Alito Taps Ex-Ashcroft Aide to Serve as Law Clerk
New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has hired a former top aide of Attorney General John Ashcroft to serve as his law clerk. The New York Times reports the selection of the 37-year-old Adam Ciongoli has startled many in Washington both because of his seniority and his political background -- he has been credited with being an architect of the Bush administration's legal strategy after the 9/11 attacks.
that's from democracy now and why is anyone surprised?
who didn't know that alito would be bully boy's puppet? maybe those who depended on reporting from the corporate news? the new york times was vocal on this nomination, towards the end, and on their editorial pages. their reporters? they covered it like it was a tennis match that had no impact on our lives.
now we're supposed to be shocked that someone who was always in the bully boy's pocket just made it public by picking adam ciongoli? is any 1 surprised? no, not at all.
this was argument against alito, that he was not a believer in checks and balances, that he thought the executive branch could act on its own without fear of being checked.
so we got what we knew we were getting.
and we get what we knew would get at the daily howler today as well. bob somerby's blasting maureen dowd yet again. was maureen the issue? i'm reading over the transcript (you couldn't pay me to watch that crap) and the issue's not maureen dowd. the issue is dick cheney. bob somerby's strangely silent on the talking points that the v.p. is above the law and normal rules that apply to all of us. why did somerby miss it?
maybe because the talking points were launched by the woman he's praised at his site, mary matalin.
matalin gets off 1 howler after another, though you wouldn't know it to read the daily howler.
here's a strong section for dowd:
MS. MAUREEN DOWD: Well, I think that the reason this story has evoked such fascination is because the vice president is like the phantom. You know, we hear the creak of the door as he passes, but we don’t really know what he’s up to. We don’t know his schedule. We don't always know where he is. We don't know what democratic institution he's blowing off at any given minute, and so this allowed us to see how his behavior and judgement operated pretty much in real time--with the delay, but pretty much in real time.
And it covered all the problems of the Bush/Cheney administration: secrecy and stonewalling, then blowing off the rules that are at the heart of our democracy, then using a filter to try and put the truth out in a way that would most suit their political needs, and then bad political judgement in bungling a crisis. I mean, if there's one thing the Republicans are great at since Reagan, it's damage control. But he is such a control freak, you know, he doesn't even care about the damage.
transcript via msnbc for nbc's meet the press. (they have a must credit note and apparently a link isn't enough for them.)
now that's not noted. none of dowd's points are. instead bob blows another gasket going after dowd while missing the larger picture. it's amazing that this continues to happen.
somerby may claim that dowd's comments re: the outing of valerie plame mattered but if he really thought they mattered, he would have revisited his own work a long time ago.
if you'll think about it, you'll realize that mary matalin makes huge howlers ... daily. but she gets a pass from somerby. so does james carville. for some 1 supposedly so concerned about our national dialogue, he's never taken on the sonny & cher aspect of their chat & chew appearnaces.
(c.i. has. bob somerby takes a pass.)
now some of you may say, 'hold on, rebecca! he's focused on education now, right?' sometimes. sometimes he is. but then he feels the need to weigh in and suddenly that all changes. apparently education had to wait until later in his entry today because 1st he had to prop up matalain (again!) by going after dowd.
bob's an old, old man with old, old man ideas. he's never found his voice on the war and he's never found a way to critique his friends. mary matalin lies on national tv sunday - lies! lies in the face of the official public record that bob somerby prizes so much. and his half-assed criticism is aimed at matalin? no, he goes after dowd.
it must be nice to be a friend of bob somerby's. it means never having to be held to the same standards that somerby holds others too. i'm not remembering that from philosophy classes but i didn't multi-major (check with c.i. who did). as he goes after dowd (again!) and lets matalin off (again!), maybe the name of the site should be changed from 'the daily howler' to 'the noble lie'?
mary matalin lied and lied on national television. 1 lie after another. if her name were ted koppel, somerby would have called her on it. because he thinks she's nice, she gets a pass. which, by the way, was the whole problem with his plamegate coverage or, as many see it, his war on joe wilson. (joe, you should have asked bob to tutor you in comedy - that gets you a pass.)
in the real world, read jimmy carter's op-ed from the washington post. there was a world before clintonista.
