New Blog from the man himself

[CC]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240 /

Welcome aboard, Mr. Roberts (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK -- Who knows if President Bush really did rush his nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court in order to knock the Karl Rove story off the front page. But if he did -- he did a poor job of it.

Unfortunately for the conspiracy theory and/or the conspiracy, the first 18 hours of Democratic reaction to the Roberts candidacy seems to be almost benign.

No hair-on-fire, “Save America!” response means no controversy.

No controversy means no headlines.

No headlines means -- we rejoin the Karl Rove story already in progress...

[Patsy Stone]

1. Right on, brother!

Except that even if Roberts' wife is generic (and she is) you probably shouldn't have called her generic, KO. Still,

[SharonRB]

2. Great blog!

Keep that Puppet Theatre coming....

[crispini]

3. Velly velly interesting....

"53 percent of the country is supposedly following the Rove case very closely. Only 47 percent of Republicans think the White House is being fully cooperative with the Special Prosecutor (only 25 percent of the country, overall)."

I like that.

I can't say I'm really happy that, at least according to KO's blog, the Dem leadership are about to roll over on the Supreme Court nomination. But, honestly, since they're just about to go on a five week recess I find it really hard to care right now....

[gkhouston]

4. Unclear if they're actually rolling or just

playing dead while they do some fact-finding. As I was drifting off to sleep last night (hell of an evening, went with Mary to get one of her older cats euthanized, then sat around drinking coffee and reminiscing, since I'd literally been there the night this kitty was born and we had lots of kitty stories to re-hash), I thought about what Reid's strategy might be. It occurred to me that he probably wouldn't go for an all-out frontal assault since all that would do is get Rove off of page 1 for several days. Instead, he'd be more likely to make a statement that's kind of noncommittal that leaves enough room for them to come back and zing Roberts during the hearings if they dig up some good dirt between now and then. End result: Roberts falls off the front page after a news cycle or two, Rove floats back up, the Dems do their digging on Roberts in the background while the Rove scandal festers and the Dems retain the option of striking hot and heavy when the hearings commence. And if Fitzgerald comes down with some indictments before then, the Republicans have a much weaker hand to play with. And what has Reid really lost by doing this? A little skin on the far left blogs? He'll survive.

[crispini]

5. Oo, I like the way you think.

And you are correct, Reid is very canny. And, honestly, I'm seeing an awful lot of people get all hot and bothered over in GD about this nomination, when we're about to go into recess and it won't matter squat for five weeks anyway. I think I'm going to go into "wait and see" mode as well.

re: Reid..... I am reminded of a joke:

So an old bull and a young bull are standing up on a hill and the young bull says, "Hey! I have a great idea! Let's get going! Let's run down the hill and fuck a cow." And the old bull says, "No, let's WALK down there and fuck 'em ALL."

[gkhouston]

6. and that's the way Reid works

he's just going to stroll down to the pasture in his own good time. In the meanwhile, now what can blivet** trundle out for a distraction? Speculation on Roberts is not going to keep the media at fever pitch for days on end unless the Democrats flail around, gnashing their teeth and rending their garments. The Rove story is far juicier than some bland-looking white guy nobody's ever heard of. All the Democrats have to say for now is "smart lawyer, but very limited judicial experience. We'll need to examine him closely," and then change the subject back to Rove.

[WolverineDG]

7. keep your head low, your powder dry & your ass covered

i'm hoping that's what the dems are doing--quietly prepping for battle over this SCOTUS candidate whilst keeping Karl Rove on the front page.

dg

[Berry Cool]

8. "...and your knees loose!"

I think gk is right on the money. Right now Roberts looks like a fairly bland choice...but that may well be in the eyes of a bunch of guys who are about to go on vacation. You know how you never care as much about something that's going on at work right before vacation as you do right AFTER vacation? (Keith probably resembles that remark...) That doesn't mean things won't happen later or that even now work isn't going on behind the scenes.

As for throwing the media off the scent of Rove, obviously it hasn't worked with Keith and it will not work with Keith, and I doubt he is the only one. I can't believe some of the DU'ers are so discouraged because they think the media are following along like sheep by acknowledging that's what they think the Chimp was trying to do! Hello...every time they say he deliberately timed this announcement to get people to stop thinking of an elephant, they think of an elephant...

And let's face it. Roberts' wife may be perfectly nice, but she IS a generic wife straight out of Central Casting. Did anyone else but me notice that they're an all-J family too? How cute...he's John, she's Jane, and they have kids named Josie and Jack...

[crispini]

9. Oh, ick, I never noticed that.

How sick-making. OK, you're right. He is obviously the anti-Christ and Must Be Stopped.

[WolverineDG]

10. forgot the knees loose bit

thanks for the save, berry!

dg