1/9: He Is Sam
As the confirmation hearings for SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito get under way, conservative bloggers are enthusiastic. Over the weekend they'd gleefully shredded arguments against him from liberal icons and the nation's paper of record, and now they figure the process will go fairly smoothly. Few really expect the Dems to filibuster. On the port side of the blogosphere, the expectations are about the same. This may partly explain why there's markedly less discussion of the hearings than a-starboard. Those on the left may be concerned. But if the pre-hearings round give any clue, they don't hold out much hope that the Dems will put up much of a fight.
Meanwhile, some online GOP activists had been pushing Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to seek the House GOP maj. leader position -- even setting up a blog to support his bid -- only for Pence to decline entry to the race this a.m. Plus, the RNC holds yet another event catering to its blogging constituency, Abramoff and eavesdropping scandals have completely displaced the Plamegate and torture scandals, bloggers pick fights with the press and with each other, and one left-of-center blogger asks, is this as good as it gets?
THE ALITO NOMINATION I: This Is That "All-Out War" We Were Promised??
Over the weekend, a handful of reports and columns re: the Alito nod drew plenty of attention from the blogs:
Drudge Report carried an original report indicating that Dems aimed to "destroy" Alito in part by tying him to racist statements by members of a conservative org. he belonged to at Princeton. One of the Dems' witnesses was Alito critic/fellow Princeton grad Stephen Dujack, whom Drudge reports on 4/21/03 "compared farm animals to Holocaust victims" in a Los Angeles Times op-ed. Right-leaning TigerHawk was unimpressed with the attack: "If this is the standard, then any of these clowns who have agreed with, voted in support of, or broken bread with Ku Klux Klan 'Exalted Cyclops' Robert Byrd need to consider whether they, too, are fit to sit in judgment of Alito." Confirm Them notes that Dujack apparently is no longer on the witness list.
A New York Times op-ed critical of Alito's rulings on abortion, pres. and cong. power and "one person one vote" attracted a lot of criticism from the right. UCLA law prof Stephen Bainbridge posts "what the NY Times didn't tell you" after successive paragraphs. Stuart Buck thinks the NYT went too far by calling Alito's views "radical" and "imperial." Patterico's Pontifications calls the NYT "illiterate."
On 1/7 the Washington Post published an op-ed by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) titled "Alito's Credibility Problem," which drew substantial notice in the blogosphere -- most of it from the right. Soxblog's MA-based Dean Barnett: "Someone should get a memo to the Kennedy staffer who ghost-wrote the piece: It is not a particularly good idea for this particular Senator to use a person's actions of a few decades ago (in the article the mystery author makes much of an organization Alito joined in 1972) to make conclusions about that person's character. Really -- I'm just trying to help." Baseball Crank gives it a fisking.
THE ALITO NOMINATION II: Maybe We Just Have To Wait For A Liberal To Step Down ...
Pre-hearing assessments from around the blogosphere:
Conservative anonyblogger Blanton, at RedState's Confirm Them: "According to my loose tongued Democrat friends, the Democrats are going after Alito on voting rights and civil liberties and, in the process, intend to take down a few Republicans. ... The loss of liberty will be their theme and Alito will be their victim in the process. The drunk staffers assured each other that it polled well." Univ. of TN law prof Glenn Reynolds: "I think that unlike Harriet Miers, Alito is clearly qualified. He'll probably be a good justice, but he certainly isn't my personal top choice. So if I've seemed unexcited here, it's because I am. Not opposed, or anything. Just unexcited." Center-right law prof Ann Althouse predicts: "Alito must know that he needs to endorse the precedential importance of the right of privacy (the way Roberts did), or all hell will break loose. I expect Senator Specter to assist him in laying in that cornerstone of confirmation as early as possible in the hearings. I expect the abortion issue to be packaged away neatly enough, though various Democrats will continue, ineffectually, to harp on it."
