Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

I cross-posted this one at Rathergate.com and at RedState.org, the latter of which was the hottest spot for Alito news and commentary on the web today. Needless to say, this one was buried.

Here’s this:

According to Editor & Publisher, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel “finally apologized to readers for accepting “cooked” evidence about WMD in Iraq that helped lead to war in 2003.”

The editorial page editor of the paper, O. Ricardo Pimentel, published his column Sunday, apologizing to his readers for believing the evidence presented by the Bush Administration and especially then-Secretary of State Colin Powell about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction [WMD].

read on…
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This is from Arlen Specter’s press conference, re: Judge Alito, this afternoon:

I start with his statement that he believes there is a right to privacy under the liberty clause of the United States Constitution. And he believes that the right applied to singles as well as married under the interpretation of Griswold v. Connecticut. And he says that he accepts Griswold v. Connecticut as good law.

[ . . . ]
I raised with him a question about super precedents, which we took up in the hearings for Judge Roberts — Chief Justice Roberts — and the super-duper precedents which I added in on the basis of some 38 cases where the Supreme Court has had an opportunity to overrule Roe and has not done so.

… Judge Alito did not endorse super precedents or super-duper precedents, but did say that he viewed it as a sliding scale, and that the longer a decision was in effect and the more times that it had been reaffirmed by different courts, different justices appointed by different presidents, it had extra precedential value.

Yes on Griswold, no on Specter’s silly Con Law concepts.

This confirmation process is going to be, on the part of the Senators, the silliest in history, but Specter will vote for Alito. Otherwise, he loses his chairmanship. THAT, whether it is admitted or even spoken, is the bottom line.

The Veep has replaced Scooter: David Addington is his new chief of staff and John Hannah takes over as his top security advisor. According to the Fitzmas account, the two were in on the WH conversations about 007 Valerie Plame.

By promoting Mr. Addington and Mr. Hannah and sticking with an existing group of loyal aides, Mr. Cheney was also rejecting calls from Republican lawmakers for the White House to bring in “new blood” at least to allow a fresh start after an investigation that appeared to knock the administration off stride.

The Times piece goes off quoting people from both sides of the aisle demanding or recommending that the President bring in “new blood.”

The Veep does not want new blood.

Schumer on Alito:

From New York Senator Chuckie Schumer’s remarks on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court of the United States:

The real question today is whether Judge Alito would use his seat on the bench, just as Rosa Parks used her seat on the bus, to change history for the better.

As a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, Samuel Alito will be required to interpret the law, not to engage in acts of civil disobedience.

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman on Judge Alito:

“It’s troubling that before President Bush even announced Judge Alito’s nomination, Democrat campaign chief Chuck Schumer attacked the nominee. The Supreme Court selection process should be about American jurisprudence, not litmus tests for campaign fundraising. It is my hope that Democrat Senators fully consider Judge Alito’s qualifications and resist the calls for ideological litmus tests from Chuck Schumer and the far-left.

“President Bush’s decision to nominate Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court is a tremendous victory for the future of the court and American jurisprudence. Judge Alito has proven to be one of the finest legal minds in the country and has a long, demonstrated record of excellence on the federal bench.

“After serving as deputy assistant to the Attorney General in President Reagan’s administration, President George H.W. Bush nominated Samuel Alito to the U.S Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1990. Since then, Judge Alito has served as one of the fairest, most impartial jurists in the country who has always faithfully interpreted the Constitution and will not legislate from the bench.”

Chuckie Schumer went on CBS’s Face the Nation yesterday and told host Bob Schieffer that he wanted a nominee “in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor,” whom he described as a “mainstream conservative.” Lindsey Graham told him that “mainstream conservatism” was not according to Chuckie Schumer and where he could stuff his demands for a type of nominee.

The third circuit is out of Philadelphia, so one would expect his sponsoring Senators to be Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter. Will Specter recuse himself?

I’ve put the latest column by Felicia “Fee” Benamon live on the web site of the Rightsided Newsletter. It’s called War Games…Fighting an Uphill Battle.

Enjoy!

Bob Schieffer was especially nasty on this mornings Meet the Press (CBS), insisting on “a secret war between the CIA and the White House over whether Saddam Hussein was trying to build a nuclear weapon, the cover of a secret agent for the CIA blown because her husband was a critic of the administration. The one thing that has been overlooked in all of this is what was the impact on Valerie Plame herself, this woman whose cover was blown?”

