I agree with Bush’s decision to commute Libby’s prison sentence. But what’s interesting is that Tim Noah does as well:

President Bush’s commutation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s 30-month prison sentence will likely prompt many people with politics similar to my own to cry bloody murder. It will be called a cover-up. It will be called a payoff for Libby’s failure to implicate Vice President Dick Cheney, and perhaps even Bush himself, more directly in the Plamegate scandal. It will be compared to President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, and to Bush p

Julian Tepper has some thoughts.

Jane Galt points out another of the many problems with employer-provided health insurance. I believe that this lies at the core of health insurance problems. Until people actually are motivated to shop for insurance themselves, and the insurance companies motivated to view the patient, rather than employers, as the customer, we will have no hope of fixing things.

There was a discussion over on Usenet in which people were whining about how unfair it was that Gore didn’t win the presidency, even though he got a majority of the vote (he didn’t really–there’s no way to know that within the margin of error of vote counts, so close was the election), because of that anachronistic electoral college thingie. I pointed out that there’s nothing at all anachronistic about it, and that in fact it’s arguable that it’s needed more than ever, with modern media. If the president were directly elected, all a candidate would have to do is ad buys in the major media markets, and voters in places like Wyoming and Alaska would be effectively disenfranchised, since the candidates would have no need to pay any attention to them.

It occurs to me that, in fact, a lot of California’s mess could be alleviated by instituting an electoral college. As it is now, while there are legislators representing rural counties, they’re overwhelmed by those from the cities, and the entire state (most of which is in fact quite rural) is run by Sacramento.

I’m not sure exactly what the mechanism to restore some balance might be, but it would probably involve having electors proportional to state senator and representatives from some kind of new district analogous to states within the state, to at least insure that the governor was more broadly representative of all the state’s constituencies, rather than just LA, San Diego and the Bay Area. Of course, given the current political structure, implementing such a reform is probably a fantasy.

[Early afternoon update]

Just by coincidence, here’s an article by Henry Lamb defending the electoral college.

Mark Steyn declares independence from bloviators like Trenthorn Lotthorn and his goats.

I agree too:

By all appearances, we need more remedies for illegal conduct by officials. And if damages are inappropriate, Congress can always legislate an appropriate scheme.

I’ve always found it absurd that the only penalty for illegally procured evidence or prosecutorial misconduct was to throw out the evidence. Of course, it’s not always practical to get damages, but perhaps if North Carolina had to pay damages for what Nifong did, they’d be a little more careful about how they hire prosecutors. And the notion of electing them seems (again, from the same case) problematic…

Hillary’s campaign doing push polling? Surely it can’t be true!

Hillary’s campaign doing push polling? Surely it can’t be true!

Hillary’s campaign doing push polling? Surely it can’t be true!

You know, speaking of unjustified self esteem and overpraised Senators, like royalty, I suspect that members of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” (OK, I’ll wait a few minutes for you to stop laughing)…often cocoon themselves with such simpering sycophants as staff that they have no concept of how idiotic they can come off when performing unscripted. George Voinovich being a case in point. When a dim bulb like Sean Hannity can make you sound like a fool, you’re a blithering idiot.

Well, at least he didn’t cry, as he did during the Bolton nomination.

That creatures like this get elected to such high positions is a shameful commentary on the state of the nation’s electorate.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of overpraised Senators, Jonah Goldberg makes a good point about fluffy, meaningless political rhetoric (in this case, from the Great White Whale of Massachusetts):

Sen Kennedy just shouted that the choice before the Senate on the immigration bill is between “voting for our hopes, or voting for our fears!”

I don’t quite understand why voting your fear is obviously wrong or why voting for your hopes is necessarily right. Fear is often quite reasonable. I have a reasonable fear of alligators. Hopes, meanwhile, are often irrational and goofy. I hope eating lots of cashews will give me laser-vision and super-strength.

Yes, phrases that seem to sound good in an impassioned speech often break down under even a trivial analysis. My pet peeve on this score is Kennedy’s “not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” in explaining why go to the moon. I’ve discussed this in the past.

[Update a couple minutes later]

By the way, just in case no one noticed, for the clueless, I’ve been bashing Republicans today. Not that that’s in any way unusual for me, but some myopic people seem to only notice it when I go after Democrats.