How excellent is this?

New Jersey motorists calling a toll-free number seeking handicapped or animal-friendly license plates are getting a little more action than they expected.

Instead of getting the state Motor Vehicle Commission, callers reached a phone sex operation.

The mix-up happened because the MVC has the newer 888 toll-free area code, but its number was mistakenly listed with the traditional 800 code on the Web site and printed material distributed by the state Division of Disability Services.

Or rather, the danger Miers poses for President Bush. Gerard Baker argues that Miers worries conservatives because her nomination “has given us a depressing glimpse into the vast open space that now appears to be the Bush political mind.” He’s on to something.

The real political danger for Bush is that Miers could become a synecdoche for the secret fears his supporters have long harbored: that he’s little more than a corporatist who values personal loyalty above ideology or thought. In short, Miers has the potential to crystalize very specific fears about Bush’s shortcomings in the same way that Dan Quayle’s misspelling of “potato” was particularly damaging because people were already worried that he wasn’t smart enough to be vice president.

(Mind you, I’m talking purely about political danger. The substantive–and more important–danger is that Miers may not be a very good Supreme Court justice.)

The great political danger for Bush is that Miers forces people who were marginal supporters to reassess past incidents on which they may have given him a pass. For example, incidents such as this one, reported by Joseph Bessette, about the Bush administration’s attack on Lawrence Greenfeld and the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

IN AUGUST THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION fired its director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in a dispute over a press release about a report on racial profiling. Newspaper editorialists and Democrats in Congress charged the administration with suppressing painful truths. In response, Republican officials apparently spread the word to sympathetic commentators that this was a battle between the administration and the anti-Bush permanent bureaucracy. As one commentator told National Public Radio, “Bush finally clamped down on this guy.”

“This guy” was President Bush’s own appointee to the directorship of BJS, Lawrence A. Greenfeld, a career criminal justice statistician and longtime deputy director of the agency, a unit of the Department of Justice. Happy as the principal deputy, Greenfeld had not sought the top job, which had always gone to a political appointee serving at the pleasure of the president. Yet, when the directorship opened up after Bush’s election in 2000, Greenfeld’s stellar reputation within the criminal justice community brought him to the attention of the White House. President Bush nominated him to serve as director, and he was confirmed by the Senate. At his swearing-in ceremony, former Attorney General Edwin Meese praised the accomplishments of Greenfeld and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

So what are we to make of this incident? Has the administration won a battle against a hostile bureaucracy, or has it suppressed the truth about racial profiling in the United States? A review of the facts compels four conclusions. First, the administration did not try to suppress or manipulate data, though it did seek to deny publicity to uncomfortable facts. Second, its ham-handedness backfired by attracting infinitely more attention to the sensitive racial profiling data than would otherwise have been the case. Third, it cashiered Greenfeld for doing his job in a responsible and, indeed, exemplary way. Finally, not content simply with firing a dedicated public servant, it maligned him and his agency in a way that was deeply unjust, that undermined morale at a model federal agency, and that jeopardized its good work and its reputation within the criminal justice community.

In light of Harriet Miers, this behavior becomes even more egregious.

We have the answer, from Kate O’Beirne:

This one we can put to rest. I asked the world’s expert on the meaning of “to bork” – Is Harriest Miers being borked? “No. No one is lying about her record.” –Robert Bork, October 13, 2005.

Michael Brandon McClellan has a great piece about why Americans reflexively distrust the United Nations. Hint: It has to do with how we resolved our conflict over the differing notions of liberty presented by Lincoln and Calhoun. It’s a first-rate essay.

MSNBC has gotten Tucker Carlson to do a blog, and if the first day is any indication, it’s going to be a cross between Greg Gutfeld and the “Dear Riggo” section of SportsTalk 980’s John Riggins Show. Here’s Tucker dipping into the mailbag:

Q: Tucker, your flippant dismissal and ridicule of the religion I share with Tom Cruise was extremely offensive. I challenge you to find out why Tom and Katie’s child will have a silent birth, whether you come to believe the reasons or not. The next time you have occasion to report on the subject, do it with respect.

