Legal Commentary

Don't second-guess McCain's choice of Palin yet based on speculation that Jindal might have been a better one

Posted on September 26, 2008
I like Bobby. I like Sarah. This year, Sarah made more sense for John, sez I ? respectfully contra Bridget Johnson at PajamasMedia ? in my latest guest-post at HughHewitt.com

Will Obama loom over McCain in the debates?

Posted on September 26, 2008
Four words: "What about Dingle-Norwood?" If that doesn't ring a bell, you probably should read my latest guest-post at HughHewitt.com.

In the current financial crisis, only McCain is indispensible

Posted on September 25, 2008
The non-Palin guest-post that I've just put up at HughHewitt.com is probably my all-time strongest praise for John McCain. The current financial crisis is the prompt, but the specific subject which drew that out of me is "leadership."

Durbin's using financial crisis to extort redistribution of wealth from responsible homeowners to the profligate

Posted on September 25, 2008
Some people, including me, are worried that the proposed financial bailout will eventually cost taxpayers a big net chunk of money, either through higher taxes or increases in the national debt, if the bailout structure doesn't repay the Treasury. But did you realize that Dick Durbin, Barack Obama's senior partner in the Senate from the Great State of Illinois, is...

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Neither Palin nor any human in her shoes could satisfy the mainstream media's lust for "gotcha" questions

Posted on September 25, 2008
When we're talking Sarah Palin and the old media hacks, no good deed goes unpunished — as I argue at length in a guest-post at HughHewitt.com.

Contra Bonnie Goldstein at Slate.com, Gov. Palin has never "admitted publicly" that any communications with Monegan were intended to "urge Wooten's firing"

Posted on September 24, 2008
Yes, I know, the titles are too, too long, but I have another early-morning guest-post about Sarah Palin up at HughHewitt.com. Although of course most of it's unrelated to my guest posts there, yesterday Hugh's site got close to 120k visits or page views according to Sitemeter...

Pix for animal lovers

Posted on September 24, 2008
Okay, this one I'm not going to cross-post at Hugh's place, in part because I'm not comfortable enough with the interface there yet to deal with photos confidently, and in part because I'm really just re-posting two photos that were originally juxtaposed in the Humane Society Legislative Fund's endorsement of the Obama-Biden ticket over the McCain-Palin ticket (h/t John McCormack...

In 1995, Obama notified the world that he'd tie himself to extremists like Bill Ayers

Posted on September 24, 2008
In part because I was a college classmate and friend of its originator, I try to resist falling prey to Godwin's Law in my blogging. But I can't help wondering if someday, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance will be considered as prophetic as a certain other book written in the late 1920s by a certain...

Washington Democratic Party hacks second-guess Gov. Palin about her relative time spent in Juneau and elsewhere

Posted on September 24, 2008
It really shouldn't surprise me or annoy me, or do anything but amuse me, when some Democratic Party hack waiting out his exile in a think-tank purports to do "reporting" for Politico.com in the form of a ridiculous bit of second-guessing of how Gov. Sarah Palin divides her time between Juneau, Anchorage, and Wasilla...

Biden reconsiders, decides it really is okay to mock McCain for POW disability which prevents him from using keyboards

Posted on September 23, 2008
I've put up my first non-Palin guest post at HughHewitt.com. (Be sure to read at least the first comment.)

"Caribou Barbie" kicks serious tail

Posted on September 23, 2008
I've got another guest post up at HughHewitt.com, giving credit for humor where due but urging Gov. Palin to embrace her inner Caribou Barbie.

A fisking of David Talbot's assembly of Alaska's defeated candidates and felons to whine about "mean girl" Sarah Palin

Posted on September 23, 2008
It's almost indecently easy to fisk stuff that's published on Salon.com, and I enjoyed doing so in another guest post about Sarah Palin on HughHewitt.com this morning.

Spare me your reverse-reverse snobbery about Sarah Palin

Posted on September 23, 2008
I've put up yet another guest-post about Gov. Palin at HughHewitt.com. This one's pretty snarky, but I respectfully submit that it's a response to snark-rageous provocation from Michelle Cottle, a leftie pundit at TNR.

Wisdom & elitism: The moose-hunting hockey mom versus the community organizer from Harvard Law

Posted on September 22, 2008
It may be only temporary ? I still have a mostly-downed tree suspended across my electric line drop in my backyard ? but for the moment I have power and internet back, thanks in part to a visiting crew of power linemen from New York State. And I'm hoping that a nearby tree-cutting crew from North Carolina which is sweeping...

New clueless anti-Palin meme: She's a black widow who'll turn on John McCain

Posted on September 22, 2008
I have another guest post up at HughHewitt.com.

Ike: Recovering from the storm

Posted on September 14, 2008
Yes, we'll remember Ike for a while in Houston. But it could have been much worse, at least for me and mine. I'm safe. My kids and ex are safe, and they even have power back on, not too many blocks away from me. The water pressure is coming back up gradually, and there's been no significant flooding in my...

