Real Professional Journalists™ sneer at blogger journalists because the latter don’t have editors, right? Professional news organizations are more trustworthy because everything is vetted and checked multiple times to avoid embarrassing mistakes, right? Yeah, right:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Quaker Maid Meats Inc. on Tuesday said it would voluntarily recall 94,400 pounds of frozen ground beef panties that may be contaminated with E. coli.

I’ve heard that vegetarian undergarments are much healthier. But the choice of buns is important, too.

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Glenn Reynolds and N.Z. Bear have announced version 2.0 of the PorkBusters project (complete with the neat new logo at left, courtesy of Karl Egenberger via Instapundit). This phase is focused on supporting specific legislation, starting with an "offset package" bill being introduced by seven Senators calling themselves the "Fiscal Watch Team": Tom Coburn, Sam Brownback, Jim DeMint, John Ensign, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and John Sununu.

Sen. Coburn’s press release described the Fiscal Watch Team bill as follows:

• A freeze on cost-of-living adjustments for federal employees, including members of Congress, with the exception of law enforcement and military personnel.

• A two-year delay in implementation of the Medicare prescription drug benefit except for low-income seniors who would receive $1,200 in assistance with their drug discount cards.

• A requirement that those with higher incomes pay higher Medicare Part B premiums in 2006, rather than in 2007 as currently scheduled.

• Eliminate $24 billion in special project spending in the recently passed highway bill. 

• A cut of 5% to all federal spending programs except those which impact national security, with 1% set aside for funding of essential programs.

Naturally, I support the Fiscal Watch Team Offset Package, and I’ll be contacting Senators Allard and Salazar to urge them to support it. Contact your Senators and ask them to back the Coburn / Fiscal Watch Team Offset Package. And if/when you get a response, be sure to add it to Bear’s tracking page.

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Stephen Littau of Fearless Philosophy for Free Minds is hosting this week’s Carnival of Liberty, and it’s huge! What a great collection of titles and topics — I can’t wait to dive in.

Well, actually…I already have, just a little. I mean, how can you resist clicking on The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Statue of Liberty Edition)? Or AP Sets Record for Most Bias Crammed into Smallest Space? 

If you’ve got some reading time, head on over there and start sampling. Stephen did a great job of introducing the posts, so you’ll have no trouble finding things that interest you.

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It’s election day in Colorado, and I just came from my polling place. The ballot had half a dozen initiatives and referenda on it, but there was only one office — a vacancy on the Denver School Board. I voted against everything except the marijuana legalization measure. For school board, I picked one of the candidates who didn’t call me and leave a recorded message bragging about support from the teachers’ union.

The big issue today is Referendum C, which would let the state government keep revenues in excess of the growth limits (inflation plus population growth) imposed by TABOR (Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights). It would amount to $4 billion over the next 5 years. The proponents claim it would cost the average family less than $100 a year. But, Colorado’s population is under 4 million. Using the old-fashioned math I learned, I get a five-year cost of over $1000 per man, woman, and child, or $4000 per family of four. That’s $800 a year, not $100.

But then, I’m using old-fashioned math. I’m sure the same people who describe a 7% increase in education spending as "more slashing of K-12 funding" can explain away the discrepancy.

In light of the election, and of Referendum C in particular, here’s an appropriate quote:

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

— Robert A. Heinlein

UPDATE: I-100, the marijuana initiative in Denver, seems to have eked out a narrow victory. So it’s going to be legal in Denver for adults to possess up to an ounce of pot. Of course, there are still those pesky state and federal laws…

Ref. C also appears to have won narrowly (52-48), although there are reports of widespread voting problems in El Paso county, the state’s most conservative. What a coincidence.

David Aitken pointed out something interesting to me earlier this evening: apparently, no one reported any poll results in the 5 or 6 days leading up to the election. About a week earlier, a poll showed Ref. C with 48%, but there haven’t been any more recent numbers. Curious.

Also curious: I can’t recall a ballot issue that had less than 50% in the weeks before the election and went on to win. Ballot issues almost always lose support as the election approaches. This one gained.

Do I sound suspicious and paranoid?

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Every news story and program about Alito has brought up the same talking point: he’s been dubbed "Scalito" because his thinking so closely follows Scalia’s. My reaction? I guess he’s OK, but I’d like him better if he’d been dubbed "Thomasito."

