Even though half the Democratic caucus voted for Roberts, that this vote wasn’t far closer to unanimous is still very troubling; as far as “conservative” judicial nominees go, Roberts was nearly perfect.  Which suggests that being “conservative” is in and of itself, for some Democratic Senators, enough to exclude a candidate for the bench—even when he is replacing another clear conservative (as Roberts was in William Rehnquist). This next battle

Okay, so asparagus makes my urine stink. Your point?

…to Karen Marcinik for the Raggedy Man DVD.  I’ve never seen the film, but I’ve heard good things about it, so I’m looking forward to checking it out.  And thanks also to Mark Curtin for the Film Noir 2 Box Set.  I saw the remake of Narrow Margin many years ago without having first seen the original, so I’m particularly excited about getting to watch that one—though all the films

Earle / Kevin:  “Well yeah, I’d love to see Tom Delay indicted, too.  But I’m pretty sure you need like, evidence, to do something like that.  Right?”*

Wow.  This guy Aravosis has the “potentially queer” on just about everybody, doesn’t he? And yet, he never has any firsthand knowledge.  Oh well. Maybe he just dates sailors. Anyway, I can’t help but notice how much he likes to trot out the “hypocritical closeted homosexual” charge—particularly against Republicans—an accusation backed up by such pressing evidence as a refusal to admit publically where ones like to pitch one’s meat dart. 

I typically like Jonah Goldberg’s columns, but today’s effort, “Gale-Force Exaggeration:  Katrina’s other consequence,” is a feel-good porridge of glancing recrimination and affected, world-weary “realism”—one that inadvertantly points up the media culture’s complicity in driving news rather than reporting it, as well as its tendency to circle the wagons and appear circumspect in the face of public dissatisfaction, when what it should be doing is taking a good, hard, honest

Sister Toldjah does some Googling and finds a not unsurprising discrepency in media coverage of two concommitant racially-charged incidents involving elected officials.  Interestingly, Rangel, it should be pointed out, is a much higher profile figure—he’s been a proponent of re-establishing the draft (though, presumably, only because he knows such a movement is destined to fail), and is a regular on the political chat shows—whereas this is the first I’ve heard

Delay and two others indicted on conspiracy charges.  Delay has long held that the charges, leveled by Ronnie Earle, the partisan DA of Travis County, are false and politically motivated. By GOP rules, Delay will be forced to step down from his House leader role.  David Dreier (R-CA) will take over House leadership. Two things:  First, if Delay is guilty, he deserves to be punished—though campaign finance laws are largely

Fouad Ajami, writing in the WSJ’s Opinion Journal, examines Sunni fear over imminent Shiite emancipation. From “Heart of Darkness”: The drumbeats against Iraq that originate from the League of Arab States and its Egyptian apparatchiks betray the panic of an old Arab political class afraid that there is something new unfolding in Iraq–a different understanding of political power and citizenship, a possible break with the culture of tyranny and the

Interesting piece by James Piereson in the Oct 3 Weekly Standard examining the growth of Leftism in the academy (a topic addressed here on many occasions).  From “The Left University”: The left university, according to its self-understanding, is devoted to the exposure of the oppression of the various groups that have been the West’s victims–women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, and others that have been officially designated as oppressed groups–and to those