"I'm glad we had Souter-phobia."

Fred Barnes writes about "Souter-phobia" in the White House and how Bush's key question to the five persons he interviewed was whether they'd be the same 25 years from now. Roberts made the right impression: he wasn't going to "grow in office." As Barnes tells it, the Bush folks turned their Souter-detection machinery on full blast:

Bush advisers studied how the nomination of Souter came about. It wasn't that Souter, who'd served on the New Hampshire Supreme Court and, briefly, as a federal appeals court judge, misled his interrogators on the staff of the elder Bush. The problem was that the White House "didn't ask, 'Are you a conservative, why, or when did you become one?'" an aide to the current president says. "They didn't ask any of those questions." Those questions were asked of Roberts. "I'm glad we had Souter-phobia. If we hadn't asked these questions about judicial philosophy and the view of the court's role, the nominee wouldn't have been John Roberts."

Roberts is not a "stealth" nominee in the Souter mold. "We know a lot more about Roberts than was known about Souter," a Bush aide says. Roberts went through the confirmation process before, when he became a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He was endorsed by much of the Washington legal community and by colleagues from the Reagan and first Bush administrations. The president received messages through intermediaries that conservative Justice Antonin Scalia felt Roberts would be a great addition to the High Court....

Besides the Bush interview, Roberts had to pass another test, the Rove interview. Karl Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff, and legal counsel Harriet Miers talked to the candidates for the court at length. Rove, too, was interested in finding out if Roberts was really a conservative and would remain one on the court. He came away convinced Roberts is no Souter.

So I guess Scalia will welcome his new colleague, and I wonder how all of this pains poor David Souter. Or is he completely aloof, distanced, and bemused?

The ugly last gurglings of a band.

There are three surviving members of the Doors: Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, and John Densmore. Manzarek and Krieger want to tour and play, and they asked Densmore to join them, but he can't, because his ears are too damaged. So Densmore sues to prevent Manzarek and Krieger from using the Doors' name, and he wins because the three have a contract providing that they must all agree (along with Jim Morrison's estate) to any use of the name.

Densmore's all "I'm just so happy that the legacy of the true Doors, and Jim Morrison in particular, has been preserved by this decision."

Quite aside from his apparent legal right to prevent Manzarek and Krieger from using the name, don't you think Densmore's being a jerk? Or are you buying this "legacy of the true Doors" business?

Set your TiVos.

If you're in Madison. I'm going to be on "For the Record" tomorrow. That's WISC-TV, at 10:00 a.m., right after "Face the Nation," (going head-to-head against "Meet the Press"). The topic is what you'd guess it would be.

"People will be afraid to walk the streets, or go on the tube, or carry anything in their hands."

The man the London police chased down and executed point blank with five shots had nothing to do with the terrorist bombings. I'm sure the real terrorists are delighted when things like this happen. Now everyone can be afraid of the terrorists and the police. More fear, more dispersed. What a shame!

UPDATE: I have a more positive outlook the next day.

Is Althouse planning to use her name in all future post titles?

And keep referring to herself in the third person? Has she gone not only liberal but stark raving mad?

Is Althouse having an unusually liberal day?

If you're marshalling the evidence, consider that she just bought this to read and this to watch.

Both are making me her laugh a lot today.

Althouse is having one of those mornings...

Where she links to all of her friends, seemingly. So let me include Tonya, who just had a birthday. Here's a photo of her beautiful cake into which, lacking candles, they stuck a lit match.

I've never seen that before, though it seems like something that must have been done before. Seems like a good metaphor. But for what?

"The Dread Pirate Roberts."

Oscar: "The only hope for us liberals is that Roberts has been cagily angling for this Supreme Court job his whole professional life."

UPDATE: Why isn't the best hope for liberals that a diligent, neutrally principled, brilliant, skilled judge would interpret the Constitution to mean what you think it does? Do you really think the liberal outcomes are produced only by liberal political leanings? I notice that the Justices who disappoint the Presidents who chose them were -- in recent times -- all appointed by conservatives, yet you liberals don't even bother to argue that the reason the drift goes to the left is because that's where honest, legitimate interpretation takes you. You would think we'd hear that argument all the time, and yet we don't! I mean, just as a political argument, it's good. But might it perhaps be true -- you know, that the Constitution really does guarantee our liberties?

Just not that into you.

Nina's got some nice pictures from Washington, D.C., including matched shots of two couples at the same fountain. One photo is labelled "he's just not into her" and the other "he's into her."

Yes. Body language. It's pretty readable, isn't it?

Showy lawprofs.

Todd Zywicki thinks Judge Roberts might have had a tough time getting respect as a lawprof -- for reasons that suggest something has gone seriously awry with this lawproffing game of ours.

Storming.

A thunderstorm rolls in and the kids across the street all start to squall.

