"The drawing is prosaic, revealing asymmetrical breasts and bony middle-aged shoulders, but it also manifests a little poetry, suggesting that I’m a proud proto-crone."

Writes Sarah Thornton, quoted in "We Must Defend the Bust/Breasts are subject to capricious restrictions and contradictory norms. What would it take to set them free?" (The New Yorker). The New Yorker article is by Lauren Michele Jackson, writing about Thornton's book "Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, & Witches Tell Us About Breasts." Thornton was writing about an artist named Clarity Haynes.

This is the third appearance of the word "crone" on this blog. The first was on October 3, 2005, "Miers + cronyism," back when we were all talking about Harriet Miers: "I wonder how long it will take for someone to call Miers a 'crone.' Too sexist, you think? Clearly, you haven't read as many Mary Daly books as I have!"

The second was just about a year ago, when we were all talking about E. Jean Carroll, "My life goes on... I will go on living in this tiny cabin. But one thing has changed. I am going to dedicate myself to somehow figuring out a way for the women..."

Bush on Harriet Miers, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito.

Jan Crawford finds the stuff about Supreme Court nominations in Bush's book, "Decision Points":

"While I know Harriet would have made a fine justice, I didn't think enough about how the selection would be perceived by others," Mr. Bush writes. "I put my friend in an impossible situation. If I had to do it over again, I would not have thrown Harriet to the wolves of Washington."...

--After he tapped Roberts for chief justice when William Rehnquist died, he only considered women candidates to replace O'Connor. "I didn't like the idea of the Supreme Court having only one woman."

But Roberts was originally picked for the O'Connor position.  The idea of appointing a woman, then, didn't matter all that much.

--There were "frustrating roadblocks" for most of the women candidates. When several senators said they were impressed by Miers, he concluded "she would make an outstanding justice." Miers was "shocked" when he asked if she was interested.

--No one in the White House ever suggested conservatives would revolt over her nomination. Bush suggests the opposition was elitist because Miers didn't go to an Ivy League school and "is not glib."

In addition to Miers, Bush says he considered Patricia Owen, but he thought Miers would be easier to confirm. After all the trouble with Miers, he switched to Alito, who, he writes, was "ill at ease" with Bush at first. Bush relaxed him by talking about baseball.

Bush says wanted to avoid appointing another Souter — Souter, who disappointed Bush's father, by "evolv[ing] into a different kind of judge."

--Roberts was not the unanimous choice. Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales backed Judge Mike Luttig. Miers supported Alito. Chief of Staff Andy Card and adviser Karl Rove favored Roberts. (Which means J. Harvie Wilkinson and Edith Brown Clement, the other two contenders early on, didn't have prominent backers.)

--Brett Kavanaugh, now a federal appeals court judge, told Bush Luttig, Alito and Roberts would all be solid justices. He suggested Bush ask a "tiebreaker question" of which man would be the most effective leader. To Bush, that was Roberts.

It seems that Roberts has a special appeal to Bush, who liked his "gentle soul" and "quick smile."

Clarence Thomas is not here to entertain you, and Elena Kagan isn't very popular.

"I am not there to entertain anybody," says Clarence Thomas, disparaging Supreme Court oral argument, in which he famously refrains from participating:

[At the Utah State Bar’s 2010 summer convention yesterday, Thomas said], oral argument was an opportunity for attorneys to tease out their case.

When he first arrived on the court, members “actually listened to lawyers,” Thomas said. “We have ceased doing that. Now it’s become a debate or seminar. I don’t find that particularly helpful. It may be entertaining, but I am not there to entertain anybody.”

“There can be some questions to clarify things, to challenge it, but you don’t need 50 questions per case,” Thomas said. “That becomes more like “Family Feud” than oral argument.”

Here's another analogy: "I would equate trying to get the members of the court to do what you want them to do with herding gnats in a hurricane." That's especially interesting in light of the way some people imagine that Elena Kagan will somehow coax or cajole the others — or Anthony Kennedy — to go her way. Here's what Dahlia Lithwick said about that, back in May:

Obama—who could announce his pick as soon as this week, and the heavy betting is on Solicitor General Elena Kagan—is looking for a diplomat who will forge consensus, build bridges, and bring together a polarized court....

[J]ust because Kagan hired several conservative scholars when she was dean at Harvard Law School doesn't mean she'll have some kind of stunning intellectual influence over the Roberts Court's conservatives....

