Former vice president Dick Cheney has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster to publish his memoirs. The book will be published by the house’s “Threshold” imprint, run by former Cheney adviser Mary Matalin. The opportunity to work with Matalin again was a significant factor in the decision, says a source close to Cheney.

The book is in progress – with the basic format of the book set and detailed outlines of the key chapters already completed. While it is not being undertaken as a “score-settling book,” but Cheney will write openly about the major decisions of the Bush presidency, including the most controversial ones – the Iraq War, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, Enhanced Interrogations and the surge. One source familiar with the writing process says at least fifty percent of the book will examine the Bush presidency -- something that is sure to generate interest when the book is released in 2011. (Though I have to say that in researching the book I wrote about Cheney, I found his earlier career as interesting as his role as vice president.)

Liz Cheney, the older of the former vice president’s two daughters, is working nearly full-time on the book and Robert Karem, a sharp young national security aide to Cheney during the second term, is working on research.

Cheney has been blunt and direct since he left office earlier this year, articulating views that have not been given much of an airing, given his reluctance to deal with the media throughout his time as vice president. Although people have a broad sense of where Cheney stood on issues as vice president, I expect the book to contain lots of surprises. He managed to make news a fair number of times in the interviews that I used for my book. I expect he'll do that even more now that he doesn't have anything keeping from speaking his mind.

House Republican Leader John Boehner circulated a memo to all Republican House members and candidates this weekend urging them to get behind a new economic recovery plan he will unveil today.

Boehner writes this in the memo:

Pelosi has declared that Congress will pass a $300 billion "stimulus" spending bill as soon as two weeks after the election. This coincides with Barack Obama's assertion that government's focus should be "spreading the wealth around" and Barney Frank's unapologetic confirmation that a Democrat-dominated Washington will embark on an aggressive government spending spree fueled by higher taxes. The Democrats' tax-and-spend economic scheme is not simply a theoretical campaign promise; it's something they intend to start moving to enact as early as next month.

You can read Boehner’s memo to his colleagues here.

In the memo, Boehner refers to a forthcoming five point economic plan. He will unveil it formally in a press call at 2:00 pm today. Highlights of the proposal after the jump.

If you defy California Democrats in the State Assembly -- especially when they're desperately trying to get a bloated budget passed -- don't expect a corner office:

In the latest episode of Capitol punishment, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass tossed Assemblywoman Nicole Parra from her office on Monday morning after the Central Valley Democrat failed to vote for the budget on Sunday.

In a twist, Parra hasn't been reassigned to more cramped quarters in the Capitol itself - but booted straight across the street to the Legislative Office Building. She will be the only member of the Legislature whose office is not housed in the Capitol. ...

In 2007, Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, an outspoken Orange County Republican, was moved to the smallest office in the Capitol after angering former Speaker Fabian Nunez.

Spitzer quickly came to Parra's defense on Monday. "I love Nicole Parra," he said, throwing his arm around the Hanford Democrat in front of a TV camera.

He said the move by Bass showed "a complete lack of maturity."

Parra admitted that though she expected punishment for her non-vote Sunday she was "kind of shocked it would be across the street."

"Even Todd Sptizer got an office in the Capitol," she quipped.

From Rasmussen Reports, “59% see Russian Invasion of Georgia as Threat” by Scott Rasmussen

The pollster reports:

Just over half (51%) believe that John McCain is the best equipped of the two major presidential candidates to handle a similar crisis in the future, while 36% believe Barack Obama is the better of the two to deal with this kind of situation. The two men are locked in a close race as measured by the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans say they have been following news stories on Russia attacking Georgia.

76% is a lot. So will there be some political fallout here? Barack Obama's tepid initial statement on the matter was a remarklably hideous thing:

“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war.”

Condemning the violence was awful brave. It would have been braver still if Obama had actually condemned the violence-maker. Or perhaps Obama thinks he deserves bonus points for condemning the violence “strongly.” After all, words matter. 24 hours later, Obama finally butched up and belatedly condemned Russia’s actions. But this corrective action only served to highlight the flaccidity of his initial response.

Obama could have used the occasion to show he is indeed ready to lead by offering a muscular statement at the git-go. This was such an obvious play given the concerns surrounding Obama's experience and readiness to lead, Allah suggests the failure to execute shows that Obama was napping in more than just a literal sense during his Hawaiian holiday.

But here’s another theory – the initial reaction showed Obama’s true nature. Obama’s every instinct is to avoid action and to avoid controversy. We saw that with his maladroit non-handling of the Jeremiah Wright situation. Obama spent 14 months wishing that problem would just go away. Only when his campaign was mortally threatened and had already suffered serious damage did he act.

