"We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation."

"Justice Scalia nailed all the weak spots—the 'applesauce' and 'argle bargle'—and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. The press referred to his 'energetic fervor,' 'astringent intellect,' 'peppery prose,' 'acumen,' and 'affability,' all apt descriptions. He was eminently quotable, his pungent opinions so clearly stated that his words never slipped from the reader’s grasp."

Said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a statement I selected from a USA Today page collecting the statements of all the Supreme Court Justices, including the retired Justices Stevens and O'Connor (though not Souter, perhaps because he's attached to inconspicuousness).

Our longtime commenter Simon sent me that link, and he has his reflections on the death of Scalia here: "Our Hero has died... Over the last decade, I have often used 'Our Hero' as a sobriquet for Justice Scalia; that was tongue-in-cheek doesn’t mean that it’s a joke.... I never met Justice Scalia, but ten years ago last month, his debate with Justice Breyer at American University changed my life. He gave me direction, focus, and  an intellectual toolkit that has shaped my approach to every question where we confront a text.... Would I be a Catholic today but for his influence? Perhaps; but if so, like a man who stumbles upon the right answer for the wrong reason (or no particular reason), it would been by blind luck, and would be a fragile, chancy thing...."

That made me look up what I said about the old Scalia-Breyer debate — back in 2005 (video of the debate is here):

"Hail, Hail to Old Purdue!/All hail to our old gold and black!"

"Hail, Hail to Old Purdue!/Our friendship may she never lack/Ever grateful, ever true...."

On a beautiful fall Saturday morning, here in Madison, Wisconsin, the UW marching band can be heard practicing, which includes practicing the opposing team's fight song, and Meade — who grew up in West Lafayette — provides the lyrics, about gold and black and friendship and gratefulness.

I ask Meade if it's okay for me to blog that and he says, "I think you've already done it," which makes me think I'm being accused of posting first and asking permission later, but he really means I've already blogged — in some past year — about his singing along with the UW marching band playing the Purdue song. I go looking into the archives, and find, first, a post from April 2008, which can't be right, because I didn't meet Meade until January 2009, and the post in question shows New York City, where I was living at the time. The post, called "Morning fog update," shows what was my view of Manhattan. Meade arrives in the comments:

Simon said: "How much are you going to miss this view when your year's up?"

Meade said: "Yes, and how much we will miss these morning fog... updates!"

Ann Althouse said: "Great trees in NYC right now, and I'm about to get a new lens, so look out. Also remember that dead rat on the sidewalk in NY?"

There's a gap in the conversation where a commenter expunged her own comments, but apparently she said something that referred (possibly disparagingly) to things that could be photographed in Madison. And Meade says:

Yes! A marching band playing "Hail Purdue!"

And a dead rodent.

With fantasy fog...

...Where the Wabash spreads its valley,
Filled with joy our voices raise...

I find the old dead rat post — "Things that exploded in Brooklyn Heights recently" — where there's a discussion of how to buy a light bulb in NYC and a couple of commenters who never comment here anymore are advising me about shops in town, and there's Meade:

I hate to risk spoiling a New York hardware store bonding moment for you good folks but back where I come from we have universities, seats of great learning -- where women (and a few unnecessary men) go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts -- and with no more brains than you have.... But! They have one thing you might not have! A Google!

I resist my future husband:

Thanks, Meade, but I actually have this other really odd halogen bulb to replace. I don't want to mail order it. I want to show it to some hardware store guy who will give me the right bulb.

Meanwhile, Meade responds to a commenter who said "Yes but do you have swarthy olive skinned counterm[e]n to flirt with attractive visiting professors. Telling her how she would light up when the proper bulb is inserted in her socket. So to speak." With the metaphor in play now, Meade writes:

"Yes but do you have..."

Even better. We have links. Lots of links. Links pointing to pages and pages of swarthy olive-skinned counter[people], if that's what you're into.

Disease-free links. Unambiguously gendered links.

("Unambiguously gendered links" refers to another commenter's wisecrack that some NY hardware store employee is "AC/DC.")

Organic free-range links. Links that would never even THINK of stalking fair-haired Professoras and trying to put their bulbs into sockets in which they don't belong. And links that, frankly, just don't have the nerve to ask, "'ey, YOU! Are you clickin' on me?"

Shy unassuming links just busy doing their jobs and quiet[l]y living their linky lives.

The other commenter says: "Yeah, but [can] you get a link drunk and walk her home and talk your way into her main frame?" And Meade says:

No, but if you give a link a nice slow neck rub, draw the link a sudsy warm bath, and serve up some browned baby-back ribs with a glass of Merlot, she just might let you take a look at what's on her laptop.

So to speak.

And here's a post from August 2009, the month we got married, noticing Meade's comments in a July 2008 thread:

Gee, I'm single now, happily single, and thought I'd just remain that way.

But considering all the benefits, I guess I'd really be a fool not to take a close look if Althouse were to, just out of niceness, propose to pity-marry me.

What could I offer in return? Let's see - I could prune those redbuds, take out the garbage, trap squirrels....

I could fetch her newspaper, scrape snow and ice off her car, shovel the front walk. Draw her bath. Pick her up at the airport. Rinse and dry her wine glasses. Form a circle-of-safety to protect her from Hillary Clinton-type madwomen who randomly come up to innocent people on urban sidewalks and punch them in the back. I make excellent salads, grill superb steaks and vegetables. Play a piano sonata. Pick up dry cleaning. Wait patiently while she shops for shoes....

Fry up some bacon... provide the vocal track when the UW marching band plays the Purdue fight song....

ADDED: Meade reads this post and admires his selection — back in April 2008 — of the Purdue song lyric "Where the Wabash spreads its valley/Filled with joy our voices raise." Subtly erotic, he observes now. Less than a year later, I would meet him in that Wabash valley....

Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman faked it.

Oh, they say they had to because it was so cold.

The conditions raised the possibility of broken piano strings, cracked instruments and wacky intonation....

Well, hell, they knew it was going to be January. If these candyass classicists can't play in the cold, they should have hired some musicians who can.

***

So we were listening to recorded music when the clock hit noon, the constitutional moment for the President to be sworn in! Then, he was sworn in and that might have been fake and there was a second of that too.

IN THE COMMENTS: Gahrie said:

It was real before it was fake, and after all isn't that all that really matters?

... [A]fter the campaign the president ran, can we really be surprised?

Jason said:

This is amazing. Just yesterday I heard the music show on NPR praising the musicians for their amazing skill "people are still talking about it." God I hate them. You think they're giving you useful information and it turns out to be junk

hdhouse said:

between Ma and Perlman they are using about 5million in instruments that do not like cold. unlike Mr. Bush, they "fake it" for a reason.

I'm fine with them keeping their precious objects out of the cold, but let them keep their precious bodies off the stage. And, yeah, they are different from Bush. Bush was President, and as such, he had to perform, whether the circumstances challenged the limits of his capacity or not. They did not have an obligation. They received an invitation do something they knew they couldn't do, and they accepted it knowing it exceeded their capacity and they would fake it.

Paul Zrimsek said:

Folks, give it up for Milli Violinni!

Simon said:

Still, look on the bright side: Obama hadn't been inaugurated yet, so they sneaked it in under the wire before the trickery was over.

LOL. Very funny! I knew those words would come back to bite me. Let it be known that I am on trickery alert.

Leland said:

Fake but accurate.

Bearing said:

It's not that they didn't play in the cold. It's that they faked playing in the cold. That's just cheesy.

