The Specter of Jail

"If President Bush nominates Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, he won't be naming a new justice. He'll be naming something more like a new half-justice.

"A Justice Gonzales would have to recuse himself from cases dealing with a wide range of issues -- from the Patriot Act to partial-birth abortion -- because of his high-level service in the Bush administration.

"Federal law is clear: No federal judge, including any Supreme Court justice, may participate in a case if he 'has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, advisor or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.' In addition, justices are to recuse themselves 'in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.'

"Given that Gonzales was Bush's White House counsel for the entirety of his first term, and is now attorney general, that means he will have to decline to participate in a lot of important cases. The administration's legal positions could therefore lose ground precisely because one of their architects would be on the Court."

MSM outlets aren't the only ones using anonymous sources. Here's Erick at RedState:

"Sources close to the White House are telling Red State that they do expect a Supreme Court vacancy in the next ten days -- as soon as tomorrow is possible, but within the next ten days seems most likely.

"One source (and only one) tells RedState that there is new talk of a vacancy to come soon and one to come closer to Labor Day, making two picks this year for the President. The source says the conventional wisdom is right that the two most likely candidates will be Justice O'Connor and Chief Justice Rehnquist. However, there may be a wild card due to health."

Slate handicaps the Supremes field.

More on the Post Three: Frank Rich reported Sunday that CPB hired a guy to evaluate guests on the public radio shows of Diane Rehm and Tavis Smiley. "Three of The Washington Post's star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies."

My investigation reveals that the three are Dana Priest, Walter Pincus and Robin Wright. Rich is right--they're all hard-working beat reporters. Is public broadcasting now afraid of such people?

Did you hear about this Dallas Morning News story about a conference of young Republicans? "Party strategist Grover Norquist lambasted three Republicans who broke party ranks over the issue of judicial filibusters. He referred to them as 'the two girls from Maine and the nut-job from Arizona' - Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and John McCain."

American Prospect editor Michael Tomasky has a very specific reason to be ticked over Ed Klein's Hillary book: