The AP:

Linda Greenhouse, who has covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times for 30 years, said Wednesday that she has accepted a buyout package from the newspaper.

So long, and thanks for all the conflicts!

Thanks to Bradley J. Fikes.

It appears Ed Whelan may have broken the news here.

The answer is yes, if the story I discuss in this post is any indication.

The New York Times publishes Part Two in its series: Pathetic Attempts to Derail John McCain. Today’s installment is titled McCains Canal Zone Birth Prompts Queries About Whether That Rules Him Out:

The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

Mr. McCains likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a natural-born citizen can hold the nations highest office.

. . . .

Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed.

Simon at Stubborn Facts addressed this some time ago, in this post. The idea that McCain wouldn’t qualify is, quite simply, ridiculous. Even the New York Times can’t muster a single expert who really thinks McCain is likely to lose the issue in court — assuming it gets to court, which it won’t.

Next!

UPDATE: At Hot Air, commenter 29Victor has the perfect riposte:

Good thing McCain wasnt born on February 29th, theyd be debating whether or not he is over 35.

Good one.

UPDATE x2: Xrlq has more.

UPDATE x3: Gerald A: “Would the Times interpretation also rule out Cesarian section and induced labor births?”

Good one.

[posted by Justin Levine]

No, not the gasbag in Washington. I’m talking about MTV’s great Republican hope.

She’s returning to radio in a regular weekend gig.  3-5PM (PST) every Sunday in Los Angeles.

You can catch it streaming through the station’s website.

[Guest post by Jack Dunphy]

William F. Buckley, founder of National Review magazine and godfather of the modern conservative movement, has passed away at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82.

It was Buckley’s magazine that helped guide me away from the misguided liberalism of my youth (explained in NRO columns here and here). I never met him, but I’m proud to be associated, however tangentially, with the organization created and nurtured through the years by this remarkable man. Resquiat in pace.

–Jack Dunphy

The other day I discussed a case that denied standing to illegal immigrants seeking to overturn a law that would erect barriers to their living and working in the U.S. As I noted in my post, the judge in that case wrote:

[C]uriously absent from [the illegal alien plaintiffs’] voluminous complaint is any challenge to the federal laws rendering their presence in this country illegal. Instead, these Plaintiffs seemingly concede the validity of the federal immigration laws, and file this suit in order to remove any barriers the state of Oklahoma has erected to their continued violation of those federal laws. These illegal alien Plaintiffs seek nothing more than to use this Court as a vehicle for their continued unlawful presence in this country. To allow these Plaintiffs to do so would make this Court an “abetter of iniquity” and this Court finds that simply unpalatable.

I asked Simon at Stubborn Facts if he would be willing to do a post analyzing the soundness of the judge’s standing analysis. Simon has completed his post, and has published the analysis here. His conclusion:

“‘[H]e who comes into equity must come with clean hands’ … is far more than a mere banality. It is a self-imposed ordinance that closes the doors of a court of equity to one tainted with inequitableness or bad faith relative to the matter in which he seeks relief….” It is a factor courts “must consider when deciding to exercise its discretion and grant an injunction.” And the doctrine is at its apogee in cases which involve not only the interests of the litigants but substantial questions of public interest. And where a plaintiff is engaging in continued illegal conduct that is closely connected with the subject-matter of the suit, equitable remedies [o]bviously ought to be denied. All these conditions are met here, and the district court was, in my view, right to bar the suit.

Read it all. Anyone who takes issue with his conclusion should read his post and take on his reasoning directly. stef?