There are two sad things about the ruling by the Supreme Court. The first is that it took so long to get here. Should people be taken prisoner at the whim of the administration, held for as long as the administration decides without any charges being preferred, and then tried when the administration feels the need, using rules that they themselves established? Most thinking people long ago decided that this was unreasonable, that the Bush Administration's protestations that we should "trust them" to do the right thing, "trust them" that these are terrorists (without providing any proof whatsoever), were absurd on their face. It is sad that it took so long, against such staunch opposition, to reach this fairly obvious conclusion.

The other sad thing is that the three justices on the court who most profess "original intent," who claim to be conservatives in the clearest definition of the word--concerned with "conserving" the "true" meaning of the Constitution--are the ones who voted against the Bush Administration's huge reach for unfettered executive power and attempt to unbalance the checks and balances on which our nation was founded. I find it hard to believe that Madison, or Jefferson, or Hamilton would have felt this vast expansion of Exectuvie power to be within the "original intent" of their classic document. It saddens me immensely that Alito, Thomas, and Scalia disagree. Radicals, possibly; certainly not conservatives. (Of course Scalia has demonstrated many times his willingness to toss out his principles in order to grind a personal axe, such as his dissent on the homosexual ruling, or his judgement in Bush v. Gore.)

Other than that, perhaps at last the tide has turned, and we can regain our national honor, and at least some of the international respect and admiration that this administration has frittered away.

Actually, Bush isn't "famously loyal;" he famously demands loyalty. For those who give him that loyalty, completely and utterly, he defends their incompetence in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (witness the fact that Rumsfeld is still Secretary of Defense). For those that break with him in even the smallest way, he cuts them loose without a tear.

Condi is extremely loyal; my guess is, should Bush want her to go, he will wait until she volunteers, a la Myers for the Supreme Court, to go "for the good of the country." After which, she will be awarded the medal of freedom, have an oil tanker named after her, and get $20,000 a pop speaking fees. (Oh, wait; she already has an oil tanker named after her.)

Other than that, unless she commits the blunder of speaking ill of her boss (and what is the liklihood of that?), she is safe.

Michael Scherer writes, "When you face the American people, sooner or later, they are going to figure out who you really are."

Unfortunately, and to the woe of this country, all too often those realizations occur far too late. Let us hope that the notoriously short memories of Americans in the political realm don't extend to this faux-country, fake Bubba, lest we elect yet another bully to the Oval Office.

I started reading this article thinking, "Hm; this doesn't sound too unlike me. I wonder what Ms. Davis has to say about this."

But then I read that there had been "a short-lived whirlwind of media activity examining the crisis in American camaraderie." I read the media obsessively (albiet via the internet); how had I missed this "whirlwind?" Odd.

And then I read about someone who used to be a computer consultant on Wall Street. And about how the consultant now spends his time with his therapist "telling her about what I was doing that week." And about another person who moved from Brooklyn to upstate New York. And suddenly suspicious, I scrolled to the end of the article and read: "Lisa Selin Davis is the author of the novel Belly and a freelance writer in New York."

Mm-hm.

There may be something in this "voluntary lonliness" idea, but I have to admit to a lot of skepticism when the examples are all from New York, an area that has (shall we say) a tendency to view itself as the center of the world. Like the whole "metrosexual" thing a couple of years ago--which never reached Austin or, as near as I could tell at the time, anyplace outside of the Northeast and London--this appears to be one of those "media whirlwind" phenomenons that is happening in the Northeastern media but nowhere else, so far as I can see.

I hate to be so cynical, but when I get halfway through an article and start thinking, "Hey, I bet this writer lives in New York," and turn out to be correct, I figure I can't be too far off the mark.

So the question--now that Allen's campaign has given us the latest spin--is clear: Is Allen a racist, Confederacy-promoting, bullying, faux-country, insulting, abusive asshole? Or is he merely a Confederacy-promoting, bullying, faux-country, insulting, abusive asshole?

Virginia voters: you decide!