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July 06, 2005

7/6: Right Out Of The Gate

BLOGOMETER SCOTUS SPECIAL

For the duration of the political fight to fill the SCOTUS vacancy, the Blogometer will split its coverage into SCOTUS-related and non-SCOTUS sections; needless to say, this is the former. Here's the 1st installment:

Since Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her resignation from the SCOTUS late in the a.m. on 7/1, the blogosphere has been abuzz with speculation and debate about Pres. Bush's replacement pick -- though the din was quieted somewhat by the weekend revelation that WH dep. CoS Karl Rove might have been the sought-after leaker in the Valerie Plame investigation (see the non-SCOTUS Blogometer). Perhaps not surprisingly, conservative blogs are more interested than their liberal counterparts in speculating about who the nominee might be. Among them there is little enthusiasm for AG Alberto Gonzales, but considerable optimism that he will not get the nod. And while there is some careful speculation about the nominee, most of the related blogosphere discussion (especially on the left) concerns the political fight -- how it might play out, and who has the upper hand, and how the other side isn't playing fair.

Before we get to all that, we present here a few of the blogs we expect to do the most (and perhaps most interesting) SCOTUS-related blogging, for your edification and our own list-making enjoyment:

GONZALES: All Eyez On He

Pro-Bush Confirm Them a few other bloggers pick up on the Washington Post's report of Rove's possible "Freudian slip" -- referring to Gonzales as "Justice Gonzales."

Conservative Daily Pundit strenuously objects: "I ... expect that if Bush does nominate Gonzales and is successful in pushing him through the confirmation process before October, he will seal the biggest election setback for the Republicans in decades."

But Baseball Crank sees it differently: "If Bush does tap Gonzales, liberals will be in a fascinating bind. On the one hand, there are several reasons to want a fight: liberal interest groups have been itching for one for a decade; presidential candidates need to preen; there's a partisan interest in doing political damage to Bush ... On the other hand, Gonzales is almost certainly the least conservative candidate who's likely to be nominates ... and there's political risk for the party in general in knee-jerk obstructionism of a guy widely painted as a moderate, especially since defeating him - with a Rehnquist retirement still possible within the year - would exhaust much political capital needed for two more fights."

LUTTIG: Do The Business Groups Have That Much Clout Here?

RedState: "Well placed sources are telling RedState that various business interests are lining up in opposition to Michael Luttig as a possible appointment to the Supreme Court. According to the sources, Luttig tacks too much to the Scalia position" in that he "might be too willing to accept government regulation."

ROBERTS: Not The Guy From CBS

Elswewhere, RedState opines that Judge John Roberts has "floated towards the top of the list," as a "source very close to the White House suggests that Judge Roberts name is being given active consideration."

At his blog, conservative radio talker Hugh Hewitt comments: "Good. Very, very good. If the Chief steps down as well, the Luttig-Roberts team would be tremendous, though Judges [Emilio] Garza and [Michael] McConnell are in the same league."

THE FIGHT: What If This Round Is A Bust?

What the buzz out there sounds like:

