"'One of the more conservative'
Here is a short profile from law.com of Carol Corrigan, the justice Schwarzenegger has appointed to the state Supreme Court. It says she is one of the more conservative justices on the first district on criminal justice issues. I guess we can start a list now of major decisions the governor makes that do not appear to have been pulled to the left by Susan Kennedy.
Note: The first draft of this post incorrectly quoted the item as saying she was one of the 'most conservative' members of the court.
UPDATE: An emailer sends along an LA Times story from Oct. 21, which I can't find a link to online, where Corrigan describes herself as a 'centrist' in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor.
The relevant excerpt:
Corrigan, 57, a former prosecutor, described herself as a 'centrist.'
'I think I would probably be a centrist any place I found myself,' she said
Deukmejian appointed Corrigan to the Alameda County Municipal Court in 1987, and former Gov. Pete Wilson elevated her to the Superior Court and then the Court of Appeal.
Corrigan said she changed her voter registration from Democrat to Republican in the mid-1990s because 'that seemed the most accurate designation' at the time.
'I haven't changed,' she said. 'I think the political environment may have changed, and it continues to evolve in this country.'
Asked which present or former U.S. Supreme Court justices she admires, Corrigan cited Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. 'I think she is a centrist a real consensus builder,' Corrigan said."
"For their part, the Democrats loudly responded that they have been quoted out of context. Drudge now reports that the Republicans intend on fixing that problem with a few web ads, using the actual recorded statements of each to show the nation that the Democrats have given in to defeatism:"
"Check it out: Strange how all he wanted was to be 'left alone' when he was trying to get rid of his wife. Word now is that fifteen minutes of infamy wasn't enough for this dude:
Schiavo announced Wednesday he is forming a political action committee to support or oppose candidates depending on where they stood on the divisive case that ended when Terri Schiavo died of dehydration March 31, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.
The spotlight is addicting, huh Mike? You and Cindy Sheehan should start a twelve step program or something."
"SH: Well, it's not relevant. You know, every journalist has political beliefs, but my job is not to...I don't have a job in which I'm asked to, or expected to pursue my political beliefs through my work. My job is to report on what happens. And so, really, my personal politics, and I believe everybody's entitled to vote without telling anybody what they did. That's one of the things that I think is pretty important in this country."
"I think for example that we didn't find a single case in which Judge Alito sided with African Americans alleging racial bias, which I think, is again, rather remarkable. We found very few cases, maybe one or two, in which he sided with a woman in a gender bias case."
"Katie's guest was former air marshal Tony Kuklinski, who stated that 'by all accounts I've seen, what [the air marshals] did was necessary.'Katie wasn't so sure:
'Do they always shoot to kill, Tony? In other words, I guess the average person hearing this [on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Katie?] might think: isn't there a way where they could have shot this person and not killed him? Wounded him or incapacitated him in some way without killing him?'
As Kuklinksi patiently and professionally explained:
'law enforcement officials aren't trained to shoot to kill; they're trained to shoot to prevent the action from taking place. We're not trained to precision-shoot in the knee or in the arm or in the finger to prevent something from taking place. Your accuracy goes down, the potential for a stray bullet or a missed shot hitting a bystander goes up tremendously.'
That wasn't enough to satisfy Katie:
'I know that last July, London police shot and killed a Brazilian electrician because they'd mistaken him for a terror suspect. It raises the question: should there be further training? Do you think that air marshals should be taught to shoot at a specific location on a body?'"
"Zawahri said the United States had been defeated in Iraq and would eventually cut its losses and pull out its troops.'Iraq is a catastrophe for America and Americans will leave, it will only be a matter of time.'I say to Bush: you entered Iraq with lies, you will lose Iraq and lie about it and you will leave with the pretext that you have completed your mission ... America only has to decide on the number of (troops) it wishes to lose before withdrawing.'"
"It is simply a fact that Democrats like Murtha are encouraging the Iraqi insurgents when they say the war is going badly and it's time to bring the troops home. Whether or not there is any merit to the idea, calling for a troop withdrawal � or 'redeployment,' as liberals pointlessly distinguish � will delay our inevitable victory and cost more American lives.
Anti-war protests in the U.S. during the Vietnam War were a major source of moral support to the enemy. We know that not only from simple common sense, but from the statements of former North Vietnamese military leaders who evidently didn't get the memo telling them not to say so. In an Aug. 3, 1995, interview in The Wall Street Journal, Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, called the American peace movement 'essential' to the North Vietnamese victory. "
"There's an old story about a person who has two beasts living inside him and they war against each other.