We can give the new president his own super-secure Blackberry, but we can't put four musicians in a heated tent with cameras?

And — considering that $170 million was being spent on the big show — project holograms of them outdoors.

Palladian said:

It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

New comments post for the inauguration.

Talk about the address, etc.

IN THE COMMENTS: amba said:

I really wish they had had the balls to choose a rapper to deliver the inaugural poem. It took me a long time to get used to it, but now I think rap is where the living poetry's gone. (Only 2 decades late, me. LOL.) Of course a lot of it's bad or gross, but some of it is really, really good, forceful and inventive. I don't know rappers well enough to say who it should have been, but imagine -- it could've been memorable.

I agree. The real vigor of poetry is rap. It has a powerful hold on people. That means something. How cool it would have been if Obama had dared to go there. But, no, we had to have a decorous, "diverse" woman. Too predictable.

AND: Simon — charming but grudging — said:

You're President enough, Barack.

Obama in shorts ... and no shirt.

Everyone is talking about this photograph. O is on vacation at the beach, so he does not violate my "Men in Shorts" rules. Now, let's talk about that torso...

There was a time when everyone tsked about the mere mention of Hillary Clinton's cleavage, but now there's an all-out discussion of the prez-elect's manboobs. Is that wrong?

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon said:

Compare and contrast. Creating a heroically manly image is cult of personality 101.

Famous Putin picture at the link.

ONE MORE THING: "Do not forget Sarkozy!" Our commenter Chip Ahoy made this:

Steven Calabresi envisions Obama's judges: Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Lawprof (and Federalist Society co-founder) Steven Calabresi has a WSJ op-ed titled "Obama's 'Redistribution Constitution'":

[That the new President will appoint many federal judges, including, probably, at least one Supreme Court Justice] ought to raise serious concern because of Mr. Obama's extreme left-wing views about the role of judges. He believes -- and he is quite open about this -- that judges ought to decide cases in light of the empathy they ought to feel for the little guy in any lawsuit.

Speaking in July 2007 at a conference of Planned Parenthood, he said: "[W]e need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Look closely at Obama's words. He is not saying that judges should distort the meaning of law so that people they empathize with can win cases. He's saying judges need to understand the realities of the world, most significantly, what life is like for people. That requires a quality of mind expressed by the word "empathy."

Law is not a verbal and logical abstraction. Statutes and constitutional provisions are written and voted on by people who have an understanding of the world and who mean something by what they write. Judges must try to understand all that. And law is applied to a set of facts -- it's actually unconstitutional for federal judges to decide cases that are not fact-based disputes -- and judges need to understand what those facts are. Judges therefore need the capacity to comprehend what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. That is the empathy Obama cares about.

Now, judges also need the capacity to understand how business and economics work, to understand science and technology, and to fathom all sorts of other real-world facts that are implicated in legal cases. That Obama stresses one kind of understanding -- how oppressed, suffering, and unfortunate people feel -- does say something important. But it does not say that squishy feelings should replace legal analysis.

Back to Calabresi:

On [Obama's] view, plaintiffs should usually win against defendants in civil cases; criminals in cases against the police; consumers, employees and stockholders in suits brought against corporations; and citizens in suits brought against the government. Empathy, not justice, ought to be the mission of the federal courts, and the redistribution of wealth should be their mantra.

As I've already explained, Obama did not say this. It may be that in close enough cases, a judge with a very specialized kind of understanding -- vividly picturing the suffering of the individual but numb to the realities of science and economics -- would tip toward personal injury plaintiffs, criminal defendants, employees, consumers, and so forth, far more than good legal analysis calls for.

But even if Obama were to inflict such lop-sided legal minds on us, if they were any good at all -- and I think he'd at least pick very high quality bleeding hearts -- it's still a big stretch to say they would usually decide cases in favor of the little guy. In fact, Obama is likely to pick extremely highly qualified persons who understand the broad range of factual realities implicated in cases, but who also have the quality of empathy that he prizes.

Now, Calabresi addresses that 2001 radio interview that we were taking about yesterday. He writes, correctly, that Obama said "that the U.S. Constitution as written is only a guarantee of negative liberties from government -- and not an entitlement to a right to welfare or economic justice." Note that Calabresi does not, like some others, assert that Obama said that the Supreme Court ought to have found affirmative entitlements in the Constitution. Calabresi nevertheless has a problem and even wonders "whether Mr. Obama can in good faith take the presidential oath to 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.'"

Does Mr. Obama support the Constitution as it is written, or does he support amendments to guarantee welfare?

What? You can't take the oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" if you support amendments? Well, then, strike any candidate who supports the Federal Marriage Amendment! The outrage of thinking that Article V of the Constitution can be used! I guess all the Founding Fathers who wanted a Bill of Rights were a bunch of traitors to the original document. How could Lincoln in good faith have taken the presidential oath if he wanted to see slavery abolished? I could go on. You get the point.

If Mr. Obama wins we could possibly see any or all of the following: a federal constitutional right to welfare; a federal constitutional mandate of affirmative action wherever there are racial disparities, without regard to proof of discriminatory intent; a right for government-financed abortions through the third trimester of pregnancy; the abolition of capital punishment and the mass freeing of criminal defendants; ruinous shareholder suits against corporate officers and directors; and approval of huge punitive damage awards, like those imposed against tobacco companies, against many legitimate businesses such as those selling fattening food.

Obama has never proposed such things, and the idea is inflammatory and, frankly, silly. Do you realize how hard it is to pass a constitutional amendment? You've got to win in the legislatures of three-quarters of the states. How is there the slightest chance that could happen with the amendment Calabresi posits? Calabresi is trying to scare us.

I don't doubt that Obama will appoint liberal judges and that the Senate will approve them. But there is a limit to what judges can do, and if Obama appoints anything like the hemorrhaging hearts Calabresi envisions -- or pretends to envision to get you going -- there will be a mighty backlash. The Warren Court -- as Obama explained -- did not go all that far, yet its supposed excesses have been used for decades to argue for the appointment of conservative judges. Obama would be a fool to appoint extreme, left-wing judges, and I don't think he is a fool. But if he is, the GOP should take over Congress in 2010 and win the presidency easily in 2012.

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon says:

I think you misread Calabresi. In context, his parade of horribles seems to refer to what his judges will do rather than Constitutional amendments.

Calabresi talks about amending the Constitution and then shifts to that parade of horribles, but I agree -- you are right -- that he means to say that the judges may find these things in the existing constitution.

Or not find. When he worries about "the approval of huge punitive damage awards," he's upset that the courts might fail to find a constitutional right against them. Presumably, Calabresi would like to see more judges who have empathy for the difficulties of running a business.

AND: Simon reminds me by email that I posted about Obama's remarks to Planned Parenthood back on the day he made them. I said:

Speaking at a Planned Parenthood conference today, Obama was critical of the way Supreme Court confirmations only wade into the shallow water of character -- "He loves his wife. He's good to his dog."

He criticized Chief Justice John Roberts for saying "he saw himself just as an umpire":

“But the issues that come before the court are not sports; they’re life and death. We need somebody who’s got the empathy to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom.”

Obama said that 95 percent of cases can be judged on intellect, but that the other 5 percent are the most important ones.

“In those 5 percent of cases, you’ve got to look at what is in the justice’s heart, what’s their broader vision of what America should be."

Hmmm.... you’ve got to look at what is in the justice’s heart. Great way to distinguish yourself from Bush!

