Surprise Pick For SCOTUS?

Confirm Them, one of the top blogs specializing in judicial appointments, speculates that the nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor will surprise everyone (except those who have read their post or who read the journal First Things).

Confirm Them says that they think the pick will be Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law. Glendon would be a great selection except she's 66 yrs old and may not have the longevity on the Court that most conservatives are hoping the next Justice will have.

Even so, it'd be fun to see how the Democrats handle a Glendon nomination, and it'd be very interesting to see how the Jim Wallis wing of the Christian left would react to it.

You can check out her biography here.

See No Evil

No relationship between Saddam and bin Laden, you say? That's not what ABC News was telling us five years ago. To see what this major news source had to say on the matter of Saddam's support for terrorists, particularly bin Laden, go here and follow the link to ABC News video.

It is more than a little strange that everybody in the world seemed to know that Saddam was in bed with the worst killers of the decade up until George Bush used that knowledge as one of the reasons for launching OIF. Then a lot of folks on the Left suddenly contracted amnesia and took up the chant, Bush lied, people died. Apparently, a lie is when a conservative utters something that a liberal believes up until the conservative says it. At that point it becomes a lie.

Republicans Want to Kill Us!

CNN's Paul Begala actually seems to insist in a speech that Republicans want to kill Americans. Either that or the poor mope just can't get his pronouns and antecedents to agree:

"I was driving past the Pentagon when that plane hit" on Sept. 11, 2001. "I had friends on that plane; this is deadly serious to me," Begala said.

"They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit," Begala said. "That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that."

Like so many of his ideological compatriots, his anti-Bush animosity has driven him to incoherent ranting like a man suffering from malarial delirium. Somebody should rush some cold compresses to his fevered brow.

Maybe, however, Begala is just muttering nonsense, as is his habit. Perhaps he doesn't really believe what his words affirm. Of course, if that's the case, then like so many of his ideological compatriots, Begala must hold in very low esteem the commandment against bearing false witness.

Parenthetically, why is it that when there is a tragedy of some sort people feel the need to somehow make it all about themselves? So Begala was driving past the Pentagon on 9/11, does that give him some special insight or make him worthy of a merit badge? After the events of that day people could sometimes be heard declaiming that they knew someone who was killed in the WTT and then to go on to speak as if that circumstance gave their opinions on the matter some special weight or conferred upon their person some special distinction. They sought to identify themselves with the victims, perhaps so that the cachet of victimhood would attach to themselves and they would be entitled to our compassion.

The attempt, however, to elevate or promote oneself by drawing attention to some irrelevant and tenuous connection to events or people who really do deserve our sympathies is nothing more than a crass expression of personal vanity. Begala's example is far from unique but no less off-putting for that.