Gore-Obama in 2008?
I don't believe Gore could win, no matter his running mate, and I like him too much to hope he goes through that process again unsuccessfully. But it's fun to dream, and at least someone thinks he's well-positioned. It's all too un-sourced to take seriously, but if nobody else but Hillary makes a Democratic splash, Gore will at least get some pressure to jump in, and no matter who the nominee is, they will be pressured to select Obama as a running mate.

How do you solve a problem like Harriet? or.. Whom will Harriet love next?
I rarely have a problem knowing what to hope for. But do we want Miers defeated or not? Clearly she is ridiculously unqualified, but at least would seem a tad unpredictable and quite possibly not a repulsively right-wing justice. And isn't it at least in the realm of possible that her next love affair, after that for George W., may be for the keen intellect of Steven Breyer and not Antonin Scalia? That she may hope to win favor with the cool suave of David Souter and not Clarence Thomas? Don't we at least have a 40% chance or so that the impetuous, flitting heart of one Harriet Meiers may just wander upon one of our own? Do we really want W to have another chance at appeasing the rabid right-wing Christian base? Wouldn't the next nomination be a much more frighteningly known quantity? Especially now that conservatives have all called Bush a coward? And if Miers is confirmed, won't this huge Republican rift stay open and festering? And isn't that a glorious thing to watch?

Maybe, like Robert Scheer, I just have a hard time hoping on the same side as George Will, Trent Lott, and James Dobson. I know it's good political theater, but I have no idea what to hope for in the outcome.

Democrats in '06
I've been hoping that Democrats would unite around a coherent list of priorities for the '06 elections the way Republicans did with the Contract on America in '94 (whatever happened to term limits, by the way?). It looks like they will be rolling out an agenda before the end of the year.

Among the proposals are: "real security" for America through stronger investments in U.S. armed forces and benchmarks for determining when to bring troops home from Iraq; affordable health insurance for all Americans; energy independence in 10 years; an economic package that includes an increase in the minimum wage and budget restrictions to end deficit spending; and universal college education through scholarships and grants as well as funding for the No Child Left Behind act.

Democrats will also promise to return ethical standards to Washington through bipartisan ethics oversight and tighter lobbying restrictions, increase assistance to Katrina disaster victims through Medicaid and housing vouchers, save Social Security from privatization and tighten pension laws.

The key is, how specific can it be ("real security" sounds like the same lame crap we've been using), and how well will they stick to the script over the next 12 months. Disciplined is not exactly a word I'd use to describe Democratic campaign strategy in recent years.

Random Question
Curtain Side Air Bags. Do they help in an accident? Or just as likely to harm you further? Does anyone know anything?

MEDIA MONDAY
What have you been reading, listening to, watching?

Scariest movie of all time?
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, according to a Total Film poll. The rest of the top 10:
2. Halloween
3. Suspiria
4. Dawn of the Dead
5. The Shining
6. Psycho
7. The Wicked Man
8. Rosemary's Baby
9. Don't Look Now
10. Cannibal Holocaust

I can definitely see The Shining and Rosemary's Baby on this list. Not sure about the others. I have to admit a few more recent films scared the crap out of me: The Sixth Sense and the Blair Witch Project, in both cases because I had no idea what I was getting in to when I went to the theater. What's the scariest movie you've seen?

Dazzling Hubris
The bad news is that Stephen Colbert is leaving the Daily Show. The good news is that he is starting his own show airing directly after. Howard Kurtz profiles "The Colbert Report in the Washington Post:

Colbert, 41, an old Second City improv player, describes his character this way: "A well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" who "doesn't mean to be a jerk." . . . . With his promotion to anchor, Colbert says he will draw from the "dazzling hubris" of Bill O'Reilly, along with Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough, plus "the folksiness of Aaron Brown, the way he mulls the news and loves to chew the words. And the sexiness of Anderson Cooper. Certainly they sell him as attractive." Watching O'Reilly and company inundate viewers with opinions, he says, is like witnessing a spectacle "as natural as a gorilla beating his chest."

Everybody Hearts Everybody Hates Chris
Metacritics has added a Television section. Chris Rock's new show rates very high.

