Straight on 'till morning

Last night, I was standing next to an inflateable kiddie pool filled with pudding, only three blocks from the ocean, seriously concidering paddling out to sea on it. I wonder how long you can live off 90 gallons of pudding.

Advise and Consent

The Seattle Times endorses John Roberts' nomination to Cheif Justice. They make a point that I've seen progressives use recently when admiting defeat.

We won't like every decision this man makes. But we like the man, and we view him as being within the broad American mainstream. President Bush won the election, and thereby the privilege of picking the new chief justice. He is not likely to offer a better nominee than John Roberts.

But he does NOT have the privilege to pick the next justice. Just to nominate. Bush's job is to make a suggestion. He's there to say "Hey, how about this guy? He seems cool, what'a y'all think?"

And then it's up to the Senate to give the thumbs up or the thumbs down. They pick who's going to be sitting on that bench. That's in the constitution. And it was set up that way for a reason. It's to help keep the judiciary an independant branch of Government. So many timid Democrats seem to forget that the only thing to keep Bush from nominating Robert Bork Jr to Supreme Court of the United States is the idea that the Senate wouldn't accept him. And for that we need to show a willingness for Democrats to stand on principle and the dicipline to keep the caucus together.

I don't think it would be wise to filibuster Roberts. We don't really know much about him, and while what we do know is somewhat disturbing, this is a high stakes game of crazy 8's, and I've got a bad feeling that we're going to want to save that card for the next round.