November News Review

Some reviews of the news. . . .

It looks like Fred Thompson was not the serious conservative candidate I thought he would be. He seems to be going nowhere in the polls, and he seems almost nonchalant about it. He almost doesn't care. He's becoming the Freddy Adu of the Republican party - he's no more able to excite the Republican base than Freddy Adu was in trying to get folks interested in Major League Soccer (which, incidentally, is still allegedly functioning, against all odds).

Meanwhile, Pat Robertson endorsed Rudolph Guiliani for President. Talk about politics making for strange bedfellows. An evangelical leader supporting a pro-choice, pro-gay rights Catholic who's sustained two divorces and is currently married to a Jew? But then, it makes sense when you realize that Robertson and Giuliani both believe in a common threat from Islamic extremism. Heck, they believe Islam itself is a threat. Oh yeah, I understand they're not too keen on black people, either.

Meanwhile, Michael Mukasey has become the nation's eighty-first attorney general, entering the job with considerably less goodwill than he received when first nominated. He was confirmed by the Senate 53 to 40 - the lowest level of congressional support for any U.S. attorney general since 1952.

He came in with impeccable credentials, as a judge with a keen understanding of prosecuting terror cases and a nonpartisan approach to jurisprudence. Mukasey also had broad bipartisan support But his refusal to declare whether waterboarding was a form of torture and thus illegal angered many Democrats, and despite a reversal of fortune and grass-roots efforts to block him, at least six Senate Democrats decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. There's no reason on earth to do this - he can't answer a yes-or-no question on torture?? - but these six senators apparently decided that this was the best they could expect from the current White House occupant.

And they're right. :-O

So, eh, how are the MLS Cup playoffs shaping up? :-|