Michael Gableman wins Wisconsin Supreme Court seat from Louis Butler.

This was a fight known mainly for the nasty ads put out by groups supporting the candidates, but the bottom line is that the balance on the court has changed.

Here's a recent Wall Street Journal article that focused on the race:

After four years of judicial activism, one of the court's most liberal members, Justice Louis Butler, is up for re-election -- and voters get to send a message about what they expect from their judges....

The last time Badger State voters had a chance to vote on Justice Butler, in 2000, the then-Milwaukee County Municipal Judge lost by nearly 2-1 to then-state Supreme Court Justice Diane Sykes. But when a seat opened up on the high court in 2004 with the elevation of Justice Sykes to the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Democratic Governor Jim Doyle appointed Judge Butler to the slot.

Liberals suddenly enjoyed a 5-4 majority on the court, and it swung sharply to the left. The court systematically dismantled the state's tort reform laws, eliminating caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice rulings. In another case, the court made Wisconsin the only state to accept "collective liability" for manufacturers in cases involving lead paint. Whether a company actually produced the paint became irrelevant to guilt or innocence.

I didn't endorse a candidate (or vote) in this election.

CORRECTION: Sorry I had Butler's first name as Michael overnight. The perils of posting at 1 a.m.

UPDATE: President Obama has nominated Louis Butler to be a district judge here in the Western District of Wisconsin.

John McCain gets back at David Letterman.

(The song the band is playing is "Soldier Boy.)

(I'm embedding a Redlasso clip, which has caused problems in the past. Hopefully, it will work okay this time.)

ADDED: Redlasso clip replaced by YouTube. I don't know what it is about Redlasso, but it screws this site up for some people. It's such a shame, because they do a great job of putting together clips and getting them out quickly.

Moderns among the ancient.

A slim young man draws the hand of a hulky ancient:



Women huddle in threes and concern themselves with very old things:



Think about them all you want:



They will never think about you:

I said it 3 days ago, and now Hillary is saying it: Hillary is Rocky.

On March 29th, I presented the "Rocky" analogy:

You know if this campaign were a movie, Hillary would have to win... or at least "go the distance." She would be the central character, because the story is most interesting from her point of view. She's got a fabulous backstory, which includes suffering, but she starts out on top and full of hubris. Along come the one man who can block her path to fulfillment. She's torn down and laid low, humiliated once again. But she needs to learn to fight, and she's not going to give in. Come on, I'm getting chills just sketching it out. If the movie was about Obama, sure, it should have ended on Super Tuesday, with just an epilogue showing him in the White House. But if he's not the central character, we're still building toward the most thrilling climactic scenes.

Today, Hillary is all "I am Rocky":

... Clinton said to end her presidential campaign now would be as if "Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum steps and said, 'Well, I guess that's about far enough.'"

"Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people," Clinton said.

And as long as she's talking about beating him in a fight, why not expand into other sports? Especially bowling. Everyone can beat Obama at bowling. And sure enough, here's Clinton, taking advantage of any opportunity to kick his ass:

Dolly Parton mentors the "American Idol" crowd.

Are you watching? It's on now.

ADDED: Dolly is very sweet and incredibly likable, but don't be fooled. She's just walking through this. We see her listening to the contestant play a song once and doing nothing more than applauding and hugging afterwards. Then, in a separate clip she says a few — scripted, I think — words of gentle praise. That is, she never actually mentored the contestant. She never listened critically, never gave any real advice or worked with the singer at all. As an "AI" mentor — and I only mean as an "AI" mentor — Dolly comes nowhere near Barry Manilow. Here's what I wrote about Barry on "AI" in 2006:

I just want to say how much I like Barry Manilow. Not his music, which isn't to my taste, but him as a person. Unlike Stevie Wonder and various other guests, he did not do the show to get the kids to sing his songs, and he took his role as a music teacher seriously. He really analyzed each performance and came up with concrete help and never seemed to be at all about self-promotion. I know you could say that this nice-guy thing is just his gimmick, but if it is, it works well, and maybe more people ought to try it.

Lulu and Peter Noone followed the Manilow model last year, so it's disappointing to see Dolly Parton slough it off like this. That she's a bigger star than Manilow, Lulu, or Noone is no excuse. If she chooses to do the show to leverage her popularity, she should play the game.

AND: I'll put tonight's performances in this order: David Archuleta, Carly Smithson, Michael Johns, David Cook, Jason Castro, Kristy Lee Cook, Ramiele Malubay, Syesha Mercado. Now, I think Ramiele will be the one going home, because she sang such a nondescript song, and Syesha got to do "I Will Always Love You," which everyone knows and which gives a singer a lot of opportunity to show off — even if there is also the problem that, note for note, we will compare her performance to the famously brilliant Whitney Houston recording and think over and over again that she's falling short — way short. Syesha will get a lot of votes for singing that song, much as I hated it. But I don't even like hearing Whitney do it. I find it annoying. It's even annoying when Dolly sings it.

