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I had 8 hours of classes by my calculation today, so I don't feel like knowing Dick. Maybe I'll know him a bit. Couple of random thoughts: Remember Caroline Kennedy? Yeah, it looks like Kirsten Gillibrand will be the new junior senator from New York. Also, an intriguing item from Swing State Project. My guess is Charles Grassley, who covers all the criteria.

And in the random connections department - I commented yesterday that Dick Cheney was in charge of the Bush VP selection. Caroline Kennedy was in charge (at least in co-charge) of the Obama VP selection.

You might recall the clusterfuck 2000 election, when we found out about Jews for Buchanan and Katherine Harris's bust. That's all fine and well, but during that circus who was overseeing Bush's transition to the White House? (It was ongoing during the recount mess.) If you haven't said Cheney, you really don't know Dick. What is perhaps interesting about that is that VPs usually don't run the transition team. (John Podesta ran Obama's transition team.) You understand the importance of Cheney's oversight - he put people he knew into key positions. His influence caused Bush to appoint folks like Rumsfeld and Paul O'Neill to the cabinet. He didn't influence all the appointments, but he influenced enough. Anyway, the point of the chapter was - Cheney had much greater influence than most vice presidents, and woe to them who crossed him.

Anyway, let's be a little more pointed. Right after I posted that Cheney entry yesterday, some big news broke about the NSA on Daily Kos, and disappointingly I haven't seen it covered in the media. I can't say I am completely surprised by the news, because when talking about the NSA, you should probably assume the worst. Here's story 1 and here's story 2. Sometimes life just sucks.