[R]educing the search for a Stevens replacement to a quest for the most able logroller on the left does nothing to dispel the widespread public perception that conservative judges closely read the Constitution and apply the law, while liberals stick a finger in the wind and then work the room. The selection of a new Supreme Court candidate should be an opportunity for the president to answer that claim with a crystal-clear message about the nature of liberal jurisprudence. "We think she might be able to flip Kennedy," is neither a powerful nor inspiring judicial vision....

Perhaps President Obama shouldn't be so quick to denigrate a nominee whose greatest impact on the court will be writing passionate dissents. Once upon a time that passionate dissenter was Justice Antonin Scalia. And if the sometimes-prickly justice has proved anything in recent years, it's that decades of bitter and brilliant dissenting opinions can be more influential over the long haul than all the negotiation skills in the world.

So the liberal Lithwick wanted more of prickly hothead. Instead, she and we got the supposedly charming Kagan, who, for some reason, is the least popular Supreme Court nominee — successful nominee — since Gallup started polling people, at the time of the Bork nomination. (Bork and Harriet Miers, unsuccessful nominees,  were less popular than Kagan.) Why is that? Could it possibly be that Americans don't like the idea of a Supreme Court Justice who is best known for social skills?

Why isn't Kagan more popular?
	She seems to be more about social than legal skill and people think that's wrong.
	She didn't say or do anything in the confirmation hearings that made any kind of impression.
	She's supported by Democrats, and people are afraid of Democrats now.
	There's prejudice against her based on her sex and her religious background.
	There's a lot of free-floating unhappiness these days making people give negative answers to polls.
pollcode.com free polls

"Obama... is having a Harriet Miers moment. Or, rather, he's having a George W. Bush moment."

"When Bush nominated the in-over-her-head Miers to the Supreme Court, his fan base turned on him. As one ardent Bush supporter told me at the time: 'It was in that moment that I realized he really might not know what he's doing.' And so things seem to have turned for Obama. Left-leaning Democrats suddenly are wondering: Who is this guy? What happened to the liberal dream-maker... ?"

The tragic narrative arc of Barack Obama: The world built him up, and the world is tearing him back down.

"Republicans would be foolish to fight the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court..."

"...because she is the most conservative choice that President Obama could have made," says E.J. Dionne, whose assertion shouldn't be trusted.

IN THE COMMENTS: traditionalguy said:

Dionne's advice is letting the cat out of the bag. The Progressive wing will gladly push for withdrawal of her nomination if the repubbies continue to posture and vent over a few imperfections in Sonia's speeches. Then Obama could really un-load on them with his next choice. The nomination of Sotomayor needs another "just like Bush" tag.

Ah, yes. Just like Bush did with Harriet Miers and then Samual Alito. As kentuckyliz suggested, we ought to call Sotomayor Sorta-Miers.

Lawprof Bruce Ackerman says we should require Senate approval of senior White House staff positions.

"The challenge is to make it difficult for future presidents to appoint less-qualified officials -- such as Alberto Gonzales or Harriet Miers -- without serious outside review of their credentials. That, after all, is the aim of our system of checks and balances."

He'd like to see the reform set to begin in 2017, when, we can be sure, Obama will be gone, replaced by no one now knows who.

Running the government, how hard can it be? As long as your heart's in the right place.

David Frum's outrage... at the selection of Sarah Palin... and Harriet Miers:



(Via Kausfiles.)

Exploiting Bill Clinton.

How can Hillary exploit Bill's popularity without opening up all the complexities of judging his Presidency? Matt Bai writes in the NYT Magazine:

When I asked Bill Clinton about this issue, during an informal meeting in South Carolina, he readily agreed to sit down for a longer interview on his legacy’s role in the campaign. A few weeks later, however, and at the last minute, Hillary’s aides canceled the interview. Famously controlling, they would not even allow the former president to talk about his record.

Interesting. You know, I was just watching the Charlie Rose interview with Bill Clinton, and I thought Bill Clinton seemed really angry about something. I had the impression that something was nagging at him that he couldn't talk about. I also noticed that he used the words "she" and "her" to great excess and rarely voiced his wife's name.

