The mysterious 35%

No matter how bad things get for President Bush, he will seemingly always have a little over a third of the American people behind him.

He can lose one of America's greatest cities by doing nothing. He can surround himself with treasonous men who traffic in slime to accomplish political goals. Or corporate thieves and con men. He can repeatedly lie right to their face about the war in Iraq, the war against Al Qaida, etc. He can call himself a fiscal conservative and be the biggest spender since LBJ (and never veto a single bill). He can even drag us into an optional war with no plan for the aftermath and they will still support him.

Why? Is it that he is the President and the office commands at least 35% of Americans to respect him no matter what? Is it because he is to the far right on cultural issues like gay rights, abortion, creationism, etc.? Is that he is supposedly religious? Because he likes NASCAR and country music? Because he is "from" Texas?

Any time I talk to people from this mysterious 35%, they get so upset with me when I ask them why they support George W. Bush when I present them with the facts. They live in an alternate universe where the reality that we all have to deal with doesn't apply. Somehow, the cost of health care doesn't bother them, or stagnant wages, or unemployment, or the fact that their friends and relatives are being attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan every minute of the day, or the crippling deficit to our chief economic and future geopolitical rival...None of it seems to shake their illogical faith in Bush.

If he is a religious man, all he seems to believe in his political power. He will make any sacrifice to that shrine he can: a CIA agent, the lives 2,000 soldiers, moderate members of congress willing to work with him for the sake of the country, our budget...All of it is secondary to staying on top.

But the fact is 65-60% now believe that Bush is unethical, his people are not telling the truth, the war in Iraq is going poorly, the economy is in the tubes, and about 100% of moderates in Congress won't ever work with him again. His legislative agenda is all but dead. His personal choice for the swing seat of the supreme court was rejected by his own party. Bush is the lamest duck I have ever seen this early in his second term. Yet those 35% pretend otherwise. Please tell me, why?

an old Plame

tons has aready been said about this with far more elequent words and thoughts. But I might have one thing to add. All this talk on conservative blogs and cable talk seem to think that perjury and obstruction of justice are pretty lame charges for all this time, even though that was the main beef against President Clinton.

But the point is, Libby wasn't just saying one date or official he talked to in one appearance before the grand jury and then someone else saying something different. There was a clear pattern of Libby telling one complex lie to the grand jury, and have several reporters and white house officials all say something completely different. It is nearly impossible for someone who has made into the highest echelons of power like Libby to confuse Tim Russert with Dick Cheney as his source. Those 5 counts seem rock solid to me, after reading the entire indictment on the Smoking Gun.

And I would really love to see Bushies try to go after Fitzgerald, who is widely acclaimed as the most non-partisan, most fair, most thorough, best US Attorney out there. All of the people that know him have nothing but the highest praise for the man. The only beef I heard what that he was so into his work that he didn't have a life: he is not married, he hardly ever home, he forgets lasagna in his oven for three months etc. Everyone seems to agree, this is not a guy you want on your butt.

So it is over, or is Karl next? It seems Fitzgerald took the most conservative approach to the whole prosecution, nailing the most flagrant and obivous violator with tons of supporting evidence. Maybe Karl was too clever to have such obviously contradictory statements out there. I think it is probable, but not that likely, that there is more to come. It will not be the vast investigation into John Bolton, AIPAC, Doug Feith, and the Niger forgeries themselves that liberals had hoped for, but Libby could go to jail for a long time if he doesn't flip on his boss.

Although there is little hard facts to support it, in my gut I know that the Niger forgeries were cooked up inside the Rumsfeld-Cheney cabal. Maybe not by them directly, maybe without their direct knowledge or approval. But someone in the administration somewhere got the idea and ran with it. They were influenced by the approach to intelligence that Rumsfeld and Cheney took. And in typical Bush Administration fashion, they were terribly incompetent in the execution of the fraud.

After all, the official whose signature appears on the forgeries had been out of that post for a number of years. Anyone who googled the information would have found that out in a matter of seconds. Rather than disown those who did their dirty work, or the dirty work itself, Cheney et al pushed the evidence until not even neo-cons like Bill Kristol could support it. Then they slowly and quietly backed away, and no one was fired/"quit" until they were arrested/indicted.