  • Left-leaning "Atrios" responds to the news, based on 1 story in the Washington Post and 2 in the New York Times, respectively: "Surveying the lockstep Supreme Court coverage we see a few themes. The Senate really just has to do what the president wants, because I say so. Even if Bush nominates a right wing nutjob, he probably will turn out to not be a right wing nutjob. Don't worry, be happy! Democrats are not allowed to ask questions about... well, as far as I can tell, anything. All questions of a nominee are inappropriate."
  • Right-leaning Wall Street Journal online columnist James Taranto quotes Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on "FNS" as criticizing the "saying: "groups [that have/will] mobilize, the money all raised, the expectation," etc. and suggests that maybe Dems they "realize that this time they cannot deliver." Dems have a GOP majority bigger "than during any GOP presidency since Hoover's," and this "this time there are well-funded interest groups on the right as well as the left." As for the filibsuter, he points sout that besides the so-called Gang of 14, "at least five who were not parties to the compromise seem to have a disinclination to filibuster." He concludes: "There's a decent chance that the fight over Justice O'Connor's replacement won't live up to its billing."
  • A New York Times story quotes PFAW's Ralph Neas asserting that if Bush replaces moderate O'Connor with "with someone like [Clarence] Thomas or [Antonin] Scalia, a right-wing ideologue, that would mean a constitutional crisis." Center-left poli sci student Brendan Nyhan disagrees: "Watergate was a constitutional crisis. A conservative Supreme Court nominee doesn't come close. And pretending that it would just encourages more extremism and hyper-partisanship."
  • Based on a quote from "Face the Nation" (PDF), DCCC's Stakeholder blog writes -- according to guest Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) -- "'Advice and consent' means 'up or down vote' but it does not mean 'consult.'"
  • Blogs for Bush, on why Bush might choose a total unknown: "The talking points for each potential nominee are already being written and memorized and on the day of the nomination the MSM will have a talking head for each news show to say what a horrific pick the President made. There will be a GOP talking head to counter each slander, but it would be better if the nominee could at least have a day or two before the left can say something bad about him or her..."
  • ACS's Ian Millhiser writes at Think Progress note that despite GOP claims that ideology has never been a factor, in 1795 one of George Washington's SCOTUS nominees was rejected by Federalist sens. "for one simple reason: ideology," viz. opposing "the Jay Treaty, a hot button issue in 1795."

MISCELLANY: This Isn't A Political Story?

SCNB's Lyle Denniston writes, media orgs. have "turned over" the SCOTUS story "to their political reporters. It thus appears that, for the duration of this process, it is going to be treated mainly as a political story by a reporting class that seems to have major difficulty getting beneath the surface of tactics and strategy, and getting beyond the agendas of the warring interest groups."

Conservative The Hedgehog Report asks readers for SCOTUS nod predictions. Garza leads, with Janice Rogers Brown in 2nd.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Holding Back

Political Animal's Kevin Drum: "I'm going to try not to blog much about the Supreme Court until Bush actually nominates someone. I figure we're already in for many weeks of unrelieved grimness anyway, so why make it worse?"

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BLOGOMETER: The Source! Or, Er...

For the duration of the political fight to fill the SCOTUS vacancy, the Blogometer will split its coverage into SCOTUS-related and non-SCOTUS sections; needless to say, this is the latter.

The hottest thing on the blogs this past weekend -- more so than the SCOTUS fight -- is the multi-pronged story concerning the Valerie Plame investigation.

Prong the 1st: The contention that WH dep. CoS Karl Rove leaked CIA agent Plame's name to the press. Whether or not Rove actually is the source is much-disputed. Meanwhile, some think special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is going after Rove for another (unspecified) crime. The left figures he's probably guilty, if not of leaking, then possibly perjury. The right is considerably more circumspect (and besides, many of them are focusing on the SCOTUS).

Prong the 2nd: Time's Matt Cooper and New York Times' Judy Miller could be jailed this p.m. for refusing to testify about sources they spoke with when reporting on the Plame story in '03. The left and right view the specifics of this case differently in many ways, but one point where they more or less agree is that sending Cooper and Miller to jail is ridiculous. That's notable simply because bloggers are natural antagonists of the notion that MSM-employed journalists deserve shield laws or other special protections whereas bloggers do not. Nevertheless, more than a few seem to think Fitzgerald is out of bounds in ordering them jailed, now that Time has turned over pertinent documents.

THE PLAME GAME I: The Source Either Is Or Is Not Karl Rove, Of This We Can Be Certain

On 7/2, MSNBC analyst Lawrence O'Donnell wrote for the Huffington Post: "I revealed in yesterday's taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine's emails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source. I have known this for months but didn't want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury." When the post first went up, the title was "Rove Blew CIA Agent's Cover"; later this was revised to the more cautious "It's Rove...", although the original is still live as of this a.m. Over the weekend, O'Donnell followed up at the Huffington Post, here, here and here.

