The handyman…oh, the handyman can

The shutters were the beginning of the crisis. Ralph’s depression, his sense of failure, had been going on long before the shutters, of course, maybe since he had bought the house, if he thought about it, but the shutters seemed glaringly to illustrate his incompetence.

So begins one of my favorite stories, “I Am Not as Efficient as Other People,” by the sinister and elegant Patricia Highsmith, better known to most folks as the creator of the sinister and elegant Thomas Ripley. This story always comes to mind whenever I embark on that journey of self-discovery called home repair, because - and this is no slander against the self, but a simple statement of fact - I am not as efficient as other people. Not by half. And yet, remarkably, that deficiency doesn’t exempt me from having to get things done around the house.

So we have this kitchen, okay?

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Scalito’s way

I awoke this morning to defiant noises from Harry Reid and Charles Schumer, blasting George Bush for the divisive choice of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra O’Connor on the Supreme Court. “So it begins,” I said, and rolled heavily out of bed.

And we’re off. Has anyone else noticed that the Bush administration has taken to making SCOTUS-related announcements at ungodly early hours? The withdrawal of Harriet Miers was revealed to a groggy nation fresh out of bed and desperate for coffee; now comes another eye-opener. The swift nomination of Alito to the high bench carries two messages from Bush: the first to his voracious, radical right base (”This guy’s so far right, he makes Rehnquist look like Blackmun - can we be friends again?”) and the second to the general public (”Pay no attention to that traitor in Cheney’s office, that’s last week’s news”).

The chief advantage that Alito has over Miers as a nominee - actual qualifications, a record of decisions illustrating a judicial philosophy - heartens the Right even as it galvanizes the Left. This is not John Roberts redux; Alito’s bonafides mark him as an ideological twin to Antonin Scalia - hence the nickname ‘Scalito’ - and it’s arguable that the high court already has one more Scalia than it needs. This is the vote, the swing vote, the one vote after which conservatives have lusted like Gollum after the Ring, and now it seems within their grasp. But it won’t be theirs without a fight, as there are many on the Left who have awaited this moment. Kos frames it succinctly:

This is the best possible scenario for Democrats as well. We now have a vehicle upon which to showcase the differences between us and Republicans, between liberalism and conservatism. This is a golden opportunity, and one wisely denied by Bush and Rove with the Roberts and Miers nominations.

This is a gift to Democrats. Katrina, massive budget deficits, and continued economic hardship have proven that Republicans can’t govern. Iraq and Osama Bin Laden have proven that Republicans can’t run an effective foreign policy. Now Scalito, along with Bush’s social security debacle, will prove to the American people that conservative ideology doesn’t have their best interests at heart.

Let the debate begin.

Ezra Klein’s take on the Alito nomination and the battle to come prompts me to remind readers that Gollum did actually get the Ring in the end…but it didn’t do him much good:

Alito’s vision of America is a dark place, and Democrats should be sure that voters know it. We may not be able to stop this nominee, but there are other ways to win the fight. Alito may prove more useful if rammed onto the Court atop voter objections. If we can win the debate about his ideology and force Republicans to rally round and confirm an unpopular nominee, he may prove more troublesome for them in success than failure.

The storm season in American politics has officially begun. Better get your sweater; it looks like a nuclear winter.

Technorati Tags: Samuel Alito, Supreme Court

Libby’s been labeled

Perjury. Making false statements. Obstruction of justice. Ladies and gentlemen, your chief of staff to the vice president.

Indictments in the case were the first in a nearly two-year investigation into the public unmasking of an undercover CIA operative. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has scheduled a 2 p.m. ET news conference.

Libby — a major player in the Bush White House — was expected to step down from his post after an indictment.

President Bush’s top political strategist Karl Rove will not be indicted Friday by the federal grand jury investigating the leak, sources close to the investigation tell CNN. But, the sources said, Rove is not out of legal jeopardy as the matter is still under investigation.

Lawyers involved in the case have told CNN that Fitzgerald is focusing on whether Rove committed perjury. Rove testified four times in front of the grand jury.

As I type this, the word is out: Libby has resigned.

What’s that old saying? It ain’t (just) the crime, it’s the cover-up.

And it ain’t over. Rove is still on the hook, and Cheney risks exposure as Libby tries to avoid bankruptcy, disbarment, jail time. Anyone who hoped that Indictment Day would mean a fresh start for the Bush administration was sadly mistaken. The cloud over the White House isn’t going away anytime soon.

Technorati Tags: Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Traitorgate

Remind me to never get on the wrong side of The Onion

Via AMERICAblog.

Technorati Tags: Politics

Matt Blunt: Even less popular than before!

The newest SurveyUSA state governor poll is out - and once again, it’s very bad news for Missouri’s very bad governor, Matt Blunt. Indeed, the latest findings are worse than in the previous poll. Not only is Blunt still the nation’s 47th least-popular governor (that’s out of fifty total, by the way), his positive approval rating dropped two percent while his negative ratings went up a point.