Here's Bai:

On those rare ocasions when the former president hasn’t been able to resist defending his wife or burnishing his own record, the results haven’t been especially helpful. Unlike Hillary Clinton and her team of advisers, who are relentlessly on message and disciplined, Bill Clinton is a more instinctual politician, given to improvisational moments that must torment his wife’s obsessive-compulsive aides. In November, Clinton suddenly asserted during a campaign appearance in Iowa that he opposed the invasion of Iraq from the beginning — an aside that he needn’t have offered and that clearly contradicted not only his wife’s Congressional vote but his own statements in the build-up to the war.

If you were writing a novel about the 2008 presidential campaign, wouldn't you want Bill Clinton as your main character? What a complex situation he is in. He stands to gain power, but his time is also over. He can help his wife, but he can also hurt her. He is supposed to fight for her, but he's continually tempted to justify himself. He has the more creative mind, but he cannot outshine her.

ADDED: You know, things like this — "Elder Bush nixes Clinton trip idea" — make me think Bill secretly wants Hillary to lose:

Former President George H.W. Bush has shot down his successor Bill Clinton’s idea of a diplomatic mission under a Hillary Clinton presidency that would send him and other notables abroad to assure other nations that “America is open for business and cooperation again.”

The move came one day after Bill Clinton made the suggestion on the campaign trail in South Carolina, in response to a question from a supporter about his wife’s “number-one priority” upon reaching the White House.

Why did Bill say that? It enlisted Bush 41 in what sounded like a plain insult to Bush 43.

MORE: Bill's way of talking about Hillary reminds me a bit of the way George Bush talked about Harriet Miers just before she withdrew:

Harriet Miers is -- is an extraordinary woman. She was a legal pioneer in Texas. She was ranked one of the top 50 women lawyers in the United States on a consistent basis....

Harriet Miers is a fine person....

"Selecting Daddy's top foreign-policy guru ran counter to message. It was worse than a safe pick -- it was needy."

Karl Rove said to George Bush about Dick Cheney -- according to Robert Draper's new book "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush." So much for Rove being Bush's brain.

When Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, expressed concerns about the [nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court], he was "shouted down" and subsequently muted his objections, Draper writes, while other advisers did not realize the outcry the nomination would cause within the president's conservative political base.

Now, this is surprising:

It was John G. Roberts Jr., now the chief justice of the United States, who suggested Miers to Bush as a possible Supreme Court justice, according to the book. Miers, the White House counsel and a Bush loyalist from Texas, did not want the job, but Bush and first lady Laura Bush prevailed on her to accept the nomination, Draper writes.

But a spokesperson for Roberts denies the report. And there's no clear source for this in the book's footnotes. Seems like a juicy but dubious book. I'm going to guess that Roberts said something about Miers but that it was far from a recommendation that she get the position.

I hate to do this. But I'm going to write a post defending myself against the idiotic charge...

... that I'm failing to denounce Ann Coulter for using the word "faggot" with reference to John Edwards. I have never promoted Ann Coulter on this blog. I just checked all the old references to her. In over 8,000 posts in 3 years, I see her name in only 10 posts, and half of these just have her name in some block quote from someone else. I've never approved of the kind of shots she takes, though I have said I think she imagines herself to be some sort of comedian:

You know, when we first noticed Coulter doing various political shows -- I think it was back in the mid-90s -- we were always saying "Why is that woman laughing?," "She's always laughing," "There's that woman again who's always laughing," etc. No matter what she said, she'd be laughing, as though every damned thing that happened in politics was hilarious to her and everything comment she made completely cracked her up. You might not think what she is saying is funny, but I think she's motivated by comic energy, and the people who like her are picking up on the fun.

And I've responded to a comparison of me to her:

One of the things that I observe, by the way, is how this attitude I take -- whatever it is -- drives the left blogosphere up the wall. I wonder why it takes so little? And why this special obsession with me? Some blogger wrote about me -- I linked to him yesterday... he's not getting another -- "She makes Ann Coulter look like Cicero." Ann Coulter makes outrageous statements intended to taunt people into attacking her. That's her game. I make some throwaway, half-humorous remark in the middle of a comments thread and touch off multi-blog fireworks that go on for days. What's that all about?

I briefly note an instance where she was prevented from speaking -- which reflects my longstanding interest in free speech. And I quote her joke about the nomination of Harriet Miers: "I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court." Which is a good joke that expressed how I felt about the nomination. And here, also a propos of Miers, I mention that she laughed at a joke on "Real Time With Bill Maher."