When is one thumb not enough?
Doug reports on a disturbing (to me) new trend in Roger Ebert-dom:

A thumb's down from Roeper doesn't mean you shouldn't see a movie--it just means you shouldn't see it at the theater. He'll give thumbs down to a movie he'd recommend you see on video in a couple of months. That "maybe" kind of answer doesn't work so well in the binary arena of thumbs up and thumbs down. How do I know which movies aren't worth my money under any circumstances whatsoever and which maybe aren't worth my $9.50 now but could be worth 3 bucks in a little while?

In my own way I have tried to address the problem, though half in jest, with the unwieldy 19-star system. But it really puts too much pressure on the rankings. After trying to decide if a film deserves 13 or 14 stars, there's something very appealing about the thumbs up-thumbs down method. or 4 stars at the most.

Weekend Box Office
1. Wallace and Gromit
2. Flightplan
3. In Her Shoes
4. Two for the Money
5. The Gospel

I haven't seen a movie in weeks - so no help here.

Alumnus Letter
Dear Dean Gwaltney and former Dean Simpler,

I read, with some concern, the recent Tennessean article explaining the likely split between Belmont University--my alma mater--and the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Of particular interest to me is not the plan to introduce non-Baptists into the Board of Trustees--that makes perfect, long-overdue sense--it is the description of a particular student's experience:

Ring said she was upset when, on the last day of a Bible class, the professor's teaching assistant talked about being a lesbian. Ring said that didn't "align" with her beliefs as a Baptist, and she thought the revelation was inappropriate and may have confused some students.

As Deans of the School of Religion, I'm sure you would want all former Belmont students to have had similar high-quality theological educations. Thus, I am registering my complaint that my own bible-related instruction at Belmont included no reference to lesbianism, or really any girl-on-girl topics, imagery or assignments.

I hope plans are in the works to offer continuing education in these areas to supplement this oversight. In the meantime, continue the good work.

Your friend,
Don

et tu, Bork?
From the takes-one-to-know-one file:

Robert Bork - whose nomination to the high court was rejected by the Senate in 1987 - called the choice of Miers "a disaster on every level."

Odds on Miers
At TPM, Josh asks if anyone is willing to put down odds on the Miers confirmation. Tradesports.com is an online futures market (i.e. gambling outfit) that lets traders bid or ask a proposition at the odds of their choice. Currently, the going rate is about $7.30 to get you $10, or 1.37:1 Essentially that means they think she's got a 73% chance to be confirmed. Considering the noise many conservatives are still making, that seems awfully high, but that's the answer to Josh's question, anyway.

Down 0-2, but possible
Red Sox last stand at 3 this afternoon (central time). If you're at work, you should be able to follow along here. The last thing they need is a superstar hitter who's already making plans to pack up and move. But I guess that's just Manny being Manny. There's no reason why Boston shouldn't win today and tomorrow afternoon at home. Then, it's just a question of whether they can beat Contreras in a game 5. He made them look pretty worthless in game 1.

NYT on Bush's "Major Speech" yesterday
Link

Yesterday, the same day New Yorkers were warned there was a "specific threat" of a bombing on their subways, President Bush delivered what the White House promoted as a major address on terrorism. It seemed, on the surface, like a perfect topic for the moment. But his talk was not about the nation's current challenges. He delivered a reprise of his Sept. 11 rhetoric that suggested an avoidance of today's reality that seemed downright frightening.
[SNIP]
The speech came one day after the White House threatened to veto a bill onto which the Senate added a ban on the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against prisoners of the American government. This president could not find the spine to veto a bloated transportation bill that included wildly wasteful projects like the now-famous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. What kind of priorities does that suggest? If we ever needed the president to demonstrate that he has a working understanding of exactly where he wants to take this country, we need it now.

The president's inability to grow beyond his big moment in 2001 is unnerving. But the fact that his handlers continue to encourage him to milk 9/11 is infuriating. For most of us, the memories are fresh and painful. We mourn the people who died on Sept. 11, as we mourn Daniel Pearl and other Americans, not to mention innocents from other countries, who were murdered by terrorists. The administration's penchant for using them as political cover is offensive. It threatens to turn our wounds, and our current fears, into cynical and desperate spin.

