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.

I'm not as worked up about '06 as I might be because there's not a snowball's chance in hell my congressional district could go Republican. I guess Cantwell's re-election to the Senate might be close, but right now I'm not expecting it to be.

But I think the Miers nomination was just Bush being really uncunning.

I have to agree with this. Crony subdivision. (Remember, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"?)

My company is putting up Christmas lights in the trees outside today. Why?

My congressional district is safely democrat (it includes urban Kansas City and dude has a street named after him in KC). But the Senate race will be interesting. I believe Talent is up for relection and while I think he'll probably win on God and Guns, the democrat who will be running is a really good candidate.

Ooh, VERY nice, Steph. However, the more I think about it, the more I think I should not go out tonight. LAME.

What's funny walking around here today is that there are bunch of people who may or may not be in Halloween costumes. You can only tell by their expressions if they feel goofy or not.

I have to agree with this. Crony subdivision. (Remember, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"?)

That's what made it so incredibly tone-deaf to me. I was all, "Dubya, you were just in trouble for this exact same thing."

At lunch, in midtown, I saw a guy in full Dee Snider "We're Not Gonna Take It" get-up.

My company is putting up Christmas lights in the trees outside today. Why?

Because they had the decency to wait until the 31st, unlike some.

bon, what do you think of Slate's characterization of Alito? He looks extreme right pro-business, pro-law enforcement, pro-guns, anti-civil rights act, anti-abortion in this rundown to me.

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In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey—which later became the case that reaffirmed Roe, Alito dissented when his 3rd Circuit colleagues struck down Pennsylvania's most restrictive abortion regulations. Alito felt that none of the provisions proved an undue burden, including a requirement that women notify their spouses of their intent to have an abortion, absent narrow exceptions. Alito wrote: "The Pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems—such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition—that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion."

Sandra Day O'Connor rejected that analysis, and Casey reaffirmed the central holding of Roe. Then Chief Justice Rehnquist quoted Alito's dissent in his own.

You'll hear a lot about some of Alito's other decisions in the coming days, including his vote to limit Congress' power to ban even machine-gun possession, and his ruling that broadened police search powers to include the right to strip-search a drug dealer's wife and 10-year-old daughter—although they were not mentioned in the search warrant. He upheld a Christmas display against an Establishment Clause challenge. His prior rulings show that he would raise the barriers for victims of sex discrimination to seek redress in the courts. He would change the standard for analyzing race discrimination claims to such an extent that his colleagues on the court of appeals fretted that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, would be "eviscerated" under his view of the law. He sought to narrow the Family and Medical Leave Act such that states would be immune from suit—a position the Supreme Court later rejected. In an antitrust case involving the Scotch tape giant 3M, he took a position described by a colleague as likely to weaken a provision of the Sherman Antitrust Act to "the point of impotence."

And there's a whole lot more where that came from.

Best of all for Bush's base, Alito is the kind of "restrained" jurist who isn't above striking down acts of Congress whenever they offend him. Bush noted this morning: "He has a deep understanding of the proper role of judges in our society. He understands that judges are to interpret the laws, not to impose their preferences or priorities on the people."

Except, of course, that Alito doesn't think Congress has the power to regulate machine-gun possession, or to broadly enforce the Family and Medical Leave Act, or to enact race or gender discrimination laws that might be effective in remedying race and gender discrimination, or to tackle monopolists. Alito thus neatly joins the ranks of right-wing activists in the battle to limit the power of Congress and diminish the efficacy of the judiciary. In that sense Bush has pulled off the perfect Halloween maneuver: He's managed the trick of getting his sticky scandals off the front pages, and the treat of a right-wing activist dressed up as a constitutional minimalist.