I got yer jack-o-lantern right here

Alito, but maybe also Luttig

Here's what President Katrina has been up to since we last saw him on Friday praising Scooter Libby as a "great patriot"(bold emphasis is mine):

Bush spent the weekend at Camp David huddled with Miers, who remains his White House counsel and is therefore in charge of the judicial selection process, along with Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., who originally advocated Miers as the first choice to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. As the three talked, White House officials contacted prominent conservatives to test the reaction to various candidates.

One group consulted was the Concerned Women for America, whose decision to oppose Miers last Wednesday became one of the final blows to help kill the nomination. Janet M. LaRue, the group's chief counsel, said it received a call from the White House on Saturday and liked what it heard.

"Alito and Luttig have always been at the top of our list," she said in an interview. "We think either of them would be a supreme pick. There isn't a thing stealthy about them. They've got a long, proven record of constitutional conservatism."

Other conservatives yesterday also embraced Alito, in particular. "Alito, Luttig -- all these people are solid conservatives," Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said on CBS's "Face the Nation." On CNN's "Late Edition," Gary L. Bauer, president the conservative group American Values, described his criteria for a Supreme Court justice and added, "Certainly, Judge Alito fits those characterizations."

My prediction is filibusters and nukes.

Update: I forgot to mention that they call him "Scalito":

A judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito has been dubbed "Scalito" or "Scalia-lite" by some lawyers because his judicial philosophy invites comparisons to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's.

"That is not one of the names that I've suggested to the president," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told "Late Edition" on CNN. "In fact, I've done the opposite. I think it would create a lot of problems."

Reid said Bush would be making a "mistake" were he to settle on a hard-liner simply to appease the far right in his party, especially after conservatives' wrath undermined Miers' nomination.

Yes. A big mistake.

Ten reasons to oppose gay marriage

On November 8, Texans will cast ballots on a number of constitutional amendments, among them one which defines marriage as being exclusively between a man and a woman. So when you go into the voting booth, please keep these mind:

1) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of outlandish, immoral behavior. As Senator John Cornyn has pointed out, people may even choose to marry their pets, because box turtles have legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Marriage is a fundamental institution and cannot be expected to be revised on the basis of societal whim. After all, women are still property, blacks still cannot marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Heterosexual marriage will be damaged if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour, alcohol-induced, impulsive marriage would be devastated.

6) Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the citizens of an entire country. That's why there is only one religion in America.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why our nation has expressly forbidden single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will alter the foundation of society for the worse; we could never adapt to new social mores. This is similar to the way our society has failed to adapt to automobiles, the service-sector economy, and longer life spans.

Be sure to vote against proposition 2.

"Official A"

As Hunter at Kos notes, the Associated Press cites no fewer than "three people close to the investigation" who identify "Official A" as none other than the Turd Blossom himself.

Why is "Official A" the only person not identified by name or title in the indictment?

On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House ("Official A") who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson's wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson's trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson's wife.

Why the secrecy around the identity of "Official A"? Why the deference to his anonymity? What's going on with "Official A" that isn't going on with anybody else?