Liberal Sandy Levinson, at Balkinization: "My own view is that [Dems] most certainly should try to block this nomination, but that is neither here nor there. The real question is whether the ultimate vote, whether it is to break a filibuster or to vote on the nomination itself, will deviate in any significant sense from straight party membership. Chief Justice Roberts did, of course, receive the votes of exactly half of the Democratic Senators; no Republican voted against him. So the question this time around is whether any Republican, stirred by recent White House assertions of unfettered power with regard to torture or to domestic spying, will break ranks. Or will they all be proud lemmings, willing to support 'their President' in spite of his demonstrated contempt for Congress even as a co-equal branch of government?" Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof: "The only surprise that might occur is that we find out what kind of conservative Judge Alito truly is. Since the Bush administration has basically turned the definition of "conservative" inside out and done everything that the radical right used to warn us that the far left loonies would do ... it will be interesting to see if Judge Alito is the kind of conservative that will be the legacy of the twisted logic that put him up for nomination in the first place." AMERICAblogis one of many lefty blogs taking issue with Alito's deference to executive power: "Alito has repeatedly proven he believes the president is more like an emperor -- someone who deserves almost unlimited deference from the Supreme Court, especially during a time of war."
Daily Kos' Armando highlights a list of questions for Alito, as prepared by The Nation. Underneath a nifty, site-exclusive artist's rendition of Alito under an interrogator's lamp, TalkLeft posted a roundup of links.
Yale Law Journal's 1/06 edition of its not-quite-a-blog The Pocket Part features a symposium debating "Law and Politics in Judicial Confirmation Hearings" featuring law profs Larry Tribe, Erwin Chemerinsky, Volokh Conspiracy contributor Randy Barnett and Steven Lubet.
JUSTICE SUNDAY: Tree, Meet Empty Forest ...
Unlike the last time, this weekend's Justice Sunday event passed without much notice in the blogosphere. The last time, FRC's Charmaine Yoest invited (and in some cases provided arrangements) for multiple bloggers on the right and left; this time attendance was lower among bloggers, although it did include A-lister Captain's Quarters. Meanwhile, Philly is host to numerous well-read liberal blogs, including All Spin Zone and Suburban Guerrilla and top-tier Eschaton, but none had mentioned JSIII as of early this a.m.
Ed Morrissey made a point of defending AP's Hefling after finding out that Yahoo! had changed a JSIII header from "Conservatives Rally On Eve Of Alito Hearings" to "Conservatives Split Ahead of Alito Hearing." Stacy Harp took several pictures of the protesters in attendance. More coverage from: LaShawn Barber and Rightwingsparkle and Yoest and others at the new FRC blog.
HOUSE GOP ELECTIONS: A Pence-ive Moment
On 1/6, RedState's Blanton announces his support of Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) for the Maj. Leader spot: "There are not many in the Republican ranks who can revitalize Republican leadership in the House as a whole. Mike Pence can and Mike Pence should be given the opportunity." Blanton also criticizes the other GOPers in the race, describing Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as "very well connected with the lobbyists on K Street" and pointed out that acting Maj. Leader Roy Blunt (R-MO) "left his wife of 30 years for the loving embrace of a K Street lobbyist, a tobacco lobbyist no less."
Around the blogosphere, most Pence-related posts we see are related to the post above; there is, however, a new blog just launched: Mike Pence for Majority Leader, a project of SavetheGOP.com.
In a statement released late this a.m., however, Pence announced he would not be a candidate for maj. leader: "Because some of you have encouraged me to consider seeking a leadership position, Karen and I endeavored to give the matter the kind of prayerful consideration that such encouragement merits. I am writing to confirm that I will not be seeking any elected position in the Republican Conference at this time."
ABRAMOFF: Jeeves, What Have You Done To My Transportation Bill?
Via this week's Time, Matt Yglesias is incredulous at a GOPer near Pres. Bush's "inner circle" who says Bush saw DeLay as a "necessary burden," and: "They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He's seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with." Yglesias tries to get it straight: "So the President is professionally in hoc to DeLay and is closely allied with him, but on a personal level he secretly loathes the working class types on whose votes he depends?" TNR's Michael Crowley has some fun with the same bit: "Gotta love the Bush family! 'It's a pity, but we've had to let the butler go. Caught the fellow pinching from the silver drawer, don't you know. He never did strike us as a fully upright sort anyway. Right, ho!'"
Crooks and Liars is one of several liberal blogs calling attention to DNC chair Howard Dean's appearance with CNN's Blitzer on 1/8; Blitzer referred to "Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff" and Dean strongly argued the point down. This argument, that Dems received no donations from Abramoff, is gaining wide usage on the left -- from Michael Petrelis, taking his info from celebrity FEC info site NewsMeat.com*, to AMERICAblog's Aravosis to many other points among the liberal blogs. This is true, but incomplete. While Abramoff and his wife have never given a dime to Dems, plenty of them have received money from PACs administered by ex-Abramoff firms Greenberg Traurig and Preston Gates, or Abramoff's tribal clients. OpenSecrets.org's Capital Eye lists all recipients including these indirect sources. GOPers did, however, receive the bulk of all donations, and their spin has been to portray any Abramoff-related contributions as "Abramoff money" so as to paint the scandal as one that extended to both sides of the aisle.