The first diss of Alito that I heard gave me pause. Someone said he’d given a husband veto power over his wife’s abortion. Could that be true? It would make him unacceptable to this pro-choice libertarian, that’s for sure.

Well, it’s not even remotely true. The case is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and the way its being misrepresented is utterly contemptible. Fortunately, Jon Henke at QandO has done the heavy intellectual lifting, and I can point you to this excellent post for a comprehensive explanation of the case and Alito’s dissenting opinion — which appears to me to be correct. (The same Henke post also challenges the left’s version of another Alito opinion, Doe v. Groody.)

The short version is this: (1) the state law involved no spousal veto or consent, only notification, and with several gaping loopholes; (2) Alito specifically said the law may be bad public policy and "would be difficult to enforce and easy to evade"; (3) but Alito concluded that the law didn’t impose an "undue burden" as defined by Justice O’Connor and was therefore not unconstitutional. It’s ironic, given the left’s adulation of O’Connor and harsh condemnation of Alito, that his opinion explicitly relies on O’Connor’s definition of "unduly burdensome interference" with the right to abortion as "the governing legal standard." 

David Hardy at Of Arms & the Law thinks Alito may be a pretty good pick for us gun nuts. He cites Alito’s dissent in U.S. v. Rybar, involving unlawful possession of machine guns:

… Majority upholds conviction, rejecting both commerce clause and 2d Amendment arguments.

Alito dissents, focusing on the commerce clause, and beginning "Was United States v. Lopez, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (1995), a constitutional freak? Or did it signify that the Commerce Clause still imposes some meaningful limits on congressional power? The statutory provision challenged in this case, the portion of 18 U.S.C. Section(s) 922(o) that generally prohibits the purely intrastate possession … of a machine gun, is the closest extant relative of the statute struck down in Lopez…" I paste the full dissent into the extended entry.

I’d take this at the very least to mean (1) he has a proper view of the commerce clause, and (2) at least is not hostile to guns.

If confirmed, Alito will become the fifth Catholic on the Supreme Court. Will all five follow orders from the Vatican, thus giving the Pope control of our legal system? Given the Constitution’s "no religious test" dictum, you probably won’t hear the issue raised quite that bluntly (at least not by Senators), but you can expect Alito’s opponents to imply, insinuate, and allude to it in every way they can think of.

Limbaugh was practically giddy today. He wants Ralph Nees (PFAW), Nan Aaron (AFJ), and Senators Schumer, Kennedy, and Boxer to get as much air time as possible in the coming weeks. Limbaugh thinks that the more these people appear on TV arguing against the Alito nomination, the more they’ll appear out of the mainstream to most Americans. I suspect he’s right.

Hugh Hewitt, who recovered quickly from his depression about Miers and now seems to believe the Republic (or at least the Republican Party) will survive after all, interviewed Sen. Mike DeWine, one of the "Gang of 14," this afternoon. RadioBlogger has the transcript, but here’s the nut:

HH: Your colleague on judiciary, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said yesterday on Face The Nation, that if Democrats attempt to filibuster, he will work to break it, meaning that this is not something the Gang of 14 had in mind. Do you agree with Senator Graham that this is not a filibusterable nomination?

MD: Oh, I absolutely do. I mean, this is not under what our definition of extraordinary circumstances is. This is a nomination that’s clearly within the mainstream of conservative judges. …

HH: So absent any extraordinary revelation, is it fair to say, Senator DeWine, that if the Constitutional option has to be deployed, that you will vote for it?

MD: Oh, I certainly would. I would think, though, that this will not be necessary. …

Hewitt also played a clip (MSNBC? I’m not sure) in which Chris Matthews revealed a Democratic Party talking points document he got, which Matthews described as disgusting and the worst kind of politics. The first talking point against Alito, the son of an Italian immigrant, was that in the 80s as a prosecutor, he failed to win a conviction against an Italian mob family.

Meanwhile, Sen. Schumer suggested that Alito would "reverse much of what Rosa Parks and so many others fought so hard and for so long to put in place." This is a millimeter away from calling Alito a segregationist. And practically every woman on TV has pointed out that he’s "another white male." Katie Couric this morning said (paraphrasing from memory) "I guess this means ideology trumps gender" — as if that were a bad thing. 

I suspect the liberals will badly overplay their hand, sound shrill and hateful, and give Limbaugh another "see, I told you so" moment. Two or three more Republican Senators from the "Gang of 14" will join DeWine and Graham, and Alito’s confirmation will be assured.