This fondness for inaction causes Obama to straddle every issue imaginable. If you look at his first statement, his reluctance to take sides leaps out. He wanted to straddle the issue and condemn the violence. And why not? Everyone hates violence. Besides, since Russia blamed Georgia for the violence and vice versa, both nations could reasonably infer that Obama’s sympathies rest with them.

Exit question: Does anyone have a clue how President Obama would handle such a crisis in the future? Partial answer: I bet Vladimir Putin thinks he does.

A statement by John McCain just released by his campaign:

"For many years, I have warned against Russian actions that undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors. Unfortunately, we have seen in recent days Russia demonstrate that these concerns were well-founded.

"This afternoon I spoke, for the second time since the crisis began, with Georgian President Saakashvili. It is clear the situation is dire. Russian aggression against Georgia continues, with attacks occurring far beyond the Georgian region of South Ossetia. As casualties continue to mount, the international community must do all it can to avert further escalations. Tensions and hostilities between Georgians and Ossetians are in no way justification for Russian troops crossing an internationally recognized border. I again call on the Government of Russia to immediately and unconditionally withdraw its forces from the territory of Georgia.

"Given this threat to Euro-Atlantic security, I am pleased to see the United States, the European Union, and NATO acting together by sending a delegation to the region, in an effort to broker a cease fire. This is an important first step.

"The United Nations has been prevented from taking any meaningful action by Russian objections. In view of this, I welcome the statements of democratic nations defending the sovereignty of Georgia and condemning Russian actions.

"I strongly support the declaration issued by the Presidents of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and their commitment that 'aggression against a small country in Europe will not be passed over in silence or with meaningless statements equating the victims with the victimizers.' I share their regret that NATO's decision to withhold from Georgia a Membership Action Plan may have been viewed as a green light for aggression in the region. As they propose, a new international peacekeeping force should be created, in light of -- as they observe -- the 'obvious bankruptcy of Russian "peacekeeping operations" in its immediate neighborhood.' In addition, Finnish Foreign Minister Stubb, the Chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, has said there can be no return to the status quo in South Ossetia and that Russia cannot serve as a mediator in the South Ossetian conflict. Each of these leaders represents a country that has undergone what Georgia is now experiencing.

"I am pleased the U.S. has agreed to facilitate the transfer of Georgian troops serving bravely in Iraq, who are now unfortunately needed to defend their own country."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her North Korean counterpart today in Singapore as part of "informal" six-party talks, according to this report from Bloomberg. The face-to-face meeting, a first for a Bush administration that once considered North Korea part of the "Axis of Evil," comes within weeks of the State Department's announcement that President Bush intended to ease some sanctions on the rogue regime and, despite its proliferation of nuclear technology to Syria, remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terror.

Meanwhile, after years of the Bush administration refusing direct engagement with Iran, the State Department last week dispatched its No. 3 official, Bill Burns, for meetings with Iranian nuclear negotiators. Today comes word, via this story from the AFP, that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran will not
concede anything to the "oppressive powers" in the negotiations. "The Iranian people are steadfast and will not step back an inch against the oppressive powers," he said.

If there was any doubt that such face-to-face engagement gives undeserved legitimacy to terrorist-sponsoring states, Ahmadinejad put it to rest saying in a speech broadcast on Iranian television that he appreciated how "politely" Burns treated his Iranian counterpart and "respected the Iranian nation."

Context: Iran, which has been training, equipping and funding some of the terrorists in Iraq responsible for killing American soldiers, has refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program. Many of the world's leading intelligence agencies believe Iran is close to becoming a nuclear power. In October 2006, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon and earned the condemnation of the world and stern warnings from the Bush administration. Then, last spring, North Korea was caught proliferating nuclear technology to Syria, the world's second-leading state sponsor of terror (behind Iran), and the Bush administration, after keeping this information secret for months in order to protect its diplomatic efforts with Kim Jong Il, once again warned against proliferation and then offered further concessions.

All of this from the administration run by a president who once said: "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

The McCain campaign should be careful how they handle the Court's decision on handguns. While the Second Amendment in general is a winning GOP issue, the handgun aspects of it are more problematic with swing voters. In the end, this election will be decided by white females and ticket-splitting independents. The handgun issue is no huge winner among this group. McCain should applaud the decision, but tread carefully.

With that, the Cardinal is going celebrate the decision by cleaning his trusty CZ 75 P-01.

The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of striking down Washington D.C.'s gun ban.

The Court has released the opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), on whether the District’s firearms regulations – which bar the possession of handguns and require shotguns and rifles to be kept disassembled or under trigger lock – violate the Second Amendment. The ruling below, which struck down the provisions in question, is affirmed.

Justice Scalia wrote the opinion. Justice Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg.

Before the ruling was issued this morning, the Obama campaign disavowed its "inartful" statement last year that "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional."