—John C. Scott

A: Dear John, here’s how “silent birth” is described on Scientology’s web site: “In the book, Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard writes that for the benefit of the mother and child, silence should be maintained during childbirth. This is because any words spoken are recorded in the reactive mind and can have an aberrative effect on the mother and the child.”

Where to begin? There is no such thing as the “reactive mind.” “Aberrative” is not a real word. Talking during childbirth doesn’t hurt the child; not talking can. Doctors and nurses in the birthing room need to communicate with one other, and with the mother in labor. Silence during birth is dangerous. I could go on.

The point is, Scientology may be a “religion” (the IRS has concluded it is), but it is not a branch of science, and I don’t plan to treat it as such, no matter what Tom Cruise says on the Today show. And speaking of Cruise, you ought to ditch him as a spokesman as soon as possible. He makes you all look bananas.

Yeah, baby!

Scott Johnson has a nice little jab at al Jazeera:

Al Jazeera appears to be operating as an arm of al Qaeda in its story on the Zawahiri letter that al Qaeda claims was faked by the United States. According to the last line in the linked Al Jazeera story: “The U.S. officials released the fake letter as Iraqis are a few days away from the crucial vote on the country’s new constitution.” Shouldn’t Al Jazeera put a little effort into creating the illusion of detachment from al Qaeda, at least in its English-language product?

Bonus: Scott is far and away the best headline writer in the blogosphere. I maintain that he’s good enough to have worked side-by-side at the New York Post with the legendary Dawn Eden. And his encyclopedic knoweldge of music is impressive enough to make me want to have him do a segment of Old Guy Radio with Tony Kornheiser.

Scott’s a national treasure.

Update, 1:29 p.m.: Thanks to the anonymous commenter who points out that Scott Johnson has retracted his above jab:

UPDATE: In the original version of this post I linked to a story purportedly carried by Al Jazeera that contested the authenticity of the letter. Timothy Usher writes:

Alert: Aljazeera.com is not “the” Al Jazeera, but an imposter site…”The” Al Jazeera is indeed biased against the United States, although less so than they used to be, due either to pressure from our friends in Qatar, or that the Jihadis have lost their appeal. Anyhow, its address is http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage.

The actual Al Jazeera seems rather skeptical of the denial (see this story): “A purported al-Qaida web posting”…”who claims to be spokesman for al-Qaida in Iraq. It could not be authenticated.”

And speaks of the putative authorship as fact: “In the letter, taking up 13 typed pages in its English translation, al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri recommended…al-Zawahiri wrote…The letter laid out his long-term plan…”

Al Jazeera has contacts in Al Qaeda, as seen in the Spanish conviction, and they are the preferred outlet for AQ communiques. We should assume that their estimate is well-grounded; i.e., the letter is real.

Many thanks for the heads up; my high regard for Scott’s headline remains, though.

After the report surfaced earlier today about Harriet Miers’s opinion of the Federalist Society, Scott McClellan caught the following question at his press briefing:

Q I’m just asking if those continue to be her views to this day, that she believes the Federalist Society is a politically-charged organization that she would not take membership in, and that if she still believes that the NAACP does not fall into that category?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Harriet Miers has been supportive of the Federalist Society, including participating in events, and giving a speech to the Society last spring. I know she’s proud that a number of her attorneys on her own staff are members of the Federalist Society. And she, like the rest of the White House, knows that the Federalist Society has been a great ally on many important issues, particularly when it comes to the federal judiciary. They are someone that advocate — an organization that advocates a strong and distinguished federal judiciary, and she’s spoken to them about that and expressed her appreciation for what they do.

Q So it would seem that her views have changed?

MR. McCLELLAN: I would say those are her views that I just expressed. In terms of all the documents that are going to be released to the committee, we encourage everybody to look at those documents and look at what was said and look at the context.

I think I may now be convinced of the president’s argument that 20 years from now, Harriet Miers will be the same person she is today. She seems to have gotten a lifetime of change out of her system during the last 20 years, so what could be left?

Please remember that I warned you that if people didn’t start taking Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’s sham marriage seriously, she was going to have to get pregnant, fast.

I bet Mr. and Mrs. Holmes are wishing they had listened to me right now.