Karl Rove, Please accept my apology

For more than six years I have thought really terrible thoughts about you. I gave you credit for many evil plots, for planting ideas in Our President's erstwhile brain, for persisting in dreams of a glorious takeover of our government.

I was wrong. Yes, I gave you too much credit.

I know you are having trouble dealing with my change of heart so calm yourself down. Gaze upon a happy family in better times. Gaze upon a man with his lovely child on a carousel.
Because now I have to show you what that man has become. I have to implore you to read the extended attention The Washington Post is giving him.

Honestly until today I thought he was an evil motherfucker, a bad bad man who tried to influence Our President, who unduly influenced Mr. Rumsfeld, and who had insane visions of tzardom. Until I read today's installment, the second in a four part series, I had no idea how much he had actually subverted not only any semblance of a democratic process but had just kicked the shit out of everybody who got in his way including The Hallowed Dr. Rice. Seriously you must read this.

Part I: A Different Understanding With The President
Part II: Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power

There are two more parts to come. This one is totally worth the read.

All photos from Draft Dick Cheney

The Supremes, Continued

Much as I loathe Slate I must send you there because Dahlia Lithwick in a piece entitled Father Knows Best: Dr. Kennedy's magic prescription for indecisive women has scalpelized the decision. Go, go.

Mr. Bush's Court Chips Away At Roe

I am quite unhappy to find that the Supreme Court upholds the "partial birth" abortion ban legislation in a 5-4 vote. Mr. Justice Kennedy voted with the majority. The entire decision (PDF) is here. Justice Ginsburg wrote an admirable and well reasoned dissenting opinion that includes the following bits.

the concerns expressed are untethered to any
ground genuinely serving the Government's interest in
preserving life. By allowing such concerns to carry the
day and case, overriding fundamental rights, the Court
dishonors our precedent.

---

the Court invokes an antiabortion
shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable
evidence: Women who have abortions come to regret their
choices, and consequently suffer from [s]evere depression
and loss of esteem. Because of women's fragile emotional state and because of the "bond of love the mother has for her child," the Court worries, doctors may
withhold information about the nature of the intact D&E
procedure. The solution the Court approves,
then, is not to require doctors to inform women,
accurately and adequately, of the different procedures and
their attendant risks. (States are free to enact laws to provide a
reasonable framework for a woman to make a decision
that has such profound and lasting meaning.). Instead,
the Court deprives women of the right to make an
autonomous choice, even at the expense of their safety.

---

This way of thinking reflects ancient notions about
women's place in the family and under the Constitution --
ideas that have long since been discredited.

---

The Court's hostility to the right Roe and
Casey secured is not concealed. Throughout, the opinion
refers to obstetrician-gynecologists and surgeons who
perform abortions not by the titles of their medical specialties,
but by the pejorative label "abortion doctor."A fetus is described as an "unborn
child," and as a "baby," ... and the reasoned medical judgments of highly
trained doctors are dismissed as "preferences" motivated
by "mere convenience,"

---

In sum, the notion that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
Act furthers any legitimate governmental interest is, quite
simply, irrational. The Court's defense of the statute
provides no saving explanation. In candor, the Act, and
the Court's defense of it, cannot be understood as anything
other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again
and again by this Court and with increasing comprehension
of its centrality to women's lives. When "a statute burdens constitutional
rights and all that can be said on its behalf is that it
is the vehicle that legislators have chosen for expressing
their hostility to those rights, the burden is undue."

The only think I can say is that this might ensure a generation of Democratic presidents.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent blogger?"

The self-loathing Phillipina thinks Barak Obama (on the left with his mother) is inarticulate. Here is the audio. Judge for yourself. It seems a lot of folks on the right don't care for large themes and abstraction.

It's A Busy Day For Drag

Yes, what you can see now is the top of The Donald's head. You must click. And be patient.

The Rumors Of

the death of Leni Riefenstahl were greatly exagerated. Apparently she is alive and well and working for John McCain's campaign. Check out the video on the front page. It is astonishing.

I still wonder, given the last election, what made him dive so far to the right. John at AmericaBlog reports that he is missing today's Senate votes because he is giving a lecture on "don't do it until you are married" to some youths. He is either desperately whacky or figures that with enough fear we will all bow toward him, trembling. Or he is betting on another serious attack that will cause us all to lose our brains again.

Hattip to Ezra.

Jack Bauer and the Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Cash for Science

I love everything about this brief story.

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Let me be linear for a moment. First they think that scientists' professional reputation and labor is only worth $10,000. Seems a bit low to me but maybe they have graduate students in mind. Of course they wouldn't be the best spokespeople when pitted against the caliber of scientists on the panel, but maybe the sponsors would be happy with anybody they could point to as long as they could put the word "Scientist" after the name.

Let's move on to other joys this story brings me. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) tries very hard to convince us that they are an independent think tank, a gaggle of thoughtful conservatives providing us with guidance. They tell us

Competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics, and social welfare.

(I'm sure you can find the link for yourselves. I don't need to make it easy on them.)

I suppose they would argue that offering cash for an idea consists of "competition of ideas" but some might disagree. Some -- meaning me -- view this as a spectacular example of monopoly capitalism run amok.

More important, though, is the information that AEI is "an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank." Well if that doesn't just scream nonpartisan, competition of ideas, and the elevation of research.