So there will be a filibuster against the Alito nomination after all. Although it doesn't look like the Democrats have the votes to sustain the gesture, it will be useful, if only to expose the losers in our own party whose "opposition" is a tad insincere. Being a part of a permanent minority can be liberating, and knowing who can be counted on to stand and fight is a good thing, if only to know where our limited resources should be spent in contesting (and defending) Senate seats.

Long Blonde Line Redux: The infamous photo of the SC song girl, which showed her leaping in the air after an apparent Texas touchdown after a goal line stand, is starting to look more and more like a fraud. Biggest problem: neither Longhorn touchdown on that side of the field caused a goal line scrum, as was depicted in the picture. The fallback position may be that it was on the two-point conversion that followed the winning TD, but that only serves to make the poor girl seem less stupid (after all, she's supposed to be getting the fans back in the game, not mourning a loss that hadn't yet happened). [link via LA Observed, which has been on top of the controversy from the start]

Tough Love: It's a testament to the barren irrelevance of the pre-Welch LA Times Op-Ed section*, and Joel Stein's place therein, that it took me two days to find out that this column had even been published, even though I perused the section on the day in question. But now that he's been the target of attacks from the whole gamut of blogospheric punditry, from Malkin to Atrios, it behooves me to argue that Stein's logic is inescapable. Those young men (and women) who volunteer to serve in the U.S. armed forces either have a pretty good idea of what they're getting themselves into, or are willfully blind about the consequences. As Stein wrote:

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.

Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach."

The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.

(snip)

The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.

I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.

But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.

Our volunteer military is not supposed to be an army of mercenaries. They're supposed to be defending the ideals and principles of America, not just the ideological objectives of a cabal of political hacks. Holding people accountable for their actions may be politically incorrect, but it still needs to be done. Stein's demand that we act as if our soldiers have some degree of self-agency is a useful reminder to those who contemplate enlisting in the Armed Forces during the remaining years of the Bush Administration, that they will be sent to fight on missions, like "Operation Iraqi Freedom", that are wholly unconnected to the defense and service of their country. In the long run, his column will save lives.

*Notwithstanding the Times' outstanding Sunday Current section.

If true, this is absolutely lame (and all the more reason why the blogosphere's unwillingness to unceasingly engage in the debate over the Alito nomination, in favor of more trivial concerns last week, was so critical). I don't have much of a megaphone, but I wish I had done more. What he says.

Come to think of it, Lynn Swann is starting to look better and better....

Someone named Peter Daou presents a Grand Unified Theory of Everything, on the topic of why Democrats lose elections. Of the three hypotheses that get trotted out as to why we lose elections (the other two being that conservatism has historically been the fallback ideology that prevails in American elections, or that some dark conspiracy operates to thwart the true will of the electorate), the one trumpeted by Daou, that it’s due to massive brainwashing of the public by the MSM, is the one that I find most frustrating.

Daou writes:

The same holds true for the Swift-boat sliming of Kerry: much has been made of the Kerry campaign's response or lack thereof, but there's another angle less discussed: the story was a cable staple for days and weeks, unchecked. Had the cable nets and other media outlets covered that story with more balance, more dignity, more judiciousness, more responsibility, it would have been a sideshow. And this has nothing to do with deflecting blame - the Kerry campaign should have known that their enemy wasn't a vindictive crackpot like John O'Neill, but the many 'journalists' and media outlets who rammed the story down our collective gullets.

To suggest, as Daou does, that the allegations made by the “Swift Boat Vets” were “unchecked” by the media, including cable news outlets like CNN (the “news network” run by Rupert Murdoch clearly doesn’t operate under the same standards of purported impartiality as its competitors; its useless to whine that its not being fair to liberals, since that its entire reason for existence), is ludicrous. In fact, the media (incl. that noted totem of the loony left, Chris Matthews) went after the story more vigorously and with greater determination than John Kerry did (see here, here, here, here, and here); in fact, it did so more devastatingly than the lefty blogosphere. If you don't like the fact that when the ads first were aired, CNN could do little more than report the controversy, rather than dig up government records discrediting the claims, repeal the First Amendment.

I know Kerry’s defeat is still a bitter pill to swallow, and that his tepid, lackluster response to the sleazebags who alleged that he was a traitor who faked his military heroism still rankles, but the media’s response to the Rove-generated attack ads was almost universally negative. It may have taken a week or two, but the media did its job. The ads ended up hurting Kerry because he refused to fight back during a crucial period, making him look weak even to voters who were skeptical of the SBV claims, while providing ammunition to those who didn’t like him in the first place.