The red flag from Alaska that Team Obama chose to ignore

Posted on September 12, 2008
I've put up another Palin post at HughHewitt.com.

Ike: Calm before the storm

Posted on September 12, 2008
From my simple vantage in southwest Houston (Sharpstown/HBU area), folks seem pretty calm and purposeful as Hurricane Ike continues to head straight for us. As much out of curiosity as anything, I stopped at my regular corner convenience store, which was still pumping gas (about a four-car line at each pump) and selling most of its regular foods and merchandise...

In Gibson interview, Gov. Palin was right: There is no single clear meaning for "the Bush Doctrine"

Posted on September 12, 2008
So I argue in my first substantive post while guest-blogging at HughHewitt.com.

Beldar to guest-blog at HughHewitt.com until the election

Posted on September 12, 2008
I'm tickled to announce that between now and the election, I'll be doing some guest-blogging at HughHewitt.com. Hugh and the good folks at Townhall have offered me that opportunity as a way to make my posts accessible to a broader audience. There as here, however, the views I express will be my own, as will my blunders...

On 9/11/01 plus seven

Posted on September 11, 2008
I'm resigned now to the reality that even on 9/11/01, some Americans never understood 9/11/01. For them, it's never been a question of whether, or when, they'd forget their fierce resolve that America would stand up to attacks on it. They never had that resolve...

Beldar unpanicked by Ike

Posted on September 10, 2008
An enormous amount of news broadcasting about hurricanes is unserious and irresponsible. Even print media's coverage can be pretty hysterical. I've seen quite a few big storms, starting with Tropical Storm Claudette when I was a summer law clerk here in 1979 and Hurricane Allen on the same weekend that I first moved to Houston full-time in August 1980, so...

Newsweek bonds with child-abuser in Tasergate non-scandal

Posted on September 10, 2008
I've blogged quite a bit before about Tasergate (here and here), but the newest hatchet job on Sarah Palin comes from Newsweek (h/t Jim Geraghty at NRO's Campaign Spot). Newsweek reports that then private-citizen Sarah Palin, her sister Molly, and their family were cautioned by the judge in Molly's divorce case not to "disparage" Molly's ex-husband, Alaska Trooper Mike "Tasered-My-Kid"...

A critique of Dahlia Lithwick's debate advice to Joe Biden

Posted on September 09, 2008
Dahlia Lithwick tells us in her latest online column in Slate that she is a "longtime parliamentary debater" (by which I think she means, she's from Canada) and a "longer-time female," and that as such, she is going to "humbly offer [Joe Biden] a few tips on how to debate a girl...

Sarah "Barracuda" Palin sends Secret Service agent on personal errand to put one innocent American family under scrutiny

Posted on September 09, 2008
Sarah Palin's enemies say that once she's in a position of power, she uses that power ruthlessly to further her personal agenda. Now, there's new proof of just how personally Gov. Palin takes things, as evidenced by the errand ? involving one particular American family that had come under her scrutiny ? on which she recently dispatched an armed member...

Biden says election of Palin as VP would be "obviously a backward step for women"

Posted on September 09, 2008
I firmly believe that between now and November 4th, Joe Biden will be Barack Obama's gift to the GOP that just keeps on giving. Today's offering: Asked by a local television reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin if electing Palin would be a step forward for women, Biden said, "well look, I think the issue is what does Sarah Palin think? What...

Trials and turmoils of The One on the rough, tough campaign trail

Posted on September 08, 2008
Quoth The One, on the subject of his many sacrifices, 'midst high-dollar donors ($2,300 or $30,800, the higher price presumably including unlimited shrimp and a photo op with The One) at one of two back-to-back New York events hosted by the (notably lesser) rock star Jon Bon Jovi and a neighbor: "I hope you guys are up for a fight...

NYT confirms startling detail about Palin child's name!

Posted on September 08, 2008
Yes, indeed, as I had speculated, the NYT has now definitively confirmed that infant Trig's second middle name ? he's officially "Trig Paxson Van Palin" ? was indeed intended as a pun on the name of the rock group Van Halen and its stars of that same surname, Eddie and Alex...

Palin and the Alaska National Guard

Posted on September 07, 2008
Via Rob at The Spyglass, I came across this four-minute video clip about Gov. Sarah Palin's duties ? and her above-and-beyond performance of same ? as commander of the Alaska National Guard. It makes several good points, not only in illuminating the responsibilities that all governors have in directing their states' guard units, but also about how Sarah Palin in...

Glib dismissals of Gov. Palin's executive record are unfair and unpersuasive: A further response to Paul Mirengoff

Posted on September 07, 2008
A couple of days after John McCain's surprise nomination of Sarah Palin, I wrote a post entitled A plea for patience with sour, conventional conservative pundits who are still getting their minds around the Palin pick. In it, I argued that since Gov. Palin was an unconventional choice, and someone largely unknown to many conservatives, we ought to not rush...

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