Five For Friday

Good place to park the OT on Souter!
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I'm thinking Sotomayor. Best pick politically, plus, Bammer will have other chances later.

I think Mark Halperin is a complete idiot. He should go work for Sean, Hannity, Bill, Hew, or apply for his dream job with Rush and get over with already.

I want to know if Halperin will be sanctioned for openly courting a Drudge link with his headline in subversion of just about any journalistic value his post would have otherwise had.

Brooks at his best:
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Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today's top child-performers.
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He's heard the recordings, I guess.
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In fact, neither talent nor practice are sufficient for high achievement. You need both. The former is innate. Typical Brooksian inanity.

How about a bet on the number days it will take Mark to declare this a victory for the republican party.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor
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I'll be shocked if it is anybody else. There's only one woman in the current court, no Hispanics. Picking a woman gives Obama a shot at peeling Collins and Snowe off for a cloture vote.

I have to comment on the Bulls/Celtics series. What an absolute joy to watch.
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I love sports because it's the only truly unpredictable entertainment. You can see how much these athletes want this and how hard they're willing to play to get it.
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Ray Allen, what can you say about the guy...I think 51 points in 58 minutes and walked off the court with his head down because he didn't do more.
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Brad Miller gets a chance at redemption and takes it, Salmons steps up to make a name for himself and Joakim Noah makes a huge play that brought me out of my recliner.
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Can't wait for Game 7! And especially can't wait for Sunday and my Mavericks!*
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*Not associated with the real "Maverick" John McCain.

Michael Scherer:
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One of the most important questions of our political time --the appointment of a lifetime tenured magistrate possessed with the power to determine the constitutionality of the legislature's laws and the executive's actions-- is reduced to a football pool by the perpetually bored, indescribably shallow and fidgety narcissists the national political press corps.
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At some point, an administration won't rely on the voluntary cooperation of the corporate press to suppress evidence contradicting their case for war, and the state will invoke some secrecy power of some sort given to them by the compliant, venal legislature, and perhaps torture a secretly detained journalist to find out with whom (perhaps foreign agents?) he has shared such information as he may or may not have.
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When the case of such detention comes before the Supreme Court, and the Justices rule by slim majority that First Amendment rights are subordinate to the executive's Article I authority to protect the country by any means, I'll be happy to mass email the pro-journalist community the link you've helpfully provided to Mark Halperin's gleeful profanity, along with my sincere condolences.
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Is there nothing that people like Halperin can't corrupt into a tedious, ritualized horse race for the sake of satisfying the Beltway press corps' desperation for amusement?

Sorry...sigh...I left out a Roman "I".

That's "the executive's Article II authority", obviously...

What Mr Ackroyd said. Also makes it dicey for Mel Martinez (don't want to hand the state Dems an issue, and he may not be much inclined to cater to the crazies anymore), John Kyl, even McCain and Kay Bailey H. to filibuster. I have no doubt that it will be ugly, but I don't think they can filibuster Sotomayor.
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Oh, and would that this were the most important consideration: She seems to be a damned impressive candidate.

Mikey;
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You forgot to mention your colleage Mark Halperin proving that Matt Drudge no longer rules his world -- now it's Jesse Helms that rules his world!
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Lest we forget...

Here is the thing about any Supreme Ct justice Obama puts forth, they had better be well vetted on personal issues. I don't care how impressive their judicial bonafides are my bet is that the GOP will go after them on a personal level. That means they better not have any tax issues or any personal failings like drug use or illicit sex. That is the state of the Republican party folks and when it comes down to it that will tell the tale of how the confirmation goes no matter who it is. They won't focus on how the nominee has performed professionally in the past because its almost a given that Obama will nominate someone emminently qualified. But if they can find any chink in the armor in the nominees personal life we will hear about it early and often. Conservative groups are already out with statements about "leftist activist judges" without a name even being put forth yet so it will only get worse once there is a nominee.

Halperin's probably still cranky about this
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"Mark Halperin's 100 Days grade for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: B- Mark Halperin's grade for thinking Pelosi's job title is "House Majority Leader": any ideas?..."

In other sports new:

Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said Friday that efforts to tinker with the BCS are bound to fail. He told a House hearing that the BCS is like communism and can't be fixed.

Barton has introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from labeling a game a national championship unless it's the outcome of a playoff system.