Furthermore, to imply that those allegations were trumpeted in the same obsessive fashion as the Holloway disappearance or the Lewinsky investigation is disingenuous, to say the least (if you don’t believe me, just compare the number of Nightline episodes involving Monica, or the number of Larry King shows about Ms. Holloway, with the number of times either show focused on the SBV’s during the summer of 2004). In August, 2004, the media, presented with a particularly nasty set of ads, as well as a “victim” who seemed reticent about defending himself, gave the story appropriate play, When, after a few reporters performed the hard, arduous work of examining events that occurred some thirty years earlier, it came down heavily against the SBV’s, to devasting effect against those who had so loudly trumpeted their claims.

Media bashing (or, to use the more dignified term, “media criticism”) is cathartic, easy, and provides ambitious bloggers with a convenient scapegoat to kick. But working the ref is no substitute for having a gameplan for winning. Revisionist history is best performed when the principal actors have been dead for a few decades; it ill-behooves us to perform it immediately afterwards, when the record is much easier to check.

Arsenal 2, Wigan 1 [2-2]: Fever Pitch, my ass...The Latics are through to their first-ever Cup Final (albeit the less-prestigious Carling Cup), after upsetting the Gunners on the "away goals" rule. Wigan, which had won the first game in the home-and-home series, 1-0, came back two weeks later to hold mighty Arsenal to a similar result on their home pitch, saving a penalty kick in the process, then fell behind in extra time, only to score in the last minute to secure the "win". They will play either Man United or Blackburn next month in the Final.

It is no surprise to those of us who have followed his career from the outset that John Doolittle (R-CA) has been one of the Congressmen most caught up in the Abramoff imbroglio. To those of you who are just discovering what a frightening little man he is, here's a taste from the early days, when he was just a State Senator.

To summarize, back in 1984, his state senate district having been reapportioned into the ether by the legendary Phillip Burton, Doolittle moved into the district of a moderate Republican incumbent, Ron Johnson. Johnson, sensing the rightward shift of his party, decided to run as an independent, while the Democrats, significantly outnumbered in the district, put up (if that's the right word; the state party was unofficially backing Johnson, and the nominee barely campaigned) a sacrificial lamb.

Trailing in the last weeks of the campaign, Doolittle hit upon a cagey proposition. As the California Fair Political Practices Committee later put it:

Shortly before the election, Doolittle campaign consultant John Feliz coordinated the production of a mass mailer sent on behalf of Doolittle's Democratic opponent, Jack Hornsby. The consulting services of Feliz and a Doolittle fundraiser, Jim Grubbs, along with 60,000 mailing labels, were contributed by the Friends of John Doolittle Committee to the Friends of Jack Hornsby Committee. The mailer was sent to Democratic households as a tactic to bring Democratic candidate Hornsby into the three-way race with Doolittle and former state Senator Ray Johnson, thus pulling votes away from Johnson to Hornsby for the benefit of Doolittle.

Doolittle ended up winning the election by an eyelash, paid a token fine for his lack of ethics, and has slimed his way to bigger and better things ever since. As with the early career of Richard Nixon, whose campaigns against Jerry Voorhis and Helen Douglas portended even more egregious acts later in life, Doolittle's lack of anything that even remotely resembled an ethical core was evident from the start.

Another perspective on the first six seed to reach the Super Bowl:

Local Boy Makes Good: Congrats, Mr. Welch, on a long-overdue position with the Local Paper of Record !!!

Wouldn't it be nice if lefty bloggers cared as much about the possible confirmation in the next week or two of Samuel Alito, as they do about their hurt feelings generated by a newspaper ombudsman's error? That the question even needs to be asked shows how unready we are to wield power in any positive way.

It's a test of priorities, of what is important and what is trivial, and we're failing it badly. "Working the ref" is something a coach does when his team has the talent to play competitively, and a little bit of verbal bullying on the margins might make a difference. Liberals aren't at that stage yet, even if we can successfully mau-mau the Washington Post into seeing things our way on the tangential issue of Jack Abramoff, his lobbying, and the highly disingenuous qualifier about whether he personally gave money to Democrats (bloggers' spin), merely directed tribes to toss them a dime (Post's spin), or convinced them to give less money to Democrats, without cutting them out (the truth).

