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The 1994 Montreal Expos are one of baseball's great "what-if" stories - what if they'd played out a full season? What if they'd won the World Series? Would they have been able to hold together such a talented team? Would they have saved baseball in Montreal?

Well, we can't answer those questions precisely . . . although we can approximate an answer to the first question, and without resort to "what-ifs." I was playing around with the Streak Reports on Baseball-Reference.com some time ago, and noticed that from August 19, 1993 through May 5, 1995 - a full 162-game schedule including the entire 1994 regular season - the Expos won 110 games and lost just 52. (The Expos finished the 1993 season on a 31-10 tear in a futile attempt to catch the Phillies, went 74-40 to post the best record in baseball in 1994, and opened 1995 with a 5-2 spurt before slumping to a last-place finish with a depleted lineup. For that stretch, they were, in plain sight, a great team for one full season's worth of games, similar to, say, the 1975 Reds (108 wins), the 1986 Mets (108 wins), or the 1984 Tigers (104 wins). And now, thanks to the magic of Retrosheet, we can not only see that 110-win record; we can flesh out the picture by reconstructing the individual stats of the players who made up a great team. Let's take a look:

Batting Stats

PLAYER	G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	R	RBI	BB	K	SB-CS	Avg	Slg	OBP	DP	HB
Darrin Fletcher	132	419	110	27	2	15	46	79	31	35	0-0	.263	.444	.314	7	7
Cliff Floyd	117	387	105	19	4	5	47	44	27	79	12-3	.271	.380	.321	4	3
Mike Lansing	145	532	145	29	2	5	59	49	42	55	19-10	.273	.363	.334	15	8
Wil Cordero	149	555	161	40	4	20	83	90	50	79	17-5	.290	.485	.356	10	8
Sean Berry	139	427	121	27	3	18	69	60	51	72	19-1	.283	.487	.361	11	3
Larry Walker	140	524	160	50	4	26	101	112	73	91	23-8	.305	.565	.390	10	5
Marquis Grissom	151	648	198	30	4	18	130	72	54	82	60-7	.306	.448	.356	14	1
Moises Alou	129	497	166	37	6	26	93	90	46	75	7-7	.334	.590	.393	7	6
Lou Frazier	103	188	48	3	2	0	29	18	19	33	22-5	.255	.293	.325	1	1
Rondell White	69	185	50	14	2	6	28	30	17	36	2-3	.270	.465	.340	3	3
Lenny Webster	57	143	39	10	0	5	13	23	16	24	0-0	.273	.448	.370	7	6
Randy Ready	32	105	27	6	1	1	17	10	18	6	2-1	.257	.362	.371	4	1
Juan Bell	38	97	27	4	0	2	12	10	15	21	4-0	.278	.381	.372	1	0
Randy Milligan	47	82	19	2	0	2	10	12	14	21	0-0	.232	.329	.337	1	0
Freddie Benavides	47	85	16	5	1	0	8	6	3	15	0-0	.188	.271	.222	2	1
Oreste Marrero	27	66	15	4	1	1	9	3	14	12	1-3	.227	.364	.363	0	0
Tim Spehr	76	72	24	7	1	1	16	9	6	19	3-0	.333	.500	.385	0	0
Delino DeShields	17	61	15	2	1	0	9	4	13	10	9-0	.246	.311	.362	0	1
John Vander Wal	24	49	10	4	1	0	8	3	8	3	0-1	.204	.327	.316	1	0
Jeff Gardner	18	32	7	0	1	0	4	1	3	5	0-0	.219	.281	.286	1	0
Roberto Kelly	7	29	7	2	0	1	5	3	0	4	1-1	.241	.414	.241	3	0
Tony Tarasco	6	20	9	3	0	0	3	2	1	4	0-0	.450	.600	.476	0	0
Shane Andrews	6	16	5	2	0	2	3	5	2	5	0-0	.313	.813	.389	0	0

Team Totals

PLAYER	G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	R	RBI	BB	K	SB-CS	Avg	Slg	OBP	GDP	HPB
NON-PITCHERS	162	5265	1497	330	41	155	808	746	523	798	203-57	.284	.451	.352	103	54
PITCHERS	162	343	46	5	2	0	18	16	21	134	0-0	.134	.160	.184	4	0
TOTAL	162	5608	1543	335	43	155	826	762	544	932	203-57	.275	.433	.342	107	54

One thing that really jumps out at you about the Expos' offense is its incredible balance. The team leader in homers hit 26, but they managed 209 155 home runs - an average of 26 19 per non-pitching lineup slot. [NOTE: Yes, my arithmetic goofed there somehow, as Travis Nelson has pointed out to me. I'll fix any other arithmetical errors as they come to my attention.] Nobody on this team walked a whole lot - besides Walker with 73, nobody drew more than 54 walks - but everybody drew at least a halfway respectable number of walks and hit for a good enough average to not have a horrid OBP, and nobody struck out 100 times. Everybody could steal a few bases. And everyone hit gobs of doubles. It doesn't look like a terrifying offense, but it was solid all the way through.

