Many liberal bloggers are writing about the expected heated war to occur over the nomination of Alito, with Dems ready to throw the gloves off and really mix it up.

Although I hope they're right, I just can't fathom how it can happen. The Dems have been soggy wet noodles for as long as I can remember, all bark no bite. Sure, during the hearings we may see lots of grandstanding for the cameras, but will we see them go nuclear? Will we see them fulminating on TV and radio, not in a controlled, paced manner ala Schumer, but in a passionate, piercing delivery? Will they orchestrate a unified, all-front attack that will effectively register with the public? Or will they instead opt for MoveOn.org-type coma-inducing meet-ups and sit-ins?

Sorry, I have near zero faith in Reid, Pelosi, and Dean when it comes to such things. A first step could be connecting the dots for the public to see with regards to polls showing most Americans in favor of choice and yet this president nominated someone who would overturn this majority sentiment. They need to spell out how GW is repeatedly about pleasing the minority at the expense of the majority. He takes care of the select few special interests first, whether it be the ultra rich, oil executives, friends and cronies, or in this case, religious extremists. The big moderate middle -- which is most of us -- is of little use or concern to him.

Hilarious, and very true, JibJab poke at Wal-Mart.

In the spirit of Halloween, a truly scary story. If this trend continues, the country is doomed.

I've always found Lawrence O'Donnell to be too much of a mild-mannered, overly cordial and polite liberal talking head. Well, I don't know what's happened to him of late but he appears to have gone through a transformation since writing for The Huffington Post.

His latest entry pulls no punches:

'The White House dodged a bullet' is the single stupidest bit of nonstop echo punditry we've heard this weekend. Karl Rove not getting indicted presents the White House with a worse problem than an indictment would have. The problem being -- Rove is going to go to work Monday morning at the White House with TV cameras following his every move and with 47% of the public believing he did something wrong, according to today's Washington Post poll.

What the White House desperately needed on Friday was Rove's resignation. As long as he keeps his White House pass, Rove is a cancer on the presidency.

The Washington Post poll shows that the best outcome for the Democrats would be Rove staying in the White House till Bush's last day. The Post reports, "Barely a third of Americans -- 34 percent -- think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton's standing on this issue when he left office." Keeping Rove on the job will keep that number where it is today.

The pundit world, having spent years in awe of Karl Rove, will never understand how bad he is at his White House job. His second term agenda destroyed this presidency long before Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference. Rove sent his president on a political death march on Social Security reform with the most hopeless legislative idea since the Clinton health care bill. That showed Congress how powerless the second-term Bush would be. Without the Social Security collapse-which I predicted on day one of the Social Security crusade -- Senate Republicans and the right wing would not have dared defy their president on a Rove-managed Supreme Court nomination. And Rove obviously had no feel for the politics of Katrina which pulled Bush poll numbers to record lows.

As long as Karl Rove stays in the White House doing the terrible job he is doing and bringing the stench of scandal with him every time he walks in the door, the Bush presidency will remain a powerless gang that couldn't shoot straight. And the 'dodge the bullet' chorus will never understand that.

From David Rosenberg at Merrill Lynch:

The President's approval rating was already at a lifetime low going into last week's trio of bad news - the 2,000 U.S. fatality in Iraq, the Harriet Miers withdrawal and "Scooter" Libby's indictment. It can no longer be taken for granted that the GOP will sweep the House and the Senate again come the November 7, 2006 midterm elections at this point, and what is interesting is that Mr. Bush's approval rating of 40% is exactly where Bill Clinton's was at this same stage in the fall of 1993 - and the Dems were booted out of both houses the next year.

Fred Kaplan makes the point: where have these GOP critics been with their insightful, harsh words? To come out now, Johnny come lately, translates into much less purposeful effect and is a bit like the cowardly boy who kicks the bully once he's been pummeled by a fed-up gang. The numerous failures of Bush are not suddenly evident but rather have been readily apparent for quite some time. To not acknowledge this point is to simply admit to being overly influenced by partisan rhetoric and to be in denial of reality (i.e. drinking the Roveian Kool-Aid).