That’s nonsense. There was no secret war, and Plame’s cover was not blow “because her husband was a critic of the administration.” Now Schieffer wants us to look at the human side, the effect on 007 Plame? Ed Bradley’s interviewing Joe Wilson tonight, and FTN was a commercial for that show.

SCHIEFFER: Senator Graham, clearly, this woman was damaged by all of this. But do you believe that national security was harmed?

Senator LINDSEY GRAHAM (Republican, South Carolina; Judiciary Committee): It appears to be from the indictment a singular act by Mr. Libby not to disclose her identity under the statute in question…. [T] the underlying charge that started this investigation never materialized.”

Schieffer wants a Watergate.

Here is the Face the Nation transcript in pdf.

The FTN excerpt from my review at Redstate.org is below the fold.

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Sunday’s Rightsided Newsletter, the review of the Sunday shows, has been sent to the sundry global Inboxes. If you do not yet subscribe, you can read the RSN at it web site: here. It will also, with brief introductory remarks, be at Redstate.org later this afternoon.

For now, Part I of the review – MTP, FNS, FTN – is at the RSN site. In a while, I’ll append Part II, with the reviews of TW and LE.

It’s all online, and it’s also available with the intro at RedState.org

For Sunday, October 30, 2005

Meet the Press (NBC): Host Tim Russert will talk to three former PRESIDENTIAL chiefs of staff – Carter’s Hamilton Jordan, President Reagan’s Ken Duberstein, and Clinton’s Leon Panetta – as the VICE PRESIDENT’S chief of staff was made to resign because his testimony disagreed with that of Russert (and others).

FOX News Sunday: Host Chris Wallace will “examine the fallout” of the Libby indictment with Senators Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) and Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut). (I knew the Dem caucus let Dodd discuss Bolton, but it’s surprising to see that they’re still using him after that one.)

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer will discuss the Joe Wilson scandal™ and Harriet Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a 14-Gangster. Jan Greenburg is back to help him ask questions.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos talks Harriet with Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Harry Reid (D-Nevada). Will Reid ask for another nominee “in the mold of Harriet Miers”?