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Oh, look, it’s my first try at sportsblogging!

My deepest sympathies to any Philadelphians watching the Broncos-Eagles game. What an embarrassment! In the first quarter the Broncos outgained the Eagles 200 yards to 4. Yep, 4.

We’re halfway through the 2nd now, and Denver’s up 28-0 after an amazing one-handed catch in the end zone by Alexander. Philly is up to 16 yards, though. Mwahahahah!

UPDATE: The Eagles came back to life and scored late in the half, thanks to two long passes by McNabb. So at halftime, it’s 28-7. Denver’s defense has been blitzing relentlessly (McNabb has been pressured at least ten times), so there are bound to be receivers open when McNabb has time to throw to them.

First half time of possession: Denver 21+ minutes, Philly 8+. Total offense: Denver 312 yds., Philly 111. First downs: Denver 20, Philly 5.

Denver has a history of failing to finish off opponents when they have a big lead, so I guess I’d better not gloat too much — Philly is explosive on offense. But can their defense slow down the Broncos? Stay tuned.

UPDATE 2: Yep, gloated too soon. Five minutes into the 3rd, T.O. went 91 yards to score (his longest). So now it’s 28-14. VRB and the rest of you Eagles fans — you know I was just joshing you, right? All in good fun, right? <gulp>

Announcer just reminded viewers that the Eagles have never lost a game in which T.O. scored a touchdown. Well, there’s got to be a first time some time…

UPDATE 3: The 3rd quarter is finally over, and it totally sucked. The Eagles’ defense, MIA in the first half, showed up and shut down Denver. Champ Bailey’s bad hamstring got worse, and T.O. and the Eagles took advantage to the tune of 21 unanswered points. The Eagles even found a running game.

So now it’s 28-21. And so far this season, the 4th quarter has been the Broncos’ worst. I think I’m getting a headache…

Wait… Yay!! Bailey and his bad hamstring have finally been sidelined in favor of the rookie Dominique Foxworth. I’m sure there was a lot of reluctance to put in a rookie to cover Owens. But Foxworth just intercepted McNabb in the end zone — a huge defensive play!

UPDATE 4: Touchdown Denver! Plummer to Devoe, 44 yards! 35-21. Rookie Devoe’s first NFL TD. And there’s a hard, cold rain falling now. I think my headache is getting better!

UPDATE 5: Touchdown Denver! A 67-yard run by Tatum Bell. With 6 1/2 minutes left, it’s 42-21. What 4th-quarter curse? What headache? Go Broncos!

Bell’s run was a thing of beauty, heading outside, turning the corner, then just pouring on the speed. But a lot of the credit for that TD should go to the other RB, Mike Anderson, whose tough inside running set up Bell’s outside jaunt beautifully. Bell and Anderson are both close to 100 yards.

FINAL: Denver 49, Philly 21. My dad called, so I completely missed the last Denver TD. But both Tatum Bell and Mike Anderson ended up with over 100 yards rushing. And Plummer had over 300 passing. Pretty impressive offensive stats.

The Eagles showed a lot of character when they came back in the 3rd quarter. But Denver clearly has the better team. The Broncos’ defense has looked awesome since the second game, and still looked strong, despite the weakness in the secondary due to Champ Bailey’s hamstring injury. What was really heartening for Denver fans was seeing the offense suck it up and take charge in the 4th quarter.

Good game. And did I mention how awesome it looked at 1280 x 720p on a Samsung 46" DLP TV? From the leather recliner? I almost feel sorry for those fans in the stands, sitting in a 37-degree rain (it’ll change to snow shortly). Bwahahahahahaha! Life is good.

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New World Man has a quiz you may want to take. Answer a few questions, and he’ll tell you who your favorite candidate for the Supreme Court is. Here’s my result:

JUDGE JANICE ROGERS BROWN U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, appointed by G.W. Bush, born 1949 Judge Brown’s nomination to the federal bench from the California Supreme Court was dislodged when the "Gang of Fourteen" decided not to filibuster people anymore. Don’t think the same thing would happen if she were elevated to SCOTUS! Think Clarence Thomas! New World Man presents: My favorite candidate for the Supreme Court brought to you by Quizilla

Mind you, the first time I took the quiz, I answered the questions in a way calculated to get this result. I indicated that it was very important that the nominee be a woman and a minority — not something I really believe, but…

Out of curiosity, I took it a couple of more times, trying to be completely honest. Depending on one question that I consider unclear, I got either Brown or Priscilla Owen. The question: "How important are CONSERVATIVE CREDENTIALS to you? Or, how important is RALLYING THE BASE?" If I chose "Very important," I got Brown; "Dealbreaker important" shifted me to Owens. I consider "conservative credentials" a bit vague — ask me about judicial philosophy.

Meanwhile, there are other pure preference polls going on, and Brown appears to be the runaway favorite just about everywhere:  

• Free Republic (3400+ votes, half by non-members): Brown leads with 60%, Luttig is second at 16%. Results are almost identical for members and non-members.
   
• Move America Forward (<300 votes, registration required, but not obtrusive): Brown has 73%, all others in single digits.
   
• PoliPundit has a somewhat different poll, which asks "Who would you find acceptable…" You can select as many as you want from the list of 18 candidates (you aren’t told this, but if you understand the distinction between check boxes and radio buttons, it’s obvious). The results, therefore, are much more tightly bunched (and no percentages given). Top three: Brown 639, Luttig 554, Alito 440.

So go vote in those three — and in the Reasoned Audacity poll (in the left sidebar) that I mentioned earlier. If you know of any other polls or surveys, please post a comment about them.

The news and some bloggers in the know, meanwhile, have been saying that Alito and Luttig are the two top finalists. Could be. But how many of them predicted the Miers choice?

I haven’t read opinions from either Alito or Luttig. I’ve read a fair amount about the latter, less about the former, and I suspect I’d be happier with Luttig. Probably with Owen, too. But I still strongly prefer Brown. Go vote for her in those polls.

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Is it cold and gray and gloomy where you are, like it is here in Denver? Are you inclined to stay indoors and catch up on some reading? Well, I’ve got your online reading assignments right here.

First, even if you’re not much into guns, you just have to visit Carnival of Cordite #36 at Resistance is futile! Why, you ask? Because it’s got Countertop Chronicle’s Kalishnikitty! (Countertop, shouldn’t that be "Kalashnikitty"?) But there’s much more — great pictures, great posts — on a vast array of guns, gun rights, self-defense, and related issues. Even the disgusting news that the next James Bond will be unarmed — a "gun-fearing sissy boy." Boo!

When you’ve had your fill of guns, head on over to the Watcher of Weasels and check out the latest voting results. Every week, the Watcher’s Council nominates and votes on posts by Council members and non-members to pick the best pieces of writing around. The latest winning Council post is a piece on Syria’s assassination of Rafiq Hariri by Right Wing Nut House. The winning non-Council post is a disturbing and thought-provoking post by psychoanalyst ShrinkWrapped that discusses how, with the best of intentions, liberals psychologically cripple young black men. Be sure to read the comments.

The complete list of the Council’s latest nominees is here. The Watcher’s Council posts have always been worth checking out, but for those interested in liberty issues, they’re becoming more so as the Life, Liberty, Property community pursues its secret plan to take over the Council. The Watcher recently named LLP founder Eric Cowperthwaite to the Council, and existing Council member Matt Barr, the New World Man, just became the newest member of the LLP community. Rhymes With Right is also both a Council and LLP member, so the LLP community now has 3 of the 13 Council seats. Notice that The Unrepentant Individual, another LLP member, finished second in the non-Council category this week — all part of our secret plan. Mwahahahaha!

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Charmaine at Reasoned Audacity is running a poll on who should be the next Supreme Court nominee. The choices are Janice Rogers Brown, Ted Olson, Michael Luttig, Edith Jones, Alice Batchelder, Michael McConnell, and Samuel Alito. When I voted, Brown had 50% of the 1100-odd votes. Luttig was second with 18%.

To bring you up to speed, Charmaine has brief looks at the above candidates, plus a growing list of others, with plenty of links to additional information. She also linked to this GOPUSA story about a poll they conducted:

The overnight survey conducted by GOPUSA of over 1,000 primarily conservative Republicans shows that 72% believe Miss Miers did the right thing by withdrawing her nomination. …
…
… When presented with a list of some of the most frequently circulated names for Supreme Court consideration, a near majority (46%) favored Judge Janice Rogers Brown. The complete results of the respondents are as follows:

Judge Janice Rogers Brown: 46%

Judge Priscilla Owen: 12%

Judge Michael Luttig: 8%

Solicitor General Ted Olson: 8%

Judge Emilio Garza: 3%

Judge Edith Jones: 3%

Judge Samuel Alito: 1%

Judge Karen Williams: 1%

Larry Thompson: 1%

Someone Else: 16%

The GOPUSA survey also asked how important various factors should be in selecting a nominee. Here are the percentages who rated these factors as "most important" or "very important":

Judicial philosophy 91%
Judicial experience 58%
Age 36%
Being a woman or minority 14%

Interesting. And I’m delighted to see my enthusiasm for Janice Rogers Brown is widely shared.