Arianna Huffington reports on what may be the next "shoe to drop" -- in 11/02 the U.S. Atty for Guam, Frederick Black, was replaced after a decade "one day after a subpoena was issued demanding the release of records" concerning Guam's lobbying contract with Abramoff. His replacement was Leonardo Rapadas, a cousin of a target in the probe, who had been "recommended to Karl Rove" for the slot by a lobbyist "under contract" with the probed Guam admin. Rapadas "promptly recused himself, and the investigation was very conveniently ended." She notes, the Los Angeles Times covered this in 8/05, "in more innocent times when Abramoff's shenanigans did not make front page news," but now "more news" should be coming "very soon."
Liberal Seeing the Forest compares the situation to post-Katrina New Orleans: "This is what always happens when so-called 'conservatives' gain power, because Republicans do not believe that people can work together and help each other so they do not believe in government and law."
*Sentence corrected on 1/19.
EAVESDROPPING: FISA And Consent
Picking up on a 1/5 report in the Chicago Sun-Times, AMERICAblog's John Aravosis called attention to the fact that for $110, "Anyone can buy a list of your incoming and outgoing phone calls, cell or land-line." Highly alarmed, Aravosis obtained his own cell records. He asked, rhetorically: "So, anybody got Bill Frist's or Harry Reid's phone numbers? Or maybe the phone number of the FBI tip line?"
Power Line's John Hinderaker responds to "emails from liberals" who've asked why they haven't addressed the "72-hour provision of FISA, which, they say, definitively proves that there couldn't possibly have been any need to go outside the FISA structure" to obtain speedy wiretaps. He does so in a lengthy post citing case law and NRO's York. Writes Hinderaker: "If it takes 'days, sometimes weeks' to assemble a FISA application, then 72 hours is not long enough to be confident the process can be completed. Anyone who thinks that it is easy for multiple lawyers and officials to collaborate on a set of documents, present them to a federal judge and have the judge sign the order within 72 hours has, I'm afraid, no experience whatever at obtaining orders from federal judges." Meanwhile, libertarian Julian Sanchez calls attention to an "exceedingly silly" post at Power Line on the same topic; he cites left-leaning Glenn Greenwald's response
Think Progress points out that a poll from last week that showed that 64% of the public supported domestic NSA wiretaps (much touted by conservatives) failed to note that the wiretaps were conducted without a court order. A new AP poll does phrase the question like this -- now 56% say the gov't should get a warrant first.
Last week we mentioned that conservative Dean Esmay had called the leak of the eavesdropping "high treason" and called for hanging as punishment upon conviction. Liberal Gavin McNett at Sadly, No! posted a satirical response which included the description of a military execution of Esmay and "bringing his wife and children legally to trial." This post is currently down, as Sadly, No! is changing servers. But the screen shots are available at Esmay's site; Esmay took it as a possible threat, terming his critics "neo-fascists" and considering whether to contact the authorities. On 1/7, The Moderate Voice's Joe Gandelman waded into the dispute; McNett, Esmay and their respective defenders showed up in the comments and carried the debate forward.
WHITE HOUSE '08: Good News, Sen. Clinton -- You Can Go Back To Ignoring The Blogs Again
Carrying on a debate about Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) current popularity with the Dem base from Mickey Kaus and David Perlmutter, Mystery PollsterMark Blumenthal compares recent surveys by Pew, Hotline/Diageo and Cook/RT Strategies and concludes that "the overwhelming majority of those who consider themselves Democrats rate Hillary favorably, and at least a third do so with intensity and liberal Democrats appear to like her better than moderate or conservative Democrats." Whereas liberal bloggers are highly critical of HRC, Dems as a whole are not.
BLOGS VS. THE MSM: One Man's Reporter Is Another Man's Right-Wing Propagandist?
