That's What I Was Thinking

Thank you, Kevin Drum, for the perspective on that Galston & Kamarck report on how the Democratic Party's problem is that it's too far Left.

Well. Color me and the other sane residents of Colorado as so embarrassed. That nitwit Allard is one of the Nine Riders in favor of torture by Saur...I mean, the Bush Administration. One of the Notorious Nine who refused to support the anti-torture amendment in the spending bill. I really am hoping there's more to this story than this. Really.

And, speaking of offensive stupidity, how about that Bennett and his so-funny jokes about aborting black babies to lower the crime rate, huh? We should all be taking it personally. (Via Mustang Bobby.) Yeah, I know, the remark was taken out of context. So, you know what? What I think we should all be doing is pointing the fingers and writing the angry posts to the media. They're the ones who clipped the remark to make it more sensational, after all.

David Corn says what I was thinking. The awarding of the Nobel Prize to the IAEA is a slap in the face to the Bush Administration. And, in my view, a well-deserved one.

Dr Fallon, at In the Dark, says something else I was thinking. Al Gore '08 has a decent ring to it, don't you think?

Simbaud, at King of Zembla, has Many Many Zeroes for us today. The best are the last two:

Total U.S. spending on poppy eradication and other antidrug efforts in Afghanistan last year: $780,000,0000

Amount it would have cost to purchase the country's entire 2004 poppy crop: $600,000,000

And I had to laugh. Just had to. Avedon Carol passes along the news that even Ann C*ulter is having a hissy fit over Bush's inexplicable nomination of some nobody...I mean Meirs...to the Supreme Court. Even Ann C*ulter! But if you read A.C.'s column, you can tell it hurt her to write it. It's only when she can jam a hateful remark about Kerry into the column that she seems to start feeling a little better about it all.

(It is funny. One way you can tell a wingnut from a serious journalist or commentator is that the wingnut will never be able to resist a cheap shot. Even if, like A.C., he or she has to go off on a wild tangent to force the cheapshot into the text.)

(Plus which, the grammar section is worth reading. Since I all-too-often choose to abandon the precepts of good grammar in favor of some incoherent sentence structure that pleases me at the moment, I plead guilty. But, you know what? From the structure of her column, she makes bad grammar one of the central pillars of her argument and thus turns the entire thing into...well, into the usual pile of C*lter Mush.)

Or...does Ed, over at The Grey Matter have the right take? I have to admit, I did wonder if the suspiciously spontaneous outburst of right-wing protest was orchestrated. C*lter is suspect enough but when it comes to Nooner dissing her Superhero, something just smells like tuna. (Truth is, I haven't made up my mind about Meirs. Second, or even third-tier law schools can turn out brilliant lawyers. Research into the Supreme Court's history has confirmed that nominating people with no judicial experience whatsoever is fairly common, so she's not unique in that respect. At the moment, I'm doing a wait-and-see. She might win comfirmation, based on the Gang of 14 informally agreeing that a filibuster will not be mounted. Or she might withdraw her own nomination. Or maybe she was a beard all along and the next nominee will surprise us all. There's even a rumor out there that she's a closeted feministe. If so, she's also an opportunist, having spent her career supporting the anti-feminist Party, but whatever.)

Amanda at Pandagon impressed me today.