In very irritating news, the construction on the street outside of my building is causing loud noises, as well as causing the building and desk to vibrate. V. annoying.

Am I the only one who thinks the whole thing with Miers was a Cunning Plan and that Alito was meant to be the real nominee all along?

They could also say, we tried a woman and it just didn't work out. But I think the Miers nomination was just Bush being really uncunning.

Yeah, I know, I shouldn't look for conspiracies for anything that can be explained by mere stupidity. I'm just floored by the sheer scope of stupidity in the Miers nomination.

Remember, this involves a man who thinks his own public image is untarnished by the Katrina response and the Plame investigation. Hunter S. Thompson had a better grasp of reality.

I think he would be more qualified if he were an Hispanic lesbian in a wheelchair with that resume.

I don't like the implication that "Well, I tried to nominate a woman, and the only woman I could find turned out to be an airhead. What can you do?? Oh well, back to the white men!"

Actually, that's a great question for the senators to ask: Mr. candidate, why are you not an Hispanic lesbian in a wheelchair? Do you think it's freakish that in this day and age, the Supreme Court should be 7 white men, one female token and one black token?

Well, I never imagine Dubya cooking up his own conspiracies--that's his handlers' job. Of course, one of the theories I've heard for why the presidency is finally falling part is that the handlers are too distracted by Plamegate and various other troubles to cover up his incompetence any longer.

I just wish it'd happened a year earlier so we wouldn't be saddled with him through '08.

Am I the only one who thinks the whole thing with Miers was a Cunning Plan and that Alito was meant to be the real nominee all along? Now everyone will be so glad he's better-qualified than Miers that the Right won't bitch as much if he's left of Scalia, and the Left won't fight as hard because they/we will think, "At least he's qualified."

Except that you could have nominated Alito the first time and not had this problem.

What it says to me is that the Bush White House has a severe leadership vacuum, one that can only be fixed if Dubya can find himself his Howard Baker. Howard Baker, if you don't know, came into the Reagan White House during the second term after Don Regan got too big for his britches and the White House got mired in Iran-Contra. Baker cleaned house and busted heads and stopped the slide into chaos the White House was on (though it never got back to its 84-85 level popularity).

Dubya's problem, though, is that he's not going to bring in an outsider to fix the problems in the White House, which is exactly what will bail his ass out right now. So, we're doomed to a power vacuum for the next three years, and while that's nice for the Dems and moves them that much closer to getting half of Congress back, it's not all that good for this country.

Also, where would a person buy a little apron? I didn't see any at the costume place. I'm thinking I could put accessories over my current clothes to do 50s housewife, tying Halloween into my homework.

I shopped at the store of msbelle, where they also carry white gloves, and service with a smile, resulting in this: [link]

I heard somewhere that Bush nominated Miers over the objections of his advisors. Dunno what advisors those were... but probably not Rove and Cheney.

What kills me is that Miers screens candidates for the Supreme Court. Did she not think that her resume was not like all the others who've been nominated to the court since we've had formal law schools?