On 12/26, the Washington Post ran a piece on the military's effort to generate better coverage in Iraq, and included the story of pro-war blogger Bill Roggio, who was then embedded with troops in Anbar (see 1/3 Blogometer). On 1/3 Roggio responded in a piece for National Review Online; beyond some incidental errors, he alleged the Post aimed to "discredit" him as a "threat to the established order," viz., as a threat to reporters. On 1/8, atty Stephen Kaus (brother of Mickey) argued at HuffPo that "except for what Roggio himself has called 'minor factual errors,' at least one of which was quoted from Roggio himself, the Post article was true." In the NRO piece, Roggio claims he was accredited the same as any MSM reporter, but the "point of the article is that Roggio is a blogger whom the military has invited in a conscious effort to have its side told, not an MSM reporter selected on objective journalistic merit. If the embed process from there on out is identical, as Roggio claims, that is news." Liberal Raw Story also covered the story, noting Post ombudsman Deborah Howell's promise to follow up again.
NRO's Jim Geraghty seize upon a comment by The Left Coaster's Steve Soto about a new video from Ayman al-Zawahiri: "I have to admit it is fun to see Al Qaeda play Bush like a violin." TLC's eRiposte defends Soto in his absence, pointing out that Geraghty disregarded the 2nd sentence of the paragraph: "But at least Zalmay Khalilzad is doing the right thing by meeting with local insurgents and split them off from Al Qaeda." Conservative Jeff Goldstein and liberal Jane Hamsher spar, and in the same post linked, eRiposte offers a lengthy response to Goldstein as well.
Juan Cole promoted the following out of his comment boards to inclusion in a front-page post: "I am an American currently working in Baghdad for a news organization. I've been here numerous times over the past 15 years. The current security situation here has gotten much worse since the elections. ... Besides the usual reminders to keep a low profile and going over our own unique security measures and procedures as to what to do in any given scenario we were told that there's a high probability of all out civil war."
- The recess appointment to DHS of ex-JCS Myers niece Julie Myers -- widely seen as unqualified -- didn't cause quite the stir as did her initial nod (see 9/21 Blogometer), but it was noted. Michelle Malkin described the bipartisan opposition to Myers as the "Kos-Malkin-National Review Convergence."
- At Political Animal, Debra Dickerson calls attention to the Newark, NJ mayoral race between 5-term mayor Sharpe James (D) and '02 challenger Corey Booker (D). She points readers toward a documentary on their previous race, commenting: "James ran on a platform of squashing any dissent from within the black ranks and of letting his beleaguered constituents eat the cake of impoverished black identity. He called Booker 'white boy,' 'faggot,' and claimed he was 'a Republican' supported by 'the Jews' and 'the Klan.' ... Watching the footage was like watching 'Eyes on the Prize' but with blacks as the truncheon-wielding thugs."
- Coming a few weeks after the 2006 Weblog Awards and in the middle of the 2005 Koufax Awards process, now comes the 2006 Bloggies, for its 6th installment.
- This a.m. the RNC held an event for bloggers to meet and talk with RNC chair Ken Mehlman, RNC strategists, WH staff and concluding with a Q&A led by Weekly Standard's Barnes. Among those attending the under way event, with links to relevant posts by each: Malkin; Blogs for Bush; Captain's Quarters; The Political Teen; Right Side Redux.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: We're Not Bigger Than U.S. Steel!
At MyDD, Chris Bowers considers "developing some sort of institution to cross-promote progressive bloggers in the interest of further popularizing the new progressive pundit class." He suggests, however, that even if success was achieved in putting liberal bloggers on TV, the radio and elsewhere, this wouldn't necessarily translate to huge new audiences for the progressive blogs. "In many ways, we are limited by what makes us successful. On the one hand, our dedication to politics is simply too extreme for it to ever reach a wide audience outside of the activist class, but on the other hand it is exactly what the activist class had been seeking for some time. Considering this, the upward limit of our audience is probably around 6-8 million, which is a good estimate of the upward limit of the size of the progressive activist class. That is around three to four times the size of the current progressive political blogosphere, but still not enough to change conventional wisdom on its own."
LEST WE FORGET: Putting The "Un" In Unreliable
If you ever thought Wikipedia was unreliable, well, it has to fare well in comparison with the purposefully biased, willfully incomplete and proudly unreliable Uncylopedia. Among the noteworthy pages: not exactly-dispassionate articles on kitten huffing, George W. Bush, and Mr. T. It is also home to perhaps the longest collection of "You have two cows" economic system thumbnail sketches.