So if you think I have some obligation to disassociate myself from her, you are just damned wrong on the facts. And if you think I have ever supported homophobia on this blog, I challenge you to prove it. You can't. And if you think I hate John Edwards, why don't you see if you can figure out who I voted for in the 2004 primary?

Meanwhile, what chumps you people are to take the bait and promote her again! Or is there some other story that would be big today if this nonsense weren't eclipsing it?

ADDED: There's the eclipse.

"She liked his quiet confidence; he didn't seem to be pushing too hard for the job."

Jan Crawford Greenburg tells the story of George Bush's Supreme Court appointments. Here's the part about Samuel Alito:

The call from the White House surprised Alito. Living in New Jersey, he had been insulated from the negative Washington buzz over Miers. He had absorbed the disappointment about being passed over and had come to terms with remaining a federal appellate judge. Alito didn't know that he had been Miers's choice for the O'Connor vacancy after Roberts got the nod for the top spot. She liked his quiet confidence; he didn't seem to be pushing too hard for the job. When Alito was nominated just four days after Miers dropped out, she greeted him warmly in the White House, moments before Bush introduced him as his next nominee.

Note the implication: Others lost favor by pushing too hard.

And here's Greenburg's conclusion:

Bush fulfilled his early vow to appoint justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. Together with those two justices, Alito and Roberts make the Roberts Court the most conservative Supreme Court in half a century. Roberts and Alito will not be as forceful as Scalia and Thomas on the bench or in their opinions; they are unlikely to push moderates away with their strong views. For that reason, they may be more effective than Scalia or Thomas in finally removing the court from the contentious social issues that conservatives think belong in legislatures. With the court now poised to recede from some of those divisive cultural debates, George W. Bush and his lawyers at the White House and Justice Department will continue shaping the direction of U.S. law and culture long after many of them are dead.

So, that seems to say, if there's any moderation in Roberts and Alito, it serves the function of making their conservatism more effective.

"He told me the precise date he plans to retire."

Said Jan Crawford Greenburg. "He" is Justice Stevens. Fascinating. Am I right to interpret her use of the term "precise date" to mean that he doesn't intend to stay on until, say, his health or mental acuity declines. The use of the word "retire" should also mean that he did not say that he intends to stay on the Court until he dies. "Date" -- if used accurately -- means a specific day, month, and year. [ADDED: The general opinion in the comments is that this was just a joke. I guess my sense of humor is limited on this topic. More on what I think about Justices not retiring: here.]

The linked interview, by Howard Bashman, makes her forthcoming book sound exciting:

I was fortunate enough to talk to nine Supreme Court justices, and a lot of what I heard surprised me. Some of the conventional wisdom is just wrong, especially about Justice Thomas and his early role on the Court. When I was doing the research on his early years, my heart would literally jump up every time I came across a memo or document that was completely at odds with what people have long said about him. The book is about how the Rehnquist Court came to disappoint conservatives -- what went wrong from their point of view -- and how those perceived missteps influenced the Bush Administration's thinking on Roberts, Miers and Alito.

The book is called "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court."

"Harriet is one of the most beloved people here at the White House."

Said Tony Snow, announcing the departure of Harriet Miers, who captured our attention a year or so ago and then retreated into the background.

"I'm a P.R. office for the White House."

Said Texas Supreme Court justice Nathan L. Hecht about his active promotion of the nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court. Later, he said that was a joke. The state Special Court of Review will announce today whether it agrees with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct said that he "improperly lent the prestige of his office to advance someone else’s 'private interests,' illegally used his name to endorse 'another candidate' for 'public office,' and violated the State Constitution by conduct discrediting the judiciary." The Texas ACLU has taken the justice's side.

In testimony to the Special Court of Review in August, Justice Hecht traced the start of his involvement in Ms. Miers’s nomination to a call from President Bush’s senior adviser, Karl Rove, on Oct. 1, 2005, two days before Mr. Bush announced his choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Justice Hecht told the court that Mr. Rove had asked him to talk to callers about Ms. Miers’s “faith, about her religious background,” and that the group included James C. Dobson, a conservative leader and founder of Focus on the Family.

Justice Hecht said he also answered news media queries, which he said were so numerous that he was asked to report back to a White House aide on the nature of the questions.

He conceded to the court that he told one reporter, “I’m a P.R. office for the White House,” but he later called that a joke.

