Boring Choice?

Not really, says NY Post's John Podhoretz. Much bolder when you consider the pressure to appoint a woman or minority - or both - for O'Connor's spot. But the most interesting aspect about John G. Roberts as the nominee is that if Bush could find someone that even the Left has to concede is a solid jurist, this is the guy.

When Teddy Kennedy began the successful war against Robert Bork, he swung for the fences instantly by declaring that Bork wanted to return America to an age of back-alley abortions. If all Schumer can come up with is "I can't deny he's got a lot going for him," Roberts will be wearing that black robe by the first Monday in October. Declaring that someone possesses "outstanding legal credentials" isn't a good foundation for a bloody, furious, crazed battle.

Quite possibly the toughest possible nominee to try and "Bork", not that the Left won't try anyway - on principle. Roberts is the kind of judge that will elicit howls from Liberals but no coherent argument can be made against him. Those who try will reveal themselves as moonbat nutjobs instantly.

And the pajamahadeen are ready to tear to shreds anything they can throw at him.

Right-Wing News has good round-ups of the early reaction from the Right and the Left. Not the contrast is tone and connection to reality.

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Wow...talk about a head-fake...

I've got to hand it to team W, they really knocked the MSM ass over teakettle on this one. They fooled 'em all. It wasn't until after 7:30pm (an hour and a half prior to Bush's announcement) that they were finally able to figure it out.

No pre-emptive press conference for Teddy or Chucky Schumer or Harry Reid or People for the American Way or NARAL or...anyone. Just the President with his nominee at his side. My fellow Americans...meet Mr. Roberts.

From Bush's speech:

In my meetings with Judge Roberts, I have been deeply impressed. He's a man of extraordinary accomplishment and ability. He has a good heart. He has the qualities Americans expect in a judge: experience, wisdom, fairness, and civility. He has profound respect for the rule of law and for the liberties guaranteed to every citizen. He will strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench.

What's not to like, Mr. and Mrs. America?

Michelle Malkin has a good round-up thread. As does Captain Ed. Hugh Hewitt is dancing a jig.

See also: Confirm Them!, RedState.org (sorry Erick) and NRO's Bench Memos. All will no doubt update throughout the evening.

Got a lot of reading to do. Oh, BTW, "Wedding Crashers" was awesome. Go see it!

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Dammit, I can't stay away...

Redstate.org is THE place to go for updates.

The latest: Update [2005-7-19 16:2:29 by Erick]: Within the past hour, staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee have begun steering people away from Edith Brown Clements.

I have done a little reading up on Edith Jones. Think Ann Coulter with more experience and tact. Liberals would be LUCKY to have Clement. If this turns out to be Jones...the Left will LOSE THEIR SHIT!

UPDATE: 4:25pm
Jonathan Alder on the timing:

The President's decision to announce his first Supreme Court nomination is a very wise move. One of the lesson's of past nomination battles is the importance of defining the nominee before the opposition. This is particularly important with Supreme Court nominations where less of the battle will get waged under the radar. Starting tonight, and on tomorrow morning's news programs, the video will be of the President commending his nominee, rather than a Massachusetts Senator warning of segregated lunch counters and back alley abortions.

Makes the bait 'n switch theory seem more plausible. Keep the heat off the real nominee until Bush has the chance to introduce him/her to the country.

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(Continued from previous)

Well, looks like we're all just going to have to wait and see. Will it be Edith Clement? Or is this cover for a surprise pick? I have no doubt of two things: 1) it won't be Gonzales (thought I never thought it would be) and 2) it will be a woman.

If someone leaks, it will come from the Judiciary Committee, not the White House. I expect that more rumors will float before this evening. But I will miss all of that as tonight is date night with the wife.

We will be going out to dinner and then go see "Wedding Crashers" (her idea, no joke). It's a night out we've been needing for a while. No special occasion, just happened to be able to line up babysitting.

I'll have to check out the blogswarms later this evening when I get home. You have fun, too!

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Cue "Jeopardy" theme....

UPDATE: 3:25pm:
From RedState.org. The old "bait 'n switch"? This is getting interesting.

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Joy (Edith Brown) Clement for SCOTUS?

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GOP chairman growing the party...