I've known Harriet for more than a decade. I know her heart, I know her character. I know that Harriet's mother is proud of her today, and I know her father would be proud of her, too. I'm confident that Harriet Miers will add to the wisdom and character of our judiciary when she is confirmed as the 110th Justice of the Supreme Court.

But we know what this "heart" business means! It means that the President (or would-be President) understands that judging won't be neutral, that the human being doing the judging, no matter how dutiful and honest he tries to be, can only find his way to a decision in a complex case by responding to the pull of emotion. So "heart" matters. The question isn't whether "heart" counts. It's: which "heart" do you want?

"[Sarah Palin] is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone. She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else."

"Also she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

So said some unnamed McCain advisor, and Andrew Sullivan is powerfully enthused:

If McCain doesn't trust her, why should anyone else?

But the one thing we know about the adviser is that he is untrustworthy. He's stabbing Palin and McCain in the back. Why take his word for anything?

She doesn't have a "relationship of trust" with anyone, not even her own husband? Aw, come on, that just reads as implausible on its face. And "diva"? She's the candidate. She should be demanding, and she should be served.

Who is this weasel, calling her a "diva"? What are his political interests? I think they show through as he whines about Palin's future prospects on the eve of McCain's probable loss.

IN THE COMMENTS: jdeeripper said:

"Diva" is a sexist, homophobic code word, a dog whistle whose use is cynically calculated to play upon deep seated sexual fear and patriarchal hatred.

Simon said:

Why would we not assume that CNN is lying? Is there any reason - any reason at all - to believe that there was an unnamed source who spoke to "Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King [of] CNN"? That this unnamed source said what is alleged? That what is alleged is even true? Because we think that they're "professionals"? Who is still malingering under the sad delusion at this late hour that the media is throwing straight dice?

Not me. A controversial claim resting on attribution to an unnamed source, that serves the agenda of the agency? Why should I not think it's a lie? I say they made it up. Name the source and give us the video of them saying it, or tell us why we shouldn't think you're lying. You don't get to behave the way you've behaved and ask for trust.

"Sorry, I'm out of here until after the election. Vote for Obama, I've known you would for a long time..."

"... but don't belittle the real questions surrounding him. Your rash of recent posts come across as a strained attempt to justify that decision on something other than aesthetics and blind hope." A commenter departs.

IN THE COMMENTS: Too Many Jims (author of the indispensable Monitoring the Cruel Neutrality) writes:

It has been amusing reading the comments for the last week or so. Before that Prof. Althouse would post something and almost immediately a liberal commenter... would pop into the comments and say that Prof. Althouse was a vapid, unthinking apologist (usually for Bush). Republican commenters would deride the commenter and say he was upset because Prof. Althouse is really an intelligent, independent minded, academic woman who has drawn liberals' fire because she has dared wander off the reservation.

Now, the republican ox is being gored and republican commenters are whining like the liberal commenters that Prof. Althouse is a vapid, unthinking apologist for Obama.

Part of me (approximately 10.73%) thinks that Prof. Althouse has not made a decision and/or is leaning toward McCain but that she made the "leaning toward Obama revelation" as part of a blogging as performance art project. Specifically, to see how the announcement would be received by commenters and the blogosphere.

Prof. Althouse is fond of saying that she has found that the left side of the blogosphere is looking for heretics, the right side is looking for converts (my apologies if I mangled that expression). What better way to test that theory.

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon wants to be frontpaged and tagged.

AND: Oh, I get it now.

Look at the movement on Gallup's "strong and decisive leader" graph.

What accounts for that? Is it all about Sarah? Picking her was "strong and decisive." Or was it something more general about the 2 conventions.

More on this new poll here.

Here's another interesting Gallup poll -- showing a big post-convention shift among independent voters, from 40% supporting McCain to 52%.

***

And this, for some reason, makes me want to add that Andrew Sullivan, who's only posted once today, says he's "absolutely fine," don't worry about him, "nothing has changed with this blog, no one is pressuring me to write or not write anything," and he's just taking some time off.

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon writes:

[Sullivan] is perhaps trying to get to grips with the reality that his weird idea about how picking Sarah Palin was a mistake has been rapidly and publicly falsified.

He was so deeply committed to this prediction and intent on making it come true that it must have been mortifying to realize that attacks like his on Sarah Palin were making her far more popular than she would be now if she'd been treated with ordinary, boring respect.

AND: Sullivan has a couple more posts now, and Ace decodes them.

"This woman is an Obama-level political natural."

Says Megan McArdle. Indeed.

It's like some bizarre nightmare/dream (depending on your party preference). The Dems had Obama, and then... suddenly Sarah.

It's as if some mad right-wing scientists designed and built an android to counter all the things that Obama is. Can she be real? Can it be that there was this actual human entity, on ice in Alaska, waiting for this moment to be thawed out and set loose in the lower 48?

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon:

Ann, remember Jon Turley's line about John Roberts et fam. at the 7th Circuit Bar meeting last year? "Hydroponically raised by Karl Rove in the White House basement" or something to that effect.

Good memory. Here's Turley:

Roberts is a handsome, perfectly groomed man who looks like he was raised hydroponically by Karl Rove in the White House basement.

Glenn Reynolds polls his readers on their choice for President.

Vote and see — or just look — at who his readers are picking. As Dan at 4:17 AM says: "Just in case Glenn was wondering who reads his blog..."

So... let's see who's reading the Althouse blog:

Who will you vote for in November?
	Bob Barr
	John McCain
	Barack Obama
	Ralph Nader
	None Of The Above
pollcode.com free polls

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon writes:

Ann, I'd think that you of all people would include an option "I haven't decided" in such a poll!

Well, I was word-for-word replicating Glenn's poll. I voted in both polls assuming the election was being held today. I may or may not reveal how I voted, but you can vote on how you think I voted:

How did Althouse vote?
	John McCain
	Barack Obama
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: Ha ha. "How did Althouse vote?" is showing absolute neutrality — 50-50. See? It really has been cruel neutrality around here~

Bernard-Henri Lévy says why Barack Obama will be President.

The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy is writing about America again, getting things wrong, of course:

Then there is ... the American art of "junk politics," especially as practiced by the Republicans, and its unpredictable, often devastating effects. When will the below-the-belt stuff begin? On what Internet site will the first photomontages appear of Barack Obama tricked up as a radical Islamist? How many other pastors à la Jeremiah Wright will we see paraded out by "527s," groups on the fringes of the principal parties that are allowed, without bearing any moral or financial responsibility, to launch all kinds of slanderous campaigns?

Can you get things wrong with questions? Why, yes you can! Note the sleaziness of implying that Republicans will begin the "below-the-belt stuff" at some point, when we know that below-the-belt stuff has already happened and it came from that Democratic source known as the Hillary Clinton campaign.

And this notion of "other pastors à la Jeremiah Wright" implies that Wright was just some pastor unfairly associated with Obama and not the religious leader Obama chose and stuck with for 20 years. And 527s have no financial responsibility? They're responsible for paying for their own ads. Presumably, Lévy's referring to their independence from the legal restrictions that apply to the campaigns. And as for "moral responsibility" — we all have moral responsibility, and if there is actual "slander," there can be lawsuits to hold 527s responsible.

Anyway, Lévy identifies 3 reasons why he thinks Obama will win:

1. America has changed. ... America is no longer a Protestant, Anglo-Saxon country, European by tradition and white by vocation, that cannot seriously imagine a black man running for the presidency....

Not much of a reason why he will win. Obviously, Obama's success to this point establishes that Americans can "seriously imagine" him running. Lévy is so stingy about saying anything complimentary about Americans that he won't make his own point more strongly. He could say: a large proportion of Americans love the idea of a black President.