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer will talk with someone or other about Scooter and about Harriet. They’re also very good at getting newsmakers from Iraq and that region, so that wouldn’t surprise me.
~~~~~

I’ll do the review/summary for tomorrow’s Rightsided Newsletter — a free subscription by visiting the web site at http://rightsided.tripod.com, or by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com.

The two parts of the RSN will arrive if your inbox shortly after it is completed early Sunday afternoon.

Also, as always, it will be posted at Redstate.org, with a preface.

Colorado’s Republican Governor Bill Owens has long been a favorite in conservative circles, and rightly so, but he recently decided to back a ballot measure to repeal one of the nation’s best pieces of tax law. You see, the Colorado Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR) called for an excess tax revenue collected for a fiscal year be returned to the taxpayers. Owen decided that the State needed more money, and he backed repealing it.

Conservative think tanks, who had previously worshipped the ground on which Owens walked, smacked him around. Evidently, Owens loves being loved as a conservative, so he mailed a letter to the think tanks:

“Would I prefer to not be asking our taxpayers for help to shore up our state budget? Of course,” Owens wrote. “Have we considered every alternative - including possible cuts - to avoid these referenda? Yes.”

Cry me a river.

The CATO Institute’s director budget studies, Stephen Slivinsky, didn’t fall for it. He called the letter “an act of legacy protection, or at least attempted legacy protection.”

Owens lost me when he vetoed a measure which would have prevented a private company from seizing private property via eminent domain for a toll road. That is evil.

Joe Wilson, his calls for heads to roll and frogs to march having amounted to nothing, is still making noise. According to Matt Drudge, will go on CBS’s 60 Minutes infotainment show Sunday and announce that there have been “specific threats” against his super secret CIA undercover agent wife Valerie Plame. Joe Wilson also insists that before Bob Novak mentioned her name in print, “very few people outside the intelligence community” knew even that she was employed by the CIA.

I’m reminded of a recent TPMCafe post in which the poster tells us:

I wanted to express my frustration not only at them [Republicans], but also at Democrats and journalists who not only don’t fight the Republican smear campaign, but go so far as to concede that Joe Wilson has an unsavory character. Joe Wilson dedicated much of his life to serving his country. He was brave enough not only to stand up to Saddam Hussein, but also to stand up to Karl Rove and the corrupt, unethical Republican slime machine–and that makes Joe Wilson an unqualified American hero in my eyes.

Joe Wilson may be unqualified, but he is not an American hero. He did not stand up to Saddam Hussein. He lied and smeared in order to gain a few minutes of fame and the kudos of the MoveOn.org/Michael Moore/John Podesta crowd.

Perhaps hoping that a huge story had emerged from their “Fitzmaas,” CBS News is extending Joe Wilson’s agonizing time in the public spotlight. He’s a whiny and hateful character with a banal intellect who ought to return to beneath his rock.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean offered remarks today (Friday), ostensibly concerning the indictment of Scooter Libby but actually about whatever was on his mind at the time:

“This is a sad day for America.

“Beyond the evidence that the White House manipulated the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq, a group of senior White House officials not only orchestrated efforts to smear a critic of the war, but worked to cover up this smear campaign. In so doing, they ignored the rule of law, endangering our national security and the brave men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting our nation’s security. I. Lewis Libby was a part of this internal White House group.

“This is not only an abuse of power, it is an un-American abuse of the public trust. As Americans, we must hold ourselves and our leaders to a higher standard. We cannot fear dissent. We cannot fear the truth. And we cannot tolerate those who do.

“More importantly, we can’t ignore the glaring questions this case has raised about the rationale the Bush Administration used to send us to war in Iraq, a war that continues. American soldiers are still in harms way. Over 2,000 brave Americans have lost their lives, thousands of American soldiers have been wounded, and thousands of American families have made the ultimate sacrifice. Still, the President has no plan and no exit strategy. And still he hasn’t answered the question, what are we doing in Iraq and when can our troops come home?

“President Bush faces a serious test of leadership; will he keep his pledge to hold his Administration to high ethical standards and give the American people what they deserve, and will he answer to the American people for these serious missteps?”

There is not a word in that statement about the actual indictment. The man is a freak.

Christopher G. Adamo - The Cost of Real Corruption (Part II).

Doug Hagin - The Miers Debacle: Great Opportunity for a Stronger GOP.

Dustin Hawkins - An Actual Joseph McCarthy.

Isaiah Z. Sterrett - BUSH’S NEXT NOMINEE.

Elan Journo of the Ayn Rand Institute - Death to “Diplomacy” With Iran.

and a special bonus

Babs Boxers actual latest fundraising letter. (It is not a parody. These are the actual sentences of the actual Babs Boxer.)

Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff Scooter Libby AP tells us:

The lefty blog prints Harry Reid’s statement:

” These are very serious charges. They suggest that a senior White House aide put politics ahead of our national security and the rule of law.

“This case is bigger than the leak of highly classified information. It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president.

“It’s now time for President Bush to lead and answer the very serious questions raised by this investigation. The American people have already paid too steep a price as a result of misconduct at the White House, and they deserve better.”

It says nothing about any leak, Harry. Give that one up. And the other questions are not raised by the nomination indictment. Cry me a river.

Rove walks. We’ll find out if Fitz is going to keep it going in a bit.

Are you ready to convert to Digital TV? You have to, you know. It’s the law. And as much as I love technology, I hate the government’s role in this with every fiber of my libertarian-conservative being. It’s antithetical to our Constitution and to our basic human rights.