While Howard "Old Yellar" Dean is out making stupid comments to placate his moonbat base and underwhelming everyone with his lack of prowess in fundraising, Ken Mehlman is out harvesting new Republicans.

Fred Barnes looks at the current efforts of the man who's goal is to help the growing Republican majority grow even faster - contrasting his more focused style against his DNC counterpart.

In temperament and style, Mehlman is unlike Rove and even more unlike Democratic national chairman Howard Dean. Rove is sometimes brisk and has ten ideas on his mind at any given time. Mehlman is intense and focused. Dean's idea of outreach is to insult Republicans and question their motives. Mehlman criticizes Democratic leaders but not rank-and-file Democrats. When he meets a Democrat, Mehlman says, he tries to find out what they have in common and see if they can work together. "Politics ought to be about addition, not division," he says. A Republican official said Mehlman follows the Coke approach and Dean doesn't: "Coca Cola doesn't attract people by saying Pepsi drinkers are intolerant and have never worked a day in their lives." In short, Dean is abrasive. Mehlman isn't.

Mehlman goes to the fastest growing counties in the U.S. (most of which are in Red States). In demographic terms, these areas are known as "exurbs".

"This is where you find the new conservatives and the new Republicans," Mehlman says. After taking over the Republican National Committee in January, he delivered Lincoln Day dinner speeches in several exurbs: Douglas County outside Denver, Lee County in southwest Florida, Pottawatamie County in Iowa across the Missouri River from Omaha. And last week Mehlman came to Waukee, a boomtown in Dallas County, for a party fundraiser.

And most importantly, he is making an intense but realistic effort to focus on African-Americans, a constituency that is offered nothing real by Democrats except rides to the polls.

"Three factors are different today," he says. One, Bush's ownership agenda is appealing to African Americans. "We're the progressives now," he says. Two, there's a "cultural disconnect" between African Americans and Democratic leaders. And, three, Democrats take African Americans for granted. But, again, Mehlman doesn't expect instant gains. "That's not how it works," he says. "I'm more realistic about what's required than people have been in the past." He favors "inclusion, not outreach. Outreach is what you do four weeks before the election. Inclusion is what you do four years before the election."

The inclusion strategy replaces the old practice of relying on African-American consultants. It stresses support for African-American candidates. Mehlman encourages this at all levels of politics. He recently spoke at a fundraiser for a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, city councilman, Otto Banks, who switched parties to become a Republican. In Iowa, he attended a fundraiser at the home of Isaiah McGee in Waukee. A school teacher, McGee is running for city council. "We're honored you are running for this office," Mehlman told him. "Run hard and keep running."

The DNC leadership seems to be focused on navigating a sinking ship, while Mehlman and the RNC are expanding their fleet.

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Sadly, Canada may have it's own Scott Peterson case...

Pregnant wife murdered in Edmonton, Alberta. Hat Tip: NealeNews

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SCOTUS rumor mill churning away...

Michelle Malkin has a good round-up of the scuttlebutt, which has intensified since the White House indicated it would name a nominee by the end of the month - possibly by the end of this week.

I'll go on the record and stand by my prediction (such as it is): Janice Rogers Brown. The right pick at the right time.

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Yikes! Now that's gonna leave a mark!

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Mary Jo Kopechne (1940-1969): R.I.P.

A terrible anniversary to mark, but ABP reminds us that on this day, 36 years ago, an innocent woman's life ended because she made the mistake of getting into an Oldsmobile driven by Senator "Tailspin" Teddy Kennedy.

On July 18, 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne was in the passenger seat of the car when Kennedy drove it off a small bridge connecting Martha's Vineyard to Chappaquiddick Island. The car overturned and sank. Kennedy - by eyewitness accounts probably drunk off his ass at the time -managed to escape, flee the scene and spend the rest of the night trying to concoct on alibi with his buddy, Joseph Gargan - including mulling the possibility of saying that Gargan was actually driving.

Kopechne would have been 65 years old this year and likely would have lived a full and happy life had it not been for the reckless irresponsibility of a man who has been a chronic screw-up and an embarrassment to his family his whole life. Kicked out of Harvard for cheating, riding to a Senate seat on his brother's name and infamous for his role - sans trousers - in the evening that led to his nephew's arrest and trial for rape in South Florida, Teddy Kennedy escaped responsibility for his actions and, ultimately, justice for Kopechne's death.

