Sibby Online

Alito more qualified than Roberts

Mount Blogmore has a post regarding the South Dakota blogosphere's reaction to the Alito pick. Here is a great excerpt from Jon Schaff at SDP:

Here is Ed Whelan on Alito. Whelan convincingly argues that Alito is even more qualified for the Court than was Chief Justice Roberts. But we all know qualifications don't matter to the Democrats. What matter to them is that a Justice decide based on left-wing policy preferences. Alito is more qualified than Ruth Bader Ginsberg was and he is no more conservative than she is liberal. She was confirmed 96-3. I'll be surprised if Alito gets any Democratic votes in committee and he'll get no more than five on the floor. Indeed, the Democrats seem likely to filibuster his confirmation vote. Alito will expose how dishonest the Democratic Party is when it talks about the courts. They just want another vehicle to impose their left-wing social agenda, since they rarely get that agenda endorsed by the public.

Libby versus Berger

Great point by Joseph Farah:

Where was this guy Fitzgerald when we really needed him?

Where was he when former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was caught red-handed stealing highly classified documents from the National Archives, destroying some and then lying about it to investigators?

If ever there was a crime that warranted 30 years in the slammer, it was that theft from the people and the ensuing cover-up.

But Sandy Berger walked. He got away with a modest fine and a prohibition against taking another national security job in the federal government until at least 2009. Big deal. His party is out of the White House until then.

Is anyone else struck with the contrast between these two prosecutions?

While I appreciate that independent counsels want to send signals to the people that even high officials can be brought down for violating the law, we also have a concept in this country of "equal justice under the law."

Can anyone honestly look at these two cases – Libby and Berger – and tell me they were treated equally?

I don't think so.

MSM attacking Bush’s new pick

From ABC:

Samuel A. Alito has been a strong conservative jurist on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a court with a reputation for being among the nation's most liberal.

Dubbed "Scalito" or "Scalia-lite," a play not only on his name but his opinions, Alito, 55, brings a hefty legal resume that belies his age. He has served on the federal appeals court for 15 years since President George H.W. Bush nominated him in 1990.

And the Democrats follow up with attacks of their own:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid issued the following statement regarding the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court.

"The nomination of Judge Alito requires an especially long hard look by the Senate because of what happened last week to Harriet Miers. Conservative activists forced Miers to withdraw from consideration for this same Supreme Court seat because she was not radical enough for them. Now the Senate needs to find out if the man replacing Miers is too radical for the American people.

The MSM and the Democrats have yet to understand that conservative is mainstream, not radical. It looks like we now have a good opportunity to show who radical the Democrats are, and how the MSM is out of step with their readers.

Covert, another MSM lie

NewsMax points out that Valerie Plame’s status was not described ad covert by Patrick Fitzgerald:

Leakgate Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald dropped a mini-bombshell Friday afternoon while he was explaining his indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby to the press.

It turns out that the central premise of his investigation - that Valerie Plame Wilson enjoyed protected "covert" status at the CIA - may not be true.

"Let me say two things," Fitzgerald told reporters. "I am not speaking [in this indictment] to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert . . . And we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly or intentionally outed a covert agent."

Fitzgerald did insist that Mrs. Wilson's "association with the CIA was classified," which would make leaking her occupation a crime. But he declined to bring any charges to that effect, casting even more doubt on the claim that her CIA job was a closely guarded secret.

A Nexis Lexis search shows that since Mrs. Wilson's alleged "outing" in July 2003, the media has erroneously referred to her "covert" status more than 3,100 times.

Surely the press will begin issuing its Leakgate retractions any minute now.