That in itself is quite telling. And for all the hawkish liberals out there, this is a great time to say I was duped. The Bush administration gave Congress and the public false or at best incomplete information, and it seems pretty clear that they did so knowingly. The war was sold a lie, a lie Bushies believed or wanted to believe was true.

Saddam is a terrible excuse for a human being, and he behaved like he had WMDs. Hussein did himself no favors by playing tough, obstructing inspectors, and refusing to step down from power. If he really cared about Iraq, he wouldn't have done that. But all he and his sons cared about was raw power, complete control over everyone of his countrymen through fear and loyalty. I am sure he will be executed for his crimes, and although I wish he had been tried internationally and more Iraqis could come and tell the world about what he did to their families, I am glad Saddam will be executed. Few deserve the death penalty more than that man.

will I have class on Monday?

I ask you that because that is when Prof. 10th Cir. Appellate Judge Michael McConnell's class is held. The chattering class in DC seem to think he will be picked. The Center for American Progress, ABC's The Note, Hotline, etc.

Local conservative bloggers from South Dakota, Minnesota, and of course Utah are hoping it is my professor.

My empression? He is superduper smart, VERY conservative, but nice and respectible. He is like Scalia in that he is very clever and conservative, but unlike Scalia in that he is more intellectually honest.

another distraction

When I previously posted that the White House had run out of distractions and that it was dumb to name their Fed Chair pick prior to Fitzgerald's indictments, I plainly forgot that they could throw Harriet under the bus.

Poor Ms. Miers, she stumbled over and over with senators, with conservatives, with the press and came out looking worse than before she nominated. How she can go back to work as White House Counsel confounds me. I guess it is the best place to hide out when you are a laughing stock.

The White House got Sen. Brownback to blame her nomination withdrawl on the documents when anyone with half a brain knows she didn't stand a chance of getting confirmed on the merits. For once, Democrats suceeded by sitting back and shutting up. Something I know must have been hard for the likes of Joes Biden and Lieberman. Keep listening to Harry Reid, guys. After all, he conned Bush into this pick along with his inner delusional circle of yes-men.

Bush's only trouble now is that is seriously weakens him and the Democrat talking poitn of George being beholdant to the American Taliban seems to be sticking with the press. More immediately, Fitzgerald could foresall the indictments even longer by asking the judge for a new grand jury and seeking more indictments at a higher level (like Cheney himself). What a time to be a Democrat.

1 in ten

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted October 21-23 (with a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points) said only ten percent of "said they believe Bush administration officials did nothing illegal or unethical in connection with the leaking of a CIA operative's identity". WOW. The old "politics as usual" talking point isn't working apparantly.

39% thought someone in the Administration did something illegal. I would like to see more a breakdown partisan wise and all the rest.

the smell of defeat

It looks like Bush is going to withdraw Miers and nominate a "real" conservative. If my professor Michael McConnell was female, I would say he would be the new nominee. I am betting it is a female judge from the 5th Circuit. Why do I say Bush has given up? Because law bloggers much smarter than me make a great argument based off of Bush's latest commentary on Miers. From Althouse:

Note that he did not express confidence that she would be confirmed or that she would make a fine Justice. He focused on her general excellence, unrelated to the position she's been nomited for, and on the Senate, stepping up the pressure to give her a fair hearing -- right after turning up the heat about the denial of the documents. It seems as though he wants the Democratic senators to make more of a stink about the documents so that he'll look more credible blaming them for forcing him to withdraw her name. I'll bet they are too smart to make that move, though. Let him twist in the wind while they hold their fire until the hearings. Or maybe even -- crazily riskily -- just go ahead and support her and leave Bush to solve his own problems, without using them for leverage.

And from Loyola LA Prof. Rick Hasen's electionlawblog:

The excuse for withdrawal appears to be a fight over executive privilege. The president won't turn over documents needed to show Ms. Miers' views on legal issues that arose in the White House. If that is indeed the basis for withdrawal, it is doubly good news for conservatives, because presumably it would take AG Gonzales out of the running too.