I knew Tim Russert for over three decades. I liked and admired him very much.

I first met Tim when Pat Moynihan was running for the Senate in 1976, in New York's Democratic primary. I was 23 years old, working for the campaign as deputy issues director. (This sounds more important than it was. Pat didn’t need much help on issues, and there were only two of us in the issues shop.) Tim, as I recall, was working in some capacity, formal or informal, for the Democratic boss in Buffalo, Joe Crangle, on the upstate campaign, and he came to the headquarters in Manhattan to coordinate with us. We hit it off in a casual way—and then, after Pat won the primary in September (by a little less than 10,000 votes out of close to a million cast), I went back to grad school to get my Ph.D., while Tim came to Washington with Pat after he won in November as a top aide.

He served Pat very well--while developing a fantastic ability to mimic Pat’s distinctive manner of speaking. Then he moved over to work for Mario Cuomo when he became governor of New York, served him equally well--and then went to NBC, where he of course became a star in his own right.

Tim gave the commencement address at the 2007 Washington University graduation in St. Louis. My wife and I were there because one of our daughters was in the graduating class. I called to congratulate him on the speech--it was a good one, especially given the difficulties and limitations of the genre--and we had lunch. I remember thinking afterwards that he was remarkably unchanged from the guy I’d met thirty years before. He was intellectually curious and personally kind, a patriot and a family man, with a lively personality and a great and communicable interest in politics and life.

Tim Russert was an impressive and admirable man, and while Washington can be an insincere town, the almost universal expressions of grief at his passing are genuine and, if I can put it this way, completely deserved.

Lindsey Graham says he'll seek measures to "blunt the effect" of the Supreme Court's "dangerous an irresponsible" decision that gives enemy combatants access to U.S. civilian courts:

The Court’s decision is bad on many levels and I will continue to review the decision and determine its sweeping effect on our military. I will also explore the possibility, if necessary, of a constitutional amendment to blunt the effect of this decision when it comes to protecting our men and women in the military and our nation as a whole.

The Court has conferred upon civilian judges the right to make military decisions. These judges have virtually no training in military matters yet civilian judges, in some of the most liberal district courts in the country, will have an opportunity to determine who is a threat to the United States .

Furthermore, the habeas trials will put great burdens on our military forces. Enemy combatants potentially may be able to sue American troops for money damages and federal judges will now be in charge of the day-to-day military prisons and the interrogation of prisoners. This will empower activist lawyers and interest groups to intervene in basic military matters for the first time in history. ...

I agree with Chief Justice John Roberts who noted the legal procedures available to detainees today are unprecedented and more than sufficient. I only wish one more member of the Court would have listened to his wise counsel. Instead, they took what I consider to be completely dangerous and irresponsible actions during a time of war.

Also, Sen. Lieberman has some strong words in response to today's decision:

The Supreme Court’s decision fails, in a dramatic way, to appreciate that we are at war and that our enemies are relentless in their pursuit of our destruction. Let us not forget that at least 30 prisoners that have been released have already returned to the battlefield.

Update: Jon Kyl, the junior senator from Arizona, poses a good question: “I ask those who laud today’s decision as a victory whether they would want Osama bin Laden, if captured, to be processed by our civilian judicial system?”

Although King Gyanendra has agreed to relinquish his throne, he is refusing to hand over his crown and scepter to the Maoist Assembly, which voted last month to end the Nepalese monarchy. Some are now speculating that Gyanendra hocked the missing heirlooms at a London auction house.

More than a month before Nepal's new lawmakers formally abolished the country's 239-year-old monarchy, a priceless crown went under the hammer at an auction in London's Bond Street.

Now, with deposed king Gyanendra told to vacate the royal palace by June 12 and a government team beginning to take an inventory of the heirlooms in the palace, doubts are being raised, especially with the fabled crown reportedly missing.

It was last worn by Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah, the last king of the dynasty, on June 4, 2001 when he succeeded his slain brother Birendra. Another daily, the Kathmandu Post, said that along with the crown, the royal sceptre is missing as well.

On April 10, Bonhams, one of the world's oldest auctioneers, sold several items from the collection of a private collector, that also included the personal dagger of India's Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who commissioned the fabled Taj Mahal that is one of the seven wonders of the world.

The auctioned items belonged to the late Jacques Desenfans, a French millionaire who for 50 years passionately amassed rare objets d'art related to Islamic, Indian and Southeast Asian cultures, funding his acquisition drive with the money made by his family from its textile mills in Lyon.

Along with Shah Jahan's dagger, Persian carpets and French clocks, the auctioneers also sold a 19th century gem-studded crown made for Nepal's royal family.

Sold for a staggering 90,000 pounds, the crown, decorated with pearls, precious stone pendants and gems, also has a bird of paradise plume issuing from the apex.