OOPS: I left Brooke White out of my ranking! Put her between David Cook and Jason Castro. Oh, now I'm thinking I got the whole thing wrong. Whatever....

"I don’t want them punished with a baby."

A quote from Barack Obama, talking about the importance of teaching kids about contraception.



Or do you think he was talking about abortion? Sean Hannity does. And the blogs go wild.

Obama is obviously talking about contraception education, but there is an implicit — albeit deniable — signal about abortion rights. Note that he says "I'm going to teach [my daughters] first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." If they make a mistake, doesn't that mean they failed to use contraception? It suggests that to a lot of people, but I think he took the position that it would be a mistake to have sex at all, and therefore he wants them to know to use contraception — that is, to make a mistake with less consequence.

McCain ad labels him — literally — Episcopal.

With all this trouble Barack Obama has been having with his connection or seeming connection to religion that either is or seems extremist, wouldn't this be a good time to remind folks that John McCain's religion is the most mild-mannered Christianity: Episcopalian?

But we can't just get in people's faces proclaiming the man's Episcopalianism. We need a way to say it absolutely clearly — kind of without even saying it at all....

Aha!



That's a frame from John McCain's new ad. In other ways, the ad distinguishes John McCain's religion from Obama's. You never hear religion spoken of directly. The theme is "heroes" — and at first you think John McCain is going to be called a hero, but that's for you to think, not for them to say. We hear about a hero teacher who influenced John McCain:

For John McCain, one of his heroes was in the front of his high school classroom.

William B. Ravenel was that hero.

He was the English teacher and football coach who inspired students to live the honor code.

"I shall not lie

I shall not cheat

I shall not steal

And I shall turn in the student who does."

The teacher who believed in exoneration and redemption.

When one of John McCain's classmates violated the rules and admitted to the infraction.

It was John McCain who declared that forgiveness was the best remedy.

Mr. Ravenel was the teacher who helped John McCain understand honor and redemption.

Here's a fuller explanation of that honor code story, in McCain's own words:

In the fall of my senior year, a member of the junior varsity football team had broken training and faced expulsion from the team. Mr. Ravenel called a team meeting during which players argued that the accused be dropped from the team and referred to the honor council. I didn't think that was fair. Since the student in question had, unlike the rest of us, chosen at the start of the year not to sign a pledge promising to abide by the training rules faithfully, I argued in favor of a less severe punishment.

Most of my teammates wanted to hang the guy. But I argued that since he had not been caught breaking training but instead had confessed the offense and expressed his remorse freely, his behavior was no less honorable than that of a student who signed the pledge and adhered to its provisions. My defense swayed the people in the room, about twenty or thirty guys. Mr. Ravenel closed the discussion by voicing support for my judgment.

After the meeting broke up, Mr. Ravenel approached me and shook my hand. With relief evident in his voice, he told me we had done the right thing, and thanked me for my efforts. He allowed that before the meeting he had been anxious about its outcome. He had hoped the matter would be resolved as it had been, but was uncertain it would. Still, he had not wanted to be the one who argued for exoneration; he wanted the decision to be ours and not his. He said he was proud of me. That was very important to me.

Whether you know the whole story or not, the ad sends the message that John McCain values forgiveness — Christian love and forgiveness. Think how deeply that contrasts to what we've been hearing lately from Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright.

The new McCain ad does many things, but one thing it does is engage subtly and forcefully in the debate over religious values.

ADDED: This post is not intended to take a position on the question whether John McCain is a Baptist or an Episcopalian.

IN THE COMMENTS: Daryl raises 3 questions:

I also thought it was a none-too-subtle reminder that Sen. Obama has admitted to using cocaine and marijuana. Not that I care, but I guess a lot of voters do.

Bonus question: Don't Americans hate to elect preppies? George W. Bush lost his first election because his opponent portrayed him as an out-of-touch Yalie. Playing the "dumb cowboy" is the secret to his electoral success after that.

Double Bonus Question: The ad also emphasizes that McCain was supposed to narc on his fellow classmates. Is that really what his campaign wants us to think about? That "honor" really means betraying your friends, and every time McCain or his campaign uses that word, we think about a high school geek tattling to his teacher?

In answer to your last question, I thought there might be some connection to McCain's maverick role in Washington. The "friends" politicians have are other politicians and various insiders. Don't we want a politician who didn't cater to and cover up for friends like these?