I am not the only one high on my Prof. McConnell, so is Hasen: "If Bush is smart and wants a strong conservative who will actually be confirmed, he should nominate Judge McConnell. But it is not clear whether Bush really wants a strong conservative on the Court." Like Hasen, I doubt Bush will risk losing the fight that conservatives want to wage with a Janice Rogers Brown, and would be more happy with a pick that would be friendly to him, especially after this Miers fiasco.

A key rule of politics: when rolling out something big, run it by your allies first and make them feel like they are involved/have a stake in its sucess. Just ask Hillary Clinton about her Health Care Plan.

website of the day

WithdawMiers.org check out the list of the supporters, a who's who of the conservative players, including 9 GOP senators.

Senator Rick Santorum
Senator Sam Brownback
Senator Trent Lott
Senator George Allen
Senator Lindsey Graham
Senator Jeff Sessions
Senator Tom Coburn
Senator David Vitter
Senator John Ensign

Lets see, two of these are on the judicary committee 2+8 Democrats= 10-8 loss in committee. Ed Kilgore sees this as the place to watch any signs of a trend.

This could be Fitzmas eve.

no more distractions left

The bush folks are really off their game. I mean when you have one more distraction left, why spend it on a sleepy Monday when you could save it for two days to ruin Fitzmas? I guess that would be obviously crass, but these are the same folks that distracted us from other problems with John Roberts, a faked Q & A with soldiers, Harriet Miers, etc. Distract and dump are their two favorite political curealls for bad news.

I guess the idea is to have a weeks worth of praise of the new Fed Chair selection. But I think the fact that he is so uncontroversal is just another sign that Bush is weak and such unamimous support means there isn't much for the press to talk about. The press loves to gossip and ponder about what Fitzmas might bring? Rove's head on stick? Scotter's too? Even Cheney's? Oh and the press love to talk about staff shuffles, it is about the only thing they can over well...just ask any one of the 8 Democrats who ran for president.

"Look! Over there!" just isn't going to work anymore. And there aren't enough Fridays left to catch the press and public napping.

Photo of the week

This is the version most people haven't seen yet. via Slate

the Miers the merrier

It seems like Harriet can't do anything right these days. The questionniare she filled out pissed off a broad spectrum of Senate Judiciary Committee members. If that wasn't bad enough, election law scholars tore her up over the only mention of constitutional analysis in regards to the Voting Right Act. Then the Post piled on with a quote from Cass Sunstein.

With Turd Blossom and Scooter in the Fitz's crosshairs, it seems like the White House in incable of pulling itself out of this nosedive. I am trying to plan events at the law school about Harriet Miers, but it looks increasingly probable that she will never face the Judiciary Committee. It is sad when you try to distract people from bad news, and then you piss off your only supporters, while making you overall less popular with the people that didn't really like you that much anyway. Sadder still when you stage another phony event with the troops, but get caught. It is like Ameteur month a the White House.

I am going to make some popcorn, this is going to be fun to watch.

deport colbert report

Thanks to comcast's dvr, I can watch TV anytime I want and without commericals. So I was all excited last night to catch monday's premier of the Colbert Report, especially after hearing all the buzz from the NYTimes way back when and a snippet on Kos.

Boy was I dissipointed. Enough of the ernest, egomanicial, faux-Fox News man! The only time I laughed was when Colbert had a gravitas match against Stone Phillips...and it was more the words they said than anything else. Stephen Colbert was extremely funny on the Daily Show, and left you wanting more. This one left me wanting less, back to the good old days of his crazy commentary or funny interviews followed by "Jon?"

Give me Stephen vs. Stephen (Carrell v. Colbert), that was a fabulous segment. And ROb Cordry is doing an amazing job of stepping up his game in Colbert's absense. I just hope they don't ruin him too by giving Rob his own show. I know Comedy Central has nothing beyond these shows, talking puppets, and "the man show" (which is a shaddow of its former self now that the main attraction has his own late night show on ABC), but come on!

whither public financing?