It seems doubtful the notably feathered crown would be sold a month before Gyanendra's deposition. In any case, what use does an exiled royal have for jewel-encrusted crown? Perhaps Gyanendra could display it in his chalet in Gstaad, but I don't think it would be wise for him to wear it as he gets his drink on at the Palace Hotel.

According to the Associated Press, “McDonald’s said Monday it has stopped serving sliced tomatoes in its U.S. restaurants over concerns about salmonella food poisoning linked to some uncooked varieties.”

Hold on a second. There were tomatoes at McDonald’s? I think the last time I had a tomato at McDonald’s was when I ordered a McDLT. (Enjoy the video. And yes, that really is Jason Alexander.)

A 9/11 conspiracy theorist is on Day 15 of a hunger strike outside the Phoenix office of John McCain, and says he won't leave until the senator hears out his wacky views that the U.S. government planned the attacks. When asked how he thinks this will end, Blair Gadsby inadvertently reveals the full-extent of his delusions of persecution:

Gadsby knows it's a long shot that McCain will meet with him. …

He figured his fast would end with him passing out and being carted away by supporters.

Isn't that a scene from Spiderman 2? Remember when Spiderman faces off against Doctor Octopus in the subway? Oh, and did I mention Gadsby is an adjunct professor of religious studies at a local community college?

It's not just the real Mohammed who is image conscious. On trial for his life, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed took time from his defense to quarrel with a court-artist’s depiction of his nose:

During that process, the sketch was shown to Mohammed's defense team, and the accused terrorist took a moment to sit back and look it over.

Defense Department spokesman Cdr. Jeffrey Gordon says Mohammed felt his nose was drawn too wide, especially at the base.

"He said he wanted his nose to look like the FBI photo," Gordon says, referring to the picture distributed of Mohammed after his capture.

Gordon says the artist was not ordered to change the picture, but was given more time to properly depict Mohammed's appearance at the hearing.

"It shows the lengths we go to take their desires into consideration," Gordon said.

Poor Mohammed is probably still sore over the photo of him at the time of capture. As an aside, the artist in question moonlights as a children's book illustrator and has not drawn any of the far more flattering caricatures of WEEKLY STANDARD contributors.

Looks like the economic downturn will be severe:

On a spring afternoon, a half-dozen hairstylists to the very wealthy talked about how customers are stretching their $350 highlights and $150 haircuts to every eight weeks instead of six weeks. Some women are cutting out highlights entirely, saying they would “rather be brunettes.”

An AP report suggests that Hillary Clinton will indeed shut the circus down tonight:

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president.

Obama is 40 delegates shy of clinching the nomination, but he is widely expected to make up the difference Tuesday with superdelegate support and votes in South Dakota and Montana. Once he reaches the magic number of 2,118, Clinton will acknowledge that he has secured the necessary delegates to be the nominee.

The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City.

She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.

Most campaign staff will be let go and will be paid through June 15, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge her plans.

The advisers said Clinton has made a strategic decision to not formally end her campaign, giving her leverage to negotiate with Obama on various matters including a possible vice presidential nomination for her.

Lord knows I don't have the Clintons' sense for nuance, but I don't understand what leverage she'll retain if she concedes that Obama has won. Seems to me she would have a lot more leverage if she disputed the results. Besides, the latter course of action would make for much grander comedy.

I'd be remiss if I didn't highlight a portion of this report that really rankles. The AP says she was making "a bid to be the nation's first female president." While it's never been my way to kick a candidate when he/she is down, this gives Hillary way too much credit for her putative path breaking. Hillary Clinton was only a serious candidate for president because of her marital circumstances. As such, even if she had won, her accomplishment would have had an asterisk next to it. It doesn't seem like the message we want to offer our daughters in the 21st century is, "You can also be president! (As long as you marry the right fella.)"

I've always been a fan of judges who use creative sentencing in punishing the guilty, but this strikes me as misguided:

Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost's former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.

Using "The Road Not Taken" and another poem as jumping-off points, Frost biographer Jay Parini hopes to show the vandals the error of their ways -- and the redemptive power of poetry.

"I guess I was thinking that if these teens had a better understanding of who Robert Frost was and his contribution to our society, that they would be more respectful of other people's property in the future and would also learn something from the experience," said prosecutor John Quinn. …

Parini, 60, a Middlebury College professor who has stayed at the house before, was eager to oblige when Quinn asked him to teach the classes. He donated his time for the two sessions.

Doesn't this send the wrong message to troubled youth? That poetry is punishment, that Middlebury is prison? If deterring future trespass were the ultimate end, perhaps we'd be better off teaching Hayek than Frost.