Retraction?! The MSM and the Democrats are still using ‘covert’ as they insist on the resignation of Karl Rove:

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he is disappointed that Bush and Cheney responded to the indictment by lauding Libby and suggested they should apologize for the leak that revealed the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The indictment involved similar perjury and obstruction allegations that were brought against Bill Clinton. Yet did they ask Clinton to resign? Rush Limbaugh is on top of this point:

RUSH: Okay, let me go through this one more time for you libs out there who think you've caught us in all kinds of hypocrisy. Bill Clinton should have been indicted, and not over an e-mail, either, like Scooter Libby has been but rather for preparing a false affidavit, having his lawyer introduce it into evidence, testifying to its truthfulness and so forth. He did all of that obstructing justice, multiple acts of perjury, conspiracy and contempt. These were premeditated. They were central to the sex harassment case and Clinton never disputed them, even though he could have in a hearing which he refused you. In this case the underlying issue was whether Plame was covert, whether she was outed, thereby endangering her and national security. This Libby indictment doesn't even deal with what this special counsel's investigation was about. Robert Ray -- and I misspoke -- Robert Ray concluded Hillary Clinton lied repeatedly about her role in the travel office firings, not the Rose Law Firm billing records, but he decided not to charge, even though he concluded she lied under oath. Now, Hillary is said to be a terrific senator. She's going to run for her party's presidential nomination, all is well. Now, is something wrong with this picture or what? And she did conceal those Rose Law Firm billing records for two years in the private residence of the White House and didn't know how they got there. Libby didn't do any of this.

Let’s not forget about the other Clinton. Certainly there have been many more scandals during the Clinton years than there have been during the Bush years. But I doubt the MSM media will remind voters when Hillary runs for election.

Limbaugh stomps the left

From NewsMax:

Rush Limbaugh is still the king of political talk radio, according to just-released Arbitron numbers for the summer of 2005, which show him trouncing the competition from liberal talkers.

An Arbitron summary posted to PR Newswire shows:

• Limbaugh beats liberal talkers Al Franken, Ed Schultz, and Jerry Springer in the all-encompassing sex/age category of Persons 12+.

• For the key target demographic of Adults 25-54 in the top 10 market grouping, Limbaugh beats Franken by a three to one margin.

• Limbaugh also enjoys a seven to one margin against Schultz and Springer in the same market grouping category.

• In the aggregate total of the top 25 market grouping for Adults 25-54, Limbaugh again beats Franken by a three to one margin, Schultz by a five to one margin, and finally, Springer by an eight to one margin.

The Arbitron summer book also shows that Limbaugh's audience is 1.5 times greater than the combined audience of all three liberal talkers in the top 10 market grouping with Adults 25-54 - and more than 1.5 times greater in the top 25 market grouping.

The latest Arbitron numbers contradict widespread media predictions that liberal radio hosts would eventually begin to eat into Limbaugh's 20 million listener audience base, who hear him on over 600 stations.

Since it debuted last year, for instance, Franken's Air America network has added few new outlets, topping out at just 70 stations.

Libby versus Clinton

Looks like Scooter Libby may have pulled a Clinton, but unlike Clinton he resigns his post. It will be interesting to hear Clinton's and his supporters reaction to the indictment.

Schuldt is now busted

SDP has posted an October 27 Roll Call piece regarding Hildebrand Tewes Consulting. Excerpt:

Now that Bush has all but scrapped his plan to create private Social Security accounts — and many Democrats are crediting Americans United for its role — the coalition is looking to create a more enduring issue-based organization.

"There’s nothing more gratifying than being a part of the effort that defeated Bush’s No. 1 domestic priority," said Hildebrand, who was quick to point out Tewes’ and the Democratic Congressional leadership’s leading roles. "We showed Bush’s true colors — the destructive things Bush wants to do to this country."

The coalition, led by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, US Action, MoveOn.org, and others, has retained Hildebrand Tewes to organize and run another 501(c)(4), this time to fight Congressional Republicans’ budget cutting plan.

Chad Schuldt recently and reluctantly admitted to being paid by Steve Hildebrand. Yet Hildebrand and Schuldt both state that Schuldt is not being paid to blog. In the above excerpt, the role played by Hildebrand in attacking President Bush’s Social Security plan is given high marks. During that process Schuldt wrote a letter to the editor that mentioned the Democrat’s lie that Social Security benefits are ‘guaranteed’. I have been pointing out that lie as far back as January 2005.

