Internet Scofflaw

Bill Whittle gives Jon Stewart a sound beating for his historically illiterate statement that Harry Truman was a war criminal for dropping the atomic bomb.  (Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll observes that Stewart’s idiocy is reminiscent of Pat Buchanan’s idiocy last year. An axis of idiots, one might say.  (Via Instapundit.)

Disaster averted.  A united GOP and several Democrats decided that this was perhaps not the very best time to strike a major blow against banks and credit markets.

If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, your name is not Joe Biden:

Vice president Joe Biden said today he would tell his family members not to use subways in the U.S. and implied schools should be shuttered as the swine flu outbreak spread to 16 states. His remarks quickly caused a stir, drawing a rebuke from New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and later leading the White House to apologize.

The uproar began when Biden appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and said he would advise against riding the subway or taking commercial flights and implied schools should be shuttered amid confirmation of the first swine-flu relation death in the U.S.

“I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said when Matt Lauer asked whether he would advise family members to use public transportation.

(Via Moe Lane, via Instapundit.)

BONUS: No Biden gaffe is complete without the laughable “clarification”:

Biden’s office later sought to clarify his remarks by saying he was only urging sick people to avoid planes and trains.

Right, that explains his advice to his family members.

UPDATE: Robert Gibbs must be frustrated, given such crap to work with:

“What the vice president meant to say was the same thing that many members have said in the last few days,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. “And that is, if you feel sick, are exhibiting flu-like symptoms….that you should take precautions, that you should limit your travel.” . . .

“I know what he said, and I am telling you what he meant to say,” he said.

Er, yeah.  He meant to be giving a different answer than he gave, in response to a different question than he was asked.  Aside from that, he was spot on.

With Arlen Specter switching parties and Justice Souter retiring, a very interesting wrinkle has arisen.  It seems that the arcane rules of the Senate Judiciary Committee require at least one minority vote to bring any matter to a vote, so if the minority stands united against a nominee, they can block him from being passed to the full Senate. Until this week, the Democrats could surely have trusted Specter to be that minority vote, but he can no longer serve them in that capacity.

Although it’s interesting to contemplate, it strikes me as very unlikely that the Republicans would exercise this option, particularly for a Supreme Court nominee.  But it would be very much in keeping with the escalating conflict over confirmations during the past twenty-two years.

(Via Instapundit.)