Now, go to Reasoned Audacity and vote for Brown!

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Eric at Eric’s Grumbles and Brad at The Unrepentant Individual both dismissed ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless technology recently, and I think they’re both probably wrong because they’re viewing it from the wrong perspective.

Eric began by noting that "Interestingly, and I’m in the IT industry, I haven’t heard of UWB." He went on to compare it to IBM’s Token Ring networking technology, which failed in the marketplace despite technical superiority, and argued that, like Token Ring, UWB will fail because:

… it isn’t established in the marketplace, another product already is. It’s not a killer app. It’s too late in the wireless market, the killer app already happened, WiFi, more esoterically known as the IEEE 802.11x standard. Like Token Ring, it will be around, a few people will invest in it, and then it will fade into computing history, as forgotten as CP/M.

Brad semiseriously began with his own lack of knowledge as a failure indicator and then made a different comparison:

To this, I apply the “have I heard of it” test. I’m an electrical engineer, and I work in the computer industry. I have never heard of UWB. Therefore, it’s not going to catch on 🙂
… 
This reminds me of a standard that was all the rage a few years ago, and has mostly fallen out of use: Firewire. Firewire was similar to USB, but was much, much faster, and could handle the demands of high-bandwidth applications like external hard drives, video devices, etc. But then USB 2.0 arrived, and had all the speed of Firewire with the addition of backward and forward compatibility to earlier versions of USB. Firewire is now going the way of Betamax.

The reason neither Eric nor Brad had heard of UWB is also the reason they may be wrong about it: they’re computer geeks, and they’re looking at it from a computer/IT perspective. Their comparisons (except for Brad’s throwaway Betamax reference at the end) are to computer/IT products, Token Ring and FireWire. Wrong industry, guys.

UWB is no shoe-in, but it stands a good chance of succeeding — maybe not in the computer industry, but in consumer electronics. Which, by the way, is where FireWire has gained quite a bit of acceptance under the designation IEEE 1394. Most $1000+ and probably all $3000+ multi-channel home audio receivers and most $800+ multi-format DVD players have an IEEE 1394 connection. So do most or all digital camcorders, media servers, and media center PCs.

In fact, if UWB succeeds, it will do so at the expense of three different kinds of cable connections: IEEE 1394, DVI (Digital Visual Interface), and HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface). All three of those have recently taken off because they reduce the cable clutter in a home theater system. For instance, a 1394 connection between a DVD player and receiver or pre-amp replaces the 6 analog cables previously needed for playing 5.1-channel DVD-Audio and SACD discs.

A typical high-end home theater system might include an HDTV, cable or satellite STB (set-top box), second STB or OTA (over-the-air) tuner, multi-channel receiver (or pre-amp/processor and power amps), multi-format DVD player, DVD recorder or DVR (digital video recorder), media server or media center PC, and perhaps additional playback devices or signal processors. It has a rat’s nest of cabling. And most of these components must be within 3 meters of each other, if only to keep the already-high cable costs (often $100+ per connection) from becoming astronomical. Replacing or merely relocating a piece of equipment can be a nightmare.

UWB could eliminate virtually everything except the speaker cables and do it without requiring complex installation or configuration procedures — the kind that computer geeks are used to, but which drive home theater enthusiasts away. And you could put those home theater components anywhere that’s convenient up to 20+ meters away.

UWB has sufficient bandwidth for multiple simultaneous high-definition video streams, and it’s much more impervious to interference than other wireless standards. That’s not such a big deal in a computer network, where you just resend the packets and wait a few extra milliseconds. But it’s critical for transmitting high-quality video and audio signals in real time among multiple components.

A few months ago, Chinese electronics manufacturer Haier and one of the technology leaders in UWB, Freescale Semiconductor, announced the first UWB-enabled HDTV and media server. Freescale just won a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award.

