For those looking for an update on Miers, what I said yesterday still applies today – nothing new except the depth of denial by pundits who think they are President. Anyone is welcome to join the Carnival of The Chillin’ on this subject, which should be out tomorrow. My prediction is that in the end Miers will be confirmed 81-19

Ronnie The Clown is all upset people are not happy with his naked abuse of office.

The Texas prosecutor overseeing an investigation of former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) fired back yesterday at criticism by DeLay’s lawyers that he brought a new indictment against the powerful legislator on Monday to fix a legal flaw in the first indictment of DeLay last week.

Travis Country District Attorney Ronnie Earle said in a written statement released late yesterday that the new indictment charging DeLay with the criminal felonies of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering was based on new information that “came to the attention of the District Attorney’s Office” last weekend.

Yeah, the new information was the motion being filed by DeLay’s lawyers explaining how the law Ronnie The Clown used in the first indictment was not on the books at the time of the alleged actions by DeLay. What kind of clown doesn’t even check to see if the statute existed when seeking an indictment? That is Law 101.

In comments reminiscent of the movie Outbreak, the Bush administration is discussing the use of the military to enforce quarantines in the event of a deadly bird flu outbreak. I don’t mind planning for the worst, but I would like to know the conditions that would trigger such a step and the methods for federal support to those walled off from society, their jobs and their family.

We also hear today how the news media got in the way of aid to hurricane victims. While the fluffed-hair reporters were asking Bush if his presence in the impact zones where a distraction to relief efforts, it appears the media’s rumor mongering did more damage than expected.

Five weeks after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to New Orleans, some local, state and federal officials have come to believe that exaggerations of mayhem by officials and rumors repeated uncritically in the news media helped slow the response to the disaster and tarnish the image of many of its victims.

Anne Applebaum takes her media cohorts to task for being carriers of the dreaded rumor disease.

Also in the Washington Post Opinion section is this piece on lessons learned from the Miller affair.

It’s obvious that Libby cares about Miller and wants her to return to reporting on issues they both see as important. That sort of personal connection between reporter and source may strike some people as sinister, but it’s the mother’s milk of journalism. That’s why people tell us things: Because we listen, and often sound sympathetic. Just ask Bob Woodward. But the true measure of a great reporter, as Woodward has shown time and again, is a willingness to bite the hands that feed you. And the measure of a great newspaper is editors who insist on that ultimate separation of reporter and source, but we’ll come back to that.
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I have no idea what further investigation will reveal about the discussions in the summer of 2003 between Miller and Libby. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the evidence showed what’s already obvious — that she and Libby both cared deeply about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and were frustrated by the failure to find any.

An excellent perspective on sources and confidentiality.

Dr. Sanity has a great post on a recent Christopher Hitchens piece descontructing the liberal ideaology in its response to the Bali bombings. The mirror Hitchens is holding up to the left is brutally honest. No wonder the left is afraid to look into it.

And in what has got to be the most eye-catching, under reported news the Iranian military has taken control of the supposedly peaceful Iranian nuclear program.

Iran’s new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has placed the military firmly in control of his nation’s nuclear program, undercutting his government’s claim that the program is intended for civilian use, according to a leading opposition group.

Sort of puts the lie to the liberal naivette that there is no problem with Iran. Time to get out the bunker busters, as I predicted.