Chapter 41.3: Wrong Again

As usual, my ruminations on things political have turned out to be incorrect. Even though Mr. Alito, the recent Supreme Court Justice nominee, is from New Jersey, I know nothing about him beyond what I've read in the news. To add my one-cent worth, however, if I had to make a worthless prediction, I'd say he'll get approved by the Senate. He's got a history and the Republicans have a majority. Of course, there has been some controversy about whether he's conservative enough for some in the GOP, but short of some discovery of malfeasance, I doubt he has much to worry about, no matter how loud his opponents become.

I'm more intrigued by the Senate rule imbroglio, when Minority Leader Reid invoked "Rule 21" and brought about a closed-door session to discuss why an investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas) has not moved to "Phase Two" of a report on the use and abuse of Iraq WMD intelligence before the war. The second phase reportedly was to focus more specifically on those in the White House and close to the President and whether that WMD intelligence may have been misused. Reid's move could be viewed as a political stunt, to be sure, but hopefully there's more to it than that, because if it was only a stunt then that's a lot of rancor to create over a ploy.

The White House may have wanted the focus to shift away from the Plame Leak issue (associated with the WMD discussion), but Reid's move effectively brought the discussion of Scooter Libby and Karl Rove back into the media's focus and away from Judge Alito. Now that Alito's hearing has been scheduled for early January, I suspect we'll continue to hear more speculation about Rove and Libby and possibly even Vice President Cheney. Merry Christmas, everyone.