Shame on these late-to-the-party, bandwagon GW bashers. Now that their clown/tool is down for the count it's very easy to jump ship, esp. since he's the lamest of ducks. Some say with Miers withdrawing that GW may regain some backers, as if they're willing to give him a second chance. Fine, let it happen, but the cards have been dealt and the smart ones will continue to look for convenient excuses allowing them to flee this loser with some dignity/face.

As for the others, if they truly believe winning in '08 will require that they stay the course with GW, I say go for it! Just like they believed with Newt in the '90s. You think you can go to the well one more time by scaring the public with 9/11 imagery to win votes? Fool me once, fool me twice, but three times? Who knows with this voting public but I like to think they've finally come to their senses and realize that we can do MUCH better than this guy in office.

The wingnuts love to harken back to this past election, as if frozen in time, when they had the smear campaigns at full blast and gay marriage used as a Blair Witch scare tactic. They're very good at such things to gain votes ("win at all costs"). But over the last several months, removed from the pre-election hysteria and thus without the benefit of $$-backed orchestrated smears and lies, GW's poll numbers have gone steadily down. What will cause them to go back up? I haven't a clue. And again, many of the brighter Republicans realize this also and will shrewdly venture away from GW and his corrupt, failed cabal. In effect, the party will splinter.

As I predicted in January, the GOP is imploding and once an implosion starts it's very difficult to stop.

UPDATE: Today's Washington Post reminds that Bush was down once before in '01 but 9-11 helped to reverse his fate. Uh, big difference now in that 1) can he depend on another 9-11 type incident?, and 2) then he wasn't lame duck; fellow GOPers had to play ball.

The right-wing blogs continue to play down the case against Libby/Rove, pretending to see no wrongdoing. After today, don't believe them.

Kevin Drum puts it best:

For now, here's the bottom line: Fitzgerald didn't charge Scooter Libby with mistakenly making a few unimportant false statements to the grand jury. He charged him with deliberately constructing a false story about how he learned about Valerie Plame, and then repeatedly telling this story to both FBI agents and the grand jury. That story was a lie, and it was a premeditated lie designed to cover up the fact that he had engaged in a long and persistent effort to uncover information about Joe Wilson's wife and disseminate it to reporters.

Libby could have told the truth, but then he would have had to admit his role in outing a CIA agent in order to score political points against a critic of the administration. He didn't want that campaign to become public, so he invented a cover story, repeated it under oath, and stuck to it on multiple occasions.

It's serious stuff.

Will a Rove indictment be necessary to fatally wound Bush for the next 2+ years? Has the public seen enough already to all but consider Rove guilty and a forever-tainted official? Or lacking an indictment, will they eventually forgive & forget, no doubt helped by the tidal wave of brainwashing rhetoric sure to come from the GOP?

With the onset of this in-house turmoil, GW will likely replace existing charlatans with new charlatans. Nothing will change because the deeper problem is at the nexus of power: GW himself. He's not wise and he surrounds himself with these types of bottom-feeding cronies and filthy dirtbags, making it just a matter of time before bad decisions are put forth due to incompetence and laws are broken due to the lack of morals in those chosen to serve.

A fish rots from the head....

No doubt the timing of the Miers announcement (which comes as a shock, NOT) was purposeful, wag-dogging the Fitzgerald indictment announcement, but does it really serve the intended goal? Yes it may drown out the indictment news due to sheer noise and crowding out of newspaper headlines, however my reaction may be the one many Americans experienced. I just shook my head and absorbed (further) the astounding mess this administration has created and sadly forces the country to wallow in.

