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?

I think it is insulting to call O'Conner and Ginsberg tokens. To my ear it implies they were otherwise unqualified. I think it is fair to say that SCOTUS should have some diversity.

I am not commenting on Thomas, because I am pretty sure calling him names does not trip my insult-o-meter.

This is the article detailing how Miers was selected: [link]

It's very interesting, if you hadn't read it already.

With Alito there will be five Catholics on the Supreme Court.

45 years ago some questioned whether JFK would be a sockpuppet of the Vatican.

Things have changed.

I feel like I should care about things like SCOTUS nominees, but my own powerlessness is bothering me more than it normally does. I mean, yeah, things are falling apart, the center isn't holding, etc.--but there's not a damn thing I can do about it. So there's a big part of me that wants to just ignore it all, work on my novels, and hope the world doesn't fall apart to such a degree that everything I'm working on now is useless. I promise to come out of my tunnel and get involved when it's time to pick a Dem nominee for '08, but until then I feel like I don't even have the tiny power of one voter.

So there's a big part of me that wants to just ignore it all, work on my novels, and hope the world doesn't fall apart to such a degree that everything I'm working on now is useless.

Yeah, I get that. I'll probably poke my head out of my cave when the '06 elections gear up. (It would be nice to take back Congress.) But right now? I'll be putting most of my mental energy toward the job hunt, I think.