What's really important is the corrupting influence of money in political campaigns, something that has been known to afflict a Democrat or two. Bullying newspapers into pretending that Abramoff's style of crookedness is some kind of uniquely conservative ailment, encoded in the genetic structure of Republicans, kills any effort to address that problem. To that end, real liberals back public financing of campaigns, a policy that the bloggers obsessed with Deborah Howell don't seem to care about.

Partisan media criticism is not an inevitable direction for blogs to take; witness the success of substantive bloggers like Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum, or the community building/organizing at Daily Kos. The fact that writing hate mail to newspapers seems to be the popular fad among liberal bloggers nowadays is a cancerous trend, which we must overcome to be worthy of power, in 2006 and thereafter.

LXXXI: There's something about 81 points in a game that concentrates the mind. Like Wilt in the early-60's, Kobe has to play the role of a one-man team, and last night, his heroics were forced in large part by the fact that the Lakers had to overcome an 18-point second half deficit against one of the worst teams in basketball. If he stays healthy and keeps clear of the roadskanks, breaking Chamberlain's single-game scoring record is within the realm of possibility, something I never thought I'd be contemplating.

Over two million people filed bankruptcy in 2005, a 32% jump from the year before, or approximately a half million more filers than in 2004. That's a nice round number, a half million: the number of people who filed the week before YBK last October was just over a half million. Chapter 7 filings were up almost 50% from the year before; about one in 53 households filed for bankruptcy protection in 2005.

At least one Democratic Senator is going to have to face a strong primary challenge this year, but it's not (yet) the one you're thinking of. In Hawaii, Representative Ed Case has tossed his lei into the ring in an effort to unseat the 81-year old incumbent, Daniel Akaka. With a popular GOP incumbent governor, having two octogenarian Senators is increasingly risky for the Democrats, putting at risk any chance the party might have of recapturing (and keeping control of) the U.S. Senate over the next four years.

Case, however, is from the Lieberman "New Democrat" school, with an ambitious streak to boot; after running (and losing) a run for governor in 2002, he won a special election to fill the seat of the late Patsy Mink in 2004, defeating her widower. Having him replace the dependable liberal stalwart Akaka (who himself was appointed to replace a deceased Senator, Spark Matsunaga, in 1990) would be a bitter pill to swallow. Chalk it up to the perils of gerontocracy.

Cuba, si !!! Reversing course, the Bush Administration has o.k.'ed the participation of Cuba in the upcoming World Baseball Championship. Now, the big question is whether Japan will send a real team....

Trivial Pursuits? I know it's not as important as, say, the Washington Post ombudsman deciding not to respond to LGF-style spamming from lefty bloggers, but it appears the battle may finally be joined in the Alito nomination:

A procession of Democratic senators, including two who supported the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., said yesterday that they will oppose the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court. They warned that he would not provide a judicial check against the expansion of presidential power or be properly vigilant about protecting the rights of ordinary Americans.

The mounting Democratic opposition underscored the sharp partisan divide that has developed over Alito's nomination, after Roberts was confirmed with 78 votes and solid bipartisan support. But although Democrats appear increasingly united in their opposition to Alito, they remain divided over whether to pursue a filibuster against the nomination.

A filibuster is increasingly less likely, Democratic strategists say, despite pressure from some liberal interest groups for Democrats to keep the option alive. But Democrats are more united in their desire to seek an extended floor debate over Alito -- even as they acknowledge that his confirmation is virtually assured -- because they believe polling shows that the more the American people learn about Alito's record and writings on civil liberties and other subjects, the more they will oppose his addition to the high court.

The newly announced opponents included Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.); Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee; Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the Democratic whip; and Sen. Ken Salazar (Colo.). Leahy and Salazar had voted in favor of Roberts. On Wednesday, Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), another Roberts backer, said he will oppose Alito.

Baucus' opposition is a pleasant surprise, indicating that it will be very hard for Strip Search Sammy to reach 60 votes. Regardless of what anyone is saying now, once a filibuster (or, shall I say, "extended floor debate") is started on the Senate floor, all bets are off. No Democrat is going to want to be the one who effectively ends Choice by voting for cloture.

Our long national nightmare? It's so over !!! After seven years and $21 million, the inquiry into whether former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros did something horrible enough to justify spending $21 million, Independent Prosecutor David M. Barrett has finally called it a day:

Mr. Barrett began his investigation with the narrower issue of whether Mr. Cisneros lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he was being considered for the cabinet position. He ended his inquiry accusing the Clinton administration of a possible cover-up.

