William Rehnquist dies, two days before the John Roberts hearings begin. Among those saddened: his family, liberals (who Know What This Means), and the collected staff of the eighteen members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Apparently, Bush has decided to cut his vacation short to "personally oversee the federal [Katrina relief] effort."

So it's important for him to go on with his life when Americans die in Iraq, but not when Americans die in Mississippi?*

* - Disclaimer: I know these are two totally different situations, and I don't fault him for cutting his vacation short in light of the hurricane (though what oversight he'll be doing is beyond me), but it sure seems like an easy and obvious political pot-shot to take.

An amusing semantic debunking of the supposed differences between five popular Supreme-Court-Nomination-Talking-Points words, as written by a former English professor (who also happens to be a current law professor):

Now that the speculation about who will replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court is in full frenzy, we can look forward to debates in which words and phrases like 'originalist,' 'strict constructionist,' 'textualist,' 'judicial activist' and 'intentionalist' will figure prominently, because these labels are thought by many to stand for different styles of interpreting the Constitution. Those who think so are wrong.

Really, it's worth a look. It reads a bit like a calculus proof, but you'll be chuckling in spite of yourself by the end.

So much for Garza.

With respect to my post from Monday night: looks like my timing was a bit off. I'm sticking with Garza as the eventual nominee, though.

Today's Last Call Shot and Chaser:

SHOT...
"Wherever there is injustice, you will find us. Wherever there is suffering, we'll be there. Wherever liberty is threatened..." - The Three Amigos (1986)

...CHASER
"I was right near Liverpool Station when the first bomb went off." - Rudy Giuliani (BBC, 7/7)

Giuliani's presence in London this morning has many leading thinkers (me) asking, "What if the terrorists haven't been gunning for 'America' after all? What if al Qaeda's beef is with The Giul?"

To which I must say, "Good question, thinkers."

Jay Rosen at PressThink (via Howard Kurtz) makes a fine point:

There is, after all, a big difference between a national political campaign and a Supreme Court nomination. In the last election, 121 million votes were cast, and each one of those people could (in theory) be influenced by a media campaign. In the Supreme Court nomination, 100 United States Senators vote. Can they be influenced in the same way?

The only mention I found of this was a lonely sentence at the end of the Washington Post's coverage of the big screaming battle ahead: "All the time and money spent on campaigns may have little influence on the outcome, said several senators, because they and their colleagues see a Supreme Court vote as a deeply personal and principled decision."

You all know the old saw about baseball (and often, politics): "Every team's going to win 54 games, every team's going to lose 54 games. It's what you do with the other 54 that counts." Now imagine I'm Joe Senator. Whether I'm a Democrat or a Republican, whether I'm from Idaho or Massachusetts, I'm going to get 54 calls saying, "The nominee is a creep," and 54 calls saying "The nominee is a god." Depending on which of those states I'm from, the other 54 calls are probably going to lean predictably one way or the other. But on a decision like this, which could literally alter the course of the country, do I want to pay attention to those last 54 calls? Or do I say, "This is one of those times when I go with my gut"? If I see this as a nation-shaking decision - which, frankly, many of the Senators will, no matter the nominee - then I say, "I've got 54 calls behind me no matter which way I go, so I'm going to go where I think I ought to go." Thus rendering the $100 million worth of TV ads and website mobilizations (to which one could also - should one have the inclination to create another post on one's blog - apply the 54/54/54 rule) a bit moot.

Special link-free editorial post!

My SCOTUS nomination prediction (just to get it on the record): Emilio Garza, to be nominated on Thursday, July 7. Hispanic; conservative; Texas connections; young-but-not-too-young (58?); just the right level of creepy-looking-ness. It's a lock.

Kenneth Pollack draws some interesting parallels in Friday's NYT. Worth a read.

Celebrating the Redneck Games.

"Yeah, looking back on it I'm proud. But when I done it I felt a little silly," said Davis, 68. "People were going, `There's the bobbing-for-pigs-feet champion!'"

Bobbing for pig feet, the mudpit belly-flop, the armpit serenade — they're all part of the Redneck Games, a series of good ole'ympic events for the ain't-so-athletic celebrating their 10th year in middle Georgia.

Newsday writes about Rep. Peter King (R-NY), prompting thousands of Hill interns to wonder, "Wait... can we do that?"

"Her first letter to me was very abusive, then she came back with another snotty letter, so I said what the hell," [King] said. ... [He] responded: "I am in receipt of your March 5th e-mail and regret that you don't know as much about social security as you pretend."

TNR's Notebook, on throes:

Clearly, then, we see what Cheney meant. The insurgency, as any fair observer would admit, entered its last throes sometime about six months ago. After all, that's when the Iraqi elections took place, which the administration contended all along would deal a serious setback to the insurgency. Who could have known that setback would be so severe as to cause the insurgency to enter its 'last throes'? Well, Dick Cheney - who also understands that a throe knows no temporal bounds. Add to the list of practitioners of such sublime, exalted levels of knowledge Cheney's old mentor, Donald Rumsfeld, who added on 'Fox News Sunday' that the insurgency might continue through 2017. See? It's a long throe. One might even be tempted to call it a Hail Mary.

Har!