You probably don’t know this, but you should. There’s this wonderful woman out there named Larwyn who has earned the thanks of conservative bloggers everywhere over the last few years. She sends multiple emails a day to the top 50 or so conservative bloggers highlighting what they need to know. Trust me – you’d be better informed reading her emails each day than if you read the entire New York Times.

Today, Larwyn sent along a provocative message to the right-o-sphere:

"Shoe will drop on OBAMA regarding Michelle, tomorrow" Bob Beckel on FNC @ 6:23AM ET

He said he is hearing this from people he knows are credible. He thinks it is stupid of Repubs re timing.

He said it is a MAJOR SHOE. Was asked if it was worse than her thesis. He said much worse.

He also reported that all of Hillary's advance people were told to wrap it up in their states and return to HQ.

Now this could just be CLINTON COVERING HER TRACKS on the MAJOR SHOE!!

Obviously given the ungodly hour, I didn’t see Beckel live, so the indefatigable Larwyn has once again provided a vital service. Fox’s Alisyn Camerota blogged the Beckel pronouncement, but the blog post in question has since disappeared.

Prior to Beckel’s appearance on Fox, the only person willing to place their credibility on a Michelle-related shoe dropping was Larry Johnson, and quite frankly “Larry Johnson” and “credibility” don’t really belong in the same sentence. In spite of Beckel’s pronouncement, I still would have dismissed all this chatter as mere nonsense if Allah had not conferred one of his portentous “Hmmmms” on the matter.

Exit question: If there’s even the remotest possibility (like Larry Johnson actually being right) of a shoe dropping, why is Hillary making all this noise about dropping out as soon as today?

You probably don’t know this, but you should. There’s this wonderful woman out there named Larwyn who has earned the thanks of conservative bloggers everywhere over the last few years. She sends multiple emails a day to the top 50 or so conservative bloggers highlighting what they need to know. Trust me – you’d be better informed reading her emails each day than if you read the entire New York Times.

Today, Larwyn sent along a provocative message to the right-o-sphere:

"Shoe will drop on OBAMA regarding Michelle, tomorrow" Bob Beckel on FNC @ 6:23AM ET

He said he is hearing this from people he knows are credible. He thinks it is stupid of Repubs re timing.

He said it is a MAJOR SHOE. Was asked if it was worse than her thesis. He said much worse.

He also reported that all of Hillary's advance people were told to wrap it up in their states and return to HQ.

Now this could just be CLINTON COVERING HER TRACKS on the MAJOR SHOE!!

Obviously given the ungodly hour, I didn’t see Beckel live, so the indefatigable Larwyn has once again provided a vital service. Fox’s Alisyn Camerota blogged the Beckel pronouncement, but the blog post in question has since disappeared.

Prior to Beckel’s appearance on Fox, the only person willing to place their credibility on a Michelle-related shoe dropping was Larry Johnson, and quite frankly “Larry Johnson” and “credibility” don’t really belong in the same sentence. In spite of Beckel’s pronouncement, I still would have dismissed all this chatter as mere nonsense if Allah had not conferred one of his portentous “Hmmmms” on the matter.

Exit question: If there’s even the remotest possibility (like Larry Johnson actually being right) of a shoe dropping, why is Hillary making all this noise about dropping out as soon as today?

SurveyUSA has released its final batch of North Carolina numbers. In the primary eve SUSA poll, Obama leads by five. Here are some analytical goodies for your Endless Campaign of '08 Scrapbook:

According to SurveyUSA's 8th and final tracking poll, conducted exclusively for ABC11 Eyewitness News, on the final day of the fiercely fought campaign, Senator Barack Obama holds on with 50% of the vote to Senator Hillary Clinton's 45% of those polled…

The popular vote is remarkably stable: In 6 SurveyUSA polls released since Super Tuesday, Obama has polled at 50%, 49%, 49%, 50%, 49%, 50%. The contest is stable among men, where Obama leads by 11. The contest is stable among women, where the two remain tied.

In Charlotte and Western NC, there is the slightest momentum for Clinton. In the Research Triangle, in Southern NC and in Coastal NC, there is slight offsetting momentum to Obama. The net is a wash. If Obama wins, it will be entirely from the 19% of voters who describe themselves as liberal.

Clinton leads by 9 among conservatives and leads by 8 among moderates.

If Obama wins the popular vote, it will be because of his 16-point advantage among liberals. Clinton has increasing momentum among voters age 50 to 64, where she has gone from 30% in January to 51% today, her highest showing.

Among those age 65+, Clinton leads by 20 points; the more seniors who vote, the better Clinton does. But there is offsetting momentum among younger voters, some of whom may be first-time voters, and not all of whom may show-up at the precinct. 1 in 4 of SurveyUSA's likely voters say they have already voted. Among those who say they have already voted, Obama leads by 16 points. Among those who say they will vote on Primary Day, Obama and Clinton are effectively tied.