But Lévy pads out his first point with verbiage about the America that went "far right" after 9/11 and opposes abortion and Darwinism. Without establishing that people with such opinions are racist, Lévy simply decides that they are giving up. He tells us that he perceives their efforts as "the shock and desperate mobilization of an America that knows it is dying but is trying nonetheless to delay the moment when it realizes it must surrender." The Frenchman exhibits pride in his sharp, early perception of the need for surrender. That's rich.

Point #2:

2. Obama is not a typical African-American. Unlike, say, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Condoleezza Rice, he does not carry with him the heritage of slavery or the memory of segregation because he was born of a Kenyan father.

Note to Lévy: Men don't bear children. Your pretentious locution is generating ludicrous errors. (Note to commenters: Spare me references to the "pregnant man.")

The difference is enormous, because the mirror he holds up to America is no longer one that reflects those dark times, no longer one of unbearable ancestral culpability. Barack Obama can win because he is the first African-American to take, by the grace of his birth, a step away from the two sides of a deep divide--and the first who may now play the card--not of condemnation or damnation--but of seduction, and--as he says over and over--of reconciliation.

So point #1 is that we're not racists anymore, but point #2 is that we still kind of are. And these are 2 of the 3 reasons Obama will be President? Lévy could make point #2 more strongly, and why doesn't he? The point is that white Americans love the idea of transcending race, and Obama has cleverly exploited that hope. But, as Jesse Jackson reminded us the other day, that can be a tricky enterprise. So #2 could be a reason that Obama will win, or it could be a reason why he's come this far but will be tripped up in the end.

So there's one more reason left. This better be good:

3. He is good.

Ha ha. It is good!

What I mean is that he is not only the most charismatic but also the most gifted politician produced by the Democratic machine in a long time.

Charismatic and gifted? Has such an amazing combination ever been seen before? Good lord. Did you know that Obama is also tall and has impressive height? Simultaneously!

So, yeah, anyway, okay, Obama is charismatic and gifted. We know that. It's gotten him very far. He defeated Hillary. But is there no limit to what you can do with charisma?

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon says:

All of this is designed to set up the narrative that if Obama loses, it's because we're a racist country. Cut away the fluff, and that's the clear purpose of this an a million similar commentaries advancing the same idea. To say that Obama will win because we aren't racists any more is to claim - or at least set the stage for the claim - that if he lost, the opposite is true.

"On what Internet site will the first photomontages appear of Barack Obama tricked up as a radical Islamist?"

It's true that the Rethuglican noise machine does things like that. Remember the last Senate election in Connecticut, when Republicans depicted then-Democratic Senator Lieberman in blackface? Oh, wait... Hold on, that wasn't the Republican party, it was the left.

Ann said...
"[I]f there is actual 'slander,' there can be lawsuits to hold 527s responsible."

Indeed. There is a reason why Senator Kerry has never sued anyone over the so-called swift boat veterans' claims.

Exactly.

Revenant said:

Obama is not a typical African-American. Unlike, say, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Condoleezza Rice

If the guy wasn't a Frenchman unfamiliar with American society I'd be tempted to call him out for racism. Referring to Sharpton and Jackson as "typical African-Americans" is an insult to black people. For that matter, the term "typical African-American" is suspect to begin with.

What I mean is that he is not only the most charismatic but also the most gifted politician produced by the Democratic machine in a long time.

So has Bill Clinton officially lost his status as "charismatic and brilliant politician", or does Levy think it has been "a long time" since the 1990s?

Ha ha.

The Drill SGT said:

The difference is enormous, because the mirror he holds up to America is no longer one that reflects those dark times, no longer one of unbearable ancestral culpability. Barack Obama can win because he is the first African-American to take, by the grace of his birth, a step away from the two sides of a deep divide--and the first who may now play the card--not of condemnation or damnation--but of seduction, and--as he says over and over--of reconciliation.

Forgive me for thinking that Colin Powell could have had the Republican nomination for the asking and likely the WH if Alma Powell hadn't said no.

So Lévy managed, in short order, to forget Bill Clinton and Colin Powell.

Henry said:

I was wondering why anyone cares about this guy and found out that Wikipedia is not a fan:

Critics of Lévy are not limited to pie-throwers, however; French journalists Jade Lindgaard and Xavier de la Porte, in a biography of the philosopher, claimed that "In all his works and articles, there is not a single philosophical proposition." The book is contested, however, and Lévy sought legal action against the authors.

You can see why Lévy doesn't like America. It's harder to sue your critics here.

Oh, so then he does know about defamation lawsuits. He likes to bring them for mere insults. So that's why he thinks the 527 are not held accountable? In America, we get to insult each other with impunity. I can say John Kerry is not a war hero and there's not a damned thing he can do about it.

By the way, LOL at "Wikipedia is not a fan."

Former law student said:

Don't be so hard on his "born of a Kenyan" locution; note that the article was Translated from the French by Sara Sugihara.

Oh. Good point. So maybe he didn't say "surrender" either. This "translated from the French" business is frustrating to textualist bloggers like me. If that is supposed to be a defense, I will counter with a new attack: How can this man purport to instruct us on the subtleties of American political discourse if he doesn't write in English?

"I think it's odd and interesting. It's part of life."

Comments?

ADDED: Bainbridge asks some questions that indicate that he finds this rather funny. I don't. But I have to agree with some of these questions:

Who stashes their porn on the internet? Other than porn stars?

Kozinski long has been regarded as one of the smartest guys on the federal bench. Do we need to rethink that?

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon says:

One would think that so notoriously tech-savvy a judge would be more conversant with the technology - and more careful.

One could deduce that he wanted to be caught ... or got a thrill from risking getting caught. You know, it might be tiresome for a certain sort of person to be a judge. There you are, for life. Well set up, but restricted, restrained, forced to be sober — forbidden to be fully expressive. Oddly, I had a conversation with Alex Kozinski about exactly this subject 20 years ago. Kozinski was only 35 years old when he was appointed, and that was 23 years ago.

ADDED: Patterico says he has the images referred to in the linked article, obtained from the L.A. Times reporter. If you go here, you will be able to read detailed descriptions and click on links to see the images. I clicked on all the links except the one that would have required watching a video. I wonder why the L.A. Times published this article. Why humiliate this man? (I am reminded of this story of unnecessary humiliation from a couple months ago.) What made it news? Is the porn collection of every public figure newsworthy? Or is it special treatment for conservative judges? (I'm thinking of this precedent.)

These are pictures of naked people, all of them funny or interesting in some way, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look at them and to show them to other adults. The photograph of the women painted as cows is just silly — nothing to be horrified by. Yes, you can see genitalia in these pictures. It's extremely common to want to look at genitalia. It doesn't do anything for me, but I understand the strong interest many men have in such views — repetitive and predictable though they are. (The transvestite slide show is a little unpredictable, but within an utterly predictable range.)

Now, it should be noted that Kozinski is currently serving as the trial judge in an obscenity case, so there is a special motivation here. One might object to the prosecution of Ira Isaacs. Maybe the government shouldn't be prosecuting such cases, and one might think that it is hypocritical or at least relevant that the judge in the case has his own pornography. I think that is absurd. The judge doesn't make the decision to prosecute, and the sort of material at issue in an obscenity case is quite extreme — far beyond the sort of pictures that we ought to assume many judges and jurors possess.

[Kozinski's] involvement in the case may be a stroke of luck for Isaacs. That is because Kozinski is seen as a staunch defender of free speech. When he learned that there were filters banning pornography and other materials from computers in the appeals court's Pasadena offices, he led a successful effort to have the filters removed....