This article from Mobile Pipeline provides a pretty good overview of UWB, including the ongoing struggle over UWB standards. For more than you ever wanted to know about UWB, try Ultrawidebandplanet.com.

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Harriet Miers is out:

WASHINGTON — Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications.

President Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.

I suspect the withdrawal had more to do with reaction to some speeches she made in the early 1990s. Miers was portrayed by the White House as a strongly conservative, strongly anti-abortion evangelical Christian, and Christian conservatives, led by Dr. James Dobson, were the group most solidly behind her. But yesterday’s reporting about one speech in particular may have threatened that support:

In a speech given in the spring of 1993 to the Executive Women of Dallas, Miers appeared to offer a libertarian view of several topics in which the law and religious beliefs were colliding in court.

"The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women’s [sic] right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion," Miers said.
… 
Cass Sunstein, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, said that while the words left room for varying interpretations, "one possible reading is that she believes you should basically give liberty the benefit of the doubt and that when moral issues are disputed and scientific evidence is unclear, government should stay its hand."

Now, that’s bound to disturb Dobson and the Operation Rescue people, but it sounds pretty good to me, a "pro-choice on everything" libertarian. In fact, if presented in isolation, it would greatly enhance my opinion of Miers.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t presented in isolation. We already knew that she’d said very different, very anti-abortion things on other occasions (I believe both before and after this speech). So, either her thinking on this issue has been all over the map or she’s tailored her message to whatever audience she was addressing, saying one thing to evangelical Christians and another to a business women’s group.

The rest of the speech further lowered my opinion of her. The entire speech is available in PDF form — it’s a low-resolution scan, not text, so I won’t quote at length. But Miers spent much of the speech arguing that, in a variety of matters from school funding to low-income housing, the courts were "forced" to step in and legislate from the bench because elected officials didn’t make "decisions that really need to be made" that were "hard and unpopular." She summed up her point this way (ellipsis and sentence fragment in original):

My basic message here is that when you hear the Courts blamed for activism or intrusion where they do not belong…Stop and examine what the elected leadership has done to solve the problem at issue and whether abdication to courts to make the hard decisions is not a too prevalent tactic in today’s world. Politicians who are too concerned about maintaining their jobs.

So according to Miers, when a judge mandates a specific level of education spending or orders the legislature to increase taxes, that’s justified because the legislature didn’t defy the will of the people and do on its own what the judge subsequently ordered. And she’s supposed to be a nominee in the mold of Thomas or Scalia?

The speech also included a plea for a state income tax and a John Edwards-like "two Americas" section about haves and have-nots, unequal justice, and discrimination "seated in economic concerns–minimizing the number who are able to participate in the slicing of the pie." This is supposed to be an intelligent, principled conservative? That sounds like the standard liberal mythology: economics is merely a distribution problem, a fixed pie is simply a given, and we don’t need to think about how the pie is produced or how to make it bigger.

Since she’s withdrawn, there’s no point in belaboring the issue, but I must say this one speech made me wonder not just about her values and beliefs, but about her ability to communicate intelligently and effectively. Consider just this sentence:

The necessary continued requirements by the Courts for progress frequently has the effect of hardening feelings and slowing the process and in my view the ultimate benefit of a society whose wealth is diversity and who pulls together against common enemies.

What can I say? That’s simply embarrassing.

I’m glad she’s withdrawn, and I just hope this leads to a better outcome. As regular readers know, I’m a huge fan of Janice Rogers Brown and would love to see her nominated and confirmed. I know less about some of the other "proven" originalist / strict constructionist candidates, such as Luttig, McConnell, and Owens.

At this point, I want two things: First, Bush had better nominate someone like Clarence Thomas, not Gonzales or someone like him. Second, the Senate Republican leadership had better deliver the votes to confirm a Thomas-like originalist candidate, including the votes to end a filibuster if it comes to that.

UPDATE: Reaction is everywhere, of course. The California Conservative has lots of links. So do Decision ’08 and Michelle Malkin. See also Stop the ACLU, The Political Teen, and Basil’s Blog. And PunditGuy has links to coverage and commentary across the political landscape and throughout the MSM.

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Hot on the heels of Rep. Udall, Sen. Wayne Allard has responded to my letter to Colorado’s senators and representatives regarding the six projects I identified for PorkBusters. Allard has been a fairly reliable fiscal conservative, so I’m somewhat disappointed in his response. It’s not the fetid, steaming pile deposited by Colorado’s junior senator, but it falls short of Udall’s letter.