Walker and Alou, of course, were the offensive stars, and would go on to distinguished careers elsewhere. The hidden big year here was Grissom, who was dazzling - playing by far the best baseball of his long, erratic career - down the stretch in 1993, batting .353, scoring 34 runs and stealing 24 bases in 25 attempts in 41 games. And, of course, all the way down the depth chart (see more below) you see guys who have had long, productive major league careers.

As you can see, the Expos had an unusually poor-hitting pitching staff; if you break the numbers down (see below), the mainstays of the rotation were especially awful, while guys like Butch Henry, Denis Boucher and the relievers did OK in limited action.

Pitching Stats

Pitcher	W-L	SV	ERA	G	GS	CG	IP	H	HR	BB	K	R	ER
Jeff Fassero	15-8	0	3.00	32	31	2	207.1	176	17	58	189	79	69
Ken Hill	18-8	0	3.66	30	30	2	196.2	192	15	61	107	92	80
Pedro Martinez	13-5	1	3.20	26	25	1	157.1	121	12	50	156	59	56
Kirk Rueter	12-4	0	4.53	27	27	0	135	144	15	31	66	75	68
Butch Henry	9-5	1	2.82	34	17	0	127.2	120	12	24	78	42	40
Mel Rojas	4-3	22	3.09	79	0	0	110.2	96	13	27	103	46	38
Gil Heredia	9-3	1	3.28	48	7	0	107	117	10	20	89	45	39
Jeff Shaw	6-2	1	3.95	63	0	0	86.2	88	11	21	56	42	38
John Wetteland	5-6	42	2.31	72	0	0	85.2	55	5	25	101	24	22
Tim Scott	8-2	2	3.12	56	0	0	69.1	64	3	25	57	25	24
Dennis Martinez	5-1	0	2.53	8	8	0	57	46	5	16	43	21	16
Denis Boucher	3-2	0	3.83	15	7	0	47	48	7	10	31	23	20
Gabe White	1-1	1	6.08	7	5	0	23.2	24	4	11	17	16	16
Chris Nabholz	2-0	0	0.59	6	2	0	15.1	7	0	8	14	1	1
Brian Barnes	0-1	0	6.00	11	0	0	12	17	0	8	7	9	8
TOTAL	110-52	71	3.41	162	162	5	1466.1	1350	133	409	1133	623	556

What's striking here is that, even for a modern team, this staff never finished its starts. Felipe Alou had a great bullpen (and a deep roster to pinch hit for his helpless-hitting starters), and made extensive use of it. . . Ken Hill and Dennis Martinez went in opposite directions down the stretch in 1993, as Martinez salvaged what had been an awful year, while Hill had the swoon some were expecting again in 1994 when the strike hit . . . Wetteland was incredibly lights-out in 1993, and even moreso the end of the year.

More players:

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Dr. Manhattan has a rundown on the Yankees. Check it out.

Well, so much for optimism: Victor Zambrano walked off the mound in the second inning with an inflamed elbow, and is listed as day-to-day.

UPDATE: Not the same guy. A relative? Even so, it kind of moots the point. Consider this item corrected.

So last night, I saw John O'Neill of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on Joe Scarborough's show, debating John Hurley, national director of "Vietnam Veterans for Kerry." (I missed the same duo on Hardball last week, but it sounds like they did the same routine). Some Kerry supporters may wish to know: who is John Hurley? Well, Hurley is obviously a politically active head of a veterans' group, and he has a pretty thick Boston accent. Which leads me to believe that he is one and the same as John J. "Wacko" Hurley, head of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, who successfully fought all the way to the Supreme Court in 1995 to keep a gay group out of the Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Somebody call Media Matters, which tried to discredit the Swift Boat group by dredging up a variety of intemperate and in some cases intolerant quotes by O'Neill's co-author, Jerome Corsi. At least Corsi isn't actually heading a group directly affiliated with the Bush campaign.

