Informed Speculation

Anyone who doubts what a molehill becomes under the magnifying lens of a special prosecutor should read this Hitchens piece from today’s Wall Street Journal – it’s brilliant, blistering stuff. Some highlights: To judge by his verbose and self-regarding performance, containing as it did the most prolix and least relevant baseball analogy ever offered to [...]

I just got off the line from another in a series of blogger conference calls with the great Ken Mehlman. Today’s topic, of course, was the Alito nomination. As always, Patrick Ruffini gave the introduction for Mr. Mehlman, who stressed to open that Alito is the most experienced nominee in 70 years, first, and second, [...]

…if a RINO comes knocking, better give him the treat. Larry Bernard has the latest RINO Sightings up, and a quite creative one it is. Also, don’t forget the Alito Watering Hole at Politechnical…

Jeff Goldstein has an off-color, but hilarious, prepping session from Diane Feinstein… If it comes down to the nuclear option (sorry, I prefer the original terminology – none of that pansy ‘constitutional option’ stuff for me), Hugh Hewitt has some very important contact info in this excellent post… Captain Ed predicts Alito confirmed, 65-35, and [...]

Hugh Hewitt has a poll up based on the Patrick Ruffini technology – that means if you come from this link and vote, we can see how the Decision ’08ers feel about the nomination… Vote early and often… UPDATE 12:37 p.m.: Early D’08 results here: 15-1 17-2 34-3 41-3 47-3 in favor of Alito, and [...]

Without further ado: Number 10 – John H.: Women should take this for the slap in the face it is – Bush was pressed to appoint a woman to replace O’Connor and the only one he could find was the president of his fan club? Does he really mean to tell us that the only [...]

Jeez, too bad there hasn’t been any news lately, huh? 2005 has certainly been a wild one. One business day after PlameGate indictments, two after the withdrawal of Harriet Miers, Bush goes back on the offensive by nominating a conservative favorite. More later… UPDATE 8:25 a.m.: RINO Watering Hole declared!… Michelle Malkin is all over [...]

President Bush may play a trick or give out a treat, but Erick-Woods Erickson is reporting at Red State that, in all likelihood, Samuel A. Alito, Jr., will be named the next Supreme Court nominee. Obviously a choice that will be far more popular with conservatives than Harriet Miers, if true… UPDATE 9:36 p.m.: The [...]

Answer: apparently write a long-winded diatribe about how the world wasn’t quite the way she wanted it to be. I tried to get through this excerpt from MoDo’s latest book, I really did; I had high hopes, since it wasn’t a political hit piece. Sadly, those hopes were dashed on the rocks of sheer boredom. [...]

Jason Zengerle from The New Republic: …[T]he way Democrats were talking about this case leading up to the indictment, this has to come as a letdown. After all, liberals believed that Patrick Fitzgerald was going to cripple the Bush administration and reveal the lies and deceptions behind the Iraq war. There was speculation that Fitzgerald [...]

Here’s one more review of that great Houston show as the weekend winds down…better than the Houston Chronicle, but not Even Better Than The Real Thing… UPDATE 10/31 6:44 a.m.: Ryan James has a killer series of short clips from the concert up…check it out!…

Sheldon Drobny knows about crime; he’s prosecuted it himself, and, as the co-founder of Air America, he may yet get to see things from the defendant’s dock – but I digress. Here’s what Drobny has to say about PlameGate: Fitzgerald stated in his press conference that most of his work has been completed. While there [...]

Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard: Instead of “Fitzmas,” the leftist nickname for the crippling of the White House through multiple indictments by special prosecutor Fitzgerald, Bush may have experienced the darkness before the dawn last week. Of course, that depends on what he does now. Short of a Rove indictment, Bush won’t be overshadowed [...]

Two days after the issuance of indictments, one thing is clear: PlameGate was not the ‘cancer at the heart of the Presidency’ that Bush’s opponents so blatantly cheered for. Indeed, it is fast becoming a non-scandal. Cheney’s chief-of-staff lied to a grand jury and may or may not go to jail for it. The crushing [...]

I must say, of all the things that disgust me about PlameGate, perhaps nothing is more disgusting than the role of Joe Wilson, the buffoonish figure whose deliberate self-serving reaches a nadir with his new piece, Our 27 Months of Hell. Please, Joe, I just ate. Indeed, it must have been Hell appearing in Vanity [...]

Patrick Fitzgerald’s press conference yesterday makes it clear that the reason Libby was indicted was his insistence to the grand jury that he learned about Valarie Wilson from Tim Russert, when in fact the investigation shows that there were: …at least seven discussions involving government officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he [...]

My Texas Tech Red Raiders bounced back after last week’s spanking at the hands of the Longhorns to go 7-1 by defeating Baylor 28-0. The Raiders close out the season with Texas A & M, Oklahoma State, and Oklahoma. Nicely done, boys!…

That appears to be the case with me; after all the breathless speculation, including the ’22 indictments’ hoopla and so forth, Libby got nailed, as virtually everyone expected, and not for outing a government agent, but for lying to investigators and the grand jury (and no, I’m not defending that – I believe perjury in [...]

The only reason I’m not sure if this was the best U2 show I’ve ever seen is that the band is so consistently excellent, but trust me, no one left the Toyota Center disappointed. A phenomenal, wonderfully energetic show, and a crowd that was so rabid that even Bono seemed taken back, when, after a [...]

Okay, I’m literally walking out the door for Houston, but here it is: Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, was indicted today by a grand jury on one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements and two counts of perjury in the CIA leak probe. The indictments [...]