The bang-bang announcements help to crystallize the obvious realization that the current state of affairs is like an Etch-a-Sketch screen that is bombarded with hundreds of crazy lines: it begs for a vigorous, thorough shaking to clear the screen and start anew. There's really nothing worth saving, nothing meaningful to build on, but instead too much that needs to be erased with enormous amounts of required fixing to occur.

The next decade or two will be all about mending the damage that's been inflicted on the country and getting us back to square one -- if it's not too late already. GW's eight years will go down as the most unproductive and wasteful in the Republic's history.

UPDATE: The day came and went, no Fitzgerald announcement. Was this to be all along or did he wait due to the Miers news? Do we have a cat-and-mouse game in process? Nonetheless, Fitzgerald best be ready for an organized, Swift Boat-ish smear campaign ("criminalization of politics" etc.) the likes of which has not been seen versus a completely decent & fair person.

Needlenose is describing in premise what I supported during Clinton's Monica mess: for Bill to resign and allow Gore two years of on-the-job performance to run on come 2000. Then it was easy to see that post-hearings Clinton would become lame-duckish so what better for the party then to give Gore a substantive running start. In my mind, it would've made all the difference for Gore's chances, allowing not just the image of President to take hold and resonate but also for him to more easily distance himself from Bill's stupid indiscretions.

That said, I'm not sure if I completely agree with Needle's dire warning for the Dems. Yes, it would hoist Condi into a better position to run in '08 but nonetheless she would still have hefty obstacles to overcome. If Bush remains unpopular, it will be very difficult for her to distance herself from his wreck-of-a-legacy (similar to Gore with Clinton/Monica problem), and in this case she was complicit on many of the issues and reasons for why GW's eight years were awful. Is it any wonder why McCain in particular is already creating distance between himself and Bush on the issues? Rice as VP will just make it that much easier for him to run against her. Also, let's be brutally realistic, her other obstacles include she's 1) a woman, 2) African-American, and 3) never married. Those three facts combined with her close association to GW will likely be enough to sink her, esp. versus a popular McCain.

The question is, given the above and assuming she does in fact want to run in '08, will she decline the VP spot if it's offered?

Guess in which red state these fine folks reside.

Kay Baily Hutchinson (R-TX) on Meet The Press yesterday:

"I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars."

Compare the above to her quote years ago about the Clinton impeachment:

"The edifice of American jurisprudence rests on the foundation of the due process of law. The mortar in that foundation is the oath. Those who seek to obstruct justice weaken that foundation, and those who violate the oath would tear the whole structure down. Every day, thousands of citizens in thousands of courtrooms across America are sworn in as jurors, as grand jurors, as witnesses, as defendants. On those oaths rest the due process of law upon which all of our other rights are based. The oath is how we defend ourselves against those who would subvert our system by breaking our laws. There are Americans in jail today because they violated that oath. Others have prevailed at the bar of justice because of that oath. What would we be telling Americans -- and those worldwide who see in America what they can only hope for in their own countries -- if the Senate of the United States were to conclude: The President lied under oath as an element of a scheme to obstruct the due process of law, but we chose to look the other way? I cannot make that choice. I cannot look away. I vote `Guilty' on Article I, Perjury. I vote `Guilty' on Article II, Obstruction of Justice."

Wow, just look at the sheer volume of bloviating she had to convey regarding Clinton, as compared to Rove/Libby.

The level of hypocrisy is both astounding and yet unsurprising.

Jonathan Chait states the obvious:

Bush is mainly interested in harvesting votes from religious conservatives in order to implement an agenda dominated by his economic backers. In liberal-ese: Social conservatives are hapless GOP dupes.

I agree, and have for years. In fact, Bush is playing this hand quite shrewdly. The religious right are indeed zombie-like voters, usually basing their entire rationale on one, maybe two, issues, and that's it. If a candidate is against abortion rights and gay marriage then that person is VERY likely to get their vote no matter what they stand for on anything else. If the candidate also supports anti-environmental measures or the NRA or tax cuts for the extremely rich, well that doesn't matter, it's ignored. What counts are those few issues that would seem to insure that the voter is on the side of Jesus. But as I constantly remind, Bush endorsed pro-choice Specter over pro-life Toomey, i.e. politics before supposed principles.

