Random newsbits

As Judith Miller testifies this morning about the outing of Valerie Plame, remember this little tidbit:

The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.

And as Tom DeLay continues to serve in the House of Representives, let us recall the strong stand taken by our own Chris Clem:

Our Founding Fathers knew that the legislature needed the ability to dismiss members when the integrity of the system was called into question. Our Founding Fathers knew that the legislature may need to protect its process just like a bank or a daycare needs to protect its clients.

I imagine we might have to wait until after the weekend to hear Clem's call for DeLay's resignation, eh?

Hunter responds to Mark Noonan:

Welcome to the world of the politics of personal destruction, you tubthumping, chin-jutting, Bush humping gits. Welcome to the nasty and partisan world that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, and a legion of insignificant lowest-rung toadies like yourselves nurtured into fruition daily with eager, grubby hands, and now look upon with dull-faced faux horror.

Oh, the Virtues! They could fill a book! Bennett stands behind his racist remarks. And then he goes on to demonstrate that he really doesn't have a clue as to why what he said upset people:

I was putting forward a hypothetical proposition. Put that forward. Examined it. And then said about it that it's morally reprehensible. To recommend abortion of an entire group of people in order to lower your crime rate is morally reprehensible. But this is what happens when you argue that the ends can justify the means.

TGIF. It's been quite a week. Perhaps someone will manage to take the high road in October...

UPDATE: ... or sooner! Enter Barak Obama:

The bottom line is that our job is harder than the conservatives' job. After all, it's easy to articulate a belligerent foreign policy based solely on unilateral military action, a policy that sounds tough and acts dumb; it's harder to craft a foreign policy that's tough and smart. It's easy to dismantle government safety nets; it's harder to transform those safety nets so that they work for people and can be paid for. It's easy to embrace a theological absolutism; it's harder to find the right balance between the legitimate role of faith in our lives and the demands of our civic religion. But that's our job. And I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate.