For an interesting study, read conservative and lib side-by-side on DeLay.

Conservative: Dem’s Delight by John Podhoretz in the NYPost
Liberal: Justice Delayed by John Dickerson in Slate

Dickerson scribes ad hominem attacks in Delay’s direction:

“…in a flourish that proves he was a former exterminator and not a lawyer …”

“At the level of personality, he positively oozes meanness …”

Then he uses personal attacks foil to skirt the issue of prosecutor Ronnie Earle’s own highly questionalbe ethics and personality:

[DeLay] then went on to lambaste the Texas prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, repeatedly. He called him an “unabashed partisan zealot” and “fanatic” …

Dickerson doesn’t waste any time rebutting this, since his Slate readers will just accept that DeLay’s the bad guy and Earle’s all right. Podhoretz, on the other hand, gives detail:

Earle was humiliated in 1994 when he sought to drop a case he had brought against Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on the eve of trial just so he could switch judges and give it a second shot — only to see the judge swear in a jury to assure that Hutchison receive a full acquittal.

Some liberals defend Earle on the strange grounds that he isn’t guilty of using his office to play politics because he’s also indicted fellow Democrats. But in the highest-profile case he had before Hutchison, Earle was also humiliated when an absurd bribery charge he had brought against Democratic state Attorney General Jim Mattox led to a quick jury verdict of “not guilty.” He also indicted himself once — on some campaign-finance charge — so there’s some reason to believe he might be a bit cracked.

More importantly, Dickerson just leads his readers through a series of rib-pokers about the GOP, focusing primarily on the Drier-Blunt machinations — which, if anything, showed a disciplined party — so he can conclude that the GOP is still in the hands of the pro-life, pro-family, anti-gay marriage crowd his readers love to hate.

Podhoretz avoids these shallow issues for a more significant question that Dickerson avoids: What will the 2006 and 2008 fallout be? The answer isn’t one readers who like Podhoretz want to hear:

What makes this an especially dangerous time for Republicans is that the party’s troubles — beginning with the president’s falling poll numbers — have come early enough in the 2006 campaign cycle that Democrats might be able to convince a great many decent candidates. Good recruitment was crucial to GOP success in 1994.

It’s unlikely that Democrats will take back the House and Senate. But it’s not impossible, and it’s almost certainly the case that Republicans will remain on the political defensive for some time to come.

A thoughtful, informative analysis vs. an emotional rant that’s about feelings, not informing. Reminds me of Air America vs. its conservative competition.

Footnote: Podhoretz column also has a neat rebuttal of the current Dem line that it only took the GOP 10 years to get corrupted by power, while it took the Dems 50. I heard that presented by Time’s national editor on NPR last night and was struck speechless by the audacity and silliness of the argument.

h/t Real Clear Politics

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Conservative Propaganda has an entertaining write-up on last weekend’s ANSWER-less march on Washington, including fun like this:

Actually, bombing Germany and Japan in WWII did bring about peace quite neatly. And bombing Afghanistan stopped follow-on attacks by Al Qaeda on America from there after September 11. Give bombing a chance, I say. Visualize smart bombs. On Saudi Arabia.

h/t Jim

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There’s a highly accurate 200-year temperature record in Ireland. Here’s what it shows:

In contrast to the highly publicized climate-alarmist claim that the past two decades have experienced unprecedented warmth due to CO2-induced global warming, the Armagh record indicates that “we are not yet beyond the range of normal variability,” to quote its developers. What is more, Butler et al. note that late 20th-century warmth is typically compared to temperatures characteristic of the beginning of the 20th century, when conditions were noticeably cooler, which comparison, in their words, “exaggerate[s] the subsequent warming in the 20th century.”

More here.

h/t Greenie Watch

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If you haven’t pulled up a chair and relaxed a bit in the Bookworm Room, now’s the time to do it. Tomorrow is Bookworm’s first blogiversary and it’s been a year very well spent. She’s marked the occasion with a treat retrospective on her journey toward conservativism.

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Michelle Malkin has posted an email from Barbara Comstock, a former Justice official, that says in part:

According to the indictment, the conspiracy was to unlawfully make a political contribution of corporate funds to a political party within 60 days of an election.

The Texas Election Code clearly states that “A corporation or labor organization may not knowingly make a contribution [to a political party] during a period beginning on the 60th day before the date of a general election for state and county officers and continuing through the day of the election.” Title 15, Texas Election Code, § 253.104. Texas law also states in part that “A person commits criminal conspiracy if, with intent that a felony be committed: (1) he agrees with one or more persons that they or one or more of them engage in conduct that would constitute the offense; and (2) he or one or more of them performs an overt act in pursuance of the agreement.”

The Problems with Earle’s case:

In an effort to contrive jurisdiction over DeLay, Earle charges that because Congressman DeLay may have known about the transaction before it occurred, he was then part of a conspiracy.

However, Earle’s office has sworn testimony and other exculpatory evidence showing that Congressman DeLay did not have knowledge of the transaction.

In addition:

No corporation or labor organization was indicted in this conspiracy. Neither Jim Ellis nor John Colyandro is a corporation or labor organization.

No corporation or labor organization made a contribution during 60 days of an election.

What constitutes a contribution under the Texas Election Code is not strictly defined.

Neither the RNC nor RNSEC constitute a political party under Texas election law. They are considered PACs, just as the DNC is.

Corporations in Texas could have legally made contributions to the RNC or RNSEC during the period in question under Texas election law.