Isaacs said he would testify as his own expert witness at trial and planned to lecture jurors on how perceptions of art have changed over the years. There was a time, he said, when the works of authors James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence were called obscene.

The point, Isaacs said, "is do we really want to throw artists in jail in America?"...

[The Obscenity Prosecution Task Force] has won convictions in more than a dozen cases, the vast majority resulting from plea bargains....

[Isaacs] said that prosecutors have made several overtures inviting him to take a plea in the case, but that he has refused every time....

"If I get convicted and go to prison now," Isaacs said, "I go as an artist."

I'd like to know what set of events led to the L.A. Times article.

Does the prosecution or the defense have more to gain from the revelation?

AND: The NYT offers more background:

In a telephone interview on Wednesday afternoon, Judge Kozinski ... said the Web site was meant to be private and that several people had contributed to it. “There is a ton of stuff on there,” Judge Kozinski said. “It’s not a porn site. There’s some funny stuff on there.”

Judge Kozinski said his son, Yale, maintained the site, which had the domain name of kozinski.com. Yale Kozinski, a film editor, confirmed that, as do Internet registry records for the site.

“This server is my private Web server,” Yale Kozinski said. “It’s owned by me. The domain is registered to me. The people who have access to put files up there are friends and family.” Among other things, he said, the site contained family photos and a collection of the judge’s articles.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Judge Kozinski had conceded posting some of the offensive materials. In interviews on Wednesday, neither Judge Kozinski nor his son could say who posted what, and Judge Kozinski said he might have uploaded some materials by mistake.

The site was never meant to be public, Yale Kozinski said. “The fact that it was publicly accessible actually is my fault, too,” he said. “I made a mistake in configuring it.”

Judge Kozinski said he was only moderately contrite.

“I guess I should be more careful about access and all,” he said. “I didn’t put anything on there I think would be embarrassing.”

Oh, well, if he doesn't think it's embarrassing, then maybe I shouldn't be critical of the press for publicly humiliating him.

UPDATE: How Appealing has info on the tipster, Cyrus Sanai, who emails (boldface added):

I discovered this information on Xmas Eve, 2007. * * * * I immediately downloaded so much material that his internet provider cut him off. When the site went back up, Judge Kozinski had removed some of the biggest video files. * * * * I pitched it to the Daily Journal, the Recorder, the LA Times and the WSJ through end of January 2008. I was interested in his site because of my renewed misconduct complaint against Judge Kozinski...

The LA Times reporter I contacted, Henry Weinstein (who extensively covered the Manuel Real stuff) said he would get to it, then he took the buyout. I contacted Scott Glover, the reporter on the obscenity trial, last Sunday, June 8, 2008. He knew nothing about my prior contact with the LA Times; but that institution is in disarray because of the well-covered restructuring. Therefore, it would not be fair to say that the LA Times "held it". The institutional knowledge of my prior contact disappeared * * * *

The NY Sun has this:

The judge's trouble with Mr. Sanai began in 2005, when the attorney wrote an article with examples of 9th Circuit judges allegedly ignoring circuit precedents. Judge Kozinski wrote a rebuttal that noted Mr. Sanai's personal stake in one of the disputed issues. The attorney, who had a motion pending in that case, filed a complaint alleging that the judge broke rules barring judges from commenting or lobbying on pending cases. The complaint was dismissed, but Mr. Sanai refiled it after the judge re-posted the article on the same site with the explicit photos.

Here's some analysis of the L.A. Times's journalism standards, from the Carnegie Reporting Program:

The key question is whether it would have been a story if Kozinski weren't presiding over an obscenity trial at the time...

I say yes. Kozinski is a high-ranking judge whose court hears more obscenity cases than the current one. Controversy over the line between erotica and obscenity is legal news, and Kozinski's misfortune provides a teaching moment to explore the current state of the law. Kozinski has a track record as a critic of government intrusion into personal use of the Internet. Publishing a story without the trial as a news hook would be extremely uncomfortable, but I would have green-lighted it and placed the revelations in the context of Kozinski's disputes with Sanai and over Internet use. As for the Times, there should be no question that it did the right thing under the circumstances.

AND: I got some of those links from Above the Law, which has lots of good discussion in the comments.

The real problem with electronic books.

I've been meaning to do another vlog about me and my Kindle. (Here's the original one.) The truth is, I hardly ever touch the damned thing.

(But please, if you buy one, buy it through this link so I can get a percentage of the $359 purchase price. And I'm saying that mainly to prompt some skepticism about rave reviews of the Kindle you might be reading in blog posts with Amazon Associates links like that in them. So if you appreciate that little lesson in skepticism, but still want to buy a Kindle, reward me by using my link.)

I've always thought my problem with the Kindle was the gray-on-gray screen — think Etch-a-Sketch — the one the rave reviews say is "easy on the eyes." Yes, and a room with dimmed lights is easy on the eyes, but it's a bad place to read. I want contrast: black letters on a white background. I want that in a book, and I want that in a computer screen, so of course, I want that in an electronic book. I want easy to read.

But anyway, maybe the ugly, hard-to-see screen isn't the real problem with an electronic book:

Books ... give off special smells. According to a recent survey of French students, 43 percent consider smell to be one of the most important qualities of printed books—so important that they resist buying odorless electronic books. CaféScribe, a French on-line publisher, is trying to counteract that reaction by giving its customers a sticker that will give off a fusty, bookish smell when it is attached to their computers.

I know. You're thinking: The French! But focus, people. The entire sensory experience of a book is important.

There's the feel too:

When I read an old book, I hold its pages up to the light and often find among the fibers of the paper little circles made by drops from the hand of the vatman as he made the sheet—or bits of shirts and petticoats that failed to be ground up adequately during the preparation of the pulp. I once found a fingerprint of a pressman enclosed in the binding of an eighteenth-century Encyclopédie—testimony to tricks in the trade of printers, who sometimes spread too much ink on the type in order to make it easier to get an impression by pulling the bar of the press.

Okay, I know. You're thinking, that guy is way more of an aesthete than I even want to be, and if I want some smells and feels — I'll have sex, not grope a book. (I'm talking about you, not me. I will grope an Apple computer.)

***

"That guy" is Robert Darnton, and his essay "The Library in the New Age" ranges far beyond what I've used here, so read the whole thing. Also, Robert Darnton wrote one of my favorite books, "The Great Cat Massacre," and if you buy it at that link, you will be giving me some money, so read that whole thing too.

IN THE COMMENTS: Simon says "Buffy" already did it:

"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell... musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is... it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be, um... smelly."

UPDATE: Dan from Madison tells the story — with pictures — of me demonstrating the Kindle. Excerpt:

Here is a horrible backlit photo of a random woman who interrupted us to tell us how much she absolutely loved her Kindle. Both Ann and I told her she was nuts.

ADDED NOTE TO READERS WHO ARE HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THIS POST: I've added boldface and enlarged some print in the original post, which was apparently a tad subtle. Let me be sledgehammer clear. The stuff about smell is humor. My problem with the Kindle was AND IS the gray-on-gray screen. I want contrast: black letters on a white background. I want that in a book, and I want that in a computer screen, and of course, I want that in an electronic book. I want easy to read. I don't want to read ugly gray-on-gray print. Get it?

The "American Idol" finale: The Clash of the Davids.

Please keep me company!