I was talking yesterday to a GOPer who is a lawyer (amoung other things) at a firm in DC that prepresents McCain and Romney. He told me that his advice to those 2008 campaigns was not to take public financing in the primaries.

This tells us two things, first that McCain and Romney really are planning on running (not exactly a newsflash) but also that the public finacing system is falling apart. It is a real shame that serious candidates like George Bush, Howard Dean, and John Kerry opted out while joke candidates like LaRouche and Sharpton took our tax dollars. Well those of us who checked the box, and I always have.

Here is a simiple solution to patch it up: anyone who has been convicted or indicted of a felony cannot recieve public financing money. The point of the that money was to a) limit spending b) get candidates to focus on issues, not fundraising and c) give an equal chance for unknowns to win it on issues alone, and not have it be a money race.

Thanks to Dean's use of the internet vis vis his competitors, he was able to emerge out of obscurity into the front runner in 2003 even without public money. But that won't repeat itself, especially when there are other internet savvy competitors like Clark (Edwards is trying out podcasts and blogging too). I think keeping the money out of the jokester's hands will go a long way to helping maintain the system. Because right now, "only losers take public financing."

By the way, it is Republicans in congress that are talking about getting rid of the presidential fund box altogether, but I think that will make things only worse, not better. As a Democrat, I don't want to have to pick a John Kerry just because he can self-finance via his wife. As a Republican, I wouldn't want to pick a Forbes or analogous person just because they are rich or friends of the rich. This way I could pick someone who better fits my values and where I stand on issues, without worrying if they will have enough cash to compete.

All the president's friends

Isn't it funny that two key choices in Bush's political life, he turned to the trusted person who was supposed to be vetting the candidates for him? Dick Cheney, remember, headed up the VP pick selection committee. For Miers, at least she was modest enough to not suggester herself like Cheney sorta did. Rather, it was Andy Card, according to the Journal. Card, that old GM lobbyist, pushed for Miers the whole time and got her underling--who had only been at the job for a short while--to vet her behind her (and everyone else's) back.

Sure enough, the results were self-interested and shoddy. Maybe the B team is indeed operating the White House these days, even that Karl and Scooter have themselves to worry about. If this is true, than it wasn't Laura that pushed this pick like I thought but Andy Card, who has taken a pretty low profile in the past 5 years until recently. Or maybe this is Rove's sliming of Card, who has been taking heat for all the bad things happening to Bush these days.

Maybe the White House is canibalizing itself and seting its own hounds on the "B-team." This is what happens when you don't listen to anyone outside the walls of the White House, the insiders becomes the only critic that can really destroy you.

Laura comes out swinging (with help)

Thought my conservatives-are-sexists charge was over the top? What if First Lady Laura Bush says it on the Today Show? Of course, she only said that it's "possible" not fact like I claimed. But how about Eddie Gillespie, once RNC chair and one of the President's top men on the Sumpreme Court vetting team? Ed "raised the sexism issue in a private meeting with conservatives last week, participants said, prompting hot denials that caused Gillespie to say he was speaking generally, not referring to anyone in the room. Since then, other Republican backers of the nominee have raised the possibility that Miers's sex is causing her to be judged by a harsher standard."

Of course, that didn't sit too well with conservatives, who don't like to be called out. "It is striking to me they are spending less time explaining the merits of Harriet Miers and more time . . . using liberal talking points to criticize the critics," William Kristol of the Weekly Standard said. "I think it is going to backfire." Did I just hear Kristol say that the White House is using Liberal talking points? The only worse epithet he could have used against Bush was to say he was acting Clintonian. Jonah Goldberg of the National Review's blog (another super conservative rag) echoed Kristol's sentiments, calling the sexism charge as "horribly disappointing and the sort of thing I normally expect from left-wingers."

This food fight just keeps getting better and better. Appearantly GOP Judiciary staffers are rebelling as well.

"Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact," a lawyer to a Republican committee member said.