(Of course, the merits of keeping gay groups out of the St. Patrick's Day Parade is open to fair debate, depending on one's view of the parade, but what do you think Atrios would say if Hurley was heading a pro-Bush group?)

As for the merits, I gotta say, if this was the first I'd seen of this controversy, I would have started off very skeptical - O'Neill seems so over-the-top in attacking just every bit of Kerry's service record, and his demeanor is very cheesy trial-lawyer. But I was definitely more convinced by the end that O'Neill's charges could have some weight to them. O'Neill just had a whole lot more specifics on his side, and all Hurley could do - besides say he thought O'Neill should be ashamed of himself - was to cite Navy reports that apparently relied on Kerry's own information.

The debate over the circumstances of Kerry's Bronze Star (the rescue of James Rassman) seems particularly stark - Kerry and Rassman say that Kerry came back alone under fire to pull out Rassman, O'Neill cites the captains of several other boats who say Kerry alone fled the scene and came back when the shooting stopped while there were several other boats around pulling other guys out of the water. It's very hard to write this off as a difference in perceptions.

Anyway, I remain open to persuasion on who's right here, and I remain skeptical of how relevant any of this really is to the 2004 campaign. But there's clearly an interesting story here.

U.S.A. Basketball has been taking a deserved beating from critics since Sunday�s brutal loss to Puerto Rico. Bill Simmons, starting off an otherwise-pop-culture-dominated debate on Page Two, asks a provocative question:

What happened to the point guard position? Why are the best ones (like Arroyo and Tony Parker) coming from other countries? Why do we keep producing dominant, shoot-first point guards who can't create for teammates in the open floor (Marbury, Baron Davis, Steve Francis, etc.)? Have we really failed that much? Is this the main reason why I'm constantly watching classic games from the '80s on NBA-TV and ESPN Classic, because those games represent the way basketball should look (everyone running the floor, people making the right decisions, guys using their teammates)? I wrote about the death of the point guard position three years ago, but things are even more depressing now.

At least the U.S. won today�barely.

I�m not terribly fond of wading into the partisan fray, especially as the presidential �debate� becomes increasingly bogged down in the quagmire of the Vietnam era, but every now and then I read something that really irritates me. So, be forewarned, a bit of a tirade follows.

The subject this time is Senator Tom Harkin�s denunciation of Vice President Dick Cheney as a �coward" for advocating an aggressive U.S. foreign policy in the War on Terror while having failed to go fight in the Vietnam War in the 1960�s. Don�t see the connection? Maybe that�s because you�re not living in Tom Harkin�s world.

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I was hoping to try and post something about baseball (or at least the Olympics), but lest any of us forget that there is a shooting war still going on, read this harrowing account of a firefight in Mosul from about a week ago. (Link via LT Smash). Also, read the follow-up on the identity of the adversaries.

Or these analyses, here and here, of the tense situation in Najaf.

Or an Australian�s optimistic overview.

Or, of course, this list.

It goes without saying, yet still needs to be said: God bless our troops in Iraq, as well as all those defending our interests and values throughout the world.

I'm on my way out of town again on business. It turns out that for all the Kerry camp's blather about how (most of) the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth never served on the same boat with John Kerry, one of his vocal "band of brothers" who spoke at the Democratic Convention may not have been either, and may be lying today. I've said for some time that I wasn't interested in exactly what Kerry did to earn medals in Vietnam, but it looks like the swift boat story is gaining some real traction anyway based on problems with the, er, accuracy of Kerry's narrative.

Captain Ed is on this story like a starving man on a sandwich. Go check him out.

In response to the destruction of Hurricane Charley, Michele Catalano links to Strengthen the Good, a grassroots charitable network designed for those who don�t want to wait around for the government to help solve problems. See also here.

This sounds like a very worthy effort. Check it out and help if you can.

So, last week, Louisiana Congressman Rodney Alexander switched parties, to catcalls from Democrats; Alexander chose to time his switch late enough to prevent the Democrats from fielding a viable opponent on November's ballot, a bit of non-beanbaggery that the perennially overwrought Mark Kleiman described as "about the sleaziest, most cowardly thing I've ever heard of a politician doing". Mmmm, short memory there, Professor Kleiman. Kevin Drum also called it "Pretty sleazy".

Well, now New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey has delayed his resignation in disgrace until November 15, to prevent any election at all to fill his job and keep the governorship in (unelected) Democratic hands until 2006. Neither Drum nor Kleiman has had anything to say on this yet - not that it's my place to tell them what to write - but it will be amusing to see if they turn around and defend this sort of chicanery when it helps their side. Hmmmmmmm.

