Q: Who's not a Texan in this photo? A: All of them. Please, people, those are freaking armadillos -- or, as we call them in Texas, leprosy-carrying car magnets. You sure as hell don't pet them like they're some kind of armor-plated shih tzu.

You yankees. My God.

 
Today, the South -- or at least the part of it called Mississippi -- is closed for Robert E Lee's and Martin Luther King's birthdays. It's like peanut butter and pickles -- two great tastes that ... well ... yeah.

After all the sturm und drang of traditional values, we can announce the gay marriage issue dead for, well, at least the next two years. In his weekend sit-down with WaPo newspaper editors, President Bush pretty much dismissed the entire issue:

The Post: Do you plan to expend any political capital to aggressively lobby senators for a gay marriage amendment?

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I think that the situation in the last session -- well, first of all, I do believe it's necessary; many in the Senate didn't, because they believe DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act] will -- is in place, but -- they know DOMA is in place, and they're waiting to see whether or not DOMA will withstand a constitutional challenge.

The Post: Do you plan on trying to -- using the White House, using the bully pulpit, and trying to --

THE PRESIDENT: The point is, is that senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA is deemed constitutional, nothing will happen. I'd take their admonition seriously.

The Post: But until that changes, you want it?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, until that changes, nothing will happen in the Senate. Do you see what I'm saying?

The Post: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: The logic.

If you recall, during the debates Bush said he was "deeply concerned." Now, not so concerned. Eh.

Junkies may also remember the August Time Magazine interview with Laura Bush that included this snippet:

TIME: Have you ever had a gay couple stay with you in the White House or in Texas?

BUSH: I'm sure we have.

TIME: You wouldn't have any objection?

BUSH: No, of course not.

It seems fairly cut-and-dried that George W. Bush has never been particularly interested in the gay marriage issue; few people in Washington really are, despite the national party's focus on the issue as an electoral wedge.

Perhaps more importantly, Bush is exceptionally liberal in his religious beliefs. To be clear, Bush isn't even a conservative Christian: he's a Methodist who belongs to an Episcopal church and attends neither. Bush's theological views are strongly shaped by Billy Graham, whose own religious views have taken a significantly Universalist turn over the years. In 1997, Graham said in an interview with Robert Schuller that God is "calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think they are saved, and that they're going to be with us in heaven." Bush has reiterated several times that he believes that non-Christians who live "Christ-like lives" will be saved.

Such views are, to my mind, admirable and quite defensible, but they certainly aren't the kind of hard-shell evangelical Christianity Bush's critics (and many of his supporters) like to attribute to the President. In point of fact, Bush seems much more liberal in his religious views than either Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton, an irony that's easily missed.

So, now that the election's over, the gay marriage amendment will go, er, back into the closet until the next election cycle. Most engaged people on the left will probably realize in a year or two that, like abortion, gay marriage is an issue that is of political value only so long as it's never actually addressed by legislation. The interesting question is whether it'll be noticed on the right. For years the conservative evangelical Christian voters have been sold out by the Christian Coalition in exchange for gambling money, courted and dropped every electoral cycle, and consistently been told that the GOP will pass their legislation as soon as the Republicans control enough of the federal government. Perhaps those voters might ask themselves if all three branches are enough.

 
Mike Kinsley asks what will happen when Bush nominates Clarence Thomas for Chief Justice. Now, in this case I don't think Kinsley is privy to any information I don't know, and thus I think that his conviction that Thomas is a slam-dunk for Chief Justice is on-point.

Let's begin by noting that it is very likely that Rehnquist will retire soon, necessitating a new Justice nominated from without and a new Chief Justice nominated from within. Of the current Justices, it would be very unusual for Bush to nominate Breyer, Ginsburg, or Souter, all reliably liberal.

Stevens is also very unlikely, since he's not only quite elderly, but generally thought of as a liberal. While this is at best debatable -- the Ford nominee often finds himself d'accord with Scalia -- Stevens certainly has placed himself on the opposite side of many cases the Republican base considers crucial. However, Stevens' limited time on the bench (84 years old, he's expected to retire in the next few years) could make him an interesting candidate if the Administration finds itself having to choose a new Chief Justice at a time when its political capital is lower than it wants; Stevens could be used to essentially defer the issue for a better time. Still, despite the great respect he commands, he's an unlikely candidate.

Thomas is the least-experienced non-Clinton nominee on the bench, and one who doesn't command much respect. His controversial, to say the least, confirmation would cause problems if he were nominated to Chief Justice, as would his extremely conservative and often arcane opinions, dissents and concurrences (he's still generally less-conservative than Rehnquist, though). A 2000 analysis of Thomas' opinions also show that he has generally only written opinions in cases that have significant unanimity, most of his opinions occuring in 9-0 situations, and virtually all in economic and regulatory cases. The evidence suggests that the current Chief Justice doesn't consider Thomas suitable for handling controversial cases and those of deep public interest. Thomas' youth -- he once said that he wasn't going to step down from the bench until 2034 -- also means that opponents will have three decades of reasons to stop his confirmation. If Bush wants Thomas as Chief Justice, he's going to basically have to suspend all other policy pushes and expend a lot of capital to get him through.

Scalia is respected and, to no small degree, feared. He's unquestionably out of step with the rest of the Court (except, somewhat, with Thomas), and is probably the third most conservative member on the bench as such things are measured. Scalia is sharp, extremely sharp, but his bruising attacks on other Justices in his writings are intense and often vicious. (No one is safe from Scalia: his closest friend on the Court is his law-school classmate Ginsburg, but she has received some of the most scathing rebukes from Scalia.)

Scalia is perhaps the most divisive choice for Chief Justice, and he would bring along a lot of baggage from his often-frank writings. Again, he would be a capital-intensive nomination for Bush.

O'Connor has garnered a reputation as an oscillating Justice guided by a very strong personal ethic. She would make a striking and unexpected choice for the Chief Justice position -- Democrats would be very unwilling to block that nomination, but some of the more conservative members of the GOP base might be unhappy. On the other hand, O'Connor has been widely marked as a retirement candidate, as her husband suffers from severe heart problems. Her nomination might be a useful way of casting Bush as a judicial moderate while also deferring the real Chief Justice fight for a few more years.

Kennedy is more reliably conservative than O'Connor, less so than those other members of the conservative wing, and known as a consensus-builder. With Thomas' and Scalia's expected difficulties getting through the Chief Justice nomination, Kennedy is absolutely the "safe" conservative candidate -- experienced, pragmatic, and highly-respected.