Goodness. Mr. Gonzalez is obviously a fine legal talent in his own right. Former Texas Supreme Court Justice, Former White House Counsel, Former US Attorney General. I suspect he could not find a better lawyer than himself and should therefore elect to represent himself pro se.

And then let him file an appeal predicated on ineffective assistance of counsel.

Why not just automatically enshrine every former commissioner and dead team owner after a certain number of years? That's what they seem to be doing via ballot anyway. The Hall is getting to be more and more like Lake Woebegone every year, insomuch as they believe everyone's above average.

Paranoia is now striking deep into the heart of Bushworld.

Clearly, everyone is out to get W, from the Democrats (of course), to the MSM, to that hot-bed of pinko softies, the CIA.

So if I understand the E-man correctly, when in doubt about whether a country has nukes or not or might get them or not, we should just bomb 'em all back to the stone age. You know: "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out." (Forget for a moment -- PLEASE -- that NK has the Bomb, and missles to deliver it.)

Look. We all know that the NIE isn't gospel. Note the last letter. It stands for ESTIMATE. It's what the intelligence community's best guess is about the situation.

And, anticipating the argument, I understand that an often effective part of diplomacy is the implication that we have a stick to go with our carrot. I think TR had it right, however, when he said WALK SOFTLY and carry that big stick. W and his cohorts instead holler and stomp and overtly threaten everyone around with their stick (which thanks to their idiocy in Iraq isn't quite big enough to be much use against a country as large as Iran anyway).

I keep hearing George Costanza upon being called to account for having sex with the cleaning lady at work. "Was that wrong of me?" Of course, had he only known that that was frowned upon, he wouldn't have done it.

Had the CIA only known that there was a policy in place that they shouldn't just destroy stuff when Congress was investigating it, they surely wouldn't have done that. But Myers only said she didn't think they should destroy it, which is different, and -- you know -- they don't really have any of their own lawyers at the CIA.

To clarify dawninnm's reference to the Zorn blog quote.

Planned Parenthood indicated that they asked Obama and others to vote present, instead of their expected no, to give cover to reps who felt pressured to vote yes so that they could also vote present. Legislatively, that would mean a drop in the number of yes votes, which means the measure would fail.

The sausage making here in Illinois can be particularly messy. It really is better not to watch, sometimes.

Of COURSE this matter was debated at the top of the WH food chain. Nothing gets done in this administration without direct approval from Bush or (more likely) Cheney. These guys are world-class control freaks, as evidenced by the very very few who've ever gone "off the reservation." (And you can understand why so few do when you see what happens to those unlucky few, eg Paul O'Neill.)

Remind me again why it was so great that Democrats regained control of both houses of congress.

Pelosi is barely competent on her best days, while Reid could only hope to be that "good". Meanwhile: the administration is still torturing people in our name; we're still bogged down with a failed strategy in Iraq, with more money flowing down that sinkhole every day; and now we've gone backwards (in terms of percentage of coverage) on SCHIP.

That, of course, is barely the tip of the iceberg, but to list them all is just too depressing during what's supposed to be a joyful season.

In the words of Charlie Brown, aaaaarrrrgghhh.

New World Order? Hey, if Ministry is behind this guy, maybe he's ok after all. We could use a little more industrial metal on the campaign trail.

Sorry. It's been a long day.

Dallas? Uh, King, gotta map?

I agree that this was one of the coolest things in sport over the last few years. But that coolness was at least as much about the novelty of the whole thing. As King notes, as actual hockey, the game wasn't much. Also contributing to the coolness, the perfection of the weather and the rabid nature of Sabres fans.

I'm not sure that an annual reprise -- particularly in cities like Dallas (again, DALLAS?!) -- is a good idea. If you do stay with an annual event, I say keep it in Buffalo, though maybe a better idea would be to alternate it among the Original Six cities, along with Buffalo.

PS: while we're retiring the 72 Dolphins, can somebody swing by Chicago and help us rid ourselves of the 85 Bears?