Justice Hecht said he had considered the Code of Judicial Conduct during his campaign in support of Ms. Miers’s nomination but did not think he was in violation of it. That opinion, he said, was reinforced by two senior appellate judges with whom he conferred.

The evidence [Mark L. Greenwald, a special counsel for the commission] presented to the special review court included a television interview in which Justice Hecht vouched for Ms. Miers as an opponent of abortion, citing her attendance at “a church that is — takes an open pro-life stance.” He also said of Ms. Miers: “She is very charming, of course. Everybody says gracious, but also very determined.”

UPDATE: Hecht wins. Good.

"All of this blogging-in-drag is bewildering and appalling."

Wow, David Lat -- the erstwhile Article III Groupie, who's now blogging at Above the Law -- is getting doubly slammed over there at Feminist Law Professors. Belle Lettre has this:

All of this blogging-in-drag is bewildering and appalling. I just don’t understand the prurient interest some have in watching an otherwise impressively credentialed or politically opinionated “woman” degrade “herself” by trivializing her politics or profession. Is this the appeal of watching Ann Coulter in her mini-shorts?

Speaking as a female blogger, who writes a “blawggish” blog at that, I am personally offended. I think these poseurs, cheeky and satiric as they intend to be, bring down the image of serious female bloggers everywhere. It’s not that I argue that my blog is entirely serious–I do run personal posts about poetry, the occasional blog meme, etc. But this is not exactly trivial gossip....

[B]logs like those by David Lat and Libertarian Man of Mystery make me a very self-conscious and cautious blogger. I feel trepidation about writing on non-serious or even non-legal things, even though it is perfectly within my prerogative to do so. I’m not saying that I would like to engage in snark, vitriol, gossip, or triviality....

David Lat and Libertarian Man of Mystery do no favors to women (and especially women bloggers) when they pose as women or caricature “female triviality” to suit their own ends. Even as they continue this “cheeky” style of writing with their genders and identities open, it never fails to be a nudge nudge wink wink at how salacious and saucy writing can be if done in the “female voice.” I happen to think my own “female voice” is quite intelligent and serious, thanks. And there are plenty of women bloggers (and blawggers) like me, who can write about our lives and our work, without being sexed up fembots or saucy wenches. There will be no nudging and winking here, not for your amusement, and definitely not to ours.

This dread of triviality, does it hurt? I wonder if Belle has considered whether this grim, censorious, humorless -- nay, humor-phobic -- attitude helps women. I know you want to be taken seriously, but being so intent on being taken seriously is one of the main things that make people want to mock you. And not just you, but feminism.

Belle is piling on after an earlier post by Ann Bartow, who decided to pick on David for running a search for the "hottest ERISA lawyer in America." Here's her criticism:

Possibly Lat doesn’t understand that being celebrated for her looks is not known for being a ticket to career success in the legal world for a female attorney.

The idea that people are now going to be nominated without their knowledge, and that Lat will not honor their requests for withdrawl if they do find out, frankly strikes me as both mean and sickening. I was present when a hard driving female attorney won a satirical “Miss Congeniality” designation during a “jokey” awards luncheon, and I watched her muster a tight little smile as she accepted a sash and tiara to a sea of derisive laughter, and I saw her crying in the bathroom later, too. I have little doubt that certain kinds of lawyers will take a golden opportunity like this to try to heap ridicule upon colleagues or competitors they dislike, or want to see put in their place. But who cares, as long as Lat is amusing himself and his buds, right?

Is frat boy asshole really the right stereotype for Mr. Lat? Since you're doing stereotypes... It's a little tricky to wield stereotypes while criticizing stereotypes, but the idea must be that it doesn't count if you evoke the privileged white male. But what really irks me is going on and on about Lat without showing familiarity with his judicial hotties contest, the way Article III groupie specially focused on the hotness of males, and how Judge Kozinski offered himself up as the hottest judge. Here's how The New Yorker saw it:

A3G, as she calls herself, writes like a boozy débutante, dishing about the wardrobes, work habits, and idiosyncrasies of the “superhotties of the federal judiciary” and “Bodacious Babes of the Bench.” The author is keen on the new Chief Justice, writing, on one occasion, “Judge Roberts is lookin’ super-hunky tonight, much younger than his 50 years. . . . The adorable dimple in his chin is making A3G dizzy.” In contrast, she had doubts about Harriet Miers, posting a “Hairstyle Retrospective” and noting, “If Harriet Miers wins confirmation, maybe Supreme Court justices should start wearing powdered wigs.” Her posts on the new Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, have included a report—a “judicial sight-ation”—of the Judge stopping in at a Newark pizza shop, and a sizing up of Alito’s teen-age son: “Since he’s 19, A3G is permitted to say: he’s a hottie!”