UPDATE: The Mad Hibernian points me to this Professor Bainbridge post calling Kos on the same point.

Now, I haven't seen Victor Zambrano pitch for the Mets yet. And I continue to believe that they way overpaid for him. And I continue to be skeptical of Rick Peterson's reported boast that he could turn Zambrano around "in 10 minutes."

That being said, I am optimistic about Zambrano's future with the Mets, and his performance in his first two starts (2.92 ERA, 12 K, 5 BB, 10 H, 0 HR and 0 HBP in 12 innings) does nothing to undermine that confidence. Hopefully, Mets fans won't hold against Zambrano the front office's foolishness in dealing for him. And, of coure, people should be patient if he gets shelled in his next start - in Colorado.

A couple of days ago, I linked to an ESPN piece on the �at bat songs� (generally brief, blaring rock or rap songs) of major leaguers. Now comes this sad news:

Nancy Bea Hefley, the organist at Dodger Stadium for the past 17 seasons, says she can play 2,000 songs from memory.

But these days, the Los Angeles Dodgers really need her for only one: Take Me Out to the Ball Game�

In late May, the Dodgers sharply cut her role as principal stadium entertainer. Instead, the Dodgers added louder music and electronic gimmicks to match the audio pyrotechnics at other sporting venues. The move also is intended to appease players who want their personal theme songs played.

The �at bat songs� do give players a little more individuality, but their sheer volume can be deafening to fans and distracting from the game. Isn't the game better served by quieter music, which is actually performed live and is more - pardon the pun - organic?

Of course, my ultimate preference would be to see the Dodgers bring back the Sym-phony Band.

This movie, from the creators of �South Park�, looks like it may potentially be very funny:

[T]he idea of "Team America: World Police" was born, a film which follows an international police force dedicated to maintaining global stability. The story follows Gary Johnston, a rising Broadway star who's reluctantly recruited by "Team America" to go undercover and expose the power hungry North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il who's brokering a deal to sell weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Along the way they must fight enemies on all sides (including a group of Hollywood liberals such as Alec Baldwin, Liv Tyler, Matt Damon, George Clooney and more) to stop the bad guys, and traverse the globe across Paris, Cairo, Panama, South Dakota and Korea to do battle.

I also love the part about how this film went forward only after Stone and Parker�s lawyers vetoed an idea for a �scene-by-scene movie based on this Summer's environmental disaster action epic �The Day After Tomorrow�.�

This article has more:

Team America is being criticized as yet another broadside against U.S. President George W. Bush from Hollywood liberals. But a key conceit of the Paramount Pictures movie, which is essentially an action film made with sophisticated marionettes visiting exotic locations, is that it depicts left-leaning show business �lites as selfish and superficial.

Among the many prominent activists who may be shown in a less-than-flattering Team America light are Ben Affleck and Fahrenheit 9/11 filmmaker Michael Moore. Says Parker: "We only went after people who at least invited it."

Partisans on either side should generally avoid falling into the trap of condemning movies that haven�t either opened or even been seriously reviewed, especially ones like this which haven�t obviously tipped their hand as to their message. Again, it is worth remembering that the politics of �South Park� are unpredictable and not easily categorized.

A few quick sports-related links are also in order:

* Norm over at The Shea Hot Corner lists eight reasons why he is leaving Washington, D.C. to return home to New York. I can relate.

* From NJ.com, which presumably is also covering certain other current events, Jason Mastaitis has the latest Mets news, including an encouraging performance last night by Victor Zambrano.

* Tonight is, of course, the opening ceremonies of the Athens Summer Olympics. As I�ve mentioned before, in addition to the American athletes, I�ll be rooting for these guys. Considering all they�ve been through, it is hard not to.

Since the Crank is on the road, here is a collection of links for your reading pleasure:

* Jonah Goldberg notes the passing of Julia Child and refers to her service in the OSS during the Second World War. This article has more on that under-reported aspect of her remarkable life. (UPDATE: Also, this is funny).

* Daniel Drezner's site examines this interesting proposal to make health insurance, rather than health care, a universal government entitlement. Though I�m deeply skeptical, I�m not sure where I come down on that. Anyway, the question of how to possibly protect those Americans without health insurance reminds me, for whatever reason, of a great quote by Winston Churchill on the middle ground between capitalism and socialism:

�I do not want to see impaired the vigor of competition but we can do much to mitigate the consequences of failure. We want to draw a line below which we will not allow persons to live and labor, yet above which they may compete with all the strength of their manhood. We want to have free competition upwards; we decline to allow free competition to run downwards. We do not want to pull down the structure of science or civilization; but to spread a net over the abyss.�

* Ralph Peters argues that al Qaeda and its terrorist allies are proving to be their own worst enemies, while Dan Byman writes that, though Americans face grave danger, we may be a good deal safer than we think.

