Brownie is out

Good morning everyone. As you can tell from my brilliant observation a few days ago (snark), Brownie has become the first to fall on his sword for the lack of government response to Katrina. I'm glad I sent my Magic 8 Ball in for a lube and oil change before the hurricane hit.

Before we hunker down for Day 2 of the John Roberts confirmation hearings, let me point out that Judge Roberts has already lied to the committee when he said:

Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire. . . . And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.

Now I love baseball but I'm not expert enough that I can keep score at the ballpark. I just enjoy the game and the food and the nice looking players. However, even I know that umpires have a bias and Armando at Kos calls Roberts out on this point:

As any baseball fan knows, umpires are not uniform in the delineation of the strike zone. Some are "hitters" umpires. Some are "pitchers" umpires. Some call the high strike. Some call the outside pitch.

And when it comes to the Supreme Court of the United States, it is important that we know what Judge Roberts' "strike zone" is. His record, the part that was not concealed by the Bush Administration, gives many of us pause regarding Judge Roberts' "strike zone."

(Armando also offers a nice tutorial on pine tar. Worth a read.)

Armando also follows up about Roberts on Griswold and Roberts on stare decisis (the doctrine of settled law). Excellent analyses.

Ever wonder if committee members are really taking notes in between asking questions? Atrios has the answer.

George Will wags his finger in today's Washington Post over "America's always fast-flowing river of race-obsessing [that] has overflowed its banks":

"...last Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois's freshman Democrat, applied to the expression of old banalities a fluency that would be beguiling were it without content. Unfortunately, it included the requisite lament about the president's inadequate "empathy" and an amazing criticism of the government's "historic indifference" and its "passive indifference" that "is as bad as active malice." The senator, 44, is just 30 months older than the "war on poverty" that President Johnson declared in January 1964. Since then the indifference that is as bad as active malice has been expressed in more than $6.6 trillion of anti-poverty spending, strictly defined.

The senator is called a "new kind of Democrat," which often means one with new ways of ignoring evidence discordant with old liberal orthodoxies about using cash -- much of it spent through liberalism's "caring professions" -- to cope with cultural collapse. He might, however, care to note three not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don't have a baby until you are married, don't marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal.

[...]

Given that most African Americans are middle class and almost half live outside central cities, and that 76 percent of all births to Louisiana African Americans were to unmarried women, it is a safe surmise that more than 80 percent of African American births in inner-city New Orleans -- as in some other inner cities -- were to women without husbands. That translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males, and that translates into chaos in neighborhoods and schools, come rain or come shine.

I'll say it, since I know you're thinking it: What an effing tool.

Who knew it could be so simple? If poor men could keep their pants on like middle-class men do, the problems of poor families would be solved.

Kathryn Edin (Univ. of Pennsylvania) and Maria Kefalas (St. Joseph's Univ.) are co-authors of "Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage." Their work is based on a five year ethnographic study of 162 single mothers in the Philadelphia area. They argue that

"any explanation of the decline in marriage and the growth of non-marital childbearing among the poor must take into account not just economics but the profound cultural changes American has undergone in the last 30 years."

According to Edin and Kefalas, marriage is now more of a consumption item than a cultural imperative and Americans, rich and poor, now hold it to a higher standard. Middle-class women are delaying marriage more, living together first, and divorcing when the marriage falls short of their high expectations.

The poor have responded by marrying less overall. Marriage is a luxury to be obtained someday. In the meantime, they say, children are a necessity; the key source of meaning and identity. Economically, poor men and women want to achieve a basic level of economic security they believe is essential for a lasting marriage. What good is a wedding if it will only lead to divorce? How likely is marriage in the face of violence, infidelity, drug and alcohol addiction, crime and incarceration?

A friend of mine is the executive director of N Street Village here in DC, which serves homeless women. They provide housing, medical care, employment services, and a host of other services to help women get back on their feet. It's a pretty amazing place.

When I got the tour, my friend told me that many of these women start out married, then when the marriage turns violent, the women start to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol and things spiral downward from there. I'm sure they would have a thing or two to tell George.

But George believes if he wags his finger enough, things will change.