Saturday Morning Reading

Talk Left has an interesting article on the role of the Attorney General and the upcoming hearings on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales, predicting that Gonzales will be confirmed.The excerpts from the Ashcroft hearings in 2000 are insightful as is TalkLeft's analysis of why the Democratic opposition will not be unleashed in full force - we've got to pick our battles. I'm not so sure I agree.I don't think there's much hope of progress on Democratic bills in the next two years so why not act as the party of opposition? I don't think we'll succeed in blocking Gonzales' nomination. I don't think we should spend all our political capital trying to. I do think that the hearings should be seen as the groundwork for preventing a future nomination to the Supreme Court and as an opportunity to reopen discussions about the administration's position in regard to torture. Matt Yglesias says this much better in this post on obstruction vs opposition. Go read it. Then head over to see Oliver Willis respond with disdain and read the comment thread for a few more interesting points on the debate.

Perhaps as a sign that the opinions of the lowly citizen blogger won't matter, Pandagon tells us that we can expect the confirmation hearings for Gonzales to be low key and for the confirmation to slide through with little opposition. I say it's time to give Senators Biden and Schumer a call.

Past Peak provides the clearest presentation to date of the tax burden/receipt of blue states vs red states that I've seen. The information is floating around the blogosphere, but unfortunately it's often put in the context of really harsh remarks about red states. Kudos to Past Peak for limiting commentary to this: "The red states imagine they are the champions of self-reliance, the righteous foes of welfare, taxes, and government spending. In their dreams." Add to this post an earlier one on the health of red states vs blue states. I'm not sure what it means that red states are less healthy than blue states. Do red staters have more difficult lives? Smoke more? Eat less healthily? Have less time for exercise? More stressed? I don't know, but it's interesting nonetheless.

If you're getting tired of the red vs blue state flame wars, head over to this Matthew Gross post where he gives everyone a spanking for embracing what he sees as a media creation. I say that we're allowed a brief moment to rant, then we better start embracing purple.

Finally, I'm not sure what I think of the site where every day Americans are posting pictures of themselves apologizing to the rest of the world for Bush's win. Click on the gallery for the  pics. What do you think?