New low for Bush: And Cheney is toast:

President Bush’s job approval has reached the lowest level yet. Only 35 percent approve of the job he’s doing.

Vice President Cheney has never been as popular as the president, but his favorable rating is down nine points this year to just 19 percent.

By Ian Adams, via McSweeney’s:

• He wouldn’t be able to give away high-ranking administration positions to his former co-workers. They’re all dead.
• Children and foreign dignitaries would be more comfortable during photo ops.
• He isn’t always a sinister villain.
• If he had to hide in a series of underground bunkers, he could draw on over 70 years of experience with being buried.
• Grinning skull face a more convincing sign of goodwill.

From the National Journal’s PollTrack (edited):

Overall, the public’s initial impression of Alito is lukewarm compared to that of Chief Justice John Roberts when he was first nominated. Forty-three percent gave Alito a good or excellent rating; 51 percent told CNN/Gallup/USA Today pollsters that they had the same opinion of Roberts. Alito’s numbers are closer to the original ratings of White House counsel Harriet Miers. When President Bush first selected her, 44 percent rated her as a good or excellent pick in a CNN/Gallup/USA Today survey.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they believe if Alito is confirmed he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion. Another 38 percent said he would not and about a quarter offered no opinion.

And a majority of Americans might not feel comfortable with those implications: Fifty-three percent said they’d want senators to reject Alito’s nomination if he would definitely overturn Roe. Thirty-seven percent said they would want to see the judge approved. A slim majority — 51 percent — said Alito’s views on important issues fall within the mainstream, while 26 percent said they’re too extreme and 23 percent had no opinion.

On Capitol Hill, Alito’s nomination has sparked criticism from Democrats and resurrected talk of the so-called “nuclear option.” Half of respondents said Senate Democrats would be justified in using the filibuster to block a vote on Alito. Forty percent said such a move would not be justified.

If Democrats employed the filibuster, 45 percent said it would be reasonable for GOP senators to change the rules to eliminate the procedure, ensuring their nominee received an up-or-down vote — but a slight 47-percent plurality said such a move wouldn’t be justified.

Negative inference: After reading Becky Knight’s thorough analysis at Buzzflash of the information provided by CIA Leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald at his news conference late last week, I went back and re-read the transcript, and was struck by something Fitzgerald said about grand jury secrecy that, to use a phrase, gave me pause.

You’ll recall that Fitzgerald’s “live” audience in the room on Friday was the press corps assigned to the CIA Leak invesigation, all of whom had undoubtedly been rebuffed for information by Fitzgerald and his team many times over the past two years. So the information blackout was one of the first issues the prosecutor addressed when he finally broke his silence.

What is interesting here is how his statement about the sanctity of grand jury secrecy appears to contain a dig at the investigation by Ken Starr into the Clinton Administration, which, by any reckoning, leaked like a seive:

TOP STORIES

• Poll: Bush Approval at 35%; Cheney at 19%: According to the new CBS Poll.
• How Many Ways Would the Disinterred Corpse of Silent-Film Actor Lon Chaney Would Be a Better Vice President Than Dick Cheney?: Plenty of ways, says Ian Brown at McSweeney’s.
• Alito’s Polling Numbers Mirror Miers’Second verse, same as the first.

It may be frustrating when investigations are conducted in secret. When investigations use grand juries, it’s important that the information be closely held…

There’s another thing about a grand jury investigation. One of the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share it with the public.

And as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is important because, the way our system of justice works, if information is gathered about people and they’re not charged with a crime, we don’t hold up that information for the public to look at. We either charge them with a crime or we don’t. And that’s why we’ve safeguarded information here to date.

This underscores the fact that Fitzgerald regarded the nature of his assignment to be a very serious matter – and, by comparison, the self-important, morally self-important Mr. Starr did not.

Why my sister and I were baptised in two different churches is a long story but she recently decided to return to her Catholic roots. She’s been going to whatever classes they make you take so she will be able to receive communion and confess her sins and all that other stuff Catholics do.

A main focus of every class is abortion. My sister said the instructors (nuns) get on it and stay on it, week in and week out. This bothers her because she is pro-choice, and as a hospice professional, also believes in a person’s right not to have to go through what Terri Schiavo did.

Catholics are one-trick ponies when it comes to abortion. I don’t mean to offend but there is simply no dissention in the church about this. There are no degrees or shades when looking at this issue.

Whatever else you can say about Alito, he will be Catholic No. 5 on the Supreme Court bench, along with Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts. I don’t see how this can be a good thing for women.

In taking the Senate into special session today, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid exhibited what has been missing on the national stage since the Bush era began: real gravitas:

SEN. HARRY REID: America deserves better than this. They also deserve a searching and comprehensive investigation into how the Bush administration brought this country to war. Key questions that need to be answered include:

– How did the Bush administration assemble its case for war against Iraq? We heard what Colonel Wilkerson said.
– Who did the Bush administration officials listen to and who did they ignore?
– How did the senior administration officials manipulate or manufacture intelligence presented to the Congress and the American people?
– What was the role of the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, a group of senior White House officials tasked with marketing the war and taking down its critics? We know what Colonel Wilkerson says.
– How did the administration coordinate its efforts to attack individuals who dared to challenge the administration’s assertions? We know what happened to them — I listed a few.
– Why has this administration failed to provide Congress with the documents that would shed light on their misconduct and the misstatements?

Unfortunately, the Senate committee that should be taking the lead in providing these answers is not. Despite the fact that the chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee publicly committed to examine these questions more than a year and a half ago, he has chosen not to keep that commitment. Despite the fact that he restated the commitment earlier this year on national television, he has still done nothing. …

Mr. President, enough time has gone by. I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren’t being conducted, and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that Senate go into closed session.

SEN. DICK DURBIN: Mr. President, I second the motion.

“[Those] people in the White House, especially [Scooter] Libby and the Vice President, working as a team, ‘connected as a root’ to use Libby’s favorite phrase, basically pulled off an Alleyoop play to get us into war in Iraq, by feeding to the New York Times stories about nuclear potential in the hands of Saddam Hussein, to get it into the Sunday paper, and then deploying the Vice President on Meet the Press and other Administration officials like Condi Rice on the other Sunday talk shows in a kinda Alleyoop play. So they put the ball in the air, and then on Sunday mornings, these guys put it in the basket, and then all of a sudden we’re at war over Iraq because a lot of Americans in the middle politically say, ‘I don’t know how we’re getting into that mess or why we’re getting in it, but I guess we have to protect ourselves against a mushroom cloud,’ that is Condi’s phrase.

“So having pulled this masterful move of moving the undecided middle into the war, they then became very sensitive to the charge by Joseph Wilson that they had done the very thing, pushed the nuclear button and then covered up any threat to that nuclear button, and Wilson was that threat, and then, going volcanic against anybody including me, who dared to say ‘Wait a minute, there is a pattern here of how we got into the war, and how they promoted the nuclear case and how they protected the nuclear case against Wilson.’

“They didn’t like me doing that, I know that a number of Administration officials were screaming at my network at all levels about me raising this issue, the very points I’ve just made. They don’t like hearing it, Libby is in trouble now because he doesn’t like hearing it, the Vice President is very much a part of this.”

– Chris Matthews, host of “Hardball” on MSNBC