Here's a question:
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Is Mark Halperin's "White Men Need Not Apply" piece the stupidest thing he's ever written?
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I know there are a lot of strong contenders there, given the mass of mouth-breathing retardery he's been responsible for, but this one just might take the cake.
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Yes, Mark. White men need not apply for the Supreme Court. Other than the seven white men who are currently on the nine-person court, they just can't get a break.

"Journalists celebrate the death of another leak case."

Actually, you'll be hard pressed to find any journalist other than Jeffrey Goldberg who speaks badly about the "AIPAC" leak case. This is remarkable considering the conduct that was prosecuted is the same as done hundreds of times a day by journalists.

I would imagine the reticence is because journalists, especially Jewish journalists, don't want to take sides with AIPAC.

Pretty funny, if you think about it. Journalists (happily) are happy to condemn the injustice of torture even though its recipients were alleged terrorists. But they won't condemn a clearly overreaching justice department because its victim was AIPAC employees.

Ruling the world isn't what it used to be . . .

If I was betting I'd bet on Kagan or Wood. And they'd be fine. But I'm hoping he looks at names beyond the usual ones - especially at Pam Karlan and Amy Klobouchar.

Et al,
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I think he can afford to go with Sotomayor, given he will have another shot or two later at appointing another justice.
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Points taken, Jayack, I wonder if there are any possible controversies floating around they could grab hold of?
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I think that should the GOP get too obstructive, the Dems can certainly put the GOP in the position they were in when Roberts was appointed. We are in a much better position to make it stick than they were then, too.
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On the "White Men..." thing that Halperin put up, he wouldn't dare blog here, would he? He'd get ripped and I'm not talking physical fitness.
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He should at least have the guts to start his own blog so he can feel pain whenever he pulls a stupid like this.

On the "White Men..." thing that Halperin put up, he wouldn't dare blog here, would he?
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No chance. As far as he's concerned, the only opinion that matters is that of his One True Love, Matt Drudge.
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I will never, ever understand the allure that Drudge holds for beltway media types. Is it the D-grade website design? The moronic fedora he wears? Or that he, like most of them, has the IQ of a grapefruit?
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I think I just answered my question, actually.

Really mrein?
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How about Spencer Ackerman who is also Jewish?
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http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/05/01/help-me-shonda/
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Or maybe Ron Kampeas
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http://jta.org/news/article/2009/05/01/1004827/case-against-ex-aipac-staffers-dropped
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I guess we wouldn't be as hard pressed as you think. And I bet you Mike Goldfarb will have a post up slamming the overreach soon at the weekly standard as well.

I too came here to comment on Halperin's headline, perhaps the most despicably tendentious headline I've seen in a large media outlet in years.

Excluding Hispanics, white men represent approximately 33% of the current U.S. population.

Non-Hispanic white men represent 40% of the Obama cabinet, not counting Joe Biden. They represent 67% of the current U.S. Supreme Court. They represent 97% of all U.S. Presidents and 100% of all U.S. Vice Presidents. They represent 79% of the U.S. Senate.

Fat chance we'll ever hear a gripe from Halperin about any of that. And, yeah, I'm a white guy. But tendentious garbage is tendentious garbage, regardless of race.

Halperin just hung that shingle out there, without any refernce whatsoever to it in any story he wrote.
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Wasn't there a breakdown by ethnicity of Obama's staff a couple weeks ago that pretty much disproved the notion that Obama wasn't any more pro-Black than he is anit-White? As I remember, only 7% of his staff is Black, and I don't remember the others.
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Of course, the nonwhite population of the US is something over 30%:
http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhwhite.html
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But, let's not make Halperin pay any attention to facts should we? It'll homogonize whatever grey matter he has left.

bcamarda was a step ahead of me...

re: dropping the AIPAC case --
correct me if I'm wrong, but when the bad guys are muslims, the government appeals rulings that go against them to higher courts -- all the way up to the Supreme court. Were the bad decisions regarding evidence and testimony made by a (apparently) compromised judge appealed to the fullest extent possible? (i.e. if this was someone who was working for al Qaeda, rather than AIPAC, would the government have rolled over quite so easily?)

Mark Halperin's headline is irresponsible, sensationalistic and just plain sleazy. This kind of thing belongs in a tabloid or on a white power website, not in a supposedly respectable news magazine. Has Matt Drudge completely warped your world view? Using a stock photo of a "white man" to illustrate an article about potential Supreme Court nominees? That's a NY Post stunt, not a news analysis. I'm disgusted and appalled that this kind of fear-mongering and race-baiting would even be considered, let alone published. What are you thinking.