ADDED: Someone other than Ryan Seacrest is saying "This is American Idol." I don't like that. I suppose it's someone famous, but I don't know who he is, and even if he's famous, he should not horn in on Ryan's territory. The Davids are introduced as if they were boxers, and DA is called "David 'Baby Face' Archuleta." Ah, here's Seacrest. That's better. Seacrest is calling them "Big David and Little David."

MORE: The ancient artifact Clive Davis made great choices. "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" for David Cook, and "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" for David Archuleta. I much preferred Cook, but the judges preferred Archuleta.

AND: Oh, no, they have to pick from the songs that people wrote for the show. I expect the songs to be utter crap. Cook does a song that is about "dreaming" and having "faith" in yourself — like every damned song that has ever been written for the show. Ryan tells him he was "singing your face off." Paula babbles. Simon sighs.

AND: David Archuleta is singing an idiotic song about "this moment" — an obvious attempt at recapturing the magic — feeble as it was — of the original "Moment Like This" that Kelly Clarkson sang in Season 1, so very long ago. It's funny that it has the line "Open your eyes and you'll see," when there's been such a big issue all season about Archuleta singing with his eyes closed. And now, here he is, singing it with his eyes closed. The judges are saying it's a bad song, but they take no responsibility for the horror of all these bad finale songs season after season.

AND: Finally, they can pick their own songs. David Cook is singing a song he's never done before, "The World I Know," by Collective Soul. Archuleta is doing "Imagine," which he's already done on the show — and which is also, obviously, a much more familiar song. Even before they start to sing, it seems determined: David Archuleta will win.

AND: Paula tells DC he's "standing in [his] truth." Simon tells him he made the wrong song choice. He should have sung "Billie Jean" or "Hello" — that is, one of the 2 best songs he's already done on the show. When he finished singing, Cook's eyes were all red. He cried. Does he perhaps not want to win? To use the boxing metaphors they are foisting on us: Is he taking a dive? It was my analysis this morning that it was not in Cook's interest to win. Winning would fit Archuleta's life so much better.

AND: Beautiful little David thrills us with "Imagine." Randy yells that DA is the best. Paula doesn't state that he's the best. But he's "stunning." Simon "You came out here tonight to win. And what we have witnessed is a knockout." So all is right in the world. Join hands. David Archuleta has won. And the world will be as one.

IN THE COMMENTS: I've corrected it now, but originally I typo'd the homophone "one" for "won" in the sentence, just above, "David Archuleta has won." Jokes are cracked.

Neil Diamond on "American Idol."

I'm just catching up with the TiVo'd show. (As I said, I was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. Just an after work walk. Midway through the bridge I realized I was starving, and I felt like a zombie stalking the rest of the way over and for blocks into Manhattan to get to a restaurant. Restaurant! Restaurant! It was gruesome.)

Neil is doing a great job. He's been well advised: Be like Barry Manilow. Not Dolly! Help the nice, young kids. Don't self-promote. Does Neil actually care about these the kids? I don't know, but he seems like he does, and that's enough to make me like him.

They're singing 2 songs each, and — in a shocking break from tradition — the contestants sing their first songs without hearing from the judges. Then they're lined up on the stage together for judgment. Horrible idea. Randy goes down the line and gives each one a little opinion on their first song. Then Paula starts with Jason and tells him what she thinks of his first and his second song, even though he hasn't sung his second song yet. This is the biggest Paula screw-up of all time. We see Ryan Seacrest glance nervously over to the side. The audience giggles. She's about to go on to David Cook, and Randy interrupts and says, "We should just do the first song, uh." And now the truth is out! They prepare beforehand, based on rehearsal performances! Arrrggghhh! My AI world is torn apart. Ryan relies on his tiny wit: "You're seein' the future." Simon is making that hand gesture where he holds his thumb to his forehead and flares out his fingers. What is it? The half moose? Simon squelches Paula. Just say who your favorite was and shut up. Then Simon tells all the kids they sucked.

Then we get another round of songs, but we don't see Neil again, and it's all quite forgettable.

I think we all know either Jason or Brooke is going to leave. And, frankly, I think we know that Jason, Brooke, and Syesha are going to be leaving in the next 3 weeks. The only interesting question is: Which David will win?

IN THE COMMENTS: Jennifer says:

Oh, and I thought you would say that Neil Diamond didn't go the Barry Manilow route. He didn't seem to give a whole lot of advice...? But, I guess they gave him very little screen time.

Hmm. Yeah. He wasn't making the Dolly mistake (making it all about oneself), but he didn't really achieve Manilosity, because he didn't have a lot of detailed, individualized advice. Maybe he's just not as smart or he didn't take the time with the singers. And there was a time issue. Was it caused by cramming 10 songs into 1 hour, or did they choose to make it 1 hour because Diamond didn't give them enough material?

I think I'm going to have to stop watching "American Idol."

Monday marked the first day of my 5th year of blogging, and during each of those past 4 years, I blogged every episode — did I miss even 1? — of "American Idol." Last night, a new season began, and I started watching and got about halfway through before I abandoned it (with the recorder going) to check out the Democratic debate and the Michigan primary returns. Will I go back and watch the rest of the show?

It feels too much like an obligation, but what's worse is that I don't feel that it works well for me as raw material for blogging anymore. Must I once again live through the early auditions, where one mouth after another opens and something either reasonably good or horribly bad comes out?

What difference does it make? It will either be good or bad. If it's bad, you're to laugh.

(And I did laugh pretty hard at one poor man last night. He told us he was like Paul Robeson, sang with his mouth oddly constrained and his lingual frenulum on obscene display, and then blamed his failure to impress the judges on his choice of religious material. )

If it's good, you're supposed to bond. You're supposed to care as these characters begin their journey into the months long sifting process. They prod you to bond by presenting mini-melodramas that emphasize the contestants' close bonds to their mothers, their sick children, and their horses and kitties.

You're supposed to upload the significant singers one by one into your consciousness so that you can appreciate the experience of seeing them systematically and slowly eliminated, until there is one left standing, at which point, you — or at least I — will realize I am not at all interested in this person. Get off my TV screen.

And then they do. They go away. They hibernate — they estivate and they hibernate — until the following January, when you will have forgotten what a pain it was to follow the show week after unrewarding week, and you'll be able to feel excited by the return of the boinging theme music, and the old panel of judges, who will file in wearily and act pained that they have to sit through it all again.

But they are being paid. I'm not. Seriously, my readers paid me $200 to eat an egg salad sandwich that one time, but no one pays me to blog "American Idol." Would I take a job watching and writing about "American Idol" for $200 an episode? Of course not! But even as we do some things for money that we wouldn't do for free, we do some things for free that we wouldn't do for money. Nevertheless, somehow, this year, blogging every episode of "American Idol" doesn't seem to be one of them.

IN THE COMMENTS: Lots of great discussion of later episodes.

ADDED: Actually, there's a glitch that cuts off the comments in that old post making it impossible to see all of what I pointed you too. So here are the comments from this week's girls show (and some more), all by ace commenter Trooper York:

Now the ladies.

Carly is up and guess what her secret is? SHE"S IRISH AND SHE WORKS IN A BAR!!!! WOW.

She sings Crazy on you by Heart and does an ok rendition. The judges are trying to rehablitate her since the controversy seems to have blown over about her prior record contract. But she has a long way to go to really have a chance to win.

Syesha's up and does a smokey, sexy version of Me and Mrs Jones, but turns it into Me and Mr. Jones which freaks out Simon since he can't deal with gender confusion, (see his relationship with Seacrest). The judges dog her and she seems sad, but I think she is safe unless everyone forgets her. But she has the Latin base and the Miami people so she might be ok this week since other people will suck much worse.

