Oh, Lord, this means we’re gonna have to go through that whole Vince Foster thing again.

Via the Daily Beast: Supreme Court Justice…Hillary Clinton?

The political bombshell of the year could turn out to be Supreme Court Justice Hillary Clinton.

…Given the Clintons ambition for power, most would agree that Hillary doesn’t see secretary of State as the final chapter in her career. Certainly she’d like to be president. But increasingly, she has to view that prospect as a declining one.

…it doesn’t realistically look Clinton would have a shot until 2020 at the earliest.

…if in the end if it’s about what is realistic, and how Hillary could have the greatest impact on society, most would agree she could have the greatest political influence by hanging around for a couple of decades casting votes and writing opinions on the Supreme Court.

Yeah, except I don’t think that’s really what it’s about, in the end, for the Clintons.

The authors go on to say that President Obama would nominate her to mollify women, who are still mad about the 2008 primary; and that some Republicans will vote for her for the same reason, or to get her out of the presidential way.

Yeah, maybe. The nomination battle would, I’d hope, center around her own political and financial shenanigans; around her and her husband’s legalistic skirting back in the 1990s; and most importantly, on whether or not a lifelong political partisan like her – instead of a lifelong legal scholar and judge – should have a seat on the Court at all.

Or she could just retire, write a book, become one of those goodwill ambassador types. That sounds pretty good, too.

In non-Danica-related supermodel news…

• Brooklyn Decker, whoever that is, is this year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model.

And:

• Carrie Prejean to marry Rams quarterback Kyle Boller.

Sheesh, he’s better-looking than she is.

In case you were wondering, yes I am getting a little tired of Danicablogging…

…but as long as she keeps sending the hits – literally oodles of hits – well, do you leave the blackjack table when you’re winning every hand?

Of course not. Thus: Patrick to make NASCAR debut at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP)—Danica Patrick will make her NASCAR debut this weekend at Daytona International Speedway.

…The decision announced Monday to race at Daytona was made after team officials dissected her stock-car racing debut in the ARCA race at Daytona on Saturday. The team had left the option to race up to Patrick, who wanted to assess her first race before deciding whether to enter one of the most prestigious Nationwide races of the season.

… Patrick had been hesitant to make her debut at Daytona because of the top talent that race attracts.

I take it the race she drove last Saturday was sort of a minor-league thing, while this race is more of a major-league thing. Turn left, Danica! Turn left!

Coming up next: Danica Patrick’s Top Ten Career Moments. Stay tuned!

Give Robert Gibbs some credit: he knows a winning shtick when he sees one.

And when he sees it, he emulates it:

Following President Obama’s surprise appearance at the White House press briefing, press secretary Robert Gibbs garnered laughter from the press corps by holding up his hand to reveal that he had written notes on his palm in black marker.

Gibbs’ move was a jab at Sarah Palin, who was shown to have written notes on her hand at a speech at the Tea Party convention Saturday after making an implicit criticism of the president for using a TelePrompTer.

Funny part:

A close up of the palm also revealed the words “hope” and “change,” which Gibbs said he included “just in case I forgot that.”

The rest of us wish we could forget.

Dan Riehl asks: who are the childish ones, here? But I think Dan’s got the wrong idea: it’s not childishness. It’s the sincerest form of flattery.

Hey, something’s gotta start working for them.

Via Memeorandum

Previously:

And:

And:

On the other hand, I’m afraid I’ll have to cheer for the snow.

If only this kind of thing would work year-round!

The House has just canceled votes for the week, meaning the chamber will be out of session through Feb. 22, including next week’s scheduled Presidents Day recess. Across Capitol Hill, virtually every press conference and every committee hearing are also being canceled as a second blizzard approaches.

No wonder the Dow Jones is up today!