If one were of a mind too, one could interpret many of these data-points to the Lioness of Tuzla's advantage. Because I'm not a member of the Strange New Respect for Hillary Club, the exercise has little appeal to me, but since I'm blogging this poll first, I should do so anyway. So...

Hillary has reliably outperformed even the most reliable polls. Obama's dependence on young voters who are more likely to eschew the tedium of voting compared to their elderly fellow voters probably explains this phenomenon. Also noteworthy is that Clinton is once again showing impressive momentum among the late deciders. We also have yet more evidence with this poll that Obama's popularity peaked a while ago, and Hillary is now the better liked candidate. The fact that Obama pulls his support from liberals who will support the Democratic ticket anyway is the kind of thing that theoretically might matter to your typical, everyday Super Delegate.

Still, Clinton's only hope is that she outperforms even the good polls once again. She needs the win. But making up five points is a heavy lift. That said, a double digit win in Indiana and a shocking, razor-thin victory in North Carolina could actually change the race. And that scenario, while unlikely, is not out of the question.

Survey USA, the most accurate outfit in the game this cycle, is trotting out its most recent poll results. The North Carolina numbers aren't in yet, but the Indiana numbers look very promising for the Lioness of Tuzla. SUSA shows Hillary Clinton with an impressive 54-42 lead in Mellencamp Country.

A couple of related predictions:

1) If Hillary wins by double digits in Indiana and squeaks out a victory in North Carolina, she will give the Democratic super-delegates much to ponder. Pat Caddell observed after the Lioness’ most recent victories, “The nomination process is not a suicide pact.” Caddell can't be the only Democratic poobah harboring such sentiments.

2) If the super-delegates do take a fresh look at Hillary while simultaneously deciding that Obama is too weak a candidate to take a flyer on in a year that should be a slam dunk for the Democratic party, Hillary's strange new respect from the right will have a life expectancy best measured in hours as opposed to weeks or months.

In the virtual pages of Commentary's Contentions blog, Max Boot makes a fairly astonishing confession:

“I can’t speak for anyone else, but I personally have never read a single book by either Trotsky or Strauss.”

With his brave show of honesty, Boot is attempting to show that not all neocons are cut from the philosophical cloth that our critics say we are, and that some of us rely on political philosophers like Alexander Hamilton and Ronald Reagan to inform our worldviews. This is a good point, and helps illustrate how words like “neocon” and “Straussian” are often used as pejoratives by people who don't have more than a vague idea of what the terms mean.

Still, Max's confession fills me with heart-ache that only a neocon could recognize. He can skip Trotsky if he's short of time, although he can borrow my dog-eared copy of The Revolution Betrayed any time. But he really must read his Strauss!

PS - Max's little essay on this matter is outstanding, as is Robert Kagan's piece from World Affairs which the essay addresses.

Tomorrow's New York Times will offer a piece that details the dizzying heights of hypocrisy that Eliot Spitzer habitually occupied:

As New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer had broken up prostitution rings before, but this 2004 case took on a special urgency for him. Prosecuting an international sex tourism business based in Queens, he listened to the entreaties of women’s advocates long frustrated by state laws that fell short of dealing with a sex trade expanding rapidly across borders.

And with his typical zeal, he embraced their push for new legislation, including a novel idea at its heart: Go after the men who seek out prostitutes.

It was a question of supply and demand, they all agreed. And one effective way to suppress the demand was to raise the penalties for patronizing a prostitute. In his first months as governor last year, Mr. Spitzer signed the bill into law.

1) Let's start at the ending: Is there any way Spitzer can survive this scandal and remain in office?

Right now, it looks like he'll be gone within hours. Then again, it looked that way yesterday at this time. One of the few lasting legacies of the Clinton administration is that Bill Clinton successfully defined this particular kind of deviancy down. Politicians can now outlast sex scandals. If there's a major legal problem at the heart of the Spitzer scandal such as Spitzer laundering money to pay for his dalliances, then he's a dead demagogue walking. But if it's just (or pretty much just) about the sex, he could brass it out.

2) What about the New York Republican party's plan to begin impeachment procedures within 48 hours unless Spitzer falls on his sword?

Perfectly stupid. Leave it to the Republicans to toss their drowning antagonist a life preserver. Spitzer's only hope of surviving this thing is to circle the partisan wagons. Already on the leading lefty blogs, some of the kooky kids are framing this as Spitzer vs. Bush (if you can believe it). By making it a partisan thing, the New York Republicans are playing right into Spitzer's only prayer.

3) So what should New York Republicans make of this issue?