This refocus of the hotness question onto males was a much better strategy for smashing sex stereotypes than insisting on being taken seriously and trying to deny the visual aspect of life.

If the Democrats vote on strict party lines againt Alito...

... will that give them more or less clout when it comes to the next nominee? I think the answer is less. The split vote on Roberts gained the Democrats something of the appearance that they were really weighing the merits of the nomination. Why would they want to mess up that appearance by voting as one? Perhaps they think, what was the point of supporting Roberts if we just ended up with Alito? But what happens with the next nominee? Perhaps the thought is that Bush has already proved so much about his freedom to pick whomever he wants -- just avoid the Miers mistake -- that there is no point in trying to preserve any influence over his choice. They can only hope that another slot will not open before they have the chance to regain control over either the Senate or the Presidency. Presumably, the analysis of how to vote on Alito reflects a strategy for winning future elections. The Democratic Party stands for something. But what? Based on what the Democratic Senators have emphasized, I'd say it's abortion rights and limiting presidential power.

Newly perceived: just how incompetent the Miers nomination was.

My son John Althouse Cohen emails (from the other side of the dining table):

The fact that Alito is so sure to be confirmed gives us a new reason to criticize Bush for nominating Harriet Miers. Back then, it looked as if Bush had chosen an underqualified nominee because she was a woman and had no record of taking positions on issues. But we now know that a white, male conservative with a long paper trail did not run into any serious obstacles. So not only did Bush choose an unqualified nominee for political reasons; those political reasons didn't even apply. We already knew that the Miers nomination was incompetent, but it looks even more incompetent now that the Alito hearings have gone so smoothly.

Indeed. We shall see how this new knowledge affects future appointments. Don't you think it will embolden this President and future Presidents?

(John is home from law school -- Cornell -- for winter break, and, don't worry, we do talk. But sometimes I say, "Email me that," for blog purposes.)

Activists have tried to turn the confirmation hearings "into surrogate presidential campaigns"...

Writes Dan Balz in the WaPo, but it's hard to stir the public up these days about a Supreme Court nominee:

[A]ll the rhetoric has done little to polarize the public, even in an age in which sharp divisions are common. Not surprisingly, Republicans are generally united in favor of Alito's confirmation, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. More notable, given the possibility of a near party-line vote in the Senate, is that rank-and-file Democrats are almost evenly divided. The poll found that 40 percent of Democrats said Alito should be confirmed, while 39 percent said he should not. Self-identified liberals were almost as divided, with 38 percent saying they favor his confirmation and 44 percent saying they do not, with the rest undecided.

I wonder what accounts for such placidity amoung Democrats. Are they tired of the usual rhetoric about how conservative judges mean to take away our rights? Do they buy the conservative presentation of the judges as humble interpreters of the law? Or are they just practical and resigned when they see that the President has the appointment power and a majority of the Senators?

Of course, some people -- not Democrats, generally -- did get stirred up about the Harriet Miers nomination but that wasn't at the confirmation hearings stage, and that involved the gaffe of picking someone who lacked qualifications.

Truthiness and heart-feeling.

The most useful word of the year is "podcast," says the panel of linguist, but they still pick, for word of the year: "truthiness."

Also in contention were "whale tail" and "muffin top," both of which have to do with the way young women mis-wear their pants.

The linked CNN article -- which shoehorns in every possible thing about Tom Cruise it can -- fails to credit Stephen Colbert for truthiness, so go here for more, including the original Colbert quote:

And on this show, on this show your voice will be heard... in the form of my voice. 'Cause you're looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I will speak to you in plain simple English.

And that brings us to tonight's word: truthiness.

Now I'm sure some of the Word Police, the wordanistas over at Webster's, are gonna say, "Hey, that's not a word." Well, anybody who knows me knows that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.