It sounds like they don't want Bush's Senate henchmen to go after them, but Colburn and Brownback's staff are pissed.

"You could say there is pretty much uniform disappointment with the nomination at the staff level," another Republican on the committee staff said. "It is clear there is quite a bit of skepticism, and even some flashes of hostility." Another Republican aide close to the committee said, "I don't know a staffer who approves of this nomination, anywhere. Most of it is outright hostility throughout the Judiciary Committee staff." ...
"I think those staffers, like anybody else, have a right to their opinions and to express them," [Specter] said. "Senators will make independent judgments. You have some pretty strong staffers on the committee, but you have got some stronger senators."

Maybe it is Specter's staffers after all, as Ed Kilgore thinks. "Maybe the White House's well-known injunctions to Specter to get along better with conservatives are producing some unintended and ironic consequences." quoth Ed.

The plot thickens.

Merkle Christmas

Germans love to call their governing coalition by their colors: Red and Blue for SPD and CDU/CSU. Previously there was a Christmas coaliton: SPD and the Greens. Some were hoping for a stoplight coalition: SPD, Greens, and FDP (yellow liberals). But the FDP said no to that. Instead, it ended up being a Blue Red one. I don't know a color analogy for this grand coalition.

The whole thing was quite interesting to me as a German-speaker and fan of the country and the people. Personally, I think their social welfare net was almost too good. I met people that weren't in any hurry to get jobs since they were still earning most of the money they was before. Unemployment in the East has been stuck at high levels for about 15 years now and Schroeder clearly couldn't solve the problems.

Schroeder staged an amazing comeback for sure, but his claim that he got to be chancelor still was incredible and fell through. One wonders what will happen to him and why in the world he decieded to push for the election in the first place.

Miers than meets the eye

Today before I went to church, I had the chance to watch a bit of movement conservative Sen. Sam Brownback "vs." Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. Schumer said nothing that interesting or innovative, except adopting a blogger line that James Dobson should testify before the committee about what he knows about Miers. The real news was what Brownback said, since he and Sen. Tom Colburn could conceivably vote against Miers in the judiciary committee and seriously embarrass the president. Brownback and the social conservatives that he represents are pissed not just because they weren't consulted but because they wanted a fight over Abortion and Gay Marriage and other issues. They believe that America will be on their side. Personally, I would enjoy watching them go down in flames, especially Sen. Colburn who cried crocodile tears about the divisiveness that is tearing this country apart at Roberts' hearings (when he wasn't filling out his crossword puzzle).

But another thing that really gets the conservatives upset is that Laura Bush picked this nominee. They both went to SMU, I don't know if their times were contemporaneous. But Laura has always been distrusted despite coming from a true Southern family, and not a Yankee aristocratic one like Bush. In social circles, Miers knew Laura before she helped Dubya keep his duck blind. Miers has been loyal to the Bush family, but not to the movement of conservatism. Conservatives have been waiting for this moment, believing the country is ready to go backwards on every conceivable social progress of the 1960s and 1970s.

Interestingly, conservatism is not some generational thing like Gay marriage is. People of all ages firmly believe that abortion (and sometimes even the Pill) is murder.

But does the fact that Miers is Laura's pick say something about the sexism of the conservative movement? Most social conservatives come from male dominated religions. It was the sexual revolution more than the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s that conservatives still fight against. Maybe some don't like integration secretly, but they don't feel nearly as comfortable sharing it as they do condemning the sexual conduct or perceived conduct of women and gay men. Straight men can have as much sex as they want how they want it, although conservatives would prefer it be only with his wife. At least that is how it seems given the scandals of the televangelists.

There is more going on here than a fight over who gets consulted, it is about who gets to make the choice, and who really has the power. That is what irked them about the Clintons the most, that Bill was perfectly happy to let Hillary be his equal, or even superior.

Harriet Hearsay

My dad talked to a lawyer friend of his in Dallas about Ms. Miers. Appearantly this friend knows Miers quite well, having gone to high school with her and practiced law in the same town as her.

The word? Miers is VERY conservative, VERY smart, and she will charm the crap out of the judiciary committee.

