In Dante's "Inferno," deceivers are sentenced to have their souls encased in flames, hypocrites are forced to wear a cloak weighted with lead, and those who use their powers of persuasion for insidious ends are doomed to suffer a continual fever so intense that their body sizzles and smokes like a steak tossed on a George Foreman grill. Maybe Satan will give Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby and their accomplices at the New York Times a three-afflictions-for-the-price-of-one deal.

LOL! So Hell (or part of it) is like a George Foreman grill? Give 'em George Foreman grill Arianna!

Arianna Huffington: Memo to Bill Keller: The War in Iraq is NOT a

What followed, according to the notes, was a free-wheeling discussion about many topics, including same-sex marriage. Justice Hecht said he had never discussed that issue with Ms. Miers. Then an unidentified voice asked the two men, "Based on your personal knowledge of her, if she had the opportunity, do you believe she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade?"

"Absolutely," said Judge Kinkeade.

"I agree with that," said Justice Hecht. "I concur."

So apparantly Dobson was directed to Hecht and Kinkeasde by Rove, and it was they who told Dobson and company that Miers would vote to overturn Roe.

This is nothing that I didn't expect. With the continuing description of her as an eveangelical Christian, what is talked about here is exactly what I was expecting to see. Those are political grounds to oppose her, but there are others that are just as, if not more, significant. First among them is, how would she describe herself on Constitutional thought? Is she an Originalist? Strict Constructionist? Constitution in Exile? Living Document? There are a number of ways to approach Constitutional questions, and each of those approaches means different things.

No one knows. There is a good possibility she doesn't even have an idea herself, and that presents problems I am not sure we need to deal with. There is much to being on the court that is "on the job" training. Figuring out a baseline idea at the same time may be more than is desired.

What Dobson Knows

"Valerie Flame," by that line of reasoning, is a reference for how to deal with the person who is punching holes in everything Judy has done.

I posted this as a link rather than writing the idea here.

Judy vs the Times

"It's bad enough the administration bribed a journalist to promote their policies, but now it looks like taxpayer dollars were handed over for work that was never done," said Lautenberg.

Jeez, not only are they pulling payola to push their ideas, they're giving it to people who don't even do what they were bribed to do.

CNN.com - Armstrong Williams contract referred to U.S. attorney - Oct 14, 2005

Mr. Ridge said: “More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don’t necessarily put the country on (alert)… there were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said ‘for that?’”

Terrorism for political gain 101. Real? Fake? Beats the hell out of me but it smells like cod.

The Nexus of politics and terror - Bloggermann - MSNBC.com

Q It has nothing to do with -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have a very different view of the war on terrorism, and I'm sure you're opposed to the broader war on terrorism. The President recognizes this requires a comprehensive strategy, and that this is a broad war, that it is not a law enforcement matter.

Terry.

Q On what basis do you say Helen is opposed to the broader war on terrorism?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, she certainly expressed her concerns about Afghanistan and Iraq and going into those two countries. I think I can go back and pull up her comments over the course of the past couple of years.

Q And speak for her, which is odd.

The first Q is Helen Thomas after Scotty brings up 9/11 as a defense for the Iraq War.

These guys better hope Fitzgerald doesn't indict Turd Blossom, because they're totally falling apart while he's trying to cover his ass.

Scott McClellan vs Helen Thomas

Q Why is Karl Rove calling up religious leaders telling them it's okay, she belongs to an ultra evangelical church?

MR. McCLELLAN: We're calling up a lot of people --

Q Why that?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- to reach out to them and talk to them about the President's selection of Harriet Miers. And what he is emphasizing in those conversations, Terry, is that she is someone who is strongly committed to a conservative judicial philosophy.

Q What is somebody's --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, why wouldn't --

Q Wait, wait, wait. What relevance does how a person prays have to the judicial philosophy?

MR. McCLELLAN: Didn't say that it did.

Q So why are you peddling it?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's part of her background, Terry; it's part of who she is.

I almost think that at some point the White House press corps is about two more news conferences away from going into complete revolt dealing with these guys.

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

Authorities are looking into Frist's recent sale of shares of hospital operator HCA Inc., co-founded by Frist's father and brother. The sales took place just days before HCA's stock price fell on a disappointing July 13 profit outlook.
...

"An examination of the facts will demonstrate that Senator Frist acted properly. His only objective in selling the stock was to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest," Stevenson said.

Now I don't mean to be a nitpicker, but Frist was elected to the Senate in 1994. If his "reason" were valid, maybe he would have sold the stock, oh I don't know, ANYTIME IN THE PRECEDING 11 YEARS???

Go to Jail. Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect your margin payoff.

SEC subpoenas Frist in stock probe: reports

During the practice session before Bush entered the room, a senior Pentagon official, Allison Barber, stood at the podium and queried the troops about topics the president later asked about, including the training of Iraqis and the level of progress. At her prompting, the soldiers raised their hands when the topic they were to answer came up.

Barber insisted later the questions were not rehearsed. The military had been told ahead of time only about topics the president might want to talk about, not specific questions.

Why don't they just preface these with "Made for television" or "Dramatic Re-enactment"? They staged the whole damn thing!

Iraqis ready to vote, U.S. troops tell Bush

So Judy is now going to share notes from the reporting she did on Wilson in June 2003. I suspect those notes already reflect information gleaned from the INR memo. And I suspect Judy will be forced to identify a tidy network of sources on Wilson, including Libby and Bolton, but maybe Hadley and others.

All I can say is, this is a brilliant analysis of what may be going on with the Fitzgerald probe.

The Next Hurrah: Sweet Judy Blew Lies