Kausfiles, skeptical of O'Donnell's claim from the start, notes that O'Donnell has "now quietly downgraded Rove from 'Matt Cooper's source' and 'the source Matt Cooper has been protecting" to 'one of the secret sources Matt Cooper has been protecting.'"

After "a careful reading of the available facts," re: Rove being Cooper's source, The Nation's David Corn is led to "this unsatisfying conclusion: not so fast." He goes through the story and explains why the evidence doesn't add up for him. Nevertheless, he writes, "the recent Rove revelations--whether they aid Fitzgerald or not--have served a valuable purpose. They have focused attention on the original sin: the leak. ... Even if the leak, for reasons I noted above, does not meet the threshold for a prosecution, it still was a thuggish act and a firing offense."

Conservative JustOneMinute has a lengthy post where he tries to make sense of the story, and concludes differently: "I'm not seeing anything here that makes me worried." But also writes: "This is reporting from the Hall of Mirrors -- the WaPo has received lots of leaks on this, and their Walter Pincus testified to Fitzgerald's grand jury. One would hope that if the WaPo runs a strong Rove denial without waving a lot of red flags, it is because the denial squares with what they already know (or think they know)."

Not long after O'Donnell broke his silence, Newsweek posted a Michael Isikoff reported that "one of Cooper's sources" was Rove, although it's "unclear ... what passed between" them. Liberal Josh Marshall: "What's implicit in Isikoff's report ... is that the [Fitzgerald] is after Rove for some felony arising out of the case (perjury after the fact? conspiracy?) but not the immediate and original act of leaking the name."

At The Corner, Jonah Goldberg writes that he doesn't think it was Rove, but cannot explain more yet: "I'm sorry to say I can't say until I get a green light to say. But I'm working on it." Corn responds: "And while we're considering other possibilities -- hmmmm, who can the conservatives throw overboard to save Rove? -- let's remember former White House spinner Ari Fleischer. ... Last November, I reported here that a former White House aide had told me that Fleischer had had a difficult time before Fitzgerald's grand jury. I bring this up just as a reminder -- or a public service announcement."

THE PLAME GAME II: The Matt And Judy Show

Via a report in the Washington Post, bloggers catch on to the possibility that a reporter may have told gov't officials -- "not the other way around -- that Wilson was married to Plame." Conservative Michelle Malkin highlights the passage without comment. Liberal Needlenose asks: "Could Judy Miller have been enough of a 'true believer' in the cause of the administration's WMD scare campaign that she passed along Plame's name to one of her Bushite contacts, where it then was funneled along to Rove and others?"

Conservative Betsy Newmark: "I'm just an ignorant teacher and blogger unfit to understand the higher calling of journalists, yet I can't see where the great ethical principle lies in nobly going to jail rather than giving up the name of a source, when the sources themselves have waived any right of protection and the prosecutor himself knows who the source is." Liberal War and Piece: "This is madness."

A number of liberal bloggers, including The Sideshow and The Mahablog, link to an op-ed by E&P's Bill Israel. E&P summarizes it in a note: "A man who taught with Rove, and considers him a friend, writes that in the Valerie Plame case, Rove is using [Cooper and Miller], and the First Amendment, 'to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law.'" Fafblog: "As it turns out, there are quite a few criminals and potential criminals in the administration the media would tell you about -- if only it could. Sadly, because the media adheres to the very strictest of ethical codes, these felons can never be exposed."

FishBowlDC focuses on the impact on Cooper's son. As a family friend writes: "Benjamin's dependence on Matt is such that he experiences a great sense of sadness when Matt is away on even short business trips."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: What If His Name Really Was John Doe?