Again, can you blame Bush? He realizes he can continuously stomp on these folks since they have no alternative. What are they going to do, vote for the Satan-loving Democrat? Behind closed doors, he and Rove simply laugh at the fools -- but thank the Lord they exist! As Chait writes, "With allies like these, Bush doesn’t have much incentive to work harder to reward his social conservative base."

From Harold Meyerson in The Washington Post:

Congress is back in session, and it's gunning for the American poor.

A revolt of House conservatives has persuaded that body's Republican leadership to offset the increased federal spending going to rebuild the Hurricane Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast by reductions in Medicaid, food stamps and other programs for the indigent. If things go according to plan, this week the House will begin to cut $50 billion from those efforts.

The emerging Republican response to Katrina, apparently, is to comfort the drenched poor and afflict the dry.

For a moment last week, it looked as though the Republicans were going to enact across-the-board spending cuts.

That, however, would have meant less money for defense contractors and the highway industry and other contributors to congressional Republicans' campaigns. GOP committee chairmen made that point so forcefully that the idea was scrapped.

The beauty of taking the cuts out of Medicaid and student loan programs, by happy contrast, is that it doesn't reduce the flow of funds to the Republican campaign committees by a single dime.
<..>
What we have here is an ideologically driven dereliction of duty. If the Bush White House had been put in charge of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer and Teller would still be puttering around in the New Mexico desert today.

And it gets worse. The same Republican zealots who demand fiscal responsibility by cutting $50 billion for the indigent sick are now also demanding a new $70 billion in tax cuts, including the permanent repeal of the estate tax, that would chiefly benefit the rich. For a few brief weeks after Katrina, Republicans actually suspended their advocacy of tax cuts, but this onset of sanity came to a shuddering halt once the cameras were removed from the Superdome.

Not that it seems to bother them in the least, but the Republicans' post-Katrina priorities and those of the American public couldn't be more diametrically opposed. Earlier this month, Peter Hart's polling firm asked respondents if they believed cutting Medicaid and like programs by $35 billion (the GOP's targeted cut had not yet risen to $50 billion) and cutting taxes by $70 billion was the right or wrong priority. By a margin of 67 percent to 24 percent, the respondents said it was wrong. And in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week, 48 percent of those questioned said they wanted the Democrats to control the next Congress, while just 39 percent favored the Republicans.

You'd think these figures would give the Republicans pause. Instead, they increasingly act as though they were immune to the laws of political gravity. Republicans have grown so accustomed to winning elections by gerrymandering districts, activating their faithful and attacking Democrats over trumped-up issues that they believe they can survive even major shifts in public sentiment.

Perhaps their obscene hubris stems from their knowing confidence in the tipping point that favors them: the no-paper-trail electronic voting machines; whatever state uses them "miraculously" becomes a red state.

What happened to the uproar and calls for investigating the flaws in these robo-vote-deliverers? Reid? Pelosi? Anyone??

In just the last two evenings, avowed "traditionalist" Bill O'Reilly has had the following topics featured on his TV show: Mexico and illegal immigrants, the Horowitz murder, hurricane Wilma, a high school principal banning a prom, the Minnesota Vikings sex/boat scandal, and John Gibson discussing his "War On Christmas" book. (And of course Bill plugging his "Factor gear," i.e. shilling coffee mugs and doormats at a price).

Do you notice any oddly missing topics of the day? Yeah, right, where's the controversy surrounding DeLay, Rove, Libby, and Frist, not to mention Bush and Cheney? The only item I noticed in the two evenings was when Dick Morris appeared to plug his book. He first commented on illegal immigrants (of course, to O'Reilly the #1 problem facing the country), and then O'Reilly brings up Miers but then when finally referring to Rove/Libby (forget DeLay's recent mugshot, etc.) all he did was in ten seconds time ask Morris for a prediction on indictments. That's it, no discussion, nothing. And then back to plugging Dick's book.

