Two emails caught things I didn’t:
How convenient that the two Cheney daughters were seated with their mother and each of their spouses seated behind them. Funny, all the Bush relatives were seated side-by-side with their spouses. Why do you suppose?
Could be chair-spacing, I don’t know. Even I’m not that paranoid. Then the answer we’ve all been waiting for:
Justice Breyer was wearing a silk cap of a sort the court used into the 1930s. If you look at Chief Justice Hughes swearing in President Roosevelt you will see him wearing the same sort of headgear. If memory serves its revival was another of Chief Justice Rehnquist’s little nods to court tradition.
That and the Gilbert and Sullivan costuming.
MICKEY AGAIN: In response to some emails, I have no idea why Mickey Kaus has gone on a tear against me lately. But his latest post again misses an important point. I never believed and still do not believe that Hans Blix or the U.N. would ever have been able to confirm beyond doubt that Saddam had gotten rid of all his WMD stockpiles or research ambitions. So I stand by my opposition to the NYT’s pre-war position that the U.N. could solve this if given more time. (The only reason for delay would have been to win over more allies, principally the Turks. We now know the urgency wasn’t necessary – but we couldn’t have known that then.) But hindisght also works in my favor. Given how much we know now about the deep corruption of the U.N. oil-for-food program, I’m even more relieved they are not the instrument for keeping Saddam contained. They were and would be the instrument for empowering Saddam and further impoverishing the Iraqi people. Bush was right to do what he did. And no amount of criticism of the conduct of the war will take that away.
The Dish 