July 25, 2005

7/25: In, But Not Of?

Note for web readers: For the time being, we're still putting our SCOTUS Blogometer Special at the top of the regular, non-special Blogometer. To skip all the SCOTUS chatter, click here.

News from the weekend splits blogger attention in a few different directions, such that the swarm on WH dep. CoS Karl Rove becomes just another one of the stories. The implications of the 7/23 al Qaeda attack in Egypt, the announced breakup of the current AFL-CIO coalition, and the funeral-crashing of PA's LG were all widely discussed on the blogs this weekend and into this a.m. And that's to say nothing of the John Roberts SCOTUS nod. In some small part, it could be argued that the flap over Roberts' Federalist Society affiliation has (temporarily) replaced the various controversies around Rove, which are rapidly approaching the point of being prohibitively intricate and based more on speculation than known fact.

Liberal bloggers will probably keep the Rove case going for awhile no matter what, but the number of pixels it attracts will derive more from news (whether originating in the blogosphere or the MSM) than commentary, and ultimately, will go big-time or bust depending on the outcome of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation. We are reminded of the political firestorm this spring, when many of the same bloggers were calling for the head of House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay. The legal case at issue there is still in the TX courts, and the pursuit of DeLay is today almost nil. Whether the same happens to the Rove story over the coming days and weeks is anyone's guess.

TRACKBACKS: Does This Qualify As A Flip-Flop?

Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:

• This a.m. the Washington Post's Charles Lane reports that, contra previous reports that Roberts was not a member of the Federalist Society (following reports that he was) and contra statements by Roberts that he couldn't remember if he was a member or not, in fact Roberts is listed in a '97-'98 leadership directory for the conservative/libertarian legal group.
  
  

  >> From the right: Betsy's Page: "Roberts has said he wasn't a member after many media organizations had reported that he was. I guess the media couldn't stand that they had made a mistake and had repeated it over and over. So, instead, they dig up an eight-year old directory and splash it on the front page." · NRO's Jonah Goldberg: "He must pay. He must apologize like Henry in the snows of Canosa for this perfidy. Take his liver, I say!" · PoliBlog: "I will say that given the strenuous denials that Roberts was ever in the Federalist Society does make this something that Roberts/the admin will have to dance around."
  
  

  >> From the left: MyDD: "I wonder what else he has forgotten. Perhaps he has forgotten that he served a purely political position in the solicitor's general's office. ... These seem to be things that even fellow Democrats are forgetting. This guy is not another David Souter." · Duncan Black: "When they feel the need to lie about the little things ... we know they have no problem lying about the big ones..." · Kevin Drum: "Look, I'm always up for a spirited round of conservative scandal-mongering, but this is about the lamest excuse for a nano-scandal that I've seen in a long time."
  
  

  >> More: The Sideshow; Corrente; Volokh Conspiracy.

CONFIRMATION: If Roberts' Confirmation Is Basically A Given, All That's Left Is To Game Out How The WH'08 Dems Will Vote ...

The Drudge Report has an "exclusive" report quoting a "top Hillary source" indicating that Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has "confided to associates that she intends to vote FOR" Roberts. The reaction is midly skeptical.

Left-leaning Brendan Nyhan: "Given what Drudge did to [Pres.] Clinton in the 1990s, it would certainly be ironic if her campaign is actually leaking to him now. But given [Matt] Drudge's standards of 'journalism,' this might be complete garbage." RedState's Confirm Them's "RyanK": "I'm not buying it just yet, primarily because I do not believe she has the 2008 nomination wrapped up." Headline at conservative Power Line: "HILLARY WAS ALWAYS SMARTER"

THE FIGHT: Out -- Borking; In -- Estradification

Conservative PoliPundit takes issue with John Kerry calling on the WH to release Roberts' records "in their entirety," considering Kerry's stinginess with his SF-180 military records: "Judge Roberts could just follow the senator's example and release his records (see 5/25 Blogometer). But only to three friendly reporters. And only after he's confirmed. And isn't there the wee matter of attorney-client privilege between Roberts and the White House he was advising?"