Via Memeorandum

I poke fun at East Coasters and their inability to handle snowfall a lot, usually, but…

…this really does seem like piling on:

Powerful winds and snow were expected to hit Mid-Atlantic states by the afternoon, and could leave as much as 20 inches of new snow in Washington and 18 inches near Philadelphia — a Northeast travel hub — by Wednesday night.

That’s on top of the couple of feet they got over the weekend.

We had a winter like that a couple years ago: big snowfall on top of big snowfall, three or four times. It got so you ran out of room. You couldn’t shovel your driveway because you couldn’t throw the snow high enough to get it on top of the piles you already created. What you do then is, basically, you pile it on top of your car, and it falls off little by little as you’re driving. Then it’s the city’s problem.

More from the story:

The storm brought out the best in some: In Alexandria, Va., when word got out that a family living at the bottom of a hill on an unplowed street needed to get their teenage daughter whose cancer is in remission out to an important doctor’s appointment, neighbors quickly converged. The entire street was shoveled before many neighbors even had shoveled their own driveways.

Good for them. Now for the bad news:

Some spots, including parts of Maryland, had nearly 3 feet of snow from the earlier storm. One scientist said if all that fell on the East Coast were melted, it would fill 12 million Olympic swimming pools or 30,000 Empire State buildings. Philadelphia and Washington each need about 9 more inches to give the cities their snowiest winters since 1884, the first year records were kept.

The oceans will rise!

This was strange:

Jerry Bennett, manager of the Strosniders hardware store in Silver Spring, Md., said he sold 500 snow shovels in two hours Friday. Since then, customers have been stalking shipments.

“Every third question is, ‘Do you have shovels?’” Bennett said. “Every three hours, we can answer ‘yes,’ and then they’re gone.”

People don’t have snow shovels? It’s not like they live in Florida or Arizona or someplace like that. That I could understand. How can people living in Maryland not have snow shovels?

One more bit:

The storm that began Friday closed schools, and some 230,000 federal workers in Washington had Monday and Tuesday off.

Keep! Them! Home! Keep! Them! Home!

If that’s true, why is it true?

I’m writing about Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) for tomorrow’s FoxPolitics.net: his growing conservative notoriety, mainly, and also his Roadmap for America’s Future.

While doing a little online research, I came across this bit from Matthew Yglesias:

Paul Ryan has gone where I thought no Republican would dare to tread and put out an alternative budget proposal that would, in fact, balance the budget over the long term. Part of the program is draconian real cuts in all domestic programs.

Uh-huh.

Let’s not make the mistake of paying Yglesias’ histrionics too much mind. That “draconian real cuts” crap is typical liberalese in a case like this: somebody wants to reform entitlements, you start screaming CUTS!

But just for the sake of argument – just for kicks – let’s pretend that Yglesias is right, and Ryan’s plan will require exactly those “draconian real cuts in all domestic programs.”

Why, then? Why will balancing the budget, controlling debt, and making Social Security and Medicare indelibly solvent require “draconian real cuts?”

If that’s true, why is it true? How did we get to this point, where simple fiscal responsibility requires slashing and burning?

Superbowl notes: one down, four (or fourteen) left to go.

The New Orleans Saints’ victory yesterday gets them off the list – finally - of NFL teams that have never been to a Superbowl. The remaining never-have-beens:

Detroit Lions
Cleveland Browns
Houston Texans
Jacksonville Jaguars

To be fair, both Detroit and Cleveland won championships in the pre-Superbowl era. Still. That can’t be easy, living with that.

The Saints are also off the list of teams that have never won a Superbowl. Including the four teams listed above, those teams are:

Minnesota Viqueens
Buffalo Bills

Those two get special notice, having lost - ouch - four Superbowls apiece. Minnesota played in four during an eight-year span in the 1970s; Buffalo, of course, played and lost in four straight in the early 1990s.

Others who have played, but never won:

Cincinnati Bengals
Philadelphia Eagles

They both lost it twice. And the teams which are 0-1 in Superbowls:

San Diego Chargers
Atlanta Falcons
Tennessee Titans
Carolina Panthers
Seattle Seahawks
Arizona Cardinals

Many of those teams also won championships in the pre-Superbowl era.