The same thing everyone should - it's a moral issue, and reflects on what kind of standards we as a society should insist on from the people who seek to lead us. Even most Democrats, after a mere sixteen years, are beginning to blanche at Clinton-style morals and seeking something more noble. We could have a genuine bipartisan (or post-partisan!) moment here where the country demands that our leaders at least give being decent people the old college try.

4) Oh, big deal! You're the hypocrite. I don’t recall you Republicans insisting that Larry Craig or David Vitter resign.

I did, not that anyone cared. So did others. Mitt Romney called Larry Craig, who was then a ranking Romney campaign muckety-muck, disgusting. That was refreshingly candid. Many other conservatives felt the same way, and said as much publicly.

5) Okay, you're a prurient Republican prude. Got it. But don't you think we should be forgiving of other men's moral frailties.

Of course we should be forgiving of other men's moral frailties. We should also help old ladies cross the street when the chance to do so avails itself. But that's not really the point with Spitzer, Clinton, Craig, or Vitter. If you seek to credibly lead millions of people, you need a modicum of moral stature. These men all sacrificed their moral stature. We can feel badly for them. We can forgive them. But doing so doesn't mean we have to accept a lack of honor from our leadership class.

6) I think all you conservative hypocrites should have your closets snooped into!

We're all hypocrites inasmuch as we all have values that we fail to live up. But that doesn't mean we can't acknowledge a couple of major differences between the Larry Craig and Eliot Spitzer-types and the rest of us. Senator Craig and Governor Spitzer fell a bit shorter than the rest of us tend to. More important, guys like Craig and Spitzer sought leadership roles in our society. When you seek such a prominent public role, your realm of "private matters" necessarily shrinks. That's just the way it is. The rest of us are private citizens leading private lives. Public figures who seek and enjoy public power are governed by different rules.

7) But all of the affairs we're discussing here are essentially private matters, are they not?

I'd agree with that, but you have to allow that cruising for sex in a public bathroom is something less than a totally private affair. After all, as Mark Steyn noted at the time, even if the cruising senator had made a love connection, it's not like the two lovebirds would have checked into the Honeymoon Suite at the Airport Radisson.

And given that prostitution rings had tasted the zeal of Lawman Eliot Spitzer, his scandal is also less than entirely private.

8) So you do agree that these are mostly private matters. Shouldn’t we therefore just be willing to move on?

No, no, a thousand times no. As a society we have the right to insist on honor and propriety from our leadership class. And you'd have to be pretty naïve to not realize that the dishonor that guys like Eliot Spitzer display at the Emperor’s Club shows up in our governmental affairs as things like unprincipled flip-flops, earmarks, and other dreary staples of our political life.

9) So is Spitzer at risk of losing his job because he's been revealed as a hypocrite?

Not exactly. He's at risk of losing his job because he revealed himself as a really big hypocrite. An enormous hypocrite. A Guinness Book of Records hypocrite…

10) We get the point. But isn't this somewhat less than satisfying? After all, like you said, we're all hypocrites.

It is less than satisfying. It's a bit like arresting Al Capone on tax evasion. Sure it got him off the streets, but his real sins went unaddressed.

11) You're comparing Spitzer to Capone?

Not exactly. But Spitzer was a dreadful public figure, a sneering bully who ruined lives to build a political career. And yet we can't deny his strategy worked. He crookedly funded his first race for Attorney General. Once elected Attorney General, he became a successful enough demagogue that he got elected Governor.

No prosecutor had a higher ratio of outraged press conferences to actual trials, let alone convictions. Even high profile Spitzer witch-hunt victims like Dick Grasso never had a day in court. As the Wall Street Journal’s excellent editorial this morning pointed out, Spitzer abused his office flagrantly and repeatedly. And the voters rewarded him. So seeing him being tripped up on a $4300/hr. call girl is a lot less satisfying than if the voters had rejected his odious form of politics.

Michael Walsh, one of your Cardinal's Irish pals and author of a fun novel about NYC mob legend Owney Madden called And All the Saints, offers up some fun detail on the pseudonym "George Fox." Client number 9 was not alone in using that moniker when slipping into hotels. Madden's partner, George "Big Frenchy" DeMange also lived most of his life in New York hotels, and frequently used the alias "George Fox." Madden, last of the great Irish mobsters, would later retire in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the boyhood stomping ground of former President Bill Clinton.

The next Governor of New York, David Paterson, is embroiled in a discrimination lawsuit brought by a white photographer he fired after becoming Minority Leader of the New York State Senate five years ago. His defense is worthy of note:

Paterson, now the lieutenant governor, asserted he axed the photographer, Joseph Maioriello, because he was a holdover from former Minortiy Leader Marty Connor's regime....

Maioriello [the white photographer] was replaced by an African-American photographer, El-Wise Noisette, who last worked for former state Comptroller H. Carl McCall (the first black gubernatorial candidate who lost his challenge to Republican Gov. George Pataki in 2002).

