Cookie man: Pro-life?

Ah, another refreshing episode of Hitch, the Intellectually Bankrupt Drink-soaked Former-Trotskyist popinjay.

For an inside look at the minds of college-age would-be politicos, read this e-mail exchange. It would be funny if it didn't reflect so much coming out of Washington today. I wonder where that kid could have learned that such behavior was appropriate? Yeah, I wonder...

I noticed that Go Go Gourmet opened up a while back, but I always thought it was a caterer. Last night, though, Sarah took me there for dinner. Fantastic!

It reminded me of a lot of the deli's we ate at in London - fresh, homestyle food cooked from scratch.

They are open all day and through lunch and dinner - I highly recommend it. Also, if you're looking for someplace to have a lunch meeting with a client or a consultant, I think this place would be perfect.

My only disappointment is that I found them just as I'm getting ready to leave!

If I was going to play some money in the SCOTUS pool, I would probably play the O'Connor replacement game. Rehnquist has out stayed all expectations and any speculation as to the timing of his retirement is, well, speculation. Robert Novak, though, in his oh-so-ridiculous way, says that we might expect an announcement from Rehnquist before the week is out.

Adding to the tension is word from court sources that ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist also will announce his retirement before the week is over. That would enable Bush to play this game: Name one justice no less conservative than Rehnquist, and name Gonzales, whose past record suggests he would replicate retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on abortion and possibly other social issues. Thus, the present ideological orientation of the court would be unchanged, which would suit the left just fine.

Once again we have this ambiguous, un-named "left" out there nodding his head and rubbing his hands together. I've been called a rightist, a leftist, a conservative, and a liberal all in the same conversation, so I'm not sure who Novak is talking about (to tell the truth, I think he's simply talking out of his a. and he knows it).

Sarah thinks all the so-called conservative opposition to Gonzalez might be a ruse. I don't know. I wouldn't trust NRO or Novak any further than I could throw an elephant, so whether or not they're playing a game I cannot say.

Novak end his column with this little tid-bit

The Founding Fathers put the Senate ''advise and consent'' clause into the Constitution partly to combat cronyism. In Federalist No. 76, Alexander Hamilton opposed the president's nominees ''being in some way or other personally allied to him.'' Thus, the wonder in Washington is that a peeved Bush would defend Gonzales' selection on grounds of personal pique.

Republicans engaging in cronyism? I'm SHOCKED!!! Maybe Novak doesn't realize that he's dealing with Texas Republicans. Memo to Mr. Novak, Texas Republicans aren't exactly the most honest breed.

BREAKING NEWS: Judy Miller is going to jail and I don't give a damn.

Having made the mistake of turning on the television news just now I was reminded that journalists across the country are outraged that Judy Miller and Matt Cooper are being coerced into giving up their sources in the investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative (thus endangering her life, as well as countless others) as political punishment for a former Ambassador who dared suggest the President was wrong. Oh, yes, and, thanks to the press in countries not named The United States of America, we know that the President was quite wrong.

Journalists are, of course, crying foul because they claim this will cause a chilling effect on the ability of reporters to get inside information from sources who can or will only act if their identities are protected.

Good grief.

Let's be frank for a moment. Contemporary American journalists are not, for the most part, the romantic vision of hard-hitting investigative journalism. They're not out there getting at the core of controversial issues in order to better inform the public. Sure, they probably think they are, but they're not. These days Americans are best informed by reading different news sources (mostly foreign) and picking out the bits of truth that got left in among all the tripe.

Journalists today are more often patsies for shrewd public relations officials than hard-hitting journalists. The title "anonymous inside source" is more likely to mean "political operative planting story" than it is to mean Deep Throat. There are plenty of stories available to reporters who want to take their chances questioning the powers that be, but if they hold U.S. passports, they're almost to a person ignoring them.

Mass media journalism today is pathetic. I find it particularly hilarious to hear so-called television journalists talk about principle. Forgive me if I have a hard time taking them seriously, but since when have these people worried about principle? I suppose they're worried about the principle interest that may not accumulate on their paychecks if they get found out as the shills that they are, but I'm fairly certain they're not worried about journalistic principles.

So, give me a break. Today's journalists should have been jailed for reporting any number of things: shark attacks, Iraqi WMD scares, runaway brides, Michael Jackson, deceased pontiffs, Terri Schiavo - the list is endless.

Put them all in jail. I don't think it could possibly make modern American journalism any worse. Hell, it might be an improvement.

Jack Balkin has an interesting post about the conservative rights revolution, or the way that conservative and liberal judges emphasize different parts of the constitution.

This is another way of saying that following the liberal rights revolution of the 1960's and 1970's, conservatives created their own rights revolution, with a different set of rights. In the liberal heyday of the middle of the twentieth century, conservatives generally preached judicial restraint, and accused liberal jurists of activism. But once conservative social movements arose and began to dominate American politics, they learned that they could use many of the same tools that liberals had. Conservative interest groups created their own public interest firms, conservative think tanks came up with creative constitutional arguments, and a judiciary staffed increasingly with conservative judges found that judicial restraint made much less sense when you actually had power. So, naturally, we find that conservative judges have been willing to use the power of judicial review early and often. The public association of conservativism and judicial restraint and liberalism and activism that came out of the 1960's may linger on, propelled in part by conservative talking points, but it makes little sense today. Justice Thomas, to take only one example, would gladly take a cleaver to wide swaths of United States Statutes and most of the Federal Register.

Expect to hear a lot in the coming months about judicial activism and judicial restraint. Also, expect it to be mostly nonsense. What we could use right now is an honest discussion about constitutional interpretation, disengaged from partisan rhetoric and political ideology. I will not, though, be holding my breath while I wait.

O'Connor retires from SCOTUS is going to be the news story for a while.

Anyone care to play the guessing game?

The Supreme Court Nomination Blog has some thoughts.

Draft Prado takes a more proactive approach.

Senate Republicans say that want a quick appointment, but I think that depends on the name Bush sends down, not Frist's political dreams.

One thought on a speedy nomination - with all the frustration with recent decisions, shouldn't we take our time looking for a good nominee?

What are your thoughts?

UPDATE: The Chicago Tribune has some guesses:

Possible replacements include Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales and federal Courts of Appeals Judges J. Michael Luttig, John Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Michael McConnell, Emilio Garza and James Harvie Wilkinson III.

Others mentioned are former Solicitor Gen. Theodore Olson, lawyer Miguel Estrada and former Deputy Atty. Gen. Larry Thompson, but Bush's pick could be a surprise choice not well known in legal circles.

Another prospective candidate is Edith Hollan Jones, a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who also was considered for a Supreme Court vacancy by President Bush's father.

If you're looking for somewhere to take a nice young lady on a date, I suggest the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin's production of The Mikado.

It's fantastic.