CapitalistImperialistPig

My CCPSWAG is that there is a roughly 75% chance that "Little Nino" Alito will be confirmed as a Supreme, and that, in the event, a 90% chance that he and his model, together with "silent Bob" Thomas and the new CJ will roll back Roe vs. Wade, Griswold vs. Connecticut, the "right of privacy," and more or less anything standing between the American people and untrammeled Presidential and corporate power. With luck, though, we will still have the vote, and hence a chance to extablish some of these things legislatively. Also, with abortion off the Supreme Court docket, the right-wing coalition of fundamentalists and the super-rich is likely to fall apart, or, better yet, spontaneously combust. With that in mind, moderates and liberals should plan for the fire and the flood, and be prepared to come out fighting in 2006, 2008, and 2010.

I shall wear my trowsers rolled," said the poet. Maureen Dowd carries on somewhat similarly in her NYT essay What's a Modern Menopausal Woman to do? . OK, that's not really her title - her real title is something about a "Modern Girl." Ostensibly it's about the modern retreat from feminist ideals, but there is a lot of "poor me" in it, though done with her considerable style and wit. A theme is the plight of the high-achieving woman, which seems to be the result of the apparently biological fact that women prefer higher status men, but men prefer younger subordinate women, thus dooming poor Mo to spinsterdom. Some pretty impressive women have managed to find themselves a man - a couple of Supreme Court Justices, Madame Curie, and the brilliant and very cute Tina Brown. No doubt they are exceptions. Whatever one thinks of that, there is the fundamental problem that it's tough to have it all. Choices have to be made, and doors close with every...

It's official. My blogging inspiration and occasional opponent Lubos Motl's fame has spread far beyond the esoteric world of theoretical physics. Judy Woodruff's show on CNN cited his commentary earlier this year - and they even spelled his name right, except for that funky little curly thing over the s (that I don't know how to print either). Congratulations Lubos! The CNN transcript is here. and Lumo's post is somewhere in the archive here.

William Safire and David Brooks were on the Timbot's Meet the Press today, spinning their slimy webs. The theme: since nobody has been charged with the original crime, nothing illegal could have happened. By that logic, of course, the mobster who murders all the witnesses to a crime, and is therefore not charged with it, didn't do anything wrong. Never mind that all the dramatis personnae were defending a completely opposite logic when Clinton was covering up his non-criminal bad behavior.

Juan Cole has a link to an AP story that aides to Sistani are hinting that the Grand Ayatolla may be getting ready to show the US the door. Cole says that if Sistani says go, we gotta go. I mainly agree. Not that he could force us out militarily (at least not quickly) but he could put us in a bubble where no one would cooperate with us and every moment out of our cantonments would be hostile.

Josh Marshall points out this NYT story that says Fitzgerald was spotted outside the offices of the President's personal lawyer. Which reminds me: what did George and Dick tell Fitz during their interviews? Did they say that they had personally checked Rove and LIbby and had been assured that they wern't involved in the leak? Did they try to kick a little sand into the Umpire's eyes? One of many little things in Fitz's files I love to know more about.

Of course the question presumes that the President in question is part of the either the original plot to out Plame or the subsequent cover-up. Given the fact that W Denied WH involvement Promised to fire anyone involved Reneged on that promise then either Rove and Libby lied to him or he was in on it all along. It's hard to imagine a President keeping someone on his staff who openly lied to him in a way that proved so highly embarrassing to that President, so I say he is in it. Proving that will probably require that somebody on the inside talks. Libby might just be a tough enough guy to fight on and maybe go to the slammer, especially if he thinks he has reasonable prospects for a pardon three years from now. I suspect that we shall see.