If this is true, the whole line of "she is unqualified," or "she is Souter II" is just a lie. Conservatives are upset that they weren't consulted, and that an obviously religious right-winger wasn't chosen. But they forget that they are in the minority in America. Most Americans favor the right to privacy, including the ability to have control over their bodies. Most Americans favor Social Security, Medicare, rebuilding New Orleans, and environmental protection. Yet Harriet probabbly is against all of these things.

James Dobson, whose vote is more important to push than Sen. Sam Brownback's, got the inside peak on Miers and was pleased with the choice. Sounds like my Dad's friend in Dallas is right.

movement conservatives and Miers

Americablog is doing some of the best coverage out there on Harriet Miers. They were the first to release this questionnaire [I linked to TIME magazine because they can afford the bandwidth] and have been putting together the pieces of Miers' purposely vacant legal history.

It seems she supported increased AIDS funding and equal civil rights for gay and lesbains in 1989 in Dallas, TX, not exactly the most popular time and place to do so. [Note, she did support the criminalization of gay male sex, which was overturned by Lawrence v. Texas] Maybe Conservatives have a reason to freak out. Afterall, gay marriage and gay men especially are one of their biggest pet peeves. Is this questionniare genuine? I am sure some Senator will ask her about it now.

As the folks on Americablog point out, movement conservatives have been waiting for this moment--2 supreme court vacancies-- since Roe they want God "back" in the class room, evolution out our schools, gays out of society, Abortion criminalized, Death Penalty strengthened so that mental disabled and minors can be executed again, etc. And Bush's response was to put up a very highly qualified but mysteriously blank and vague chief justice John Roberts, and now a not so qualified and not so mysteriously blank and vague associate justice.

The only thing we know for sure about Meirs is that she, like Condi, will defend Bush to her death. I feel like if Condi had a law degree, he would have appointed her. After all, she is smart, African-American, a woman, and loyal to a pyschopathic extent.

Folks on the Dianne Reims show today were wondering if either liberals or conservatives were faking each other out with their initial reactions to Miers' nomination. After reading this questionnaire, I think there is no fake out here. Unless of course, this fax is as doctored as those Texas Air National Guard ones that cost Dan Rather his chair.

Fun fact, Miers handed Bush the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." memo and briefed him on it:


Funny, shouldn't the intelligence services have done that and not a staff secretary? I guess everyone was on vacation.

Killing her with Kindness?

have democrats stumbled (and the key word here is stumbled) onto a great strategy to defeat Miers? It seems that by having Senate Democrats come out and praise a woman whose only job qualifications are that Bush thought she did a great job on a duck hunting cabin case before he was governor of Texas has sent conservatives scrambling.

Maybe she is Souter II, or maybe she is Scalia II. We have no clue because she has never been a judge and her only policy driven legal writings were when she was Bush's WH counsel since 2004, when Alberto Gonzales left for the AG's office. But conservatives were expecting someone with a clear history of opposing Roes and a host of other conservative bugaboos (like ten commandments etc.) Bush knows he couldn't get such a nominee past the Senate without doing a Fillabuster showdown of epic purportions.

And it seems that the man whom Miers called the most brilliant man she knows realized that with his polling in the high-30s to low-40s, he had no capital to spend. However, the reaction from conservatives has been much more negative than liberals. Kos is hoping she is a Souter, while conservatives are crying cronyism. In my opinion, that ship sailed long, long ago fellows.

Instapundit, the leading conservative legal blogger has the round up:

UPDATE: More here. Perhaps they'll change my mind, but so far I'm underwhelmed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mark Daniels: "Another stealth nominee?"

GayPatriot has predictions.

Paul Deignan: "Harriet Miers is many things, but she is not a Constitutional scholar . . . She is an unknown and unproven functionary whose chief virtue is the one virtue that we must reject--a strong tie to a particular chief executive."

Baseball Crank: "Color me less than thrilled."

PoliPundit: "Miers is a cipher."

The ACLJ, however,loves her.