"Look better. Feel better."

An old barbershop.

“Too yin. You need more yang.”

Richard doesn't want to go to a martial arts competition located in a suburb of Dallas, but he goes -- though it's contra tai chi principles as he understands them -- because his tai chi teacher requires it. At the link: description of tai chi and contemplation of life (and marriage) using tai chi-related ideas.

J.K. Rowling, not the "pimply loner freakazoid" compensating type.

Jeremy explains why the Harry Potter series is so appealing (even to adults):

[I]t's full of cleverness but doesn't start taking its world too seriously--you don't get the image of some creepy male author sitting in an attic typing out page after page of the fantasy world that he had first started conjuring as an adolescent as a way of coping with what a pimply loner freakazoid he was.

Hmm... how many authors is he slamming there?

The nominee's wife -- and conservative feminism.

The NYT looks at Jane Sullivan Roberts, the wife of the new Supreme Court nominee. Ms. Roberts is a lawyer who does pro bono work for a group called Feminists for Life. Interestingly, Senator Kennedy himself has said that the wife's activities "ought to be out of bounds" as a subject of inquiry. But, obviously, people are going to think about anything that might give insight into the fairly inscrutable Judge Roberts. And the concept of "Feminists for Life" is quite intriguing. The Times quotes their mission statement:

"Abortion is a reflection that our society has failed to meet the needs of women. Women deserve better than abortion."

Notice that you don't have to want Roe v. Wade overturned in order to say that. Doesn't that statement align fairly well with what many pro-choice Democrats -- such as Hillary Clinton -- say about abortion? Feminists for Life, do, however, want to see Roe overturned:

In previous years, the group weighed in on litigation seeking further restrictions on abortion, but [Feminists for Life president Serrin] Foster said that was before Mrs. Roberts joined the board.

"We're not a litigious institution now," Ms. Foster said. "We decided we were not a legal group; we were going to go after parenting resources and pregnancy resources, and Jane was part of that redefinition. She came on at that time."

Sensing the highly charged atmosphere around the issue, longtime friends and colleagues of Mrs. Roberts declined to speak this week about her views on abortion. But they characterized her political and social views much as her husband's friends have portrayed his in recent days: expressly conservative, but not dogmatic.

"Jane has very strong personal convictions, politically and with regard to her faith," said Christine Kearns, a friend and colleague who has worked with Mrs. Roberts for 18 years at a law firm now called Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. "But as long as I've known her, I've never known her to impose them on others or to be unwilling to listen to other people's points of view."

I hope that strong liberal feminists see the value of feminism within conservative thinking. Partisan Democrats sometimes think they own the allegiance of feminists, even to the point where they think their offenses against feminism won't matter. I lost my allegiance to the Democratic Party over one of those offenses. I put feminism above partisan politics, and I look for connections among those who are concerned about women's issues. Maybe you'll consider doing that too.

Bonus info: Ms. Roberts used to drive a VW Beetle, and now she drives a PT Cruiser. Analyze that.

"Anatomy of a Rumor."

Marty Schwimmer, a lawyer, has "An Anatomy of a Rumor" but characterizes a post of mine badly enough that it took me a while to absorb his whole analysis. He writes:

Ann Althouse a law professor, reads Wonkette's piece, notes that she had come to the same 'conclusion' that Wonkette did, and therefore she concludes that the NY Times had intentionally placed the bits about Peppermint Patty (and a photo of Roberts in a 'all-male wedding photograph' (as in photo of the groomsmen)) to plant the notion that Roberts was closeted.

Here's what I wrote in the linked post:

I read the same NYT piece Wonkette did.

And the same notion crossed my mind. I do think the NYT piece was subtly constructed to plant this idea. Just look at the series of photographs they chose: young John in plaid pants, young John with his boys' school pals, young John in a wrestling suit with his fellow wrestlers, John with footballers, and -- the final pic -- John smiling in an all-male wedding photograph. The article also says Roberts married his wife when both were in their forties and that that their children were adopted.

A notion crossing one's mind is not a "conclusion" -- in quotes or out of quotes. My point is that reading the NYT piece was making me think something. Once conscious of the notion arising in my head, I set out to track down what was making me think something that I had not directly read in the article. "Conclude" is even too strong a word for my suspicion that the Times had tried to make the nominee look gay.

But I am aware that my commenters and other blogs, including Powerline, have picked up the notion that "the left" is deliberately rumormongering and that my post is a link in the rumor chain and taken to mean that the NYT in fact tried to hurt the nominee by creating the rumor. Schwimmer makes the important point that many people will only read Powerline. And Powerline, notably, doesn't even link back to me, but only to Charmain Yoest, who writes that I "might have a point" about the NYT article.

