1.Kitt selectively quotes me, thus:

@Mr. Versen

Why?

"Senate Democrats must commit themselves to blocking any and all nominees until Bush nominates someone whose independence and integrity are beyond reproach."-GG

Really? Why?

You are usually a perceptive writer, Mr Greenwald, but I'm afraid you've been sipping the koolaid in this instance.

-- Jonathan Versen

I'm getting the impression that some commenters think it would be impressive - just for the sake of of being impressive - to disagree or call out Glenn Greenwald.

Mr. Versen's post is meaningless. There is nothing to reply to in it.

2. There is "nothing to reply to" because of your removing the middle of my comment:

"Really? Why? They rolled over for 2 SCOTUS appointments, they rolled over for defunding the war, then they rolled over for vastly increased executive snooping powers. If the democrats then choose to fight over Gonzales' replacement, what will that prove besides their hypocrisy?

Are you advocating that the dems behave like a loudmouthed impotent drunk who only starts screaming "let me at him" once he has two friends are holding him back?"

2B. Either you did this innocently, or you meant to misrepresent what I wrote. Given the lack of elipses,I'm inclined to believe the latter.

2C. Sometimes I look at things I've written and regret having been excessively wordy, and it's possible that in the previous comment I erred in the other direction. Also, I think I should've written

"...but I'm afraid you missed the mark in this instance."

instead of the koolaid remark. Sorry about that, G.

2D. and I should've fixed a minor typo.

3.To clarify: another reason I think Dems shouldn't necessarily come out swinging with respect to the unknown AG nominee, aside from it serving to make them look foolish and disingenuous insofar as they've otherwise been buckling left and right on weightier matters, is because they're likely to get Harriet Miered again, to coin an inelegant phrase.

Miers was clearly set forth as a deliberately underqualified sacrificial lamb for the SCOTUS nom in October of 2005. This I accurately predicted at HZ, as did Salon commenter Sue Voelkel, that the democrats might take her down, then fear looking unduly bitchy in objecting to her replacement, and get rolled again.

As I recall, Miers withdrew her nomination on a Thursday evening and her replacement was announced the following Monday morning.

Get ready for the same play, even if the guy with the playbook went home.

Bjørn Lomborg's argument, at least in its broad outline, makes a great deal of intuitive sense. It stands to reason that global warming is in fact a legitimate phenomenon, and that the real arguments should be focused on the specifics, of which policies we should be pursuing to adress it, and to what degree.

As far as whether or not Al Gore is in fact exaggerating, I recognize that I don't have the expertise to honestly evaluate that. (Of course, my impression is that Lomborg doesn't either.)

Nevertheless, I think the real problem with the question of whether or not persons at the Gore side of the debate are exaggerating is the frustrating fact that in our country we have a certain right-wing, busybody contingent who insist on moving the goalposts with nonsensical assertions about virtually any policy debate that displeases them, whether it's stem-cell research or funding sex-ed in 3rd world countries-- or global warming.

I strongly suspect that their (utterly undeserved) presence in the global warming debate, shifting the subject to whether or not it was caused by man(irrelevant if it's a pressing and fixable problem) or if it even IS occurring at all(?!!) is a big part of why the other end of the spectrum seems "extreme" in the first place.

Scherer hints at this, but I wonder if Giuliani and Romney, et al will attack him for his dilettantism in having stayed on the sidelines for so long, while the rest of the gaggle were slugging it out in the debates.

Of course many people in their target audience might not know what that word means, so they can probably just accuse him of being a gutless weenie.

I don't think you have to lionize Reagan as a "secret liberal" to see that he was a less dangerous president than GWB. Reagan was willing to de-escalate the rhetoric and actually talk with the Soviets after demonizing them as the evil empire, when he saw they were willing to enter into meaningful negotiations.

By contrast, Bush,jr has repudiated Iran, even after they've made overtures that they'd be willing to negotiate-- while he hasn't threatened North Korea, perhaps because they already had nukes.

And just what lesson do foreign powers glean from this when dealing with George Bush's America?

ole boy must know that states have to honor contracts drawn in other states. isn't marriage a contract? and wouldn't a valid contract in one state also make affiliated contracts, like health insurance agreements, contracts that other states must honor? Is he then proposing an ammendment that would invalidate marriage contracts across state lines AND any other contracts people may be eligible to enter into as a consequence of being married?

What if, at some distant point in the future when the tax laws are different, this meant the IRS would lose revenue when married couples moved to state X and lost their marriage status? Could the IRS sue the state for the lost revenue?

and why do these gop goofballs care so much about gay marriage?

what if gays just promised to stop kissing in front of teevee news cameramen doing stories about gay marriage? wouldn't that be a hell of a lot easier than amending the constitution to placate these muttonheads?

aren't hypothetical questions fun?