Tuesday Roundup: Nomination Consternation

If you were hoping for a little fall drama in the Senate chamber, you are going to get it. The chances that George Bush will nominate someone totally uncontroversial to fill Alberto Gonzales' shoes are very close to zero, and the Senate confirmation hearings are destined to be all kinds of contentious.

Since yesterday, I've heard from various sources that Bush has no one in mind; that he will nominate Chertoff; and that he will nominate Solicitor General Paul Clement. This piece from CNN illustrates how sometimes the administration will purposefully put names out there that they aren't seriously considering as "test balloons." As that article also contains many names of people I haven't even thought about or heard of, that may be the case now. We are all eagerly awaiting the choice. If it does end up being Chertoff, get ready for a national contemplation of his role in Katrina.

Also, let's not forget the other kind of national contemplation, in the form of the congressional hearings over the attorney firing scandal. Congressional Democrats yesterday, led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, let everyone know that Gonzales' resignation won't stop the subpoena train. I think it can't stop the subpoena train — this die has been cast, and now, short of some totally unforeseen circumstance, the investigations have to bear out to the end. As for their result, who knows? I would make a bet on how it could turn out and feel pretty good about it, but in American politics, you can just never tell.

Arianna Huffington has some information and aggregation about the Ayad Allawi re-ascendancy in Iraq, and what that could mean for Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. Allawi, if you'll recall, was interim prime minister in Iraq and is now engaged in a full-court press to get re-hired in that capacity. Never mind that Maliki is in the position now, and never mind that, as Huffington points out, Allawi is campaigning in Washington rather than Iraq. It is a strange tale, but it is really happening.

The other strange tale — the Tale of the Missing Weapons in Iraq — is being focused on in what seems like an ever-widening probe. Via the New York Times, the Dallas Morning News tells us that the probe has reached a senior aide to General David Petraeus, although Petraeus hasn't been implicated. I think this is a story the press should stay on top of. If we're sending weapons to a place and they're disappearing, that seems — and this is just my opinion — to be a really big problem.

Do you remember Fred Thompson, and how frighteningly popular he was? Well, his candidacy may have been too cool to survive outside the tank of testable waters — here is another in a long line of stories about how his campaign is floundering before it even really begins. And no one is really sure what he stands for, other than Law and Order.

Rural voters would probably have not liked Fred Thompson, but rural voters are the focus of the Edwards campaign in some early battleground states outside of Iowa, and this Washington Post article examines his appeal among that voting bloc. Ever since I got in to politics, the dichotomy of rural and urban voters has fascinated me — I often wonder if any single message could resonate in both communities. Maybe Edwards will prove that populism has that capacity.

A Central Texas immigrant detention facility may take on some changes in how children are kept there. The Chron examines a deal between Homeland Security and the ACLU to make policies and protocols in detaining children at the center "less penal" and may initiate changes as a precedent for the other immigrant detention centers. The deal provides for children to be able to have pencils and paper, have bathroom privacy via a curtain, and possibly even go on field trips with their parents' permission. The deal awaits judicial approval.

Lastly today, Americans put on a little weight last year, but it's probably because we quit smoking or hurt our back. We'll work it off, we swear. We promise, we're working on Texas' 26.3% adult obesity rate. We're signing up for a gym membership this morning.