....from a wonderful extended weekend on Oak Island. Except for a little rain on Monday, the weather was perfect — sunshine and moderate temperatures combined with a warm, calm ocean Though I spent the majority of my time either on the beach or on the deck, I have a few thoughts on events from the real world.
I didn't see the actual Clinton blow-up, but got in on bits and pieces of analysis. On today's show, Rush paraphrased Morris when pointing out that the level of Clinton's indignation is always relative to his guilt. I thought the same thing.
But here's my question: Did Clinton not expect such a question, especially from a FOX reporter? Or did he expect it too much, considering the recent controversy surrounding his administration's role (or lack thereof) in 9/11? It's real easy to believe he genuinely didn't expect it because he's never asked such tough questions by his friends in the media.
It takes me all week to read the Sunday NYT, so I'm more than a week late with this one: former deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo defends Bush's reinvigoration of the presidency:
"To his critics, Mr. Bush is a 'King George' bent on an 'imperial presidency.' But the inescapable fact is that war shifts power to the branch most responsible for its waging: the executive. Harry Truman sent troops to fight in Korea without Congressional authority. George H. W. Bush did not have the consent of Congress when he invaded Panama to apprehend Manuel Noriega. Nor did Bill Clinton when he initiated NATO’s air war over Kosovo....
"A reinvigorated presidency enrages President Bush’s critics, who seem to believe that the Constitution created a system of judicial or congressional supremacy. Perhaps this is to be expected of the generation of legislators that views the presidency through the lens of Vietnam and Watergate. But the founders intended that wrongheaded or obsolete legislation and judicial decisions would be checked by presidential action, just as executive overreaching is to be checked by the courts and Congress."
Though I spent most of my time outside, I did catch the second half of the Panthers-Bucs game. Thank God for Kasay. It's also very difficult for a defense to do its job when offensive turnovers and penalities puts the whole game on its shoulders. Still no need to panic, thought. Somehow I feel beeter about the Saints starting 3-0 than the Falcons.
The living room tube had cable, but I didn't take the time to keep up with the pennant races. I grew up looking at the standings in print, anyway. So when I got home, the first thing I did was bring in today's N&R and flip to the box scores. To my surprise, I saw where the Reds were only two-and-half behind the Cardinals. Suddenly hope shimmered in my sunburned head much like yesterday's late-afternoon light did over the ocean. But the Reds still linger below .500 and now have to worry about Houston, too.
I started a new book:
"'Long before it legally served me, the bar saved me,' asserts J.R. Moehringer, and his compelling memoir The Tender Bar is the story of how and why. A Pulitzer-Prize winning writer for the Los Angeles Times, Moehringer grew up fatherless in pub-heavy Manhasset, New York, in a ramshackle house crammed with cousins and ruled by an eccentric, unkind grandfather. Desperate for a paternal figure, he turns first to his father, a DJ whom he can only access via the radio (Moehringer calls him The Voice and pictures him as 'talking smoke'). 
When The Voice suddenly disappears from the airwaves, Moehringer turns to his hairless Uncle Charlie, and subsequently, Uncle Charlie's place of employment--a bar called Dickens that soon takes center stage. While Moehringer may occasionally resort to an overwrought metaphor (the footsteps of his family sound like 'storm troopers on stilts'), his writing moves at a quick clip and his tale of a dysfunctional but tightly knit community is warmly told."
even if that means bending the rules a bit. Complicating matters is the fact that Stark is a former high-profile defense attorney who devoted the first part of his legal career to putting scumbags back on the street. So the cops don't exactly hold him in high regard.