By rights, Kennedy should have served at least ten years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. But in those days, the MSM was able to control the story and keep it muted. Back-slapping Massachusetts politics did the rest.

Unfortunately, this is a story that is unfamiliar to most people born after that time. And the media has done its damnedest to keep it that way. Well, enter the Blogosphere. If you don't know much of the story, go to the links and read about it. And educate those friends and family who haven't heard it either.

It's not about discrediting the reputation of a man who seeks the White House. That day is long past.

It's about shedding light on the absolute hypocrisy and lack of credibility of this Left-wing icon. Of all Democrats currently in office, Ted Kennedy most represents what went wrong with that party. And why so many people, like myself, walked away from it.

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Pigs...In...Spaaaaaace - at least their sperm...

This story immediately made me think of that old "Muppet Show" bit. The Chinese plan to send 40 grams of pig sperm into space with their next launch.

Agricultural experts hope to use the sperm to fertilise pig eggs back on Earth - to see what effect a period of microgravity will have had on the sperm's activity.

Trying to breed some kind of futuristic Mu Shu Pork? And these people have nuclear weapons?

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Democrats only hope...

George W. Bush wins twice and the Republicans increase their congressional strength every election year. With terrorists on the ropes and U.S. economic news getting better every day, the Democrats only have one hope to hang their hats on: that somehow, somewhere there is a scandal brewing that's juicy enough to taint the Bush Presidency.

They'll beat the drum over and over in the hopes that if they repeat a charge enough times and with the right intensity, that Joe six-pack will absorb this subliminal message: Bush bad, Republicans bad.

To this day, the only knock they have on a successful Reagan Presidency is the Iran-Contra situation which they invariably like to hold up as some kind of trophy - as if this one episode somehow offsets the achievements of pulling the U.S out of its Carter-induced malaise, creating a robust economy and bringing the Soviets to their knees.

But as Rich Galen points out, Democrats have a particular reason to fear Rove and the effect he is having on the landscape of national politics.

The danger which Karl Rove poses to the Democratic Party has nothing to do with which reporters told him the name of Joe Wilson's wife. It has everything to do with their utter terror of remaining the minority party in America for decades to come.

Consider how Rove helped turn Texas, one of the most Democrat-controlled States as of 1977, into one that is - for all intents and purposes - a one party State held by the GOP.

Now consider how much the once-dominant Democrats have lost in the last five years - the Presidency, State Houses, State Legislatures and a presence in the U.S. Congress that - bucking historical trends - has gotten smaller and smaller. And Democrats know only too well who deserves much of the credit.

In that context you understand the anger and frustration they have aimed at Karl Rove - the "architect". Message to Dems: Be afraid....be very afraid.

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CNN's "bullshit" newscast...

Crooks and Liars has a WMP file of Lou Dobbs on 7/15/05 reporting the latest in the Karl Rove "non-scandal".

Click on the link in his post where Dobbs says that Rove testified that he first heard of Joe Wilson's CIA wife from Robert Novak. As he cues over to Danna Bash for the report, you can clearly hear a woman's voice over the studio mike saying "That's bullshit".

Nice. They're just soooooo pissed that this story is dying off, and now they're really getting sloppy.

UPDATE: 12:22pm
Ha! Rush just featured this clip on his show. Ex-Donkey echo syndrome! ;-)

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My Sci-Fi Character: Elrond the Half-Elven...

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Finally watched my tape....

Of the premier episode of season two. Battlestar Galactica.

Dammit, this show just gets better and better. If you're not watching it, you're missing one of the best shows on television. NBC really should move it to the main network lineup. Even non-scifi fans would eat it up.

I mean...holy crap...it's just that good.

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If you've got three kids (or more), you'll appreciate this...

By the time the third child comes...

My personal favorite:

Diapering:

1st baby: You change your babyÂ’s diapers every hour, whether they need it or not

2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.

3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.

Hat Tip to the Llama Butchers.

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Later y'all...

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Diane Lane Photo of the Week...

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Facts are stubborn things...

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