I know, I know, you can't take this guy seriously, who in their right mind would? But that's the sad part, many people do.

And the GOP implosion accelerates.

Those who thought investigations were a wonderful thing when Bill Clinton was president are suddenly facing prosecutors, and they don't like it. It seems like a hundred years ago when Clinton's defenders were accusing his opponents of using special prosecutors, lawsuits, criminal charges and, ultimately, impeachment to overturn the will of the voters.

Clinton's conservative enemies would have none of this. No, they said over and over, the Clinton mess was not about sex but about "perjury and the obstruction of justice" and "the rule of law."

The old conservative talking points are now inoperative.
<..>
These cases portray an administration and a movement that can dish it out, but want to evade responsibility for doing so and can't take it when they are subjected to the same rule book that inconvenienced an earlier president. An editorial in the latest issue of the conservative Weekly Standard is a sign of arguments to come. The editorial complains about the various accusations being leveled against DeLay, Libby, Rove and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and it says that "a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives."

I have great respect for my friends at the Weekly Standard, so I think they'll understand my surprise and wonder over this new conservative concern for the criminalization of politics. A process that was about "the rule of law" when Democrats were in power is suddenly an outrage now that it's Republicans who are being held accountable.
-- E. J. Dionne Jr., 10/18/05

In sum, it's irony and hypocrisy in their most primal, naked state. Period. (And they're the chosen party for followers of Jesus?! Incredible.)

But after all, isn't this always what this version of the GOP has represented? Whether it be supposedly pro-life Bush endorsing pro-choice Specter, or lockem-up-and-throw-away-key Rush Limbaugh doctor shopping for drugs, or supposed free-market Republicans insuring that a prescription bill was passed that blocked price competition, this party for far too long has been about saying one thing and doing another, bilking the distracted public every step of the way.

May the might of justice slam them hard.

I completely agree with this. McCain is offering up more of a GW alternative than anything brewing in the Dem tent. Amazingly, he appears to be more at odds with Bush/Cheney on issues than any potential Dem prez candidate. Yeah, where is Cheney -- but likewise, where the hell is Hillary?

As for Reid, he simply must go. He's been a disaster. Incredibly, he has managed to make Daschle look like DeLay!

It would be bad enough if you simply focused on that absurd filibuster deal he helped orchestrate. Recall where he pledged not to filibuster in exchange for nothing. But then how also do you explain his voting "Ney" for Roberts but indicating to Bush that he's A-OK with Miers? Huh? I am simply stumped as to the logic behind these actions.

I understand any Dems reservations with Roberts, but at least he was on-paper absolutely qualified and although it was difficult to discern his biases on certain issues, we could at least hang some hope on his apparent high-intellect and respectful knowledge of the Constitution. Now turn to Miers, who lacks much of what I just described about Roberts, and worse yet has pledged to GW/Rove (thanks Dobson) that she will overturn Roe/Wade. As opposed to Roberts, Miers is being sent in as a one-purpose-only justice, like a heat-seeking missile and Roe/Wade is the hapless target. Anything else she rules on will likely match the Thomas mode of functioning: plagiarize Scalia.

Yes, Reid either must go or perhaps even better, other figures in the party should compete for the high-profile pulpit, speaking out and behaving in a way that makes he/she the defacto leader. Much like DeLay runs the House even though Hastert is the official stooge in charge.

Regarding the sham 212-210 vote for helping out the profit-laden oil companies with taxpayer money, it would be nice if we discovered what DeLay offered the two Republicans to flip their votes. It took 45 minutes past the deemed time for the vote to close -- so what graft was finally agreed upon in that lengthy time? Reason would dictate it must've been some generous enticing to get the two flippers to say "it's a deal!"