Brooke is up next and takes her guitar and sings a letter perfect copy of Carly Simon's Youre so Vain to Simon. He loves it because it plays to his image and praises her for it. It's funny how they ask for orginality and then love a letter perfect copy. This is pure karioke if I ever heard it. I do admit she does have the horse face and lips of Carly Simon. Lets give her a carrot and move on to the next contestant.

Which is our favorite, little Ramile who belts out some Donna Summer. The judges don't buy it because they want her back in her box. It's funny because she is the only contestant who could actually fit in a box. Maybe a hat box. Or even a McDonals happy meal box. Or a happy ending box. Simon does call her one of the three best singers in the competition. So she should be good for this week.

Next up is pony girl Kristy Lee Cooke who sings "Youre No Good." Very appropriate because she is no good and I hope she is one of the two who are out this week. Simon says she has a lot of potential, but I think that is on her looks alone, cause she can't sing for shit. I would pay good money to see her saddle up horse face Brooke and ride her around the Surreal Life house, but that won't happen for a year or two.

Amanda Oversinger, I mean Amanda. Overbearing, I mean Amanda Overmeyer the motorcycle chick is next and she sucks big time. The judges really trash her big time and deservedly so. But the looks she is giving them are classic. I bet she's thinking, let me get a tire iron and come back here and see what's what. I guess she is going back to singing in bars and raping waitresses on pinball machines with pool cues. Sweet.

Alexandrea comes out in the professor's favorite outfit: a bubble shirt and cargo shorts. This outfit would be good for about six posts if some dude wore it on the Promonade. She sang "Hopelessly Devouted to You" in a hopelessly depressing monotone. The judges trash her gently and give just enough encouragement so she might skate this week. But I think she has a chance to go this week. [NOTE: He's right.]

Wait a minute I screwed up. It was Alaina Witaker who sang Hopelessly Devoted and ALexandrea who had the bad outfit. Both sucked and have a chance to be out. See what happens when you wait a day and rely on your notes. You forget. I feel like Roger Clemens. Please don't tell Congress.

Next up is Kady Malloy who does the Britney impression. I said it before and I will say it again, if she wants to be noticed she needs to show her cootch just like Britney cause otherwise she is out this week or next. Jeeez.

Last but not least, Asia'h rocks. All By Myself and the judges diss her lightly but I think it was the best of the night. Since she got the pimp spot she should be ok and get throught to the next round. Good tone, good belting, good dance moves, good look. She will be in the final ten.

So to recap, I think Amanda and Kady will be out this week. Also Jason the child molester guy with the Damien kid and Robbie the Axel Rose douche bag guy. Lets see. [NOTE: He was right about the guys, but wrong about the girls.]

Remember don't look at the spelling because I am typing as fast as I can and I can't spell for shit. Sorry....

I think that the Humility Kid [David Archuleta] will wear out his welcome before the final. He is peaking way too early. I think it will be a surprise winner this year. The Hernandez kid has good instincts and might go far, but my bet is split between Syesha or Ramile. Hey it might be the year for people with strange names to win it all. Right Hillary?

Not [Archuleta's] singing, but his popularity. He is the fave of the little tweener girls, notice the squeals and the screams at his performance. He might keep that demographic but everyone else gets pissed off. Witness the Talyor Hicks fiasco. Plus kids have a short attention span and most of the tweeners favs fade just as it happened in the first season with that bozo haired guy.

The question is who gets the Ralph Nader protest votes marshaled by Vote for the Worst. My bet is Cha-cheese-ie or Noriega. That is important because it kept Sanjaya and Scott Savol the secret squirrel around for quite a while.

A good personality can go a long way. People get tired of wise guys, but that is what puts the Vote for the Worst guys in your corner. Although that might have died out too since it was fun last year with Sanjaya but will Stern and the rest of them get on the bandwagon. It's not a good idea to talk back to the judges and overly bitchy like Noriega goes quick. But who ever thought that old pineapple face's kid would be on American Idol. General Noriega must be proud wherever he is these days. (Dead?)

"Does he have sex appeal?... Can you smell the English leather on this guy?"

"Does he have sex appeal? . . . Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of, a little bit of cigar smoke?" "

So said Chris Matthews about Fred Thompson — from a list of quotes of the year assembled by Glenn Greenwald, who editorializes that Matthews is "fantasizing about the pleasing, manly body smells of Fred Thompson." Greenwald's unnumbered list is hit and miss, but I'm amused by the manifestations of male enthusiasm for manly males.

"What's appealing about Rudy Giuliani is not the generous side, what's appealing about him is the tough cop side.
Right. You just wait until daddy gets home.
Yes, that part...
That Daddy.
... of the daddy. It's the tough cop side, so...
Yes. Yes" --
Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman, breathlessly sharing their excitement over the firmness of their Daddy, Rudy Giuliani.

He has "chiseled-out-of-granite features, a full, dark head of hair going a distinguished gray at the temples, and a barrel chest . . . . and has shoulders you could land a 737 on" --
Roger Simon, The Politico's chief political columnist, enthusiastically admiring numerous parts of Mitt Romney's body.

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian explains fragrances for men (and he really knows what he's talking about).

"Hillary Clinton was first lady in Arkansas, first lady at the White House for eight years, U.S. senator for seven years. Can you compete with that?"

Tim Russert threw that softball at Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" today. Here's the answer:

Well, you know, if you’re comparing how long I’ve been in public office, I’ve actually been in public office longer than her. I think that Senator Clinton is a capable and, and intelligent person. I think she’s been a fine senator from New York. But when it comes to the issues that are really moving the American people right now—healthcare, energy, how we deal with a shifting economy—those are all issues that I’ve been working with at every level of government.

Can't we ever look straight at the question whether being First Lady counts for anything? Obama should attack her for relying on being First Lady as a credential and for suppressing the record of her time in the White House. And he should stir up doubts about the wisdom of returning a former President to the White House. Why even concede that she's been a "fine senator" or that she's "capable"? Point to some failures! This is your big chance. Obama is so bland.

Later:

MR. RUSSERT: A year ago, you were asked about Hillary Clinton. And this the exchange. “Where do you find yourself having the biggest differences with Hillary Clinton, politically?” Obama: “You know, I think very highly of Hillary. The more I get to know her, the more I admire her. I think she’s the most disciplined—one of the most disciplined people I’ve ever met. She’s one of the toughest. She’s got an extraordinary intelligence.” “She is—she’s somebody who’s in this stuff for the right reasons. She’s passionate about moving the country forward on issues like healthcare and children. So it’s not clear to me what differences we’ve had since I’ve been in the Senate.” Do you still hold to that? There aren’t any differences?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, I think that I, as I said earlier, I have admiration for Senator Clinton. I think she’s a fine public servant. The reason I’m running is because I think we’re in a unique moment in American history right now. The nation’s at war; our planet is in peril. We’ve got a series of decisions that we’re going to have to make. And I believe that I can more effectively than any other candidate in this race bring the country together, overcome some of the same old arguments that we’ve been having since the 1990s. I think I can reach out to Republicans and independents more effectively than any other candidate that...

He won't make even the gentlest criticism. Is he waiting for everyone else to do that or for her to fail on her own — a la Dean in '04 — and then to waltz into the opening John Kerry-style? Is he running for Vice President? Or is there no strategy at all, just a guy with no fight in him?

IN THE COMMENTS: "Hilarious! A faintly negative post about Obama and suddenly two comments lauding Obama from newcomers without profiles!" Simon notices something about the way blogging works.