Must feel good to get that particular monkey off one’s back.

CBS: looking to corner the all-important troglodyte demographic for Sweeps Week

Via Bob Belvedere (who has some kind of weird crush on me or something): Danica Patrick will guest-star in an upcoming episode of CSI:

Patrick will appear on the February 13 episode, playing a stock car driver. The case will center around the investigation into the death of her competitor.

I hope she turns out to be the bad guy. Those roles are always more fun.

While this isn’t Patrick’s first appearance on the small screen, it does mark the debut of her acting career. Before this, she has done commercials, always appearing as herself. She has also been the spokesperson for GoDaddy.com for three years.

That’s her and Gary Sinise, who was great in “Forrest Gump” and “Apollo 13,” and not much else.

While I appreciate CBS’s willingness to go this extra mile for my viewership, this whole thing has a couple of strikes against it already:

• Danica, as an actor, reminds me of Brett Favre in “There’s Something About Mary.”

Which is to say: tree. And:

• I’ve seen a couple episodes of CSI, and don’t care to see any more.

True, I might make an exception in this case. Time will tell.

The Mystery Billboard

Via InstaPundit, also noted at Fishersville Mike’s, this:

I followed the links back to this Minnesota Public Radio story:

It was late at night and I wasn’t sure I’d seen the billboard correctly as I whizzed past it on I-35 in Wyoming last week on the way back from Wrenshall. But an e-mailer confirms I saw what I thought I saw.

It’s beginning to sweep along the Internet, accompanied by various claims that it’s a Photoshop fake. But it’s not. It’s real.

They’re trying to find out who owns the billboard. I’d like to know, too, so I can buy the guy a beer.

Previously:

A little Monday Krugman

Columnist Paul Krugman:

America Is Not Yet Lost

Agreed. It’s around here somewhere.

We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation…

Wow, he admits it.

…would eventually end.

Because everything does, eventually.

But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.

Historically, it never is.

What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce.

Agreed.

Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch…

“Instead of?”

…we’re paralyzed by procedure.

Which is the only reason that “grand and tragic downfall” hasn’t happened already.

Via Memeorandum.

TrogloPundit passes 300,000 hits

Thanks all. Please save your applause until February 18.

You wouldn’t think that a bunch of commercials including Danica Patrick in a towel and Megan Fox in a bathtub would be, as a group, so lame.

But they really were. Oh, sure, there were a few bright spots. The Letterman/Leno ad. The Bud Light “Lost” ad. Stevie Wonder playing Slug-a-Bug (when did Chris Wysocki start writing TV commercials, exactly?). And my favorite, Punxsutawney Polamalu:

Tell you what, I got a little teary-eyed when that guy said “six more weeks of football.”

Old joke: if Beethoven were alive today, what would he be doing?

Answer: screaming in terror and clawing at the top of his coffin.

From a Shawn Tully (Forbes Magazine) interview with economist Allan Meltzer, titled “How Obama got Keynes Wrong:”

Q: If Keynes were alive today, what would he think of President Obama’s fiscal policies?

A: He would roll over in his grave if he could see the things being done in his name.

Over at Right Wing News today:

• A few words written on your palm is exactly the same thing as complete dependency on professionally-written speeches, laid out for you on high-tech teleprompters.

UPDATE - Holy crap, there’s 55 81 comments on that post.

Danica finishes 6th

The Danica Patrick google bomb has been good to The Trog lately. Rule 2…or maybe not Rule 2. Rule 4? No, that’s Memeorandum. Well, one of the rules somewhere must demand that I continue to blog about Danica Patrick, out of simple gratitude for all the hits.