As we’ve observed while looking at past polling numbers, that’s some real buyer’s remorse here in Missouri. It’s gotten so bad that at least one Republican running for office here doesn’t even want to be seen with Blunt. We’re still waiting for Spence Jackson to spin that one.

Technorati Tags: Matt Blunt, Politics, Missouri

Cheney, Libby withheld pre-war intelligence docs from Senate committee

They cooked the books on the threat from Iraq. What else could they be trying to hide? Even in the wake of the Miers withdrawal (and how’s that for timing), this breaking story about the vice president and his right-hand man concealing information from the Senate Intelligence Committee is huge. Via Laura Rozen, this from Murray Wass at National Journal (Emphasis Rozen’s.):

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources. [...]

Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration’s case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney’s office — and Libby in particular — pushed to be included in Powell’s speech, the sources said.

Powell is going to find himself a popular man again…though not for reasons he’ll find comfortable. Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell’s former chief of staff who recently blasted the “White House cabal” on Iraq, is likely feeling pretty satisfied.

Libby must feel he’s dying the death of a thousand cuts this week. It’s likely to get much worse for him, his boss, and his boss.

Sunlight. It’s the best disinfectant in the world.

Technorati Tags: Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Iraq

“The saga is complete.” Yeah. Sure.

Not while there’s a dime (or Imperial credit) yet to be made in a galaxy far, far away…

Digital studio for Star Wars show

Star Wars creator George Lucas has opened a digital animation movie and television studio in Singapore.

The studio’s first project will be Star Wars spin-off TV series Clone Wars, due to be screened in 2007.

The company says it aims to lead the animation industry and train “a new generation of digital artists” at the Singapore studio.

Lucas said the TV series would be based on the time between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.

As Lucas once said in defense of ubiquitous Star Wars marketing: you gotta use every part of the buffalo. Or the tauntaun. Whatever.

Technorati Tags: Star Wars, George Lucas, Movies, Television, Science Fiction

The wrong take on Miers

Kos gets it pretty much wrong:

It seems to me that Miers wasn’t done in from a lack of conservative cred as the wingers want to believe. Bush was convinced she was like him and would’ve fought for her all the way through. She was done in from simple incompetence. Her responses to committee questions betrayed a complete lack of understanding of constitutional law. Her meager writings were incoherent. She was unable to articulate competence in meetings with senators.

Give Miers the same set of facts but with Judge Roberts’ obvious competence on legal issues, and she gets confirmed. She wasn’t done in because the crazies flipped. She was done in because she simply wasn’t competent to sit on the High Court and it was so painfully obvious.

Had Miers clearly passed the anti-choice litmus test, her competence would have been a complete non-issue for so-called strict constructionists. If they were sure of her ideology, they would have defended her against all comers. As it is, her lack of competence becomes merely the excuse allowing conservatives to turn on her, and the handy stick with which to club the nomination to death like a baby seal.

The radical right can now claim to stand for the principle of competence - a remarkable claim in term two of the Bush regime, but there it is.

Technorati Tags: Harriet Miers, Supreme Court

The disaster two-step

Shorter Jeb Bush on the Wilma aftermath: “Blame me, but it’s your fault.”

As the governor accepted blame for distribution troubles that have forced many to wait in long lines for free government water and ice, he also suggested that some residents failed to stock up adequately in advance of Monday’s Category 3 hurricane.

“People had ample time to prepare,” Bush said. “And it isn’t that hard to get 72 hours’ worth of food and water … just to do the simple things that we ask people to do.”

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Wilma

Here’s your Harriet, what’s your hurry, or How Sandra can save the day

Harriet Miers, a cheerleading crony who never should have been nominated for the Supreme Court in the first place, fell on her sword last night. The president wipes up the mess.

In a statement, President Bush said he “reluctantly accepted” her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down.

Reluctantly, eh? You have to assume that Miers pulled out at the behest of either Bush himself or grownups in the administration: the official out is - as Charles Krauthammer advocated last Friday - pulling out under cover of documents. Why, deep-sixing a doomed nomination looks almost principled when you say you’re trying to protect a president’s right to double-secret counsel. It certainly sounds better than saying “We’re caving to the radical right because they own us.”

The only winners in this, of course, are rabid conservatives who make no bones about the kind of activist justice they want installed. Roe must go, and they won’t stand for a nominee who doesn’t feel likewise.

So. What does George do now?

Justice O’Connor could spare the country much turmoil by rescinding her resignation. Law professor and Supremes scholar William G. Ross sums up the majority opinion of a number of queried SCOTUS experts on the matter:

O’Connor has not actually resigned, which is why she is continuing to serve as an Associate Justice. As far as I know, her expression of intent is open-ended, and she is technically free to remain on the Court as long as likes. If Miers were not confirmed and O’Connor decided to remain on the Court, I think we would hear sighs of relief from members of both political parties.

It would be a very patriotic thing to do.

Technorati Tags: Harriet Miers, Supreme Court

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