Imagine how many close votes could've been changed under Clinton's eight years if he had a corrupt Congress that was willing to operate as they pleased, defying rules and keeping vote times open until the outcome was finally modified. These are people who respect our government and the Constitution? It's beyond shame.

"Right now, with the Bush administration in meltdown on multiple issues, we're hearing a lot about President Bush's personal failings. But what happened to the commanding figure of yore, the heroic leader in the war on terror? The answer, of course, is that the commanding figure never existed: Mr. Bush is the same man he always was. All the character flaws that are now fodder for late-night humor were fully visible, for those willing to see them, during the 2000 campaign." -- Paul Krugman, 10/14/05

"The conservative standard is clear - when a Democratic President is the target it is about the 'rule of law' and when the 'victim' is a Republican it is about the 'criminalization of politics.' It is particularly rich that Tom DeLay, the relentless pursuer of Clinton, is making this claim." -- Bull Moose

Bloomberg: "In an interview yesterday, [Joseph] Wilson said that once the criminal questions are settled, he and his wife may file a civil lawsuit against Bush, Cheney and others seeking damages for the alleged harm done to Plame's career. If they do so, the current state of the law makes it likely that the suit will be allowed to proceed -- and Bush and Cheney will face questioning under oath -- while they are in office. The reason for that is a unanimous 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit against then-President Bill Clinton could go forward immediately, a decision that was hailed by conservatives at the time."

Beautiful, delicious irony.

So John Fund writes that Dobson was assured Miers would overturn Roe v. Wade. Imagine if under Clinton a similar such arrangement was made for Rev. Jesse Jackson....

"If a senior White House staffer had intentionally outed an American spy during World War II, he'd have been shot. We're at war, George Bush keeps reminding us. We cannot continue with business as usual. A pre-9/11 mentality is deadly. Putting the lives of our troops at risk is treason. Then why is the White House and the Republican party engaged in a concerted campaign to make treason acceptable during a time of war?" -- AMERICAblog

From the Financial Times:

Even among the strongest advocates in Washington of the war in Iraq there is a sense of alarm these days, with harsh criticism directed particularly at the draft constitution, which they see as a betrayal of principles and a recipe for disintegration of the Iraqi state.

Expressions of concern among conservatives and former Iraqi exiles, seen also in the rising disillusionment of the American public, reflect a widening gap with the Bush administration and its claims of “incredible political progress” in Iraq.

Over the past week, two of Washington's most influential conservative think-tanks, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation, held conferences on Iraq where the mood among speakers, including Iraqi officials, was decidedly sombre.

Just more evidence of the rightwing suddenly and miraculously waking up to reality -- the timing coincident with the wheels fast falling of the GW fantasy train. Yup, the implosion continues.

Oh, and more evidence: McCain shrewdly backing positions that are in stark contrast to GW's (recent example: bill against torture). He knows to begin now to create massive distance between what he believes and what the current mess of an administration supports. Any hopeful GOP presidential candidate is going to do likewise, to quite overtly be on the side of issues that oppose GW/Cheney/Rove. It's no-brainer stuff.

I ask, does anyone buy that the wingnuts are truly annoyed that GW selected Miers? I don't. Instead, I believe they're using this latest GW decision to finally jump ship, from one that is sinking mighty fast. GW's poll numbers continue to plummet each week and with indictments mounting many extreme followers have come to the realization that this is as good a time as any to flee association with a certain loser and to start anew.

Ann Coulter recently said on Bill Maher's show that unlike liberals, the rightwing has principles. Hah! The audience erupted into giggles as Maher correctly feigned laughter. What the rightwing does care about more than anything else is winning, getting their way. When signs point to this not happening, they panic, first attacking each other and finally just abandoning their own currently in power. Principles -- yeah, OK.

As I've been predicting since early January, the GOP will implode -- if it hasn't already.