That doesn’t matter.

Dean Reese at Today’s Democracy does not like that the Senate has just adopted a measure to spend $3-billion dollars on digital converter boxes so that everyone can watch after the government forces the switch.

A subsidy program would be created and paid for by money raised from the auction of the analog spectrum the broadcasters are vacating. The subsidy would be available for all those households with older televisions, and it would pay for converter boxes for all the TVs in a particular household, regardless of financial status.

It is estimated that converter boxes would cost about $50. And Senator Stevens plan would call for the government to pay roughly $40, and the consumer would make a co-payment of $10.

I reject the spending as well, but only on because I condemn the forced compliance. If the Feds are going to make us do it their way, they ought to pay for it, though. It sounds, though, like they should have found a more responsible way to do it. For instance, the Feds could refund the entire cost of conversion from a person’s income taxes.

Erick at RedState tells us that his sources point to Judge Sam Alito of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals as the nominee to replace still-not-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Mike Luttig of the 4th Circuit is another name considered to be in play.

Edith Jones of the 5th circuit, his sources tell him, is a “flame thrower,” and thus will not be the nominee. An Administration that was just whacked by the right over Harriet ought to know better than to be timid. Let’s have Jones and the fight. Is the Gang of 14 a house of sand?

Ankle Biting Pundits blogger Pat Hyne has inked a book deal with Thomas Nelson Publishing for his In Defense of the Religious Right.

Here is his announcement of the deal.

Congratulations, Pat, and may God be with you in the work ahead.

From AP reporter Jennifer Loven, Thursday, about Harriet resuming her White House counsel’s job at $161,000/year:

What’s more, losing the chance to serve on the Supreme Court denies Miers a shot at a raise. She would have made $199,200 as an associate justice of the Supreme Court.

It’s that glass ceiling.

What if President Bush wanted to nominate Harriet, and she could not tell him no, POTUS being POTUS? Her heart was not in the game, thus her weak, some say meek, performance at the one-on-ones with Senators. This would explain her “incomplete” and “insulting” answers to Arlen’s questionnaire.

She’s not a stupid woman. Was she playing one in order to convince the Prez to reluctantly accept her withdrawal request?

From her withdrawal letter:

I share your commitment to appointing judges with a conservative judicial philosophy, and I look forward to continuing to support your efforts to provide the American people judges who will interpret the law, not make it.

That is a statement I never heard her make while still the willing nominee.

I’ve a confession, and this concerns my wife. She was never a fierce partisan or a partisan of any sort. She very much likes Rick Santorum, but she also thinks Joe Lieberman – from her home State – would make a good President.

She never was much of an analyst, either, though she would often ask me for mine. (I reckoned that this was done merely to make me feel good, and I rarely reckon.)

A few nights ago, she looked up from the word seek puzzle and said: “Harriet Miers should withdraw her name. She is a drag on the President, and no one knows who or what she is.” I hadn’t expected this, and I told Diane that she ought to wait and see what Miers says at the hearings. She said that with the possible indictments and everything else, the media is ready to rip the President apart. Miers should quit now and let the President nominate someone qualified whom his friends could support.

She was right.

I had been looking at the Miers nomination as a surreality for some time. It’s something that just doesn’t seem like it should happen in the normal course of events. A full solar eclipse is surreal in that sense. The Boston Red Sox winning four straight to come back from an 0-3 playoff deficit to the Yankees last year was another. On a much more serious front, September 11, 2001 was the most surreal day which I can remember.

So Harriet is no longer a consideration. The hot name now is Judge Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit. She is said to be a solid conservative. Here’s a a bit concerning Sykes and abortion from Andrew Hyman at Confimr Them.

Harriet Miers in the first woman to withdraw her name from considering for the Supreme Court of the United States after having been nominated. The USA Today newspaper tells us that 35 SCOTUS nominations, including Miers- have failed – withdrawn or rejected by the Senate – in our nation’s history.

A few presidents were spectacularly unsuccessful: John Tyler had eight nominations fail, including three for one individual, Reuben H. Walworth; Millard Fillmore and Ulysses S. Grant each had three flops; Grover Cleveland lost three times, including two attempts for William H. Hornblower.

As for Reuben H. Walworth, he has his own county in Wisconsin. He’s also a town in New York. With him, the Senate just didn’t bother. They didn’t seem to pay much attention to any of Tyler’s nominees, to be sure.

William H. Hornblower was nominated by President Grover Cleveland in 1893. One of Cleveland’s old enemies in New York politics, Democrat Senator David Hill, played politics with as many of Cleveland’s nominees as he could, and Hornblower was rejected by the Senate, 32-41, the following January.

This is not to say that the President will renominate Harriet. Or AGAG.

The long national nightmare has ended. Okay, that’s overstatement, but Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination. A few thoughts are in order.

This does not solve the President’s problems, as this was more about him than about her. His Administration has become a series of disappointments, and the Mier’s nomination was the straw which broke the back of the camel. The dromedary has collapsed, and everything has spilled to the ground with Miers.

His next nomination, to be safe, will be someone from the A-List, and at this point, I don’t think it matters that the nominee be a woman or a minority. It had better be a conservative Republican.

The nomination of Alberto Gonzalez at this point might bring calls from the President’s right flank for impeachment. (I’m there…)

How about Edith Jones, then the President can work on her confirmation as he busies himself putting the worms back in the can.

Good morning!