Q. Which beast wins?
A: The beast that gets fed the most because that's the beast that's strongest. The other beast will be malnourished and weak.
The moral: Right now, I'm not betting on France being strong enough to re-establish Western values in their country."
"I have previously exposed the blatant conservative right-wing bias of the Wall Street Journal's stipple-artists. First they attacked a presidential candidate (who served in Vietnam), now they're going after Howard Dean on their Opinion Journal site."
News Reporter: "'Whats your strategy?'
Anonymous Marine: 'Get to Baghdad before the Army does.'
"Warren Beatty has been all over the news as the leader of the anti-Schwarzenegger forces in California. He has emerged, and good for him. He's been making heavily covered speeches and shadowing GOP rallies along with his wife, Annette Bening, a truly great actress. But Wednesday Beatty told reporters, 'I don't want to run for governor.' Which left me scratching my head. This is politics, not showbiz. It has nothing to do with what you want. If you're serious you move forward, whether you're in the mood or not. You really don't want it? Then get out of the way! Get off the stage, let someone else stand there. The Democrats of California need a leader, not a handsome fly buzzing 'round their heads."
"Total Strikeouts
Santana 238 (1st in the American League)
Colon 157 (8th in the American League)
Hits Allowed Per 9 Innings
Santana 6.99 (1st)
Colon 8.69 (13th)
Strikeouts Per 9 Innings
Santana 9.25 (1st)
Colon 6.35 (16th)
Opponent Batting Average
Santana .210 (1st)
Colon .254 (13th)
On Base Against Average
Santana .250 (1st)
Colon .291 (2nd)
Slugging Percentage Allowed
Santana .346 (1st)
Colon .407 (15th)
Walks + Hits Per Inning Pitched
Santana .970 (1st)
Colon 1.16 (3rd)
Earned Run Average
Santana 2.87 (2nd)
Colon 3.48 (8th)
Strikeout/Walk Ratio
Santana 5.17 (2nd)
Colon 3.65 (6th)
Wins
Colon 21 (1st)
Santana 16 (5th)
The Elder's now infamous prediction that the 2004 addition of Colon 'might help the Angels' was incredibly prescient at the time, but it is just a bit backwards in this instance. Their phenomenal production of 6.02 runs per game when Colon was on the mound attests to the fact that the Angels probably helped Colon just a bit more than he helped them."
"Like an instant replay review that will never end, apologists for CBS News, Dan Rather, Mary Mapes and the mainstream media in general insist on reconstructing the history of 'RatherGate,' the scandal that exploded more than a year ago when 60 Minutes II used obviously forged documents to attack George W. Bush and, perhaps, alter the course of the 2004 presidential election. "
"This will backfire for these terrorists.� The people of Jordan will protest this, most likely in the capital.� Pictures of Zarqawi will burn.
I wrote that an attack in Jordan is imminent quite a while back.� Sadly, my nightmare has come true."
At some point the Western world will have to stop being anti-Semitic and anti-American long enough to join this effort to rid the world of terrorism. We either pull together or get bombed separately.
"require that every resident of San Francisco who owns a handgun to turn it in to the government by April 1st. April 1st, by the way, is more commonly known as 'April Fool's Day.' Even voters in San Francisco should be bright enough to figure out that law-abiding citizens will be the ones to turn over their guns, while the lawless, the criminal element, will not. The number of guns in the hands of law abiding citizens will go down. The number of guns in the hands of criminals will not."
"Only in 1993 were the New Jersey and Virginia races a precursor of major change.
In 1997 and 2001 the parties that lost the two governorships went on to make gains in the following year's midterm elections. The only pattern we can see here is that in every election for the past 20 years, the president's party has lost both the New Jersey and Virginia governorships.
At the risk of being frightfully boring, our prediction is that the 2006 election, like the 2005 election, is likely to be a reaffirmation of the status quo. As we've argued, in the Senate the trend has been toward alignment with a state's presidential preferences in 2000 and 2004--but this trend is self-limiting.
In 2002 Democrats made big gains in Democratic states and Republicans made smaller gains in Republican ones, which means both parties' targets of opportunity are limited this time around."
"As Nixon often remarked: You can't win with just the conservatives, but you cannot win without them.
Your team told you that if you put enough bait on the hook, you'd get the troops to marching. While they no doubt dutifully voted for your four initiatives --and Prop 73, which would have required notice to parents when their teen daughter sought an abortion-- they most certainly did not march.
And they aren't even that upset this morning. They didn't lose a thing --you lost. Perhaps you will spend the next couple of weeks figuring out that you have exactly zero high profile GOP conservatives close to you, and that there are a whole bunch of lefties running around your offices busy advancing agendas with which the right cannot agree.
Name the conservative icon upon whom you depend and to whom you go for solid advice? There isn't one."
"Democrats won races in New Jersey and Virginia, so what? They are races that the Democrats were already favored to win anyway. Corzine's lead in New Jersey was well over the 10 points he eventually won by. Someone will have to help me with Virginia politics, since I don't care who the governor of Virginia is regardless of party. Personally, I'm just glad that I don't have to see another negative attack ad from New Jersey.Over the next few days months, the media will drone on about 'Bush-factors' and 'shifting tides' in these two elections. I will even bet $25 that I get an email from John Kerry claiming a huge victory, a blow to Bush and his cabal crony conservatives, and a beg for money."
"Poso (AsiaNews) Two men armed with pistols shot point blank at two female students in Poso, central Sulawesi, wounding them in the head at 7:45 pm local time (11:45 GMT am)
The new act of violence took place in the same town where three young Christian students were decapitated on October 29. A fourth student was seriously injured in the same attack.
The two 17-year-old victims, Yuli Siti Nuraini and Ivone, are in critical conditions, according to Nurhayati, a paramedic. Ivone was hit in the left jaw, whilst Yuli was wounded in the neck. They were operated at the Poso Hospital where they were taken by police, the paramedic said.
For the moment, local and regional police have not released any statement about the event.
A few hours before Central Sulawesi police Chief Oegroseno had reported that police had not yet identified the killers of Ida Yarni Sambue (15), Theresia Morangke (15), and Alfita Poliwo (19), the three Christian girls decapitated on October 29.
The fourth girl who was wounded in the attack is recovering under tight police security since she is a material witness to the crime.
From 1998 to 2001 the Sulawesi Islands were the scene of sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians.
Many now fear that the new acts of violence might signal renewed inter-religious violence.
Local Muslim and Christian leaders have said that outsiders are responsible for the recent crimes, not local Muslims. They believe that the culprits acted on order by some group bent on reigniting sectarian hatred in the area."
"The 'anti' arguments are effective. Conservatives have to spend half their time explaining that they are not bad people before they can be heard. But the Left has paid a great price. Because they have come to rely so heavily on one-word dismissals of their opponents, they have few arguments. "
"Oh, dear. Who's not 'being serious' here? In Normandy, it's not just the cheese that's soft and runny. Granted that France's over-regulated sclerotic economy profoundly obstructs the social mobility of immigrants, even Mr Debris - whoops, sorry - even Mr Debre' cannot be so out of touch as to think 'seriously' that the rioters are rioting for 'a fairer, more fraternal society'. But maybe he does. The political class and the media seem to serve as mutual reinforcers of their obsolete illusions. Or as the Washington Post's headline put it: 'Rage of French youth is a fight for recognition'.
Actually, they're very easy to 'recognise': just look out the window, they're the ones torching your Renault 5. I'd wager the 'French' 'youth' find that headline as hilarious as the Jets in West Side Story half a century ago, when they taunted Officer Krupke with 'society's' attempts to 'understand' them: we're depraved on account of we're deprived. Perhaps some enterprising Paris impresario will mount a production of West Eid Story with choreographed gangs of North African Muslims sashaying through the Place de la Republique, incinerating as they go."
"The year that Moore claimed in 'Stupid White Men' that he didn't own any stock, he told the IRS that a foundation totally controlled by Moore and his wife had more than $280,000 in corporate stock and nearly $100,000 in corporate bonds.
Over the past five years, Moore's holdings have 'included such evil pharmaceutical and medical companies as Pfizer, Merck, Genzyme, Elan PLC, Eli Lilly, Becton Dickinson and Boston Scientific,' writes Schweizer, whose earlier works include 'The Bushes' and 'Reagan's War.'
'Moore's supposedly nonexistent portfolio also includes big bad energy giants like Sunoco, Noble Energy, Schlumberger, Williams Companies, Transocean Sedco Forex and Anadarko, all firms that 'deplete irreplaceable fossil fuels in the name of profit' as he put it in 'Dude, Where's My Country?'