ALSO IN THE COMMENTS: Zeb offers this answer to my last set of questions:

There's another choice. Is he afraid of her? is he afraid of really getting into it with her, of going into attack mode. Is he afraid of being crosswise with the Clinton machine? If you think about it, none of her Democrat opponents seriously attack and go after her. Maybe they're all afraid. They've all seen what the Clinton machine does to its enemies.

UPDATE: Walter Shapiro in Salon:

The next morning, Obama appeared for a full-hour interview in another arena of political combat, facing off against Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." The fiery Obama of Saturday night had been replaced on Sunday morning by a replicant, a tepid candidate mostly concerned with avoiding mistakes rather than winning converts...

[I]f Obama really wants to be the one who knocks Hillary off her pedestal, he should remember that statues rarely topple without a hard push.

AND: You can watch Obama's Saturday night speech here.

"A kafuffle has broken out between Yale Constitutional Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld and self-righteous right-wing blogger 'Simon.'"

LOL. Our Simon has a quote for his banner from preening, left-wing, he's-not-Mickey blogger Stephen Kaus (who seems to be some sort of lawyer but thinks judges announce decisions by saying "Decision: [name of winning party]" and that there is a word "kafuffle").

IN THE COMMENTS: Inwood writes:

I don't know how anyone could fail to, um, decide correctly which is more reasonable from both a commonsense POV, & a Con Law approach: (a) the carefully reasoned & well-expressed points presented by both Mukasey & Simon or (b) the, um, “self-righteous” as well as hysterical "five days from the effective date of Mukasey's appointment, we're all gonna be back in the McCarthy era where, because we've talked to certain people, expressed certain ideas, or are some kind of free thinkers; we’re gonna be on the "National Wire Tapping List", following which we may well be randomly water boarded by the jackboots of BushHitler" nonsense of The NYT & these guys.

BTW, IR, how about “Kausfluffle”?

And Simon is unruffled by the Kausfluffle:

I'm not sure how ruffled my feathers could really get when someone whose sole claim to fame is having a brother more famous, more erudite and more accomplished than he is decides to demonstrate the same lack of reading comprehension skills (he completely misapprehends my post, not to mention making some very questionable assumptions) by scrawling some graffiti on the sewer wall of the internet.

I mean, really, Steve Kaus? For all the world, he's the blogosphere's equivalent of the brother of the Paul Bettanny character in Wimbledon.

And what's with the "Simon" in scare quotes? It's not as if my last name's a secret or hidden.

ALSO IN THE COMMENTS: Too Many Jims said "there are better indictments of Kaus' writing than "kafuffle is not a word." And I said:

I have many indictments, but that doesn't mean I'm going to spend my scarce time rebuffing some lawyer who writes for readers that he thinks will be awed by the title "Yale Constitutional Law Professor." I've seen too many things written by Yale Constitutional Law Professors to get stirred up when a non-Yale Constitutional Law Professor comes along and acts like something must be true because it was written by a Yale Constitutional Law Professor. Kaus must be: unsophisticated/blinded by ideology/out to manipulate readers. I have no time for that.

MORE: Jed Rubenfeld — the Yale lawprof who wrote the NYT op-ed that started all this — emails:

In response to my op-ed, some have said, "But Judge Mukasey in no way suggested a presidential authority to ignore constitutional statutes; all he meant was that the president has authority to ignore unconstitutional statutes." Others have wondered, on my behalf, whether, given Judge Mukasey's actual statements, and given the history of executive-power claims by the present Administration, this reply is in fact a meaningful reply to the point I made in my op-ed. Of those posting on your blog, "Laser" comes closest to saying what I myself would have said. But in case it would be helpful, here is my own answer.

There are two interpretations of Judge Mukasey’s statements that I meant to be addressing simultaneously and that I would object to equally.

Judge Mukasey indicated that the president has constitutional authority to disregard a federal statute if “what goes outside the statute nonetheless lies within the president’s authority to defend the country.” The president was not above the law, Judge Mukasey emphasized, but the law “starts with the Constitution.” A "statute, regardless of its clarity, can't change the Constitution."

The first question — and what I regard as the real question — is whether Judge Mukasey's statements imply a presidential authority to ignore a federal statute in the following kind of case: (a) where both the president and the Congress possess constitutionally granted power over a certain subject matter; (b) where Congress has exercised its constitutionally granted power; but (c) where the president, in the exercise of his constitutional power, wants to do something that is otherwise constitutionally permissible, that he believes justified in the name of defending the nation (at least in wartime) as he thinks best, but that the enacted statute prevents him from doing. I think Judge Mukasey's statements at least leave open the possibility that the president has authority to disregard the statute in this kind of case.

There are two interpretations of Judge Mukasey's statements according to which he could have endorsed such an authority. First, he might have meant: (1) that, under our Constitution, executive power simply trumps a constitutionally enacted statute in those cases. This is not an unintelligible position. Where two branches each have power over a certain subject matter, one must be supreme over the other, even if both are acting within their constitutionally granted powers. In matters of defending the nation in wartime, someone might intelligibly believe that the executive power must be supreme. On my view, however, this position is plainly unacceptable, contrary to Youngstown, contrary to the supremacy clause, and a subversion of the Constitution’s foundational principles.

Second, Judge Mukasey’s statements could be interpreted to mean: (2) that in the cases specified, the statute becomes unconstitutional just because the statute has infringed on executive power. Now, some people seem to think that this is very different from position (1). They say, "On this view, Judge Mukasey was merely arguing for an executive power that everyone agrees to -- the power to disregard an unconstitutional statute." For myself, I do not view position (2) as meaningfully different from position (1). I think position (2) just is position (1), dressed up in different words; or, to put it the other way, that position (1) just is position (2), dressed up in different words. I take position (2) to be unacceptable precisely because it boils down to the same thing as position (1). I also take position (2) to be close, if not identical, to the position articulated in the repudiated “torture memo.”

I thought about trying to distinguish these two positions in my op-ed, but in the end decided not to. I made this decision not only to save words. On my view, the two positions are in the end not distinguishable, so it is obfuscatory to try to make them sound distinct.

Let me emphasize that I take both positions (1) and (2) to be distinguishable from position (3), which holds that the president has the authority to disregard a statute that unconstitutionally asserts congressional power over a subject matter that the Constitution simply does not grant Congress power over. Thus if Congress passed a statute ordering the deployment of troops in a fashion so specific that Congress had attempted to exercise a power that only the commander-in-chief possesses, Congress would not have been exercising one of its constitutionally granted powers and would not have passed a valid statute at all. By contrast, I take FISA and the military commissions act clearly to govern matters that both Congress and the president have powers over (at least, in FISA’s case, as applied to communications made by United States persons on United States soil). It follows that the president is simply breaking the law if he unilaterally violates these statutes, regardless of which position, (1), (2), or (3), is asserted in defense thereof.

What is key is that there are some things with respect to which the President has exclusive power. This is commonly known as Jackson's category 3 (from the Youngstown case). Here is Justice Jackson's delineation of the concept:

When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system....

[Where the President's action is contrary to a federal statute,] it can be supported only by any remainder of executive power after subtraction of such powers as Congress may have over the subject.

I think this is what Mukasey was referring to, and, as such, it is a solid and unremarkable position. The real dispute is not over whether the President can violate statutes, but how big "category 3" is: How much power does the Constitution give exclusively to the President? I don't doubt that Mukasey has a more expansive view of "category 3" than Rubenfeld does.