The above excerpt mentions Hildebrand is now focused on fighting Congressional Republicans’ budget cutting plan. On September 23, 2005m Schuldt began his index titled "Federal Budget". He has eight posts on that subject with 4 of them posted in the last week. Again we have Chad Schuldt pushing on his web site the Democrat’s propaganda on an issue that Hildebrand Consulting is working on. Again we have the Democrats whining about Thune’s paid bloggers, but they ignore Hildebrand’s paid bloggers. The South Dakota MSM should be pointing out that Hildebrand and his boys are associated with (and perhaps receiving funding from) the far-left extremists at MoveOn.org.

NYT: Miller not liberal enough

This treatment of Judy Miller by the NYT is more evidence on the bias at that paper:

Did New York Times doyen Maureen Dowd really call her colleague Judy Miller a "slut" during a Wednesday morning interview with radio host Don Imus?

It sure sounded that way, though Dowd never used that word specifically.

The New York Post's Andrea Peyser recaps the latest chapter in the Miller-Dowd donnybrook - which featured the unmistakable insinuation by Dowd that the married Miller slept her way to the top.

"Judy does have a history of dating powerful men for, you know, three decades it goes back," Dowd asserted to Imus, in what Peyser described as an "obscenely personal" insult.

The Times columnist ripped into Miller twice "for having a slutty reputation that Dowd claims warped her reporting," Peyser said.

"Dowd has romped with TV's Aaron Sorkin and actor Michael Douglas," she noted, retaliating on Miller's behalf.

Despite the uber-personal tirade, Dowd insisted to Imus that her complaint was "not about the sex."

"It's about the bombs," she maintained, a reference to Miller's weapons of mass destruction reporting that media liberals now insist was entirely erroneous [Saddam's 500-ton uranium stockpile notwithstanding].

Miller has been more dignified, declining to make hay out of Dowd's highly publicized liaisons.

Earlier this week she told Peyser: "I'm not going to sink to that level."

Meanwhile, Miller is quietly negotiating what sounds like a less than amicable divorce from the Old Grey Lady.

The New York Observer reports that exit talks revolve around three issues:

"The first is how much severance Miller would receive, the second concerns whether she will be given space on the Op-Ed page to answer critics and the third is whether the Times and Miller will issue a joint statement defining the terms of her departure."

Fitzgerald accused of being activist

From NewsMax:

The former deputy assistant attorney general who helped draft the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act blasted Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on Wednesday, saying he may be getting "creative with law" in order to justify questionable indictments.

"If you don't have a clear violation, you should not become what's called 'creative with the law,'" Victoria Toensing told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity, after noting that the statute she co-authored was never intended to apply to cases like Leakgate.

Toensing said she based her concern on a February report in the Chicago Tribune, which noted, "Probably Fitzgerald's greatest talent was finding creative ways to interpret the law."

The paper went on to quote U.S. attorney David Kelley, who the Tribune called "a close friend of Fitzgerald":

"When you'd looked at a case from every angle," Kelley said, "and you were sure you didn't have what was needed to take it forward, you could show it to Pat and he'd say, 'Have you thought about charging this?' "

Toensing said that she didn't think Kelley's comments were a compliment, telling Hannity, "I don't think you're supposed to be creative with the criminal law. I call it fitting the stepsister's foot into Cinderella's shoe."

God bless Harriet Miers

Here is the reason Harriet Miers gave for her withdrawal of her nomination for the Supreme Court:

In her withdrawal letter to the president, Miers said she was "concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and its staff and it is not in the best interest of the country."

This is something the Democrats do not understand. What’s good for the country is more important that gaining power. Republicans will step down instead of dragging the country through an unpleasant experience, whereas Bill Clinton drug the country through an impeachment trial instead of stepping down. And stepping down is what the Democrats expect Karl Rove to do.

We should honor Harriet Miers for doing what is best for the country. And I pray that that decision will give her more time to enjoy her retirement years. God bless Harriet Miers.