Captain's Quarters, on the WH's announcement that it would not hand over Roberts' papers from the solicitor's office: "The Bush administration must keep its spine stiffened on this point, and break out the Byrd option at the first hint of a filibuster. If the Democrats attempt to Estradify a Supreme Court nominee the way they've done to John Bolton, they will kiss their red-state Senate seats goodbye in 2006, and perhaps hand the GOP a filibuster-proof minority."

IMPACT: Peeling Back The Layers

DLC pres. Bruce Reed writes in a post at his Slate blog, The Has Been: "The best window into what kind of justice Roberts will become may be what kind of judges he helped Reagan pick." He notes that of Reagan's judges, 59% had "exceptionally well-qualified" or "well-qualified" ratings from the ABA, well-below the judges picked by Dem presidents, and below Bush 41's as well. They were also "95 percent male, 97 percent white, 24 percent Ivy League." Reed quotes from an '03 exchange between Roberts and Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), where Roberts claims judges who said they would put political considerations above legal ones would not be promoted. Roberts said this was because they wanted "judges who were going to follow the rule of law." Reed comments: "Maybe. But it seems just as likely that the process was designed for another purpose: to weed out candidates who'd never get past the Judiciary Committee because they gave their politics away with every answer."

U.S. News' Michael Barone writes in a letter to Power Line: "My radical proposal, which I am sure will never be adopted, is: reduce the number of Supreme Court law clerks to one or two. My expected result, were this ever to be done: many fewer separate opinions and clearer, more straightforward opinions that intelligent citizens could easily read in full. ... As for Justice Roberts, he seems clearly to be a man who will not be moved away from his convictions by his clerks."

From Think Progress' SCOTUS-focused blog, Supreme Court Extra (nee Clerks): "Hoping against hope that Roberts will turn out to be another Souter strikes me as a very dangerous form of wishful thinking that has been spreading through left wing blog comments."

TAPPED's Sam Rosenfeld notices pieces by New York Times columnist David Brooks and Weekly Standard publisher Bill Kristol calling Roberts "the sort of person who rises when a movement is mature and running things" (Brooks' description). Rosenfeld is skeptical: "Does the mere existence and ascension of a respectable, well-credentialed, well-connected, conservative jurist really merit the potent symbolic weight these guys are trying to attach to it? ... Not to put too fine a point on it, but" GOP governance since '94 "has been characterized by corruption, incompetence, managerial ineptitude, and a rather elastic adherence to actual conservative principles, and that puts folks like the Standard's editors into some tough binds at times."

Supreme Court Nomination Blog's Lyle Denniston takes an in-depth look at Roberts' rulings per the war on terrorism.

POLITICAL MONEY BLOG: When The Bar Meets The Sidebar

PFA has a blogad up promoting its website JudgeRoberts.com, plus an "exclusive [online] commercial." The ad features the standard head shot of Roberts and features a quote from quote from "Former Al Gore Attorney David Boies": "Judge Roberts is a brilliant lawyer, a brilliant judge. He is a very careful judge, a thoughtful judge. I would agree with what the President said earlier. He is a decent man. I think everybody who knows him likes him." The campaign began on 7/21 and will run through 7/27.

PFA spokesperson Jessica Boulanger explained: "We were looking for a good cross section of blogs where we felt we could reach the largest number of members of our target audience. Just as we do with all of our online adbuys, we'll evaluate the performance when it's done and use that info for future buys." More: "Bloggers are influential and an important part of this process. They have audiences we want to reach."