While I'm away, I will leave you with this, a wonderful illustration of how Vietnam winds up being at the center of anything John Kerry does, no matter what the issue at hand, and an illustration in particular of the context behind his use of the "Christmas in Cambodia" fable in a 1986 debate on Nicaragua; from a wonderful May 17, 2004 cover story by Jay Nordlinger in National Review on Kerry's Latin America policies dating back to the 1980s, available in full online only to subscribers:

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I'm on the road the next few days, so I won't be catching much baseball and posting will be slim to none.

John Cole demolishes one of the Kerry camp's fraudulent talking points on the swift boat story: that the Swift Boat Vets aren't qualified to speak to Kerry's Vietnam experience because they were not in his boat. I'm left with three possibilities to explain why the Kerry people are relying on such thoroughly bogus arguments, coupled with foolish, bullying threats of lawsuits to stifle a poorly funded ad campaign:

1. The Swift Boat Vets are right.

2. The Kerry people are incompetent fools.

3. The Kerry people have such contempt for the public that they think this will do.

(My money's mostly on #3, but the Swifties have at least scored one apparent hit with the "Christmas in Cambodia" story that Kerry has now backed off from after saying in 1979 - when it should have been fresher in his mind - that it was "seared" in his memory).

And we have to consider who this story is aimed at. To me, John Kerry is still a war hero. But I'm not the Swift Boat Vets' target audience.

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I was mildly surprised that nobody took a chance on Bret Boone at the trading deadine, given that it was only last season that Boone was third in the league with 117 RBI, scored 111 runs, won the Gold Glove and finished tenth in the MVP balloting, and given some of the weak-hitting second basemen fielded by contenders: the Twins' Luis Rivas (.247/.399/.274); the Yankees' Miguel Cairo (.286/.418/.332 being way over his career averages of .271/.367/.319); the Angels' Adam Kennedy (.257/.366/.327); the Phillies' Placido Polanco (.277/.385/.340); and the A's' Marco Scutaro (.280/.386/.306). Sure enough, Boone - who averaged .301/.526/.358 with 106 runs and 122 RBI the past three seasons, and who I ranked before the season as the 8th best player in baseball by Established Win Shares (with 29) - is batting .305/.467/.368 since the All-Star Break.

Not that I think Boone is a superstar at this juncture; he's 35, and he had a horrid first half, and frankly I haven't really seen him play this season. I suspect his defense may have deteriorated badly; the Hardball Times' Win Shares numbers (granting that in-season Win Shares are not the best way to evaluate defense) show him with 1.5 defensive Win Shares compared to 4.0 for Rivas, 2.6 for Cairo, 2.9 for Kennedy, 3.2 for Polanco, and 3.9 for Scutaro. Boone's Range Factor and Zone Rating this season are 4.32 and .755, career lows and down from 4.54 and .814 just last season. And frankly, while the other second basemen listed above are all offensive weak links, none but Rivas - possibly the best of the bunch with the glove - has really been horrendous. So maybe it's no surprise that the highly-paid Boone ($8 million salary this season) just couldn't be shopped despite pretty good odds that he'd provide an offensive upgrade for a contending team.

More on Vietnam another day - for now, this is the link of the day, QandO discussing an op-ed in the LA Times on the real scandal in Kerry's record: how he was wrong on nearly every major foreign policy initiative during and immediately after the Cold War. Key quote:

Many leaders had a hand in Washington's Cold War triumph, but Ronald Reagan's contributions were pivotal, and Kerry opposed every one of them. Reagan's defense buildup disabused Soviet leaders of any hope that they could ultimately come out ahead of the United States. Kerry derided these military expenditures as "bloated" and "without any relevancy to the threat." In particular, Reagan's plan to seek a missile defense system against Soviet ICBMs and NATO's decision to station new missiles in Europe to counteract the new Soviet deployment there rendered futile the Kremlin's vast investment in nuclear supremacy. Instead of these measures, Kerry advocated that we adopt a one-sided "nuclear freeze."

