Today’s edition of quick hits.
* The Guardian’s blog ran a piece of mine today. Regular readers will find it kind of familiar, but go take a look anyway.
* Harriet Miers, the White House counsel and Bush’s longtime advisor, announced her resignation today. Remember when the president thought she was the most qualified person in America to be a Supreme Court justice? Good times.
* While I criticized the media’s interest in Nancy Pelosi’s clothing last month, I think it’s worth noting that the new House Speaker wore purple today — to honor the color of the women’s suffrage movement. Nice touch, Madame Speaker.
* A few years ago, congressional Republicans loaned Dick Cheney a palatial room, just off the House floor, for the Vice President’s personal use. The office traditionally belonged to the Ways and Means Committee chairman, and with that in mind, Charlie Rangel evicted Cheney from the office today. According to the Post, this has been on Rangel’s mind for quite a while — he reportedly spoke to Pelosi about the eviction on Election Night in November.
* It’s always amazing to get new revelations about Nixon’s corruption: in 1971, he had the FBI run criminal background checks on critics of William Rehnquist’s Supreme Court nomination. Better yet, John Bolton was involved with the shenanigans.
* Hal Turner, a right-wing radio show host has said members of Congress who support a liberal version of immigration reform “will be declared a domestic enemy and will be considered a legitimate target for assassination.” He added, “I know where all of my New Jersey Congressmen and Senators live. Do you know where yours live? If not, you better find out before January so you can scope out their neighborhoods and prepare yourselves.” Steve M. did a nice job highlighting how Sean Hannity helped make him what he is today.
* In a clever move, the new chairman of the Connecticut for Lieberman party is an ardent foe of Joe Lieberman.
* Americans want universal health care; Democrats want universal health care; and a growing number of Republican governors have endorsed at least the idea of universal health care. Can’t stop the signal….
* Defense Tech had a good piece on applying existing laws to heavily-armed military contractors who have been roaming Iraq for years: “Five words, slipped into a Pentagon budget bill, could make all the difference. With them, contractors ‘get out of jail free’ cards may have been torn to shreds…. They’re now subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the same set of laws that governs soldiers. But here’s the catch: embedded reporters are now under those regulations, too.”
* Sean Hannity told Fox News viewers yesterday that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion, but they “were moved.” As evidence, he cited … nothing in particular. Is it me or do you ever get the sense that Fox News viewers are just victims of an awful con job?
* In a very classy move, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) went out of his way to introduce himself to Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) on the House floor today. TPM Muckraker has the video.
* Speaking of the Ellison “controversy,” the man responsible for the flap, Dennis Prager, wrote another dumb column on the subject today in which he acknowledged, “There were sentences in that [original] column that I regret writing and that deserved criticism. I was wrong in writing them.” He went on, however, to explain over several hundred words that he is not “intolerant.”
* And on the same story, Eric Kleefeld noted that Virgil Goode’s Goode’s district office in Charlottesville, Virginia, was vandalized this week. Someone very carefully stenciled the word “bigot,” in all caps and in gold paint, on the office door.
* And Yahoo News, following CNN’s lead, ran a picture of Barack Obama with the following caption: “Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.” The sooner these editors get their act together, the better.
If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.