The text to Bush's speech, if you can stomach it, is here. I was disturbed to see Dick Gephardt in the front row applauding when I saw a replay on CSpan.

Do you approve of the job President Bush is doing?
According to the new CBS poll:
Yes 37%
No 58%

Iraq approval? 32%, terrorism? 46%

The Desperation of Karl Rove
Lawrence O'Donnell, who initially broke the Rove-was-Matt-Cooper's-source story, is predicting that "at least three high level Bush Administration personnel [will be]indicted and possibly one or more very high level unindicted co-conspirators." And he believes that Karl's return to the grand jury one more time is a bit of a panic:

What this means is Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, believes his client is defintely going to be indicted.

So, Luskin is sending Rove back into the grand jury to try to get around the prosecutor and sell his innocence directly to the grand jurors. Legal defense work doesn't get more desperate than this. The prosecutor is happy to let Rove go under oath again--without his lawyer in the room--and try to wiggle out of the case. The prosecutor has every right to expect that Rove's final under-oath grilling will either add a count or two to the indictment or force Rove to flip and testify against someone else.

Hmmm. Who could "someone else" be? And what would make an unindicted co-conspirator "very high level"? No sense in dreaming I suppose.

Bird Flu Week Awareness Products
Look, now there's an easy way to share your knowledge and concern about bird flu with that special someone: "Ask me about bird flu" boxer shorts.

Prayers of the Faithful
Dr. James Dobson is praying for political guidance on the Meiers nomination.

"If this is not the person you want on that Supreme Court, all you have to do is tell me so, and do it through any means you want to."

Can the rest of us pray for the means of delivery of that message? I have a few ideas.

Meanwhile, Jon at AmericaBLOG is praying for something else altogether.

My source tells me that the scuttlebutt around town is that the White House knows something bad is coming, in terms of Karl getting indicted, and they're already trying to distance him from the president.

Oh, God, you've been so good to us lately. Please give us this one more.

I'm not sure I would take God's advice on Miers even if the Almighty had a preference. But if delivering Rove is part of the deal, count me in.

Miers v. O'Connor
Atrios posts some instructive quotes from 1981 stories on Reagan's nomination of Justice O'Connor. Things like this:

[D]eputy White House press secretary Larry Speakes said she had told the president "she is personally opposed to abortion and that it was especially abhorent to her. She also feels the subject of the regulation of abortion is a legitimate subject for the legislative area."

Isn't it nice to see how far we've come in out political discourse in the last 25 years? I'll be damned if we're not having the exact same conversation. It's looking like Trent Lott's having none of it.

Presidential Press Conference
Bush held a news conference today, mostly for damage control on the Miers nomination. Transcript is here. I saw part of it on CSpan in replay, and I can't help but notice that he seems positively uninspired to keep doing this job. I get the feeling that if he could quit right now without bringing historic shame to himself and his family, he'd do it. Since he can't, maybe that's why a little drinky-drink could be looking pretty good to him right about now.

As for Miers, there's no real reason to think she'll be anything less than frighteningly conservative, especially since she may have turned Republican in the middle of her life because of the allure of one Jesus Christ. For my money, those mid-life converts can be the scariest ones.

But the main connection with the Roberts pick and this one is they both are essentially executive branch moles. Even if Bush isn't packing the courts with social conservatives (and he may be), he is packing it with those trained to help the White House have its way. I suspect that plays a bigger part of both picks than any other concern. If she's confirmed, I'm not sure what it does to the judicial branch, but the executive will have gotten alot stronger.

But really, you know what issue seems to have captured our A.D.D. President's attention more than any other? Bird flu. For every other answer, he sounded and looked dazed and annoyed. But when it came to bird flu (and he did take the Barry book with him on his last vacation, which I take as a good sign that he may have genuine interest in not screwing up a freaking plague), he seemed to actually know something about what he was talking about. Although I suppose it may just have been the most recent answer he was briefed on just before walking out there. Either way, as a bird-flu-phobic, I can only hope that the recent disaster-response failure will convince someone to develop an actual thoughtful plan. And hopefully some frat brother of Bush's isn't in charge of that.