PFA placed the $3.5K ad buy through BlogAds for space on about 30 weblogs "of a right, libertarian, or legal bent." Those blogs include PoliPundit, Instapundit, Blogs for Bush, Outside The Beltway

For previous blogad reports, see the 7/14 and 6/17 Blogometers.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS: No Vacancy

At NRO's Bench Memos, Matthew Franck disputes Sandra Day O'Connor's announcement that she would serve until her replacement was named. According to his interpretation of the relevant U.S. code, if she remains in her seat until confirmation, there is no vacancy to be filled. He adds: " I never thought Justice O'Connor understood legal principles with any particular clarity, and she departed from the Court in just such a way as to prove me right."

BLOGOMETER: Divorce Is A Good Thing?

LABOR: The Fall Of The House Of Labor

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, on the AFL-CIO split: "I suspect this is for the best, since the two halves have genuinely different goals and a breakup will allow them to pursue those goals as aggressively as they want. Still, I sure hope Andy Stern knows what he's doing..." TPM Cafe's House of Labor bloggers don't have much to add -- posts are few and comments are minimal; ex-AFL-CIOer Bill Fletcher expresses "sadness and frustration."

At The Next Hurrah, "DHinMI" considers potential repercussions for Dems: "[W]ithout voters from union households, Kerry would have been slaughtered. Other than maybe gay environmentalists with a PhD who live in Brookline, MA or Manhattan, about the only segment of white males who consistently vote Democratic are union members."

MyDD's Chris Bowers, who discloses his paid consulting for SEIU, calls it "huge -- at least as big as" Karl Rove or John Roberts. He argues that Stern is likely doing the right thing, as "the value of maintaining the current structure is not in clear to me. What ... Stern and SEIU [are] doing seems to be working, as they are actually rapidly increasing in size at a time when overall unions are in decline. I, for one, am more willing to support a plan that seems to be working rather than one that seems to be failing." At Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas is disappointed but optimistic, writing, "fact is, the AFL-CIO is broken and there was no will to reform. And when the status quo won't budge, sometimes it takes drastic measures to shake the establishment out of its inertia."

ROVE: Mind The Gap

On 7/16, a diarist at Daily Kos noted the "11 HOUR GAP" between when then-WH counsel Alberto Gonzales found out about the DoJ's investigation into the Plame leak and when he told the WH staff to preserve relevant documents. In the New York Times this weekend, Frank Rich brings issue back to the fore.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that Gonzales informed WH CoS Andrew Card about 12 hours before the rest of the staff knew. In a new post on the matter, Daily Kos' Moulitsas suggests, "it was a heads up to the administration to what, fire up the shredders?"

JustOneMinute's Tom Maguire writes, the Post makes this a "bigger deal than necessary," noting that news reports made it clear that "criminal referral was imminent" and so with or without Gonzales' notification, "any criminal conspirators had plenty of warning."

David Corn lists the "ritualistic moments" of the Rove/Plame scandal, including the "lack of attention from the establishment press," the "dismissal from spinners," the WH "stonewalling," and the "inconvenient quote." But one key moment "has yet to occur: a member of the president's own party publicly criticizing the White House for the wrongdoing being investigated." Yet so far GOPers have closed ranks, even, "[s]adly," John McCain.

INTELLIGENCE: Different Roberts

Liberal Talking Points Memo calls Senate Intel Cmte chair Pat Roberts (R-KS) a "shame": "Note that there are no congressional investigations into the origin of the Niger forgeries, the outing of Valerie Plame, and countless other scandals and mysteries large and small. (Remember, after the 2004 election, Roberts announced that there's now not enough time for the investigation into possible political manipulation of Iraqi WMD intel, which he promised prior to the election.) But now there will be congressional hearings into whether the CIA does a good enough job at protecting the 'cover' of its agents in its Directorate of Operations. It's necessary to unpack this one to see just what a lickspittle the Senator from Kansas really is." He does. Stygius, on the same topic, headlines a post: "Pat Roberts tries to pull a fast one"

The Left Coaster's "eriposte" launches into a multi-part analysis of the "whitewash" Senate Intel report on Iraq and Niger's uranium, answering in part 1 the question, did the report provide justification for the claim that Saddam was "recently seeking significant quantities" of uranium. The answer: "a resounding NO."

Right-leaning Balloon Juice notices ex-Defense Undersec. Jed Babbin discussing an apparent DoJ investigation into Dem Sens. Jay Rockefeller (WV), Dick Durbin (IL) and Ron Wyden (OR) having "leaked details about a secret 'black ops' CIA satellite program" in 12/04, adding: "I am fighting a mighty urge not to say something like 'the CIA referred it, so it must be serious.' Woops." More: "As a general rule, if you even think it might be sensitive information, don't blab it? Is that too difficult a principle for everyone in DC?

TERRORISM: London And Beyond

Instapundit collects reactions to the misbegotten Tube shooting from moderates Joe Gandelman and Ann Althouse, who writes: "[I]f anyone ever behaves like [the victim] again, the presumption that he is a terrorist will be so overwhelmingly strong that the police really must kill him." Some Instapundit readers suggest it was a case of "suicide by cop."

Atrios, on the same incident: "This issue is not those who are second-guessing cops who are frequently in horrible positions. ... The issue is the cheerleaders of the 'shoot first ask questions later' attitude, and the critics of those who dare suggest that shooting someone the government has labelled 'terrorist suspect' absent trial is problematic. [Pres.] Bush and the Right generally have become masters of this rhetorical trick. Criticize the Bush policies in Iraq? You're attacking the troops! ... It's long past time for the Right to take responsible for its own actions and rhetoric, and stop trying to pawn it off on those on the front lines."

The Left Coaster's Matt Davis snarks: "I think it's important that we all understand why these kinds of attacks happen. These people hate Egypt's freedoms."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Have You Had Your Phil?

In the 7/7 and 7/8 Blogometers we mentioned the outcry over the New York Times' manipulation of an op-ed by milblogger Phil Carter. On 7/17, Times public editor Barney Calame published an explanation, and on 7/24, Calame ran a column of letters from still-angry readers. Conservative Medacrity comments: "Basically, Calame put his increasingly pathetic column on autopilot, while he goes back to sleep on the divan. ... Every biased and inept journalist loves reader letters. They are a thousand times better than the Public Editor roasting your tootsies."

MSM VS. THE BLOGS: Was The Denver-Area Press Threatened By All The Scoops Colorado Pols Has Been Getting? (Does The Pope Wear A Funny Hat?)

Having "traced e-mails" from a pseudonym of the heretofore anonymous Colorado Pols founder, Rocky Mountain News' Jim Tankersley and M.E. Sprengelmeyer on 7/23 identified that person as Jason Bane, a journalist, a registered Dem, and aide to Denver DA Mitch Morrissey's '04 campaign. Bane "admitted responsibility" for the site, which he runs with 2 others, including a GOPer. Bane: "Certainly I have had a lot of involvement with it. It's not my blog."

Colorado Pols noted the article when it was posted on 7/22 p.m., under the header "Caught!": "Colorado Pols is the work of many people on different sides of the aisle, and only one of those identities have been revealed (the others will not be, unless some news entity finds it on their own)."

TANCREDO: That's Tancredible!

Conservative radio talker Hugh Hewitt calls Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) "preoccupied with attention-getting statements," "incoherent" (more than once) and writes, Tancredo's argument is an "insult to every Muslim who has courageously stood up to Islamist terror..." More Hewitt: "No serious politician in the country has come to Tancredo's defense, and indeed I have not seen any credible authority on war or religion endorse this foolishness." Conservative Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist James Lileks: "Bombing Mecca to revenge the acts of maniacs is like nuking the Vatican to protest the pedophilia scandal in Boston." But he adds: "Providing he apologizes, this incident shouldn't discredit his concerns over border security."

Noting the launch of a Stop Tancredo website, Colorado Pols opines: "Protesting Tom Tancredo is like protesting Ward Churchill. In the end, all you're doing is making their voices louder..."