Like Salazar and Udall, Allard completely ignored the six specific projects I asked about. Allard’s form letter wasn’t as completely off the mark as Salazar’s, but it wasn’t as targeted at the subject I wrote about as Udall’s. And unlike Udall, Allard offered no interesting ideas, no bill he’s working on, no specifics at all — "we need to do more" to control spending, pork is "part of the problem," and he’ll oppose "unrelated amendments" to future Katrina relief appropriations. Whoop-de-doo.

Here’s the whole thing:

Dear Richard:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding supplemental
appropriations bills that provide funds for Hurricane Katrina relief.  I
appreciate you sharing your comments and concerns with me about this
important issue.

I am encouraging vigorous oversight of all of the relief efforts by the
Senate Committees.  I believe we need to do more to control spending.
Pork barrel spending is part of the problem.
As you may know, in response to the widespread destruction brought to the
Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, the 109th Congress has completed action
on two separate emergency supplemental bills (P.L. 109-61/H.R. 3645 and
P.L. 109-62/H.R. 3673), which together provide $62.3 billion for the
immediate emergency response and recovery needs of the affected region.
Both measures contain all funding requested by the Administration,
including $10.5 billion in P.L. 109-61 and $51.8 billion in P.L. 109-62.
The Administration has stated that additional requests for supplemental
funding will be made in the weeks and months ahead as loss and recovery
estimates become available.
I am opposed to attaching unrelated amendments to future Hurricane Katrina
supplemental appropriations bills.  I believe that including irrelevant
provisions in an emergency spending bill is an inappropriate way to
legislate, and I will resist any amendments that would take money away
from the relief efforts in the Gulf Coast region.
It is important for the federal government to be frugal with the
taxpayers’ money and to ensure that each dollar is spent with the taxpayer
in mind.  On September 19, 2005, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Inspector General, Richard L. Skinner, announced that Matthew Jadacki will
join his office to establish an Office for Hurricane Katrina Oversight.
The Office will focus on preventing problems through a proactive program
of internal control reviews and contract audits to ensure disaster
assistance funds are being spent wisely. Mr. Jadacki will be responsible
for overseeing the management and expenditure of all contracts, grants and
governmental operations related to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Thank you for writing to share your concerns. I look forward to hearing
from you again. If you would like more information on issues important to
Colorado and the nation, please log on to my website at
http://allard.senate.gov.

                                               Sincerely,
                                               A
                                               Wayne Allard
                                               United States Senator

Jeez, there’s more information about what the Department of Homeland Security is doing than about what Sen. Allard is doing. Allard has never been a high-profile, take-charge guy and hasn’t dropped lots of bills in the hopper, but this is pretty lame even for Senator Bland.

If Salazar rated an F and Udall a C+, then Allard gets a D. If I were feeling charitable, I might give him a C- on the assumption that his vague, platitudinous remarks about controlling spending and being frugal will actually translate into some decent votes. His past record suggests they might.

But I’m not feeling charitable.

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I’m back in Denver and belatedly noting that Carnival of Liberty #17 is up at Eric’s Grumbles. Check it out — he has a huge list of entries, including some really intriguing topics.

For instance, what’s the proper role of government in a pandemic? Why aren’t Jews allowed to visit some of their holy sites in Israel? What can we learn from the Iraqis about fair elections? What’s the true cost of preserving open space? Why do we have a 2nd Amendment, and what did New Orleans teach us about it? And those questions barely scratch the surface, so go read already.

And speaking of Eric, belated congratulations to him for being named to the Watcher’s Council by the Watcher of Weasels.

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In 1989, William Galston and Elaine Kamarck wrote The Politics of Evasion, the Democratic Leadership Council study and strategy paper that advocated a sharp turn away from the left and an embrace of more centrist, mainstream values and issues. This was the strategy that brought Bill Clinton to the White House. Now, Galston and Kamarck have released a new study, The Politics of Polarization (PDF), via Third Way, which bills itself as "a strategy center for progressives."

So, what’s new? Not that much. G & K make a couple of key points. First, for quite some time, self-described conservatives have significantly outnumbered liberals, 34% to 21% in 2004 exit polls. Second, in the past couple of decades, there has been what they call "the great sorting out" of the two major parties. The Republican Party contains far fewer liberals than it once did, and the Democratic Party contains almost no conservatives. These two facts alone give Republicans a big advantage: their base puts them much closer to a majority at the polls. The Democrats have to attract a much larger group from outside their base.