Left-leaning New Nebraska Network: "Today, the Omaha World-Herald went ahead and revealed in a front-page story the name of the plaintiff in ACLU Nebraska and John Doe v. the City of Plattsmouth, the local variant on a series of court cases nationwide challenging the constitutionality of displays of the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments on public property. ... What's most pathetic about the World-Herald's running this article today, though, is actually its lead editorial which has the audacity to demand a federal shield law that protects the identity of anonymous sources in the press."

Using a Google Adwords tool, ex-BC'04 aide Patrick Ruffini tracks the "popular mindshare" of searches for major figures. Pres. Bush is by far the most-searched at 130,440 predicted daily requests, with ex-Pres. Clinton, Sec/State Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) rounding out the top 5 with 16,040 requests. All WH '08 Dems and GOPers and Hill leadership figures trail HRC with similar numbers. Ruffini asks: "Tell me -- do the folks who make those interminable lists over at The Note understand that their audience thinks Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are 2% of a George W. Bush, and not say, 10 or 15%? Would their copy be written any differently if they realized this?"

SANTORUM: We've Got Your Anti-Hillary Right Here!

Liberal CapitolBuzz publishes excerpts from Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) new book, "It Takes a Family." One quoted passage: "Many women have told me [they prefer] to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children. Think about that for a moment... Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders."

Andrew Sullivan comments: "Benedict XVI -- and a few mullahs in Iran -- would approve." Sullivan later posts an e-mail from a reader who thinks he is "overreacting."

THUNE: Does This Song Have Much Of A Thune?

Last week we mentioned the emerging story involving Sen. John Thune (R-SD), his ex-manager/car dealer Dan Nelson, a fraud investigation, $30M in loans, bankruptcy, and more. Clean Cut Kid broke the story last week, and now the Sioux Falls Argus Leader has run a story about the Nelson bankruptcy, but not the Thune Angle. CCK and Politics in a Dangerous World follow up, covering a 7/6 court date for Nelson, posting documents and analyzing them.

CUNNINGHAM: Duke's Hazard

For all updates related to the somewhat-complicated circumstances surrounding Rep. Duke Cunningham's (R-CA) real estate deals, referred to by his critics as "CunningScam," see Talking Points Memo.

For those just tuning in, Swing State Project provides a handy table for following For each of the 2 brewing scandals, Swing State Project's Bob Brigham breaks it down according to "Bagman," "Business, "Priors," "Yacht," "Yacht $," "Mansion," "Mansion $," "Score," and "Money Quote." Brigham also draws attention to the "Top Gun" scandal, where a Cunningham-owned business appears to have violated a prohibition against using the Seal of Congress on commercial products without approval.

RIGHT VS. LEFT: How Low Can You Go?

Lefty blogger Markos Moulitsas compares the American right to Islamic radicals and finds little difference between them: "Al Qaida/Taliban: Torture them or chop off their heads. American Taliban: Torture them or homosexually rape them. Liberals: No torture." Commenters add more, and the next day Moulitsas posts a 2nd round-up of comparisons. He writes, "the point isn't that the American Taliban is just like Al Qaida (though given the chance...), the point is that there's no reason that liberals would ever "root" for Al Qaida."

Centrist Jeff Jarvis is not impressed, nor is conservative Ace of Spades HQ, who writes: "I bash liberals a lot. ... But I don't think I've ever engaged in this level of black hatred.

INTRODUCING: After The Fall

Over the weekend, DLC pres. Bruce Reed started writing a blog for Slate, titled The Has Been. He writes in the first post: "In this business, you never have to admit you're washed up, because there's always a chance the tide might change and wash you in again. Anyone can talk about raising the retirement age. In politics, we actually do something about it. ... Maybe I'm not a Has-Been. I could be a retread-in-waiting. That's what this blog is about. In the old politics, the losers could only fail every four years. Now, thanks to the blogosphere, we can fail every day."