BYRD: Sometimes It Makes Me Wonder How I Keep From Going Under

Silflay Hraka is one of a few conservative bloggers to pick up on a questionable sentence from a letter by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) praising John Roberts, here referenced by the Washington Times. About the "mollycoddling of criminals," Byrd -- whom Silflay Hraka designates "(KKK-W.Va)" -- is quoted: "One's life is probably in no greater danger in the jungles of deepest Africa than in the jungles of America's large cities." Silflay Hraka: "Post-colonial imperialist connotations aside, does anybody think Trent Lott could get away with saying something like that?"

IN THE STATES: Crash

In a post titled "Outrage: The Funeral Crasher," conservative Michelle Malkin writes: "Milbloggers and e-mailers are buzzing about" how "moonbat" PA LG Catherine Baker Knoll (D) "reportedly showed up uninvited at a Marine's funeral and voiced her anti-war views." Blackfive quotes from the relevant Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, provides contact info for Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) and links to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's page about the Marine, Sgt. Joseph Goodrich.

PoliPundit's Alexander McClure speculates: "It should be interesting to see if Ed Rendell comes out against the Iraq War to rescue his hapless and rude Lieutenant Governor. If he does, that could end up bringing national security and terrorism into the gubernatorial race next year. Such a development would, I think, help the GOP in Pennsylvania." The incident reminds conservative John Hawkins of the movie "Cadillac Man." A RedState diarist: "I don't have much to add here, other than to say I am completely outraged."

INTRODUCING: Who Says Looks Aren't Everything?

Newly redesigned this weekend: Hugh Hewitt's eponymous blog and Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine. Other site redesigns in the past few weeks include Americans For Bayh and John Cole's Balloon Juice.

MISCELLANY: More Blogs, Less Time

• Liberal Australian prof Tim Lambert writes that controversial AEI scholar/pro-gun author John Lott "libels" John Donohue from the U. Chicago Federalist Society over a debate that never came to be.
• Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) will answer questions in a Washington Post live chat today; over the weekend, Philly-based lefty Atrios posted a link, encouraging his readers to pose questions.
• Conservative Robert George: "John Bolton will never be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Whether he should be or not is no longer the question. Whether the 'temperament' charges against him were fair or if he was just a victim of Chris Dodd's pro-Cuba fetish doesn't matter. It is now politically impossible." It has to do with Roberts and Plame. He explains.
• On 7/22, ex-Sen. John Edwards' One America Committee posted links to facilitate reader participation in online polls hosted by CNN, FNC, etc. as it does every few days.
• At Washington Monthly's Political Animal, Los Angeles Times' Michael Hiltzik praise the work done by outgoing Times editor John Carroll.
• Re: the commentary about John Roberts' personal life extending from a New York Times profile (see 7/22 Blogometer), Unfogged is one of a few liberal blogs to mock conservative blogs such as Reasoned Audacity for taking some comments too seriously. Unfogged's "Fontana Labs" snarks: "Our cause is doomed."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Putting Them On The Map

Conservative TigerHawk: "Test your knowledge of the location of European countries here. Victory lap moment: I scored 44 out of 45 countries, having blown San Marino notwithstanding the small assist the game gives you for the microstates. Atlanticist triumphalism moment: How many Europeans can score 98% locating American states? Finally, I hereby challenge everybody with a bumper sticker that reads "49% of Americans agree with 99% of the rest of the world" to a geography contest, head-to-head, right now."

LEST WE FORGET: May The Best Man Win

NYC-based Gawker is hosting a poll for readers to vote for the "Gawker Hotties," or "Men of the Times"; categories include "Love Him For His Brain" and "Love Him For His Body." As of this a.m., crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz easily leads the pack in the former category, while Styles editor Warren St. John holds a narrow lead over Metro reporter/ex-Washington Monthly writer Nicholas Confessore in the latter.

Posted by at July 25, 2005 12:46 PM