Will Saletan has a fascinating piece up at Slate right now about the extent to which the borking of Robert Bork at his Senate confirmation hearings involved questions about his religious beliefs. I had completely missed that part of the confirmation battle (in fairness, I was in ninth grade and seem to remember that I spent part of the …
And The First Kagan Interview Goes To…
…the White House:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSy60QpI8gY]
The Oil Spill Blame Game
A theme emerged early in the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing into the BP oil spill. For today’s grilling, lawmakers summoned Lamar McKay, president and chairman of BP America, which holds the lease on the Deepwater Horizon rig; Steve Newman, CEO of drilling company Transocean, which owns it; and Tim …
To List or Not to List?
It seems increasingly likely that the Pakistani Taliban were behind Faisal Shahzad’s attempted bombing of Time Square for all that they disavowed him. Which is why Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez sent a letter to the State Department on Tuesday …
The Next Bob Bennett (Only Blue)?
Today is primary day in Nebraska and West Virginia. There’s really only one race worth watching here, but it could be a doozy: West Virginia Rep. Allan Mollohan, a 14-term Democrat, is facing one of the toughest primaries of his career. Mollohan, who is in perennial trouble with the Ethics Committee for his profligate porking, is being …
1,000 Words: Chairman Leahy’s Wild Ride Edition
Obama Love in PA
This ad may be the best Arlen Specter can do in the final week of his primary if Obama declines to come in for a final push:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-MqJFxMDOg]
(h/t PoliticsPA)
Elena Kagan and Health Reform
During Elena Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearing, the American public will get a sneak peak of a particularly contentious case that may reach the Supreme Court – the constitutionality of the new health reform law. Several Republican senators have already indicated they plan to ask Kagan about her view of the law’s mandate that …
Morning Must Reads: Empathy and Envy
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
—John Dickerson examines Obama’s argument that Kagan, like Sotomayor, understands the everyman and brings empathy to court. It well may be her (and his) judicial philosophy, but it’s not something well-grounded in Kagan’s credentials or life story. But the purpose of the empathy narrative …
In the ArenaUncategorized
Kagan and the Military
My first reaction to the news that Elena Kagan had any role in banning military recruiters from Harvard Law School was outrage: there is no excuse for this. Indeed, it is disgraceful that more than a few elite universities–in a vestigial reaction to the anti-military sentiment of the Vietnam era–still don’t have ROTC programs or place …
In the ArenaAfghanistan
Who are the Taliban?
Marc Thiessen, the Washington Post’s new pro-torture columnist, has a typically brutish piece today in which he argues that if we only treated our latest Taliban trophy-capture, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the same way we treated Khalid Sheik Mohammed–i.e. waterboarded him in a CIA black site–we might find out who was running the Time …
John McCain No Longer “One Of Them”
That, or something like that, is the message behind this new McCain campaign ad.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0lwusMxiHc&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
UPDATE: It took me a few hours to confirm but the author of this ad is Fred Davis, the man behind Demon Sheep.
Ciao Gordon Brown
Reuters is reporting that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will resign this year, falling on his sword in hopes of salvaging power for his Labour Party. Liberal Democrats, led by Nick Clegg, had been in coalition talks with the Conservative Party – which won the most seats in last week’s election but failed to secure a large …