I'm waiting for the inevitable assignment to come down the pipe and killing time. What's new with you?

Quick thoughts:

What I love about Seymour Hersh's writing is that he doesn't aggrandize or put a moral sheen on his reporting- usually, the facts he delivers are damning enough on their own. Case in point- article in the most recent New Yorker detailing the administration's attempts- and partial success- in "influencing" the January Iraqi elections. Just a little tidbit:

"A former senior intelligence official told me, “The election clock was running down, and people were panicking. The polls showed that the Shiites were going to run off with the store. The Administration had to do something. How?”

By then [late last year], the men in charge of the C.I.A. were “dying to help out, and make sure the election went the right way,” the recently retired C.I.A. official recalled. It was known inside the intelligence community, he added, that the Iranians and others were providing under-the-table assistance to various factions. The concern, he said, was that “the bad guys would win. ...

...In my reporting for this story, one theme that emerged was the Bush Administration’s increasing tendency to turn to off-the-books covert actions to accomplish its goals. This allowed the Administration to avoid the kind of stumbling blocks it encountered in the debate about how to handle the elections: bureaucratic infighting, congressional second-guessing, complaints from outsiders.
The methods and the scope of the covert effort have been hard to discern. The current and former military and intelligence officials who spoke to me about the election operation were unable, or unwilling, to give precise details about who did what and where on Election Day. These sources said they heard reports of voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, bribery, and the falsification of returns, but the circumstances, and the extent of direct American involvement, could not be confirmed. ”

I'll let Hersh speak for himself. The whole article is here.

Otherwise: John Roberts- could be worse. Best case scenario- he's another Souter or Kennedy. Worst, he's a Rehnquist. He doesn't seem to have the insane edge of a Scalia, or the contemplative obsequiousness of a Thomas. At any rate, when Republicans pick a nominee like this, they tend to regret it. Let's hope that trend continues.

Bolton's new job- Bush does have the absolute right to do this. Still, it was a total dick move. I'd like to think it'll haunt him later (2006)- but nothing comes back to bite this president. The man's an untouchable, in every sense of the word.