'And in perhaps the ultimate irony, he also has owned shares in Halliburton. According to IRS filings, Moore sold Halliburton for a 15 percent profit and bought shares in Noble, Ford, General Electric (another defense contractor), AOL Time Warner (evil corporate media) and McDonald's."
iNo Pasaran!"A bus was vandalised and fired on with real bullets in Sarcelles (which is, like, my fave place in the whole world). A supermarket was attacked in Montmagny and an underground parking torched in Persan. In Foug�res, firemen providing first aid in a housing project were trapped in an apartment and pelted with rocks. Their attackers then proceeded to torch the ambulance meant to evacuate the injured party.
In the Paris area other incidents are reported in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Clichy-sous-Bois and Saint-Denis, and in the north of France cars are being burned in Lille.
How's that dialogue thing going Mr. Vilepine? Getting anywhere with that?"
America's Wetland: "At the America's WETLAND Community & Culture Summit, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and Secretary Jack Caldwell, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, presented an AW Flag to Mayor Ray Nagin, City of New Orleans, showing the City of New Orleans support for saving coastal Louisiana.""In a bold and potentially risky move, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin crossed party lines Monday to endorse Republican Bobby Jindal, who is locked in a tight governor's race with Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the Democratic standard bearer in the Nov. 15 runoff.
<...>
In recent days, Nagin said he faced considerable pressure from the state Democratic power structure to go with Blanco, citing U.S. Sens. John Breaux and Mary Landrieu in particular.
Without naming names, Nagin said Blanco supporters attached words like 'risk' and 'consequences' and 'repercussions' to the prospect of his backing Jindal.
'They talked about this not being in the best interests of the city of New Orleans and that they would let people know that,' Nagin said.
Using what he described as the 'hip hop vernacular' favored by his teenage sons, Nagin hinted that Blanco's backers issued threats, indicating that 'if we get in we're going to basically ice you out.'"
"Update, 1:50 pm eastern time: I have just received an e-mail and phone call from Gray L. Geddie of the L.A. office of Ogletree Deakins. Here's the e-mail...
Dear Ms. Malkin,
I am the Managing Shareholder of the law firm of Ogletree Deakins with offices located across the country. I was very disturbed to learn today that a legal secretary in our Los Angeles office sent you the vile e-mail referenced on your home page. Such remarks are clearly inappropriate in any context and an e-mail such as this certainly should not have been sent during working time using our firm's equipment. The comments of this employee are not reflective of the views or opinions of the firm and are directly in violation of our e-mail policy. As Managing Shareholder, I wanted to extend to you our apologies and let you know that this serious violation of our firm's work rules has resulted in the discharge of this employee.
Once again, let me offer you our deepest apologies for any discomfort that the referenced e-mail has caused. It will not happen again.
Sincerely,
Gray Geddie
Thanks to Mr. Geddie and to all who wrote."
"Regarding your briefing book, I will tell you what I have told many others. When I got to David Stockman's house on the day he was preparing to play the role of you in the debate preparations, he had on his kitchen table what I gather was the briefing book. I do not know how he got it; more to the point, I do not know who thought having it would be helpful. Frankly, you deserved better. My cursory glance at it convinced me that it was a crashing bore and next to useless — for you, or for anyone else."
"Among hundreds of pages of other documents obtained by The Star-Ledger was a memo from a top administrator in the Attorney General's Office who describes the program as 'Christmas Tree funding' -- a term long used in Trenton to describe grants given along party lines to loyal and politically connected lawmakers for use on pet projects in home districts."
"The oddest thing about the strong economic growth that has taken place over the last several years is how stubbornly many people refuse to recognize it. Polls continue to suggest that most Americans are unaware of the economy's excellent performance. Can that really be true?"
"It is a good idea to expand federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. It is a bad idea to do that without prohibiting research that uses embryos created specifically to be used in research and destroyed."
"MS-NBC reported last night that American military forces captured a large shipment of shape charges, the kind of explosives used against American military forces by Iraqi terrorists. Sources within the military and intelligence communities told the network that the charges originated with Iran, an allegation that could have potential to escalate already-existing disputes between Washington and Teheran:"
"'The public censured the Commander-in-Chief for the bloodshed, for this seemingly endless war. More and more politicians and journalists, Republicans as well as Democrats, called his administration incompetent. Military failures produced demands for peace negotiations. And the President was roundly condemned for curtailing civil liberties.'
