Let's talk about Devon Archer.

I'm reading "Devon Archer Throws a Curve" by William McGurn (Wall Street Journal). 

"News outlets dutifully reported that the [FD-1023] form was 'unverified' (a qualifier absent from most reporting on the infamous Steele dossier)."

“But saying the information is unverified raises the key question: What steps, if any, did the FBI take to verify these allegations? Think about it. As recently as two months ago, the bureau wouldn't even admit to Congress that the FD-1023 existed. Not until FBI Director Christopher Wray realized some people had already seen a copy, and he was threatened with contempt, did the FBI fess up and give members of Congress a limited look....”

Writes William McGurn in "Hunter Biden's Bargain Plea" (Wall Street Journal).

"Ultimately, Hunter Biden will himself be called to testify before the House. Maybe he'll refuse to say anything."

"That may be best for him. But for his president father, running for re-election, having his son come across like Vito Genovese taking the Fifth dozens of times before questions about shell companies and payments to himself and his dad isn't a great look. When Hunter Biden agreed to his plea deal last week, his lawyer said he did so with the understanding the investigation was resolved. Perhaps that part is. But for Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, it's only just begun."

Writes William McGurn in "Joe Biden's 'Malarkey' Defense" (Wall Street Journal).

"Mr. Biden is not a Gold Star father and should stop playing one on TV."

Wrote William McGurn, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush, in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, quoted in a New York Times column that strives to put Biden in the most beautifully golden light, "In Invoking Beau, Biden Broaches a Loss That’s Guided His Presidency/Referring to Beau Biden with families of U.S. Marines killed in the Kabul airport bombing drew criticism, but the president remains haunted by memories of a son he described as 'me, but without all the downsides.'" 

That headline appears above a photograph of Biden with his eyes closed and a tear rolling down his cheek. The piece is by White House correspondent Katie Rogers:

Mr. Biden has never claimed that his son died in combat, but he has often spoken of his son’s overseas deployment and the toll it took on his family. Mr. Biden’s supporters say that military families are entitled to their grief, but that the president is also entitled to his....  

The general thinking among Mr. Biden’s supporters is that he is a welcome change from President Donald J. Trump, who was almost always publicly unable to express empathy. They believe Mr. Biden is the right president for this moment in history, one so far marked by the unthinkable loss....

Biden needs to show people that he's focused on the problems that beset us now and that he can do something to help us. To stand there offering up himself as an example of a person who has suffered doesn't send a message of focus and competence. It's a message that can be read as Hey, I've got problems of my own. Faced with parents of marines who'd just been killed, he said, essentially, my son died too. 

His son died 6 years ago. You might be tolerant of an old man who came up to you at your child's funeral and wanted you to know how much he still hurts from the death of his child 6 years ago. It might be difficult, but you'd probably think something like, that poor old guy. But this poor old guy is President of the United States. He asked to be President of the United States, and by some strange twists of fate, he got what he said he wanted. And now everyone's problems are his. He needs to act like someone who can handle all that. If he's swallowed up in grief over his lost son — if he's "haunted," as the NYT headline has it — perhaps he should resign. 

It is possible — though it's awkward to say this — that he's not as absorbed in grief as he acts. He may be doing the theater of empathy. It's worked for him to a certain extent. Some people like to see a big display of empathy in politics. Others — a dead marine's father, McGurn, etc. — are telling Biden he's going too far. If it's theater, he can rein it it. Touch up those speeches. Get back to Obama-level empathy, but stress competence and mental clarity. 

But it's no wonder he's lapsed into the misconception that "Beau" is a magic word. The press has propped him up so much — including with this "Invoking Beau" article. You know, to "invoke" means "To call on (God, a deity, etc.) in prayer or as a witness" or "To summon (a spirit) by charms or incantation; to conjure; also figurative" or "To call upon, or call to (a person) to come or to do something." 

How is Biden "invoking" Beau? 

Linda Greenhouse has noticed "a meme in conservative media" that liberals are using the idea of the Supreme Court's "legitimacy" to flip John Roberts to the liberal side.

She says, in "Who Cares About the Supreme Court’s ‘Legitimacy’?" (NYT).

“There’s a wooing going on,” David French warned in National Review in March under the headline “The Temptation of John Roberts.” His focus was not the census case but abortion and the Mueller report. “According to this construct,” Mr. French wrote, “it’s Roberts the ideologue who would vote to restrict abortion rights. It’s Roberts the conservative who would back the Trump administration. But a chief justice who cared about the institution of the Supreme Court? Well, he guards Roe. He checks Trump.”

In The Wall Street Journal last month, under the headline “John Roberts’s ‘Illegitimate’ Court,” the newspaper’s editorial columnist, William McGurn, wrote: “For those not fluent in modern Beltway, let us translate: It’s a threat, aimed at John Roberts. If the chief justice does not produce the desired progressive outcome, the Roberts court will find itself attacked as institutionally illegitimate.” This week, The Journal’s editorial board took aim at the new development in the census case under the headline “Census Target: John Roberts.” “Whenever you read ‘legitimacy’ in a sentence about the court, you know it’s a political missile aimed directly at Chief Justice John Roberts.”...