As luck would have it, there’s an actual reason to blog about her today:

Danica Patrick has run her first stock car race, and not only did she not embarrass herself or the sport, she came on strong, weathered a spin, and finished sixth. And all of a sudden, the Danica Experiment has gone from sponsor-driven gimmickry to legitimate racing operation.

Patrick qualified 12th in the Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200, an 80-lap ARCA race which was intended to help her get comfortable behind the wheel of a stock car. She traded paint with a few of her fellow drivers, and at one point spun the car but avoided what would have been a race-ending collision with the wall. She demonstrated skill in race management in getting herself from the back of the pack back into the mix. And while she never really threatened for the lead, she certainly proved that she’s got the skills to handle a stock car.

The best finish for a female driver since 1999, which is, of course, a sexist thing to notice. And get this:

Danica wasn’t the only driver in the race — heck, she wasn’t even the only woman — but she drew the vast majority of media attention.

I think that’s something we ought to explore to a greater extent. Don’t you?

If I were a video game, I’d be picking the Saints…

…by a field goal. Or so. And that is, in fact, what I’ll be cheering for: a last-minute touchdown for the New Orleans victory.

Because Peyton Manning is just annoying. And over-exposed. And over-hyped. And the main threat to break some of the records Brett Favre set in Green Bay. So go Saints!

Final score: 28-24, Saints, with the winning points scored in the final minute.

Caveat: I’m not a video game. Nor am I putting any money on the game. If I was putting money on the game, I’d pick the Colts to cover the spread, which I understand is somewhere between 4.5 and 6.

If I were a professional sports prognosticator whose livelihood depended on making accurate predictions, I’d take the Colts by two touchdowns. Final score: 38-24, Colts.

If I were a professional sports prognosticator whose livelihood depended on making interesting, sometimes controversial predictions, I’d take the Saints in a close game. Final score: 27-24, Saints.

Being a great lover of American football who hates Superbowl Sunday for the fact that, after today, there won’t be any more football for the better part of a year, I’m really hoping this game is as good as the last two Superbowls were. But, being a great lover of American football who has watched these two teams closely for the past month, I kinda doubt it will be. Final score: 41-24, Colts.

All this taken into account, here’s the final score: Saints 31, Colts 28.

Take it to the bank.

If that’s a “fringe,” what’ll it look like as a “force?”

Headline at the NY Times: Tea Party Looks to Move From Fringe to Force

Via Memeorandum. And yes, I know I said I was tired of my own Memeorandum-centricness. Sue me.

As if this wasn’t a big enough sports weekend already…

Wisconsin native Danica Patrick is driving in her first-ever stock car race today. Something called ARCA, in Florida. I don’t really know a damn thing about it and wouldn’t care, except that her name is popping up all over the internet today because of it.

She’ll start in 12th position. Somewhere forward of the middle. Race starts at 3:30, Wisconsin time.

This was my favorite part of the story:

Patrick is trying to absorb knowledge from anywhere she can. It made sense to talk to Juan Pablo Montoya, a former open-wheel racing standout who made the transition to NASCAR.

“(Montoya) was just helping me out with the drafting of the car,” she said.

Patrick didn’t go to Montoya for advice — Montoya went out of his way to find her Thursday.

“I’ve never spoken to Juan before,” Patrick said. “He’s a really nice guy. I really liked talking to him and he offered up his help throughout the rest of the year if I want it, whatever I want, so I have a lot to learn from Juan.”

Yeah, I’ll bet. Hey, Juan, she’s married y’know.

So here’s what I’m gonna do:

I’m gonna dump almost everything out of my RSS reader and then re-fill it with blogs I never heard of. Figure I’ll use the bevy of Rule 2 reacharounds you find places like here, here, here, here, here, and of course here. Others, too, as I find them. Lemme know if you have a suggestion.

There’s a lot of great stuff out there, and I’m missing it. Plus I feel all stagnant and gross, just looking at Memeorandum all the time.

And yes, I know. Rule 4. I didn’t say I was gonna completely stop looking at Memeorandum.