Schwimmer writes:

Gordon Allport, in the 'The Psychology of Rumor' describes the manner in which rumors are transmitted (I'm using Malcolm Gladwell's summary of Allport from his book 'The Tipping Point'): The story is leveled - details essential for understanding (such as the fact that Wonkette is a humorist) are removed. The story is sharpened - the source of the 'facts' are no longer Wikipedia and the NY Times but 'the left' and 'Democrats.' The story is assimilated - the story is changed to make sense to those spreading the rumor. The Democrats are spreading a scandolous rumor about the innocent nominee for their own purposes.

That story will [make] more sense then that someone would make a not particularly funny joke about Roberts being on the wrestling team, at least to those who will link to the Powerline without checking the links back to Manhattan Offender and Wonkette.

This is decently analyzed, but it doesn't really get my role straight. I checked Wonkette after I read the Times piece and thought it made the nominee look gay. I figured if the article was really giving off that impression, Wonkette would probably have something to say about it -- and she did. So my thoughts didn't have an origin in Wonkettish japery. My thoughts had their origin -- as much of my blogging does -- in reading a newspaper article with an awareness of my own impressions. I wasn't passing along and transforming a rumor (though getting some confirmation of the impression from Wonkette did encourage me to blog the impression).

People should notice how strong a move Powerline made! John H. Hinderaker, a lawyer, wrote:

They Were Already Beneath Contempt...

...but now some Democrats have sunk lower. They are hinting that John Roberts is a homosexual because he was once photographed--more than thirty years ago--wearing plaid pants. You think I'm making this up?...

Now, I'm the only one who brought up the pants. Am I suddenly "some Democrats"? Or is the NYT "some Democrats"? Who's doing the hinting in Powerline's analysis? If you're going to hurl such contempt out into the world, shouldn't you get it straight whom you're talking about?

The fact is: not one person, let alone any "they," "hint[ed] that John Roberts is a homosexual because he was once photographed... wearing plaid paints." One person, me, thought that the NYT was trying to create the impression that the nominee is gay through (among other things) a photo layout that included the picture with the pants. Innumerable people have pointed out that the pants, while awful, are not the sort of thing a gay man would favor. But you have to see the sequence of photos of Roberts grouped with lots of men and not one woman. The overall picture of enthusiastic male camaraderie is quite strong. Yet, of course, the NYT has complete deniability. Shame on me, they can say, for reading anything into it. That's why I considered it "subtly constructed."

I started out writing this post irked at Schwimmer for making me look like the person who deviously extracted that satire from the observation that the NYT is making Roberts look gay, and I do want to correct that. But in the end, it's Powerline that I'm really irked at. Is this Powerline's modus operandi or just an isolated lapse?

Secretly hating ScarJo.

Too mean! Too True!

The Arguing Couple podcast genre.

Virginia Heffernan writes about podcasting in today's NYT and reveals that her favorite podcasts are just weird, interesting couples who fight each other. Nice voyeurism factor, and if the people are feisty and articulate and funny -- sure, why not listen in? Haven't we all had neighbor couples who argued all the time? At least this way you have your choice of whom to listen to and when you're in the mood for a listen. Podcasting as controlled eavesdropping.

Unbearably sad photo.

I saw this picture yesterday, and then again today when commenters said I should link to this blog. I haven't written anything about it. I can't begin to collect my thoughts. I will just say that is the saddest photograph I have ever seen. Unbearable. Unbelievable. The senseless execution of children.

"It was a close thing, but Benedict Arnold's bold plan to capture Canada for the Revolution fell short at the Battle of Quebec in early 1776."

That's the first line of one of John Roberts' Court of Appeals opinions. (I'm trying to read/skim them all.) I love the line. I especially love the use of the word "thing." That shows a depth of understanding about writing style. Less able writers would fuss about the word "thing" -- not formal enough? not specific enough? Law review editor types would probably agonize over the antecedentless "it" and the passive voice "was" and get a prudish editor's nausea before they even hit "thing." But Roberts has a surer hand. So, I have great hope that he will bring a fine writing style to the Supreme Court.

Of course, after the nice opening sentence we have to read this:

As a result, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must now decide when affiliates of Canadian utilities -- utilities not subject to FERC jurisdiction -- may sell power at market-based rates in the United States.

Jeez, D.C. Circuit Court cases are dull -- all that federal regulatory dreariness. Everyone keeps jabbering It's the second highest court in the land after the U.S. Supreme Court. What they fail to say is that it's the first most boring court in the land. What good fortune to be nominated to the Supreme Court, but what double good fortune to escape from the D.C. Circuit. All you Fifth Circuit judges who didn't get picked: at least you have an interesting case load where you are.

(The quoted case is boringly called Consumers Energy Company v. Federal Energy Commission, 367 F.3d 915 (2004).)