesterday, running back Willie Parker — who’s the regular starter these days — said that Bettis should get the start for the Super Bowl.) They’ve earned it.
Seattle, on the other hand, hasn’t. I don’t care how good Shaun Alexander is. Every indication is that he’s an arrogant jerk. And I’m glad that Seahawks managed to make peace with each other for one season, but they’re the new kids on the block. Do this for a couple of more years and come back. Until then, I’ll take Pittsburgh.
Cam adds: My Patriots bowed out a couple of weeks ago as well, but I’ve gotta root for Big Ben and the Steelers. I’m a sucker for a good underdog story (comes from being a lifelong Red Sox fan, I guess), but the allure of a 2nd year quarterback from a small college winning the Super Bowl is too good to pass up.
Now, the real question: Will Mick Jagger break a hip during the halftime show?
Marshall: Or will he tear off Keith Richards’ shirt, revealing that the guitarist actually is the bionic man?
Jim: Haven’t seen a bit of Super Bowl coverage or discussion in these parts. Look at the bright side - no matter how boring the game, you guys won’t have to wake up at 2 a.m. to watch it.
- Thought One: I know Seattle switched conferences a few years back, but I’m old enough so that this feels like an all-AFC matchup.
- Thought Two: My interest in football wanes in the Jets’ rebuilding years, so I know less about these teams than almost any other Super Bowl matchup I can remember. Talk about your low-drama, blue-collar, all-blitz no-glitz teams. Should be a good, hard-fought game, but this ain’t exactly the Joe Montana-era 49ers vs the late-Elway-era Broncos.
- Thought Three: A good friend is a diehard Steeler fan; I suspect if they win, he will name his first child “Bettis.” Yeah, even if it’s a girl. Another old friend grew up playing football with the Hasselbecks, so I guess he would be thrilled with a Seahawk win. Can a Jet fan find a dog in this fight? I guess if Pittsburgh wins, I can claim that the Jets came within an easy field goal of beating the Super Bowl champs, a year removed.
The current contest to replace Tom Delay as House Majority Leader has drawn a great deal of interest from our friends on the right side of the blogosphere. Blogs like RedState, Truth Laid Bear, and Instapundit have all spoken out in favor of John Shadegg over his rivals Roy Blunt (who is currently Majority Whip) and John Boehner.
It seems to me that there are two key qualities that House members and interested activists should look for in legislative leadership. The first is the ability to maintain discipline and order. The second is leadership’s commitment to core principles.