Watch the clip here, which goes on to talk about Bush and "feeling the truth about Harriet Miers," the Iraq war, and so forth. Colbert says that the real division in this country isn't between liberals and conservatives but between those who think with their head and those who feel with their heart. All the examples of heart-feelers he gives are from conservatives (which fits his character on the show, who promotes both heart-feeling and conservatism). In real life, there are folks playing the heart-feeling card in both parties.

(Some are Senators on the Judiciary Committee who, I predict, will do some serious heart-talking next week at the Alito hearings.)

Quotes of the year 2005 -- my choices.

After writing that last post, on the WaPo's quotes of the year, I got the idea of going through the past year of my writing on this blog to find the quotes I thought were most interesting. Here they are, beginning with a quote from back in January:

"I can't think of any examples where I said, 'Gosh, I wish I had more power.'" -- President Bush

"When you think of the New Testament, they get about 2 of the values and we get about 27." -- Howard Dean

"Christ did not come down from the cross." -- Pope John Paul II (on why he didn't retire)

"But I also know if I can get music without buying it, I'm going to do so." -- Justice David Souter (at oral argument in the Grokster case)

"I can't agree with you. 'Our laws come from God.' If you don't believe it sends that message, you're kidding yourself." -- Justice Antonin Scalia (at oral argument in the Ten Commandments case)

"Try to survive a tornado with a post-structuralist." -- Camille Paglia (speaking in Madison)

"If I should ever be in a vegetative state and kept alive on life support, please, for the love of God, don't ever show me in that condition on national television." -- Kenny in the "Best Friends Forever" episode of "South Park"

"Matt, Matt, you don't even -- you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is." -- Tom Cruise

"What are you, some redneck blogger pig?"-- Claire Fisher on "Six Feet Under" (to her boyfriend, when he defended the war in Iraq)

"Narm." -- Nate Fisher on "Six Feet Under."

"That's for me to know and for your to find out." -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist (responding to a question about whether he's retiring on July 11th, causing me to write "How near death can he be if he's horsing around like that?" He died on September 3rd.)

"The Supreme Court voted last week to undo private property rights and to empower governments to kick people out of their homes and give them to someone else because they feel like it." Rep. Tom Delay (on the Kelo case)

"He's crushing his testicles in tight trousers for world peace." -- John Lydon (insulting Bono)

"We have an American refugee situation on our hands." -- a Red Cross spokesperson (re Katrina)

"We perceive no reason why both parents of a child cannot be women." -- the California Supreme Court

"What dreary sentimental nonsense this all is, and how much space has been wasted on it." -- Christopher Hitchens (on Cindy Sheehan)

"If you're not on drugs, you've got problems." -- Jimmy Kimmel (to Courtney Love)

"There's loads of room for judgment. The judges do judge." -- Justice Stephen Breyer

"They will do what they think is in their interest, however they define it." -- Senator Hillary Clinton (predicting how Democrats would vote on the nomination of John Roberts)

"Would you agree that the opposite of being dead is being alive?" -- Senator Tom Coburn (asking the most ridiculous question asked at the Roberts confirmation hearings)

"By becoming John Roberts the chief justice, don't ever forget to be John Roberts, the man." -- Senator Mike DeWine (at the Roberts hearing)

"Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire." -- John Roberts (at his confirmation hearing)

"I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder." -- Werner Herzog (in voiceover in the movie "Grizzly Man")

"I haven't even run out of weed yet." -- one of the New Orleans holdouts (on not evacuating after Katrina)

"Almost all of them that we see, are so poor and they are so black." -- Wolf Blitzer (on the Katrina victims)

"Anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you." -- Steve Colbert

"She needs more than murder boards. She needs a crash course in constitutional law." -- Arlen Specter (on Harriet Miers)

"I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called." -- Howard Dean

"I know her heart." -- President Bush on Harriet Miers

"These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will." -- President Bush (finally fighting back against war critics)

"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy." -- Judge John E. Jones III (in the Intelligent Design case)

"I don't expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom." -- President Bush (on the Iraq war)

"We will talk to each other, and we will connect with each other, and we will weave the country together like a piece of cloth." -- A voter in Iraq

"I have no friends." -- Howard Stern

"We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril." -- Senator Joe Lieberman

"The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them." -- Harold Pinter (accepting the Nobel Prize)

"I for one do not dance to dance music; disco for me is a lofty metaphysical mode that induces contemplation." -- Camille Paglia (criticizing Madonna's new CD)