POP & POLITICS

You were worth every goat, baby

Bill Clinton doesn't come cheap.  Seriously, I've never seen someone so out of touch with reality.

A Kenyan city councilman says he offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage five years ago. He's still awaiting an answer.

Chepkurgor, 36, vowed to remain single until he gets an answer to his proposal to marry Chelsea, 25.

For a city councilman with that many goats and that many cows, we know that staying single is no easy task. 

...he said the letter prompted security checks on him, his family and his classmates.

Great Romney article

The Atlantic Monthly has an awesome profile of Mitt Romney, the best and most detailed yet. 

WHAT IS THIS???

What is this?  Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, friend and confidante of the President, would have likely been selected for the Supreme Court vacancy; his nomination was scuttled by conservatives, skeptical of his position on Roe v. Wade. 

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. will be free to vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion decision if he is appointed to the high court, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday.

Although Roberts called the Roe decision "settled law" during hearings on his nomination as an appellate court judge in 2003, Gonzales said in an interview with the Associated Press that a Supreme Court justice "is not obliged to follow precedent if you believe it's wrong."

Is this defense of Roberts calculated to send a message of his own?  President Bush would love to nominate Gonzales, and at the same time make history with the first Latino Supreme Court Justice.  He may also elect to put Gonzales in as Chief Justice, a historic two for one ("The Gonzales Court").   

Life after Congress

More members of Congress than ever are becoming lobbyists. 

A new study has found that 43 percent of the 198 House and Senate members who left government to join private life since 1998 have registered to lobby. Of the 36 senators who left during that period, half have joined the lobbying ranks.

What did these people do before they went to Congress?  And what was so objectionable about the places they came from?  I for one never understood "Potomac fever," the phenomenon that makes people stay in Washington.  I watched summer interns drop out of their colleges back home and furiously seek full time employment. 

Lobbyists enjoy a great deal of protection under the FIRST AMENDMENT.  I wonder if anything can be done to curtail their influence, or if we have to watch while our Federal government moves farther away from their appropriate priorities. 

President Huckabee?

An unlikely candidate gets great press from David Broder today. 

Now 49, he is part of a bewildering variety of networks. A preacher for 12 years, he headed the Arkansas Baptist State Convention before being elected lieutenant governor and succeeding the scandal-tainted Jim Guy Tucker as governor in 1996. But at 1 a.m. last Sunday, he could be found wearing a Hawaiian shirt, playing bass guitar and leading his rock band of fellow Arkansans, called Capitol Offense, at the NGA staff party in Raccoon River Brewing Co., a downtown beer hall.

The band has played from Hollywood to New York as the opening act for such stars as Aretha Franklin, making Huckabee comfortable chatting with everyone from devout Baptist elders to tattooed rock 'n' rollers.

As if that weren't enough, the self-described onetime "fat boy" is someone who, confronted with diabetes, put himself on a medically supervised diet in 2003, shed 110 pounds and emerged fit enough to finish this year's Little Rock Marathon. He describes his experience in the book "Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork," and he has carried his zeal for healthy living into a variety of public programs.

Evangelical Christians, around a third of the Republican base, have no other obvious choice.  Every President elected for the past 30 years was a Governor or former Governor, with the exception of Vice President George H.W. Bush (who faced tepid opposition from Michael Dukakis).  If Haley Barbour of Mississippi doesn't run, Huckabee will be the only Governor in the race.  Huckabee seems like an interesting guy, with a good story to tell.  Could this marathon runner go the distance?

The Roberts Choice

The selection of John G. Roberts for the Supreme Court begs for a few points to be made. 

George W. Bush promised to choose a certain kind of judge.  To flesh out this example, he pointed to current Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.  This promise was made in 2000, and Bush was elected.  In 2004, the promise was made once again.  Again, Bush was elected.  Now he has fulfilled that promise.  And he is being assailed for it.

Is Roberts' judicial philosophy more extreme than that of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer?  Certainly not (let's set aside for another day which judicial philosophy is more in line with the Constitution).  Both Ginsberg and Breyer sailed to confirmation.  At this very moment, a multimillion dollar advertising war is being launched to bring Roberts down.  Can we just agree that the rules have changed? 

Roberts will not face a successful Senate fillibuster.  Certainly the agreement made by the Gang of 14, where no nomination would be blocked absent "extraordinary circumstances," would force a cloture vote. 

Elections have consequences.  This is one of them. 

Breaking up is hard to do

This is one of the funniest things I've ever read.  I hope that someday I will have an opportunity to write an email like this one, and that I will rise to the occassion. 

More reunions

So Hillary, what have you been doing since high school?

Hillary Clinton, the 2008 Democratic frontrunner, is going back to her high school reunion. 

Come on

The Note, published online daily by ABC News, reports that Alan Keyes and Howard Phillips will have a press conference today regarding the Supreme Court vacancy.  Their choice, Roy Moore, the former state Supreme Court Justice who displayed the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. 

What planet are these guys living on?  I seriously wonder what goes through their heads.  Keyes was defeated twice for the Maryland Senate, and once for the Illinois Senate, always by landslide margins.  Phillips' Constitution party gets like 10 votes in Presidential elections. 

It's a small wonder, then, that they think the main criteria for a Supreme Court Justice is putting up the right display in their courtroom. 

2nd in his class

E.J. Montini of the Arizona Republic proves the old adage, "no lie can live forever."

In just about every news article written after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced that she would be leaving the Supreme Court, it was noted that in the 1952 law school class of Stanford University, O'Connor had finished third. And that Chief Justice William Rehnquist had finished first.

Once Rehnquist retires, as may happen at any time, the subject will come up again. And once again, those of us who have nothing significant to bring to a philosophical discussion about the Supreme Court will be left wondering: If he was No. 1 and she was No. 3, who was No. 2?

Can you believe, after all these years, after this tired old story had been heard (and perhaps told) by everyone in the legal community, that their Stanford Law class had no class rankings? 

At least some in the legal community knew better.  At the class reunion:

...the classmates decided to play along with popular lore...each person who attended the reunion was given a miniature gavel. Rehnquist's proclaimed him No. 1. O'Connor's named her No. 3. All of the others, he said, had labels on them reading, "I was No. 2."