Sound familiar? But the president in question (the quotation has been altered slightly to conceal this) is not George W. Bush but Abraham Lincoln. The time is not summer 2005 but the spring of 1863. The words are not those of some contemporary columnist but of poet and novelist Daniel Mark Epstein in his beautiful and elegaic book Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington."
"August 4, 2005 -- In Iraq yesterday a roadside bomb killed 14 Marines. Two days earlier, six Marines from the same outfit were ambushed and killed. Yet those Marines were not the terrorists' primary target.
You were.
Our enemies know the Marines won't quit. But they hope you will.
The terrorists realize now that they can't defeat our military. Instead, they hope to achieve what the North Vietnamese did: To blur the reality on the ground and convince the American public that we're losing.
Those Marines were tactical targets of opportunity. You're the strategic target. The terrorists hope that our media will create an atmosphere of failure � and that you'll give in to a sense of defeat.
The Marines are looking for a few good men (and women). The terrorists are looking for headlines"
"BOB NOVAK WALKS OFF CNN LIVE 'THAT IS BULL*HIT'... Was on with Carville talking Katherine Harris make-up... Host Ed Henry ended segment by telling viewers he had told Novak in advance he would ask him about the CIA leak case. Henry said CNN hoped to get Novak to answer such questions in future... DEVELOPING..."
"Basically, I'm just your average Joe. I like to drink beer and muse like everyone else. I love the Good Lord with all my heart and He has blessed me immensely, for which I am eternally grateful. I work very hard trying to shepherd His flock; which is no small task when you consider all of the wolves in sheep's clothing out there! So occasionally, I need some R&R. For me, that comes in the form of musing. Thanks to Blogger, I can muse all I want and it doesn't take a single penny from Peter's Pence."
"It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party,' said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a leading liberal lawmaker. Noting Bush's Ivy League education, Frank said, 'People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.'"
"If a conservative radio network had been entangled in a scam to steal from black children to line the pockets of wealthy white con artists, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would already be staging hunger strikes in protest. But both have hefty political and financial stakes in Air America's success -- and the big mouths aren't about to badmouth their friends.
Air America's flagship New York City station is housed on Park Avenue at WLIB-AM, owned by Inner City Broadcasting. The company shunted aside its black-themed talk format at WLIB to accommodate Air America. In return, Air America made room for a few minority radio hosts and also entered into lucrative lease management agreements with Inner City Broadcasting, which owns and operates 17 radio stations in five markets."
"Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq. That is why the terms the press uses to cover this conflict are so vital. For example, take the word "guerillas." As you noted, mainstream media sources like the New York Times often use the terms "insurgents" or "guerillas" to describe the Sunni Triangle gunmen, as if these murderous thugs represented a traditional national liberation movement. But when the Times reports on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they utilize the phrase "paramilitary death squads." Same murderers, different designations. Yet of the two, "insurgents" and especially "guerillas" has a claim on our sympathies that "paramilitaries" lacks. This is not semantics: imagine if the media routinely called the Sunni Triangle gunmen "right wing paramilitary death squads." Not only would the description be more accurate, but it would offer the American public a clear idea of the enemy in Iraq. And that, in turn, would bolster public attitudes toward the war.
Supporters of the conflict in Iraq bear much blame for allowing the terminology ---and, by extension, the narrative--- of events to slip from our grasp and into the hands of the anti-war camp. Words and ideas matter. Instead of saying that the Coalition "invaded" Iraq and "occupies" it today, we could more precisely claim that the allies liberated the country and are currently reconstructing it. More than cosmetic changes, these definitions reflect the nobility of our effort in Iraq, and steal rhetorical ammunition from the left.
The most despicable misuse of terminology, however, occurs when Leftists call the Saddamites and foreign jihadists "the resistance" What an example of moral inversion! For the fact is, paramilitary death squads are attacking the Iraqi people. And those who oppose the killers--the Iraqi police and National Guardsmen, members of the Allawi government, people like Nour--- they are the "resistance." They are preventing Islamofascists from seizing Iraq, they are resisting evil men from turning the entire nation into a mass slaughterhouse like we saw in re-liberated Falluja. Anyone who cares about success in our struggle against Islamofascism, or upholds principles of moral clarity and lucid thought--- should combat such Orwellian distortions of our language..."
"The pact's stated goal is to cut production of "greenhouse gases" in half by the end of the century. What distinguishes this plan from the Kyoto protocol is that it will actually lead to a major reduction in carbon emissions! This substitution of practical impact for well-crafted verbiage stunned and infuriated European observers."