And don't forget, it is bird flu awareness week.

In Case You Missed It, Part 2
Rhyming Nipsey Russell died.

My concerned tribute below. Please add your own in the comments.

First Bob Denver;
Now Nipsey Russell in kind.
Can Charles Nelson Reilly
Be Far Behind?

In Case You Missed It
If you, like me, missed the initial fury over Big-Money Bill Bennett's remarks and are wondering what everyone's talking about, Media Matters has the transcript of his radio show. It's a much more spectacular offense than I could have guessed... First a caller suggested that if we made abortion illegal it would solve the social security problem, with more people to pay into the system. But Bennett responded that there are too many variables to "extrapolate" arguments like that, like the possibility that most of the increase in births would be folks who are born into shiftless and lazy families, and would not contribute as much to the revenue base. He went on to separate those things we can't extrapolate safely from those we can know:

BENNETT: I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.

MEDIA MONDAY
What have you been reading, listening to and watching?

A sequel, a second chance and a return
The Times recommends 3 new CDs that have my interest. At Doug's recommendation on this very blog, I bought and thoroughly enjoy, Franz Ferdinand's self-titeld debut. The sequel, "You Could Have it So Much Better" is high on my list of must-buys. And creeping up that ladder is the new release, finally, from Fiona Apple. I'm no big fan of her earlier material, but this new album has gotten so much attention, I'd like to hear both versions just to find out for myself. I am a Jon Brion fan (he helped keep the new Kanye West album bubbling with great unexpected sounds) and suspect I'll like his original, discarded production better than this new second chance offering. Last, and a complete surprise to me, Sinead O'Connor has released a new album of, well, Rastafarian music, creating I suppose the world's first Irish-reggae?

Improbably - especially because she announced her retirement from music two years ago - it's a great album. It is terse and elegant, with a minimal amount of horns and extraneous elements; Ms. O'Connor's undisguised Irish accent and obvious conviction make it an imposing act of pop interpretation.

August Wilson, RIP
from the NYT obit on the "Theater's Poet of Black America":

In his work, Mr. Wilson depicted the struggles of black Americans with uncommon lyrical richness, theatrical density and emotional heft, in plays that gave vivid voices to people on the frayed margins of life: cabdrivers and maids, garbagemen and side men and petty criminals. In bringing to the popular American stage the gritty specifics of the lives of his poor, trouble-plagued and sometimes powerfully embittered black characters, Mr. Wilson also described universal truths about the struggle for dignity, love, security and happiness in the face of often overwhelming obstacles.

You can't live in Pittsburgh for 3 years, like I did, without seeing, or at least knowing something about August Wilson's plays. Even though he hadn't lived there since the 1970s, most of his plays were set in the Hill District, where he was born and grew up. The Times piece goes on to describe Wilson's refusal to have his play "Fences" directed by a white person in the Hollywood version, after a studio had purchased the script. He believed no white person could be culturally qualified to treat it appropriately. With that restriction, the film remains unmade.

Miers?
One reason for Media Monday is to have a respite from politics, since most of us here care about alot of other things, especially in the arts. But the news of the day seems especially big, so in case "what you have been watching" or "listening to" is the news this morning, you know that Bush nominated a devoted friend and White House cousel, Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. And if you're wondering what folks are saying in the first few hours, check out the American Constitution Society's blog--they're good people. They have posted quotes from a skeptical (mostly conservative) Instapundit, a piercing critique from the very conservative David Frum, and other reactions.

RED SOX ARE IN!!!
Don's not here, but I'm sure he's excited by this news. The season's over, and playoff berths are set. Boston split it's final series against the Yankees to battle them to a tie for the Eastern Division (although for various reasons, the Yanks go into the record books with the title). They'll face off against Chicago in the first game of the playoffs on Tuesday (and somebody on this blog has tickets).

And congrats to the Braves, too, who have their followers here. Sitting atop a weak National League division, they knew they were headed to the playoffs several days ago. And from here on in, it's only the playoffs that matter. The fact that the Braves ended their season with a record five games behind the Red Sox is completely irrelevant now.