According to G & K, the Dems have been failing to do that because they embrace four myths:

Interesting stuff, and it’s hard to argue with the diagnoses. The problem facing the Democrats is that most Democrats just don’t believe and aren’t comfortable with policy positions and values that would make them more appealing to the majority of Americans. Michael Barone wrote a long piece about G & K’s study, and he thinks it will be difficult for anyone to follow their advice to run a more Clintonesque, centrist campaign:

I think he’s right, and not just because the Democratic grass roots are so liberal. The bigger problem is a consequence of the decline of the party’s power due to campaign finance reform and other systemic changes. The Democrats have a much smaller contributor base than the Republicans and depend much more on large sums from a few individuals and groups. George Soros, MoveOn.org, the Hollywood left, and other radical interests control much of the funding for Democratic campaigns these days.

In a Washington Times op-ed, Tod Lindberg notes that the Democrats will have trouble fulfilling G & K’s prescriptions for an electable Presidential candidate, either in terms of issues or character:

Meanwhile, on the left, they’re skeptical. Kevin Drum described himself as "underwhelmed" and actually raised an objection that I agree with 100%:

Drum’s right, this is conventional and uninspiring "positioning" advice — what Limbaugh describes as the Democrats’ "how can we fool them today?" analysis. The trouble for Drum and his allies is that it’s the only way the Democrats can win. It’s abundantly clear to any objective observer that what most Democrats really believe in is unacceptable to the majority of Americans.

Democrats can either proudly stick by their principles and accept permanent minority status (a larger version of the Libertarian Party), or they can do some soul searching and honestly rethink their beliefs (yeah, that’s going to happen), or they can "position" themselves based on polling and focus groups, which risks alienating their base.

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Cobb put up an interesting post on Tuesday (10/18) in which he redefined RINO (Republican in Name Only). He began with a quote from former Senator John Danforth:

“During the 18 years I served in the Senate, Republicans often disagreed with each other. But there was much that held us together. We believed in limited government, in keeping light the burden of taxation and regulation. We encouraged the private sector, so that a free economy might thrive. We believed that judges should interpret the law, not legislate. We were internationalists who supported an engaged foreign policy, a strong national defense and free trade. These were principles shared by virtually all Republicans. But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.” — John Danforth, moderate Republican and former U.S. Senator and ambassador.

Mind you, I don’t recall Danforth being a great defender of limited government or light taxation and regulation, but maybe my memory’s failing me. In any case, it’s a great quote. Cobb acknowledged not paying much attention to the domestic agenda in the past. But as he became more focused on it, he grew increasingly unhappy with the lack of fiscal restraint and especially with the pandering to evangelicals (emphasis in original):

I’ve long placed the blame on Karl Rove for his master strategems and his overplaying of niche manipulation. He’s the one whose campaign tricks have made the Christian Right feel that it is more central to Republicanism than it actually is. But I have not been willing up to this point to place blame on the President, primarily because of his righteousness on Iraq and the War on Terror. But I think I’m coming around to a more concrete sense that his agenda is less secular than it seems and that his steadfast refusal to veto any appropriations from Congress is a serious problem.

The real RINOs, from Cobb’s perspective, are the people who’ve discarded much of what Republicans have traditionally — if far too imperfectly — stood for in order to focus completely on the goals of the evangelical Christians.

Cobb argued that this is a Christian country, but not in the way Bush seems to see it:

So the question is whether this Bush understands where the soul of America is, and what kind of Christianity is the Christianity of this Christian nation. It’s the Christianity of Christmas. The Christianity of Norman Rockwell and a moment of silence. It’s the Christianity of the ‘C’ in YMCA. It’s not the Evangelical Christianity of those awaiting the Rapture or those of the Chick tracts. It’s not the Christianity of Operation Rescue, and like it or not, it is not the Christianity of political opportunity. So I have to ask very seriously if this president sees himself as the leader of the Republican Party or of a Born Again Nation, because a lot of us are not ready to blur the line between Church and State. …

After giving Bush a series of middling grades for various domestic agencies, Cobb summed up his current state of mind:

That’s not good. It’s adequate. But my priorities have not been domestic. Now I’m turning that way and it doesn’t look good for this crop of Republicans. The more happy evangelicals are with their influence on the GOP, the less happy I am.

That’s about the way I feel.

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