"I still maintain that if President Clinton - or to be fair ANY Democrat president - had done exactly the same things Bush has done, the press would be laying down palms and crying out Hosanna’s and writing editorials screaming for the abolition of the 22nd amendment. Heavens, they practically did that when Clinton was ending his second term after doing nothing re Kyoto, nothing on terrorism, nothing on Social Security, nothing on Education, nothing on taxes…"
"11. Fencing candy stolen from babies.
10. Renting out homeless shelters for raves.
9. Smuggling untaxed cigarettes into Minnesota.
8. Importing olive oil from Sicily.
7. Using Air America's bank accounts to help corrupt Nigerian government officials sneak embezzled funds out of the country.
6. Selling phony draft deferments to gullible left-wing college students.
5. Opening an Air America donut shop across the street from Michael Moore's apartment.
4. Setting up a brothel catering to conservatives who have a thing for Janeane Garofalo.
3. Smuggling illegal aliens across the Rio Grande.
2. Stealing Howard Dean's medication and selling it on the street.
1. Selling bumper stickers accusing Bush of being corrupt."
"More recently, Ruy Teixeira, co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority, told the Daily News that 'people don't like to come out and say it because they don't like to tick her off, but privately most people don't think she can win.'"
"Who is Anita Hill? She is best known as a pioneer in bawdy broadcast humor, a sort of American counterpart to England's Benny Hill. In 1991 she made history by becoming the first person ever to utter the phrases 'Long Dong Silver' and 'pubic hair on my Coke' on national television. Everyone knows what happened next. Americans turned out to have an appetite for juvenile sexual comedy. The following year they put Bill Clinton in the White House. In 1993 'Beavis and Butt-head' picked up where Anita Hill had left off. After Clinton's second inauguration, in 1997, 'South Park' took televised ribaldry to new extremes. Part of Hill's shtick was to allege that that Clarence Thomas had written her gags a decade earlier. Although he disclaimed authorship, some Democrats said that they believed her and that this made Thomas unsuitable to be a justice. Thomas was of course confirmed, but given Hill's role in trying to keep a black man off the Supreme Court, for her now to pose as a champion of diversity seems the height of hypocrisy."
"The Los Angeles Times' Ronald Brownstein writes on the 2008 presidential race today. He does not disclose that his wife is a senior aid to John McCain. Which candidate does McCain favor getting the Democratic nod? My guess is that it has to be Hillary as that will significantly boost the Beltway chatter about McCain's cross-party appeal.
Indeed, it seems odd that this article does not mention the DLC's role in blunting a potential McCain or Rudy challenge from 'the center.' You have to wonder if Brownstein is holding back on references to McCain because of the problem his wife's employment poses.
The Times recently pledged transparency in conflict-of-interest matters. I guess that means if you declare a conflict once in print, every reader for all time is presumed to know and not care about it. BTW: To my knowledge, the paper has still not detailed Mrs. Brownstein's job or salary, or how funds paid her by Senator McCain are not part of Ron Brownstein's direct financial interest that would preclude him from covering McCain or related stories, like today's on Hillary: '[S]taff members may not cover individuals or institutions with which they have a financial relationship.'"
"Once the justices depart, as most of them have, from the original understanding of the principles of the Constitution, they lack any guidance other than their own attempts at moral philosophy, a task for which they have not even minimal skills. Yet when it rules in the name of the Constitution, whether it rules truly or not, the court is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy. The combination of absolute power, disdain for the historic Constitution, and philosophical incompetence is lethal."
"CH: Excuse me. When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world. The same is true of the shelter and safe house offered by the Iraqi government, to the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer, and to Mr. Yassin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. How can you know so little about this, and be occupying a chair at the time that you do?
RR: I guess because I listen to the 9/11 Commission, and read their report, and they said that Saddam Hussein was not exporting terror. I suppose that's how, Christopher.
CH: Well, then they were wrong, weren't they?
RR: No, maybe they just needed to listen to you, Christopher.
CH; Well, I'm not sure that they actually did say that. What they did say was they didn't know of any actual operational connection...
RR: That's right. No substantive operational connection.
CH: ...which was the Iraqi Baath Party and...excuse me...and Al Qaeda. A direct operational connection. Now, that's because they don't know. They don't say there isn't one. They say they couldn't find one. But I just gave you the number, I would have thought, rather suggestive examples."
