We took the liberty of redesigning Harriet Miers’s, uhm, “look.”

• Bush nominates Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court; seen as “a woman who broke barriers in the male-dominated Texas legal world but brings no judicial experience or constitutional background to her new assignment.” Bush: “I know her heart. I know her character.” [WP, NYT, LAT, WSJ, WT]
• Miers likely to avoid partisan fight. Kristol: “It’s hard to explain why Harriet Miers is the right pick unless you’re trying to avoid a fight about someone who has expressed a conservative constitutional philosophy… it’s demoralizing for the president to pass over a host of publicly identified conservative constitutionalists.” [WP, NYT]
• DeLay is indicted for alleged money laundering; former majority leader says prosecutor “is trying to pull the legal equivalent of a ‘do-over’ since he knows very well that the charges he brought against me last week are totally manufactured and illegitimate.” Punishment for money laundering can be life in prison. [WP, NYT, LAT, WSJ, USAT]
• Many conservatives express skepticism, disappointment about Miers; responses range “from hostility to silence to praise.” [WP, LAT, NYT, WT, USAT, USAT]
• Nomination viewed as “more like a bunt than a bid for a home run,” writes Ron Brownstein. Bush “has no appetite, at a time when he and his party are besieged by problems, for an all-out ideological fight,” suspects Richard Stevenson. [LAT, NYT]
• Critics allege cronyism, the perception of which “is especially risky because it comes at a time when the White House has been accused of putting under-qualified political associates in top positions throughout the government.” [LAT, USAT]

MORE »

[Larry Downing/Reuters]

At Final Day of Roberts Hearings, Hatch Snaps . . . and Snaps [WP] MORE »

Never let it be said that the government cares more about rich people than the rest of us:

DURBIN: I sent a letter to the attorney general yesterday, applauding the fact that the Justice Department had, in fact, successfully prosecuted in Massachusetts a person who had hacked in and stolen the telephone records of Paris Hilton, and I ask the Attorney General to please ask our Special Counsel in this case to take a look at the precedent of the Paris Hilton case and see if he can perhaps protect our records as much as we want to protect that poor young lady’s telephone records.

RELATED: Paris Hilton Hacker Sentenced [PC World] MORE »

A few days ago CNN, due to the Katrina and Roberts hearings “situations,” expanded “The Situation Room” to, we dunno, 24 hours a day. Our question: When does it stop being a situation? As a correspondent pointed out, a “situation” that lasts for a long time becomes a “crisis” or a “castastrophe,” or a “debacle.” All of which do describe the show. Perhaps a name change is in order? “The Debacle Room”? “The Padded Mattress Room”? Make all those large plasma screens serve a double purpose. MORE »

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. . . but, Jesus, they could do better than this: MORE »

Regarding the behavior of certain senators at the John Roberts confirmation hearings: There are softball questions (we’ll get to Sessions in a minute) and then there is Lindsey Graham acting out his mancrush on national television.

GRAHAM:I imagine the reason that you argued different positions is because people paid you. Is that correct? MORE »

The two headlines that say all you need to know about how much senators learned at the John Roberts confirmation hearings:

Roberts Vows to Judge Cases by Rule of Law [AP]
Roberts Reveals His Favorite Movies [AP]

The dominant metaphor at the Roberts hearings is baseball, but to judge by the questions being asked by most Republicans, the ball involved here is very, very soft. We’re not sure, in fact, that this particularly featherweight item, once tossed, would even hit the ground:

COBURN: Right. I’m not asking you about legal significance. Would you agree that the opposite of being dead is being alive? MORE »

We know, we know, we have absolute faith that some aspect of the John Roberts confirmation hearings is exciting. That aspect is probably happening underneath the desk. (Has everyone been keeping their eyes on where Biden’s hands are? He really likes himself, you know. Then again, Biden does most of his masturbating on camera.) MORE »

“Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee Judge John Roberts listens to a question from Senator Joe Biden (D-DE)”:

[REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque]