I Got Up Too Early ...

Joe Conason in the New York Observer , regarding Republican plans to discredit the Special Prosecutor once the indictments come down, and on the Senate plans to hold hearings at the same time the White House refuses to comment on anything.

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I was going to post Richard Cohen's piece complaining about how the same people who are so gung-ho to have the government administer the death penalty get all upset when the government exercises its eminent domain right. I thought he was going to write a much-needed piece in favor of eminent domain. Unfortunately, Cohen then went on to criticize the death penalty as an excessive government intrusion. Oh well.

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If the Mets can get Alfonso Soriano for any two of the "top-name" players mentioned, and this is the last time that Victor Zambrano will ever appear in the same sentence with the words "top-name", the Mets should do it. Unfortunately, the Rangers appear to want four such players.

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As a Democrat, I can't imagine what my confreres think they are going to find that disqualifies John Roberts. I would prefer, as Professor Amar suggests in today's New York Times, that they simply engage him in a conversation about past cases. Of course, that would require a knowledge of American History that apppears to bore most people to death.

One thing that I haven't seen in all my reading, and I'll throw it in the mix ---

Liberals know that the "liberal elite" is way more liberal than even people like me, much less someone who is a "rank-and-file" liberal because s/he is a Union member, or who becomes a liberal as the parent of a special needs child who might need a large government to care for their child after they die, or becomes a liberal as they come to believe that the government is the best protector of minorities civil rights, or because Grandfather Brown was Democrat, and if its good enough for grandpa ... But basically liberals get the difference between the way they think and the way Michael Moore or Al Sharpton thinks.

Liberals think that "rank-and-file" conservatives don't get how conservative "movement" conservatives are. And I use the term "conservative" loosely. It is one thing to think that abortion is a shame, or even a sin, and another thing to make it completely unavailable. You have to be pretty old now to remember what that means. Or to inhale the dirty air. Or to have a workplace injury due to faulty machinery and be told that stuff happens. Or having to quit your job to take care of Grandmother Brown without relying on her SSDI check to make ends meet. Or what it will really mean when you are no longer able to convince the staff at the hospital to let her come home to die in peace.

Liberals keep thinking if you expose people who think like this to the sunlight, that the public will recoil. So liberals keep trying to draw the shades.

But it is going to be hard to find anything to stick to John Roberts. If John Roberts fails to be confirmed, if John Roberts is considered beyond acceptable, then the Democrats should not have all this trouble winning elections.