His report says Justice Department officials refused to grant him the broad jurisdiction he wanted; for example, Attorney General Janet Reno said he could look at only one tax year. And after Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington took a Cisneros investigation out of the hands of district-level officials in Texas, the agency deemed the evidence too weak to merit a criminal inquiry, a conclusion strongly disputed by one Texas investigator.

Former officials of the Justice Department and the I.R.S. dismissed Mr. Barrett's conclusions in appendices attached to the report, saying the findings were the product of an inquiry that was incompetently managed from the start.

After being indicted on 18 felony counts, Mr. Cisneros pleaded guilty in 1999 to a misdemeanor charge of lying to investigators. He was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Barrett kept his office open more than six years after the law that created the independent counsel system was allowed to die. Lawmakers in both parties had wearied of the many inquiries that had failed to achieve the goal of removing political influence from criminal investigations of administration officials.

BTW, the "lie" Cisneros told to FBI investigators during a background check was not whether he paid off a blackmailing mistress, but the exact amount. Needless to say, it was well under the amount spent to investigate him; the entire debacle arose out of the bitter relationship between President Clinton and then-FBI chief Louis Freeh, whose obsession with the President on this and other matters inevitably hampered his agency's ability to handle somewhat more arcane matters, such as fighting terrorism.

Reading between the lines, it seems Mr. Barrett didn't have the goods on the "tax evasion" charge either, hence the obligatory attack on Clinton, Reno, etc., in his final report. In the words of a Justice Department attorney quoted in the article, it was "a fitting conclusion to one of the most embarrassingly incompetent and wasteful episodes in the history of American law enforcement."

So what was the point again? Three months later, we are beginning to see some trends:

Three months after a new bankruptcy law took effect, the overwhelming majority of debtors seen by credit counseling agencies are filing for bankruptcy instead of using repayment plans envisioned by the law's supporters.

The law requires debtors to see credit counselors before they file for bankruptcy protection. It is a prerequisite that banks and credit card issuers hoped would steer consumers away from bankruptcy court and into plans that would allow them to repay debts over a few years.

But so far, that is not happening.

The counseling agencies say most debtors are in such deep financial trouble that they cannot qualify for a debt-management plan.

"Typically, consumers are too far gone when they get to us," said Ivan L. Hand Jr., president and chief executive of Money Management International Inc. (MMI), the nation's largest credit-counseling organization.

(snip)

The pre-bankruptcy credit-counseling requirement was initiated by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) during the 10-year battle to enact a new law. He said in a recent interview that it was "disappointing" to learn that so few consumers have signed up for a debt-management plan. He said he intends to monitor the law's progress and was "not prepared to give up on this."

This bears out what I've been seeing as well. I have yet to see the mandated credit counseling do anything more than confirm the debtor's first instinct: that he needs to file bankruptcy pronto. All that's changed was the time and paperwork...and the explosion in filings engendered by the pre-YBK panic in October.

It's one thing to constantly rehash a bad call that costs your team a game, but to act like a whiny-ass bitch over a bad call in a game your team won is pathetic. C'mon, it didn't affect the outcome of the game, unlike the bad call last week in Tampa, where a game-tying fourth quarter Bucs TD was ruled incomplete. The Steelers still won, by the same margin they likely would have won by had the interception stood (assuming the Colts would have picked up a concession touchdown at the end); unless you had some weird teaser action, it didn't mean anything even if you had your house and car wagered on the game. So who the f*** cares?

Yet there has been more complaining, by the winning team and the media, about an unimportant call that ultimately meant nothing than there was by the losing team, last fortnight, over two botched calls in the Rose Bowl that actually decided the national championship (Young's forward lateral whilst on his knee in the second quarter, and a Polamaluesque catch/fumble by Texas early in the fourth), both of which were even worse than the call on Sunday. The first bad call gave Texas a gift touchdown, the second prevented SC from blowing the game wide open, but both plays were forgotten in the afterglow of the memorable comeback win by the Longhorns.

Memo to the Steelers: if you're going to restart the habit of winning big games again, try showing some class in victory.

Don't Mess with Texas: Last month, over 15% of the new foreclosures nationwide were in the Lone Star State. One out of every 631 households are in some stage of the foreclosure process in Texas, encompassing 12,753 homes, and the numbers rose 61% for the month of December. In comparison, California, which also saw a significant jump in December, reported only 7,674 homes in foreclosure. Other states joining Texas at the bottom of the heap are Utah, Indiana and Ohio, which regular readers of this site know have also seen the smallest increase in property values over the last five years, as well as the highest bankruptcy rates.