Here's President Bush's current stump speech on the war, which has a pretty good nutshell summary of why it all happened, and a good zinger at Kerry; I highlight some of the points the Administration hasn't really stressed enough in the past:

Before September the 11th, the ruler of Iraq was a sworn enemy of America. He was defying the world. He was firing weapons at American pilots who were enforcing the world's sanctions. He had pursued and he had used weapons of mass destruction. He harbored terrorists. He invaded his neighbors. He subsidized the families of suicide bombers. He murdered tens of thousands of his own citizens. He was the source of great instability in the world's most volatile region.

After September the 11th we looked at all the threats of the world in a new light. One of the lessons of September the 11th is that America must take threats seriously before they fully materialize. (Applause.) We saw a threat. My administration looked at the intelligence and saw a threat. The United States Congress looked at the same intelligence; members of both political parties, including my opponent, looked at the intelligence and came to the same conclusion.

We went to the United Nations, which looked at the intelligence and demanded a full accounting of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, or face serious consequences. After 12 years of defiance, he again refused to comply. He deceived the weapons inspectors. So I had a choice to make: either forget the lessons of September the 11th and take the word of a madman who hated America, or defend this country. Given that choice, I will defend America. (Applause.)

Even though we did not find the stockpiles that we expected to find, removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right thing to do. (Applause.) Saddam Hussein had the capability to make weapons of mass destruction. And he could have passed that capability on to terrorist enemies. After September the 11th, that was a chance we could not afford to take. And America and the world are safer because Saddam Hussein sits in a prison cell. (Applause.)

And now -- and now, almost two years after he voted for the war in Iraq, and almost 220 days after switching positions to declare himself the anti-war candidate, my opponent has found a new nuance. He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq. After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Senator Kerry now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpile of weapons we all believe were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power. I want to thank Senator Kerry for clearing that up. (Applause.)

Doesn't the Rev. Moon perform ceremonies like this? (link via Bill Simmons)

I'm a little late to this particular party (what else is new?), but you owe it to yourself to read Howard Bashman's interview with Seventh Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook in its entirety (and weep that this man does not sit on the Supreme Court). Don't know how I missed this, but I actually didn't know he was the brother of Gregg Easterbrook, the New Republic writer and Tuesday Morning Quarterback and one of the most entertaining politics/sports writers in the business. But which brother is more entertaining is debatable, as Judge Easterbrook has some great lines here. I'd emphasize that you should read the whole thing; here are some excerpts:

*How can you not be impressed by a guy who says, "I read science journals as well as economics journals and law reviews in my spare time"

*Easterbrook catches Bashman at one of his tricks in this feature: "although the interview is captioned '20 Questions for the Appellate Judge,' you propounded more than 40, with multiple interrogatory sentences per paragraph and compound inquiries per sentence. So a two-to-one ratio must be acceptable."

*On judicial legitimacy:

Judges must explain not only why their views are sound but also why on debatable issues only the judges' views count. Unless the Constitution encodes principles that can be applied using the approach of Marbury v. Madison, then the political resolution must prevail. (I expatiate on this in Abstraction and Authority, 59 U. Chi. L. Rev. 349 (1992).) Justices are fond of saying that all power must be checked, but where is the check on the Supreme Court's? It lies in text, logic, and history.

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The US District Court for the District of Columbia today released an opinion (dated July 20, 2004; link opens as PDF file) ordering Tim Russert and Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper to disclose information provided to them by confidential sources (presumably, the identities of individuals within the Bush Administration) in the Valerie Plame investigation. (The Washington Post has more here).

UPDATE: Here's the bottom-line order (also a PDF) holding Cooper and Time in contempt but staying the contempt order pending an appeal to the DC Circuit.

Watching the Mets get completely dismantled by the Cardinals this weekend was not fun - let the record reflect that just 8 days after trading their best prospect and several other key blue chips to shore up theirn rotation for the 2004 stretch run, the Mets stand 11 games out of first place and 8 1/2 games back (in 9th place) in the wild card race. It's over.

The Cards, meanwhile, had a real strike of genius in acquiring Larry Walker to join Jim Edmonds and . . . well, Jim Edmonds in their outfield. Even for all his injuries and Coors and everything else, Walker is still a formidable offensive threat (.279/.494./.392 on the road the last three years, and .317/.780/.508 in 58 plate appearances on the road this year). For St. Louis, this is the time to go for the jugular, and that's exactly what the Walker acquisition represents.

I'm less clear, at this distance, why Ray Lankford (.258/.425/.353) got his walking papers rather than, say, Reggie Sanders (.252/.476/.297); Brian at Redbird Nation thinks other reserve outfielders, notably So Taguchi, should have been the odd men out.