There was no violation of the Texas Election Code. There was no conspiracy. The underlying transaction was legal. Had corporations sent money directly to the RNC or RNSEC, the transaction would be legal. How could anyone conspire to do indirectly what could legally have been done directly?

It sounds to me like Earle went to the Grand Jury seeking much, much more and they shut him down. All he was able to scrape together was this — the table scraps left over when the storied ham sandwhich that could get indicted is all ‘et up.

As usual, Michelle‘s got deep and clear coverage on this, so I don’t care if you click on over there and catch up, if you haven’t been there already, or been there recently — she’s adding updates regularly.

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The next time you take your toddler to Starbucks for a hot chocolate, you may want to ask the barista not to use the cup with “The Way I See It #43″ emblazoned on the side. That’s the one with this quote from Armistead Maupin:

C-SM has been on Starbucks’ case ever since a friend got that cup with his family one evening. Regrettably, Starbucks does not appear to see anything wrong with putting sexual content — that’s sexual content, not homosexual content, I really don’t see any difference in this case — on the side of a cup that is very likely to end up in the hands of a child.

Others do think it’s a bad idea. Interestingly, the opposition to cup #43 is coming from college campuses, as acknowledged by Starbucks in an email to C-SM:

Dear Laer,

No, Starbucks has not removed any of our paper cups. As you may have seen on local news stations some of our kiosks located on college campuses have decided to remove all of our cups with quote # 43.

Thank you for contacting Starbucks. If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact us at info@starbucks.com or call (800) 23-LATTE to speak with a customer relations representative.

Best Regards,
Christine
Customer Relations Representative

Perhaps you’d like to suggest that Starbucks stop foisting sex on customers of all ages who just want a good cup of coffee, hot chocolate or chai, unaccompanied by someone’s comments about his or her sex life. If so, Christine has been kind enough to provide you with her contact information.

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Somebody got to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and taught her how to do it right.

Testifying today, Blanco refused to go tit-for-tat with former FEMA chief Michael Brown. Reports Fox:

But when given the opportunity to again respond to Brown’s scathing statements from a day earlier, Blanco declined.

“Today, I came to talk about job creation,” she told Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

Asked by Sen. James Jeffords, Ind.-Vt., about FEMA’s management of hurricane relief, Blanco replied that an independent commission should be formed to investigate, and “there are lessons to be learned. … We can all work hard.”

Don’t be fooled. Blanco’s not about to let Brown run over her, despite the clear evidence that she botched the emergency response badly. But that’s a battle for another day.

Blanco and her Senators are asking for a big, fat blank check from Congress, a pot o’ gold they’re eager to use for their political … and, given the state’s history, personal … gain. So she is being the model of decorum, so Congress will see her as a worthy recipient of their own politically motivated largess.

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Sen. Pork has announced his intention to run for a record ninth term. Our office’s token Dem went to school in W.Va., and gives this report:

Let the fun begin. Likely challenger will be Shelley Moore Capito, and she is well liked in the Mountain State. And as the population moves more right in their voting trends, this may be a tough battle for Byrd to win. That being said, West Virginians love their peers and with 15% of the State over 65 they may continue their loyalty to the Old Dog.

My senior year, I worked on a Secretary of State campaign in WV, where the campaign manager attacked the age of the front runner (rightfully so as he was literally 90 years old and a former Truman speech writer). At that point the race was virtually neck and neck with our guy down 5 points, 2 months to go. After the attack, we dropped to a distant fourth and received less than 5% of the vote. This may be an indication that Capito can’t win on an age-based (or biased) campaign. One thing for sure is that this will be one midterm to watch.

He’s right about that.

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Delay and obfuscate.

That’s Khalil Dulaimi’s plan for winning Saddam Hussein’s release … or at least forestalling his execution for a bit.

Key strategies, as reported by WashTimes:

• Ask for delays so new documents can be studied
• Claim Saddam had the right to do what he did under the Iraqi constitution (an admission of guilt?)
• Claim the court is illegitimate because the US invasion was illegitimate
• Try to get the case thrown out because non-Iraqi lawyers were prohibited from participating (by the Iraqi constitution, but who cares?)

Dulami reports that Saddam thinks he’ll prevail and be reinstated as Iraq’s leader. Is he laying the groundwork for an insanity defense?

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No sooner than I post the post below on media coverage of Katrina, than I come across this excellent Jennifer Harper piece in WashTimes.

The general in charge of Louisiana’s hurricane relief has admonished reporters not to confuse questions with answers, and urged them to give the public facts — not exaggerations and rumors that several media organizations now say corrupted coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

“Don’t get stuck on stupid, reporters,” Lt. Gen. Russel Honore first told them last week. “We are moving forward. And don’t confuse the people, please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight.”

The article includes this explanation of the media’s poor performance:

“The fog of war and the gusts of a hurricane both cloud and obscure vital truths,” said Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

“What we’re seeing here is no different than the reports of museum looting right after U.S. troops entered Baghdad. It’s not that different from election night 2000 when some journalists prematurely declared a winner. In all three cases, the public would have been served by a bit more patience and less feigned certainty.”

OK, fine. But why don’t they learn? Why doesn’t some hardnosed editor somewhere stop the process and say, “Hey, wait a minute! This is just like Baghdad and Tallahassee. You’d better check those facts before we go with it.”

But why stop the fun? It’s so exciting to report dead babies in coolers, bodies stacked in morgues and endless rapes in the restrooms. It lets reporters be racist for a moment while hiding behind their mantel of cool journalistic objectivity.

It’s no wonder that Gallup finds 49% of the people reporting that the media is unreliable.

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