Nothing Much Happened This Weekend

It was a quiet last few days both in the news and for me personally. Visiting my in-laws is always like that, given, among other things, that they live in a tiny burg of only a few hundred people that is in the middle of absolute nowhere. The silence soaks into my soul and calms my spirit. It's almost theraputic.

Of course, if I had to live there I might wig out after a week, but my wife talks regularly about wanting to move back there someday, and, to invert a famous Jeff Foxworthy line, "If she's happy, you're happy."

"Someday," though, translates to "retirement" to me.

So, as I say, it doesn't appear that I missed much, which is good since not only was the town library closed (I guess somebody had checked out the book....) on Friday but the only bank branch in town didn't even have an ATM. Actually, the two are completely unrelated, but it still dumbstruck me that in this day and age there could be such a thing as a bank with no ATM. And, since the time I would have gone down to the nearest "real" town (Saturday afternoon) was right when the wife's high school reunion main program was scheduled (and since the library there was probably closed as well), I never had a practicable opportunity to get online.

And on top of that, it rained all weekend. Didn't cancel the "downtown" street dances Friday and Saturday nights, which may be an indication of the alcohol level of the drinks served at the event, or perhaps the dancing skill level present to gyrate to country-western tunes and hold up umbrellas at the same time.

I do see, however, where Bill Kristol was still trying to get work the kinks out of his Karnak the Magnificent gimmick. Last weekend he predicted the President would commit policy and political suicide by nominating Attorney-General and "close friend" Alberto Gonzalez to Sandra Day O'Connor's SCOTUS seat; later last week he backed off of that prediction; yesterday he bounced yet again to the notion that "Speedy" will be elevated to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist instead:

"The chief justice will step down this week," Kristol, who accurately forecast last month that O'Connor would be the first to go, told Fox News Sunday.

"The President is planning to announce two nominations for those vacancies before he leaves for Crawford at the end of the month," he predicted. "I've been told that the White House has told certain people to keep their calendars clear for July 26 and 27."

Kristol said sources "close to the White House and at the Justice Department" have told him that "the President wants to nominate Attorney General Gonzales to be chief justice."

There's been exhaustive commentary detailing how a Gonzalez nomination (1) would be a betrayal of Bush's core supporters, whose support he very much needs these days, (2) would cause major recusal problems with any number of cases coming up through the system that could cripple Administration policies, and (3) would be fought just as ferociously by the Left as Luttig, Roberts, McConnell, Garza, etc. Indeed, Kristol went on to admit this:

The well-connected commentator predicted that tapping a moderate like Gonzales to head the court would "demoralize" Bush's conservative base, which has waged a 30-year battle to change the ideological balance of the high court.

"I think if the President nominates Gonzales, it will be disastrous for the Republican Party," Kristol said. "It will have a bad effect on the Bush Administration for the rest of its term."

He contended that a Gonzales nomination would be "the equivalent of the [1990] budget deal," when Bush's father reneged on his promise not to raise taxes.

So why would a man who has repeatedly gone out of his way to avoid repeating his father's mistakes "supersize" the Souter blunder when he can least afford it? That wouldn't be "spending" political capital, it'd be pouring it down the nearest rathole. Dubya is incapable of being that politically tin-eared.

But that rumor is still more plausible than this one (via NRO Bench Memos):

On Face the Nation, he said:

"I think it would be very tempting if the President said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,'" Specter said. "She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so."

"He" being Judiciary Chairman "Snarlin' Arlen" Specter. Doesn't surprise me, such pap coming from him. But I've flaggelated that deceased equinoid into Alpo.

A K-L0 emailer suggests Justice Kennedy get Rehnquist's job. As if.

Elsewhere, Bill Clinton declared that the reason John Kerry lost to "that idiot" last November was because he was "soft on national security." Like, you know, Mr. Bill wasn't.

His speech, delivered at the Aspen Ideas Institute, was followed up by his wife's, where she equated hubby's "good friend" G-Dub with Alfred E. Neuman, among other mendacities.

Okay, so it wasn't quiet everywhere.

And that makes the silence I enjoyed that much more golden.