How many of you have actually looked at Harriet Miers’s correspondence with George W. Bush? Actually reading it is different from reading about it. You can see it here. Here are some excerpts:

From a belated birthday card:

You are the best governor ever — deserving of great respect!

From a thank-you card:

All I hear is how great you and Laura are doing. The dinner here was great — especially the speech! Keep up all the great work. Texas is blessed!

I shall always treasure the letter. With great admiration,

Harriet

From a thank-you card:

Thank you so much for including me in your great Juneteenth celebration.

From a handwritten thank-you note:

Keep up all the great work. The state is in great hands.

From a 1998 handwritten note:

Great speech!

From a thank-you letter:

Thank you very much for taking the time to send your congratulations to Mrs. Emery, my partner Gene Emery’s mother, on her 95th birthday. I understand it was a great hit at the party held in her honor. She was touched, and her family greatly appreciated your thoughtfulness.

[Handwritten:] You and Laura are the greatest!

From an uncharacteristic thank-you letter:

You are the best! [But not the greatest? — Patterico]

Getting back on track with this thank-you note:

The Governor’s remarks were great, and I have received many, many compliments.

Is it unfair of me to quote this correspondence? It would be, if the Administration had given us much else to go on — but aside from a few Bar Journal articles (which I have already reported on), this is about all we have in the way of writing samples.

It’s a little tough not to wince as you make your way through this correspondence.

Which is not to say it’s not great.

Paul Krugman:

More broadly, the big problem with political reporting based on character portraits is that there are no rules, no way for a reporter to be proved wrong. If a reporter tells you about the steely resolve of a politician who turns out to be ineffectual and unwilling to make hard choices, you’ve been misled, but not in a way that requires a formal correction.

Similarly, if a columnist like myself tells you that “a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore,” and that assertion turns out to be unsupported by the evidence, and no correct correction is ever appended to the article making that assertion, then you’ve been misled — but I’ll fight a formal correction tooth and nail.

Whoops! Only the first paragraph is Krugman. I made up the second one. It’s how Krugman feels, but he hasn’t said so in so many words.

By the by, his August 19 and August 22 columns contain incorrect corrections (as described in this post) that still remain uncorrected to this very day. It’s clear by now that they will never be corrected. Ever.

Hence the filing of this post in the “Scum” category.

(Thanks to Shredstar for the pointer.)

Rick Santorum is calling the Harriet Miers nomination “the president’s second faith-based initiative.”

It’s not a compliment.

(Via The Corner.)

This is hilarious: a trailer that depicts “The Shining” (my second-favorite move of all time) as a heartwarming comedy about family relationships.

P.S. This should be Part X in Justin Levine’s ongoing series about the tyranny of copyright (Part IX is here):

Sandy Bresler, an agent for “Shining” star Jack Nicholson, warned that Warner Home Video might not find the spoof amusing. “They are using original footage without permission,” he said.

If copyright prevents fun spoofs like this, there’s something reaaallllly wrong with copyright. (And even if it falls within a satire exception, you go litigate that against Warner Bros.)

P.P.S. Success!

Keep checking Iraq the Model for information about the vote in Iraq.