TPM Cafe debuts a new blog, House of Labor. It is what it sounds like, and contributors include American Prospect editor Harold Meyerson, Rock the Vote DC dir. Hans Reimer and labor atty/blogger Nathan Newman.

MISCELLANY: Endtroducing...

  • Last week after 4+ years, Ipse Dixit wrote last week, "it's time for me to retire. I don't particularly want to, but it seems I pretty much have to. I'd very much like to explain why here but, unfortunately, I cannot. My friends are welcome to email and I will explain in private. Perhaps some of you can even help. Suffice it to say that there have been some ... not-so-nice ... articles about blogs in the papers lately and I do not wish to be used in anyone's campaign of personal destruction. Given the current climate, I am seriously starting to believe that anonymity may be the only way to blog about politics."
  • In an unrelated post, Eschaton -- which was once an anonymous blog -- agrees in part: "I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately, and I have some advice for new bloggers: do it anonymously, at first at least. There's a distinction between private/public figure which isn't always perfectly clear, but it's something that the internet totally destroys. If you write something on the internet, it's public. A big blog links to it, suddenly you go from 50 hits per day to 5000 in one day. 5 hours later, CNN puts it on their 'inside the blogs' segment, and suddenly you've gone national to a non-blog reading audience who are perhaps unaware of conventions of blogging. I think that until you blog for awhile it's hard to quite get a handle on how much you want to be public versus being private, and how easily blogging and the internet and the media can tear down that wall in a way you never expected. I'm not saying that everyone should blog anonymously forever, but until you get a better idea of how it fits into your life, I really suggest starting out that way."
  • Captain's Quarters interviews ex-CBS reporter/liberal-media critic Bernard Goldberg about his new book.
  • Hullabaloo: "Why should Democrats support labor? I've got one word for you. Arnold. If you want to know what happened to [GOP Gov.] Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, it's that he f---ed with the public employees unions and they've f---ed him back. Hard."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Reporter-In-Chief?

Re: the dilemma the perils of protecting journalistic "privilege" for an arbitrary few (i.e. the MSM) vs. every potential journalist (i.e. bloggers, e.g. everyone) Mickey Kaus proposes, albeit "semi-facetiously," doing "what we normally do in a democracy when we have to ration special powers to a few citizens -- elect them. If we need ten or twenty reporters in Washington who get special immunity from testifying in order to facilitate the 'public's right to know,' then let the public choose them by secret ballot. Suppose we gave these Reporters General 5-year renewable terms. They'd have to produce in order to get reelected, and if they got big stories wrong (as Miller did) their chances would dim. (Imagine the anti-Miller attack ad!) [Washington Post's Bob] Woodward, on the other hand, would hardly have to campaign. It would be more rational than the Pulitzers!"

LEST WE FORGET: You Got Served

Transterrestrial Musings posts a fake lawsuit "filed" by the alien residents of the asteroid NASA intentionally crashed a rocket into this past weekend, as posted on the USENET at sci.space.policy by George William Herbert. It includes a statement of facts, claims, demands and is respondable via "class V mindsend." It begins:

     -----------------------------------)
     The People of Ziquikcikty )
     (also known as Comet Tempel-1); )
     A class, seeking )
     certification as such; )
     Plaintiffs )
     )
     v. )
     )
     Michael A'Hearn, )
     Rick Grammier, )
     Alphonso Diaz, )
     Michael Griffin, )
     Karl Rove, )
     Andrew Card, )
     Richard Cheney, )
     George W. Bush, )
     Does 1-100, )
     and Does 101-600,000, )
     1 et Prcpui 50 n 1 abrat 05135, )
     Government of Bars and Stripes; )
     Defendants ) FILED:
     -----------------------------------) 
     Minxktaquicky 43, Year Nipathatep
     (July 3, 2005)
Note: This is not that Russian astrologer kook.

Posted by at July 6, 2005 12:52 PM



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