But Paterson insisted he had no idea about the race of either man due to the fact that he is legally blind.

Call me a skeptic, but the photographer’s name could possibly have tipped Paterson off to his race. Which is not to say he discriminated against the guy--just that Paterson’s defense is bunk.

Remember how Larry Craig was going to resign the same day, and then he was going to resign quite soon, and then he announced a resignation that would take effect somewhat down the road, and when that time came...he didn't resign?

I wonder if that could work for Eliot Spitzer. And more to the point: I wonder if Spitzer thinks it can work for him. After all, Larry Craig strung people along for a while, and while he's not seeking re-election, he wasn't forced to resign. Mightn't Spitzer figure that he can do the same?

Spitzer's not just the president--he's a client.

In these, the first hours after Eliot Spitzer's epic fall from grace, it will be difficult for Spitzer's numerous detractors to avoid reveling in an unhealthy amount of Schadenfreude. Nevertheless, it would be salubrious to remember at this time that there are many things worse than a hypocrite. Like a vengeful, headline-hunting prosecutor who tries to build a career by persecuting others and abusing the power of the state.

On Wall Street, they're popping the champagne corks this afternoon. One friend emails:

The entire office stopped and gawked at the TVs hanging from the ceiling when the first news alerts were announced. Then a bit of a chuckle as people realized the poetic justice that this could represent. As someone who has watched Ken Langone for nearly 20 years, I can't help but feel a bit of Schadenfreude at Spitzer’s potential embarrassment, if not political ruin. There's a certain satisfaction that one can enjoy right now when you ponder how Spitzer tried to pursue a line of attack regarding Grasso having a love child.

The one downside I see to all of this is that Charlie Gasparino of CNBC will get even more face time given he is their resident "expert" on all things Spitzer/Grasso related.

Being a Boston/Beltway type, I'm not particularly familiar with Charlie Gasparino's oeuvre, but I’ll be sure to take notice of him in the coming days.

Let's now take a brief trip down Spitzer Memory Lane. Here's a little op-ed that appeared in the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. The writer was the much-esteemed John Whitehead, former Chairman of Goldman Sachs:

Last April, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece by me titled "Mr. Spitzer Has Gone Too Far." In it I expressed my belief that in America, everyone--including Hank Greenberg--is innocent until proven guilty. "Something has gone seriously awry," I wrote, "when a state attorney general can go on television and charge one of America's best CEOs and most generous philanthropists with fraud before any charges have been brought, before the possible defendant has even had a chance to know what he personally is alleged to have done, and while the investigation is still under way."

Since there have been rumors in the media as to what happened next, I feel I must now set the record straight. After reading my op-ed piece, Mr. Spitzer tried to phone me. I was traveling in Texas but he reached me early in the afternoon. After asking me one or two questions about where I got my facts, he came right to the point. I was so shocked that I wrote it all down right away so I would be sure to remember it exactly as he said it. This is what he said:

"Mr. Whitehead, it's now a war between us and you've fired the first shot. I will be coming after you. You will pay the price. This is only the beginning and you will pay dearly for what you have done. You will wish you had never written that letter."

I tried to interrupt to say he was doing to me exactly what he'd been doing to others, but he wouldn't be interrupted. He went on in the same vein for several more sentences and then abruptly hung up. I was astounded. No one had ever talked to me like that before. It was a little scary.

It's up to others to make their own conclusions. I have only set out here what happened.

At the corner of Wall and Broad, the trading floor erupted in cheers when Eliot Spitzer's embarrassment was announced. The shame of the day is that something as quotidian as hypocrisy has triggered Spitzer’s downfall. Today would be a happier day if Spitzer were driven from public life because the public recoiled at his holier-than-thou prosecutions that were driven much more by a sense of ambition than a desire for justice.

But the fact that Spitzer will likely be gone from public life by nightfall makes it a happy day nonetheless.

The New York Times reports:

ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

I know it's annoying when writers can get all high and haughty over other writers producing copy that's fatally imprecise, but you'll have to indulge me just this once. What, pray tell, does "involved" mean? Was he a customer? An investor? Could he have been (say it isn’t so) a worker? Or perhaps he was in management.

I guess the smart money is on Spitzer's "involvement" having been limited to being a customer. Nevertheless, a press conference is forthcoming that will presumably clear up my confusion. In the meantime, let's take a stroll down Spitzer’s hypocrisy of yesteryear. The Times also reports:

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

”This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. ”It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

UPDATE: In the Daily Kos comment thread on this scandal, one Kossack offers a theory as to who's really to blame for this sorry situation--George W. Bush!

"My theory is that the Bush administration caught this through their wiretaps of Democratic politicians."