Rich Lowry: "After the Roberts pick conservatives swooned and said Bush doesn't care about 'diversity'; it's only high qualifications that matter to this bold, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may leader, etc., etc. Don't we have to take all that back now?"

David Frum: "An unforced error. . . . nobody would describe her as one of the outstanding lawyers in the United States."

MORE: GayPatriot's predictions are already coming true!

Meanwhile, Thomas Lifson thinks that this is a brilliant sucker-punch thrown at the Democrats. But even if that's true, that doesn't make Miers a good pick. In fact, if I really thought that this pick was motivated by such tactical concerns, I'd be appalled, but I think that Lifson is being a bit too clever here. [LATER: Further googling has convinced Lifson that he's wrong. Good!]

John Hawkins: "George Bush's decision to appoint Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is bitterly disappointing." Not that there's anything wrong with having supported Al Gore in 1988 . . . .

What troubles the social conservatives is the fear that Miers may not be a social conservative. That doesn't bother me, of course. But I don't see what she brings to the table. Granted, you could have said that about other Supreme Court picks who turned out to be great justices. But you could have said that about a lot of other Supreme Court picks who didn't turn out to be great justices, too.

Meanwhile, this won't comfort social conservatives, but it doesn't comfort me, either:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had urged the president to consider Miers, according to several officials familiar with Bush's consultations with Congress.

Hmm. (Via Jon Henke, who rounds up lots of other interesting stuff). More on Reid and Miers here.

AnkleBitingPundits (formerly CrushKerry.com): "Ugh. This is what we fought for?"

Bush may have managed a Perfect Storm here. Democrats will still want to beat him on Miers, because they always want to beat him. Republicans may be happy to see her go down, too. So who, exactly, is going to get her confirmed? Harry Reid?

STILL MORE: Hugh Hewitt: "It is a solid, B+ pick.. . . The president is a poker player in a long game. He's decided to take a sure win with a good sized pot. I trust him. So should his supporters."

The Anchoress thinks it's rope-a-dope.

Social conservative Professor Bainbridge is deeply unhappy with Miers. Does that mean I should be happy?

Ed Morrissey: "I find this pick mystifying."

Meanwhile, the GOP just sent out this collection of endorsements -- and number 3 is Harry Reid. I smell some sort of a deal.

Maybe Reid is a genius, maybe the keeping the powder dry strategy worked. I think the real strategy was just to sit back and hope that the GOP destroys itself. It only took 12 years, but it seems to be working.

Delay is under indictment and sounding biter that he got dropped by his collegues; Frist is under investigation for a Martha Stewart-like move; Bush and Cheney's top political advisors are the chief suspects in a criminal investigation; and then there is the Iraq debacle and the Katrina debacle. Someone in Biden's and Liberman's offices are working up a plan to snatch defeat from the jaws of almost assured victory, I am sure.

Bush heart Abramhoff

Think the White House has distanced themselves from Jack "indicted" Abrahoff? Think again, Casino Jack has struck again in the wake of Katrina, even when a Bush appointee, whom used to work for both Abrahoff and US Representative Chris Cannon (R-UT) was put in charge of post-Katrina procurement.

If that weren't enough added insult to injury, Bush's reconstruction plan will give tax credits to these same casinos that Jack used to work for (as he privately insulted his Native American bosses in a racist fashion). Even the casino's can't figure out why they have it so good. "We're actually scratching our heads. We can't ever remember an instance of being offered a tax credit -- ever." said Alberto Lopez, director of strategic communication at Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which lost two major casinos on the Mississippi coast. "But just because the casinos did not ask for the investment write-off doesn't mean they won't take it. "Anything that the federal government can provide, obviously we'll take advantage of it," the official said."

Everything that should be ecnomic development and rebuilding the Gulf coast is seen in as a possible handout to special interest, regardless of what is good policy. According to the Washington Post, Democrats and Republicans alike in congress are upset by "Federal Emergency Management Agency's $5 billion effort to purchase 300,000 trailers and mobile homes, despite record-low apartment occupancy rates in the states just beyond Katrina's reach."