[T]he steady flow of right-wing commentary mocking concerns about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy (and I readily admit to having added my voice to those concerns) leaves me with this thought: What about the other justices? Why is it assumed on the right that Chief Justice Roberts is the only conservative on the court who has its welfare in view and who worries about the loss of public confidence if the justices come to be seen as mere politicians in robes?

Maybe the question answers itself....

No, the question shouts out, I'm not the question!

And the "right-wing commentary" is not "mocking concerns about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy." Everyone on the Court is concerned about its "legitimacy," a concept that includes, among other things, a lot of fretting about whether the Court will be perceived as deserving the power it wields, which is, ironically, a very political concern.

"Legitimacy" is a category of rhetoric, and everyone uses it. The most frustrating thing for liberals is that non-lawyer people tend to think that the conservative approach to constitutional interpretation is the right way to do it and that the liberals seem to want to use the courts as an alternative to the legislative process.

The wooing of Chief Justice Roberts that Greenhouse quotes is an effort to get the legitimacy talk working in the liberal direction. It's not a new subject. It's a big, long, old conversation.

"Since Althouse has been recognized on Fox as a FAMOUS blogger, bring your 'A' game today for the influx of visitors."

Writes David Begley in the comments to the first post of the day.

Here's the video clip where I'm declared famous.

ADDED: I see that was "Fox and Friends," President Trump's favorite TV show. Now, I'm hoping for President Trump to call me "tremendously famous"

"Forgive those Americans who concur with blogger Ann Althouse that today's pious demands for civility are often less about good manners than shutting down folks with an opposing view."

Thanks to a prompt from Martha in the comments here, I'm seeing my name in the Wall Street Journal today. It's a column by William McGurn titled "Playing the Civility Card/The upending of basic decency and norms began long before Donald Trump."

McGurn tones down my opinion. I don't say that "today's pious demands for civility are often less about good manners than shutting down folks with an opposing view." I say that the talk about civility is always bullshit. That is, it's only ever about getting the other side to shut up.

"The truth is, we don’t know how Mrs. Clinton would fare in a no-holds-barred debate with a tough challenger—because she’s not faced one in this primary."

"From the way the Democratic superdelegates have been awarded, to the number and timing of debates, the entire primary season has been orchestrated to serve Mrs. Clinton’s interests by a party that is mostly in her pocket. This is why the last man standing is an angry, white-haired socialist. And yet the former first lady still can’t put him away."

From "Yes, Donald Could Beat Hillary/Conventional wisdom says he has no chance. But what if he blows up all the old rules?" by William McGurn (in the WSJ).

Despite what I just quoted up there, McGurn is in what I'd consider a pretty heavy state of denial. The column ends with:

Sure, it’s possible the GOP front-runner will implode, just as it’s possible all those polls showing Mrs. Clinton with a double-digit lead over Mr. Trump will indeed come to pass. But some of us who never thought he would get this far are a little more reluctant to be so categorical about an election that is still seven months away.

A little more reluctant? To be so categorical? You should be completely over your categoricality.

AND: Bernie Sanders has not been a tough competitor. He's been damned nice to her. He only fights on the issues. He holds himself above all sorts of attacks that Donald Trump would unleash with vigor, delight, and — his favorite — unpredictability. And yet Hillary's campaign is portraying Sanders's campaign as unacceptably negative. They're resisting debate because they don't like his "tone." His tone!

How is she going to deal with Trump's tone? Refuse to debate? One of the arguments McGurn examines — arguments for why Hillary is supposed to trounce Trump — is the Clinton will make him look "like an ignorant yahoo" when they debate. Will she even dare to debate?

"It is an axiom of modern American life: Offer a new service that is wildly popular with the public, and sooner or later you will find yourself labeled an enemy of the people."

The first line of A Wall Street Journal column by William McGurn titled ""Uber Crashes the Democratic Party/The ride-share app is bringing out the inner Elizabeth Warren." (No subscription? Google some text.)

[NYC mayor Bill] de Blasio said he aims to freeze Uber’s expansion until his regulators can figure out how best to block any attempts to “skirt vital protections and oversight.”...

[Hillary Clinton] fretted that while the “gig economy” may be “exciting” and “unleashing innovation,” “it is also raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future.”...

McGurn takes a swipe that might impress you but doesn't work on me:

[I]nnovation by its nature challenges the inner-Elizabeth Warren in so much of today’s Democratic Party. However open Democrats may be to revolutionary new definitions of marriage, the thought that there might be some nonsexual for-profit contracts between consenting adults keeps progressives up at night....

To end the exclusion of gay couples from marriage — while marriage remained an option for heterosexual couples — was a matter of getting to equality, making the same options open to different kinds of human individuals. If the state of being married doesn't offer the benefits and protections a given couple wants, they don't have to marry. They can remain single. There's no finite number of married and single slots that people compete for. I know there's an argument that gay marriage diminishes the value of marriage for heterosexual people, and if you believe that argument — the "defense of marriage" argument — you can enjoy McGurn's comparison. But I think it's a very bad argument.

There is a much more realistic concern that traditional jobs — with desirable benefits and protections — will dry up as "gig economy" work structures grow. It won't be a matter of individual choice like staying single versus getting married.

But, it's certainly true that even those who love to pose under the banner "CHANGE" only like some changes, just as those who cry "TRADITION!" have plenty of tradition they'd be happy to dump.