Stage Fright

The stage that is a Congressional committee can be a stressful and merciless place to be. Check out General David Petraeus' experience yesterday:
He slumped forward while Sen. John McCain was speaking. (Insert joke here.) Fred Kaplan on Slate suggests it's a "grim metaphor."

Coming up tomorrow BP CEO Tony Hayward will appear before the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in the House of Representatives at a hearing on the "Role of BP in the Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill." From the Telegraph.co.uk:

"Congressmen will be vying to humiliate the man in the hot seat and he will be well aware that congressional hearings can be part theatre, part show trial, and part ritual humiliation."

How can you not turn in for ritual humiliation?

Prop 8 Final Arguments Day. Finally.

Will be spending the day following the live-blogging of the final arguments in the Prop 8 Trial. Will be following it here and here and here. It's interesting that the defense side did not do live-blogging during the trial in January, but they have a site up now and will be blogging today's proceedings and are now set-up to follow the case through appeals.

The Redemption of Ted Olson

A profile of Ted Olson, attorney for the Plaintiffs in the Prop 8 Trial, from the Washington Post:

"This fight, Olson told the law students gathered on a spring evening in the luxe D.C. offices of his firm, Gibson, Dunn and Cruthcher, 'is the most compelling, emotionally moving, important case that I have been involved in in my entire life.'"

On the Eve of Final Arguments in Prop 8 Trial

Here is the original source document of the Protect Marriage (the defendants) answers to Judge Walker's questions.

And from the Wall Street Journal:

"At stake is not only the legality of Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot initiative that established the ban, but potentially the broader rights of gays and lesbians under the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution."

The article interestingly points out that Prop 8 was an issue in the Republican primary battles last week and will also be an issue in the upcoming mid-term elections in November. (Both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman support Prop 8.)

When Populist Is Not Popular

An interesting article in the New York Times about the Brooklyn Museum, "populist" exhibitions, the quest for younger audiences, shrinking endowments, and what is a museum for?

...Martin Baumrind, a trustee for 10 years who resigned this month because, he said, he had long opposed the museum’s direction. “What it has become is a party place and a center of celebrity — evidenced by the fact that they have partnered up with Bravo,” he said. “That is not what I signed up for.”

My question - what exactly DID you sign up for?

Special Effects Courtesy of Mother Nature

From Yahoo News:

A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

Obama's Oval Office Speech as Theater

From Politics Daily's Walter Shapiro:

The orchestrated leaks from the White House suggest that the dramatic tension of the president's address will come from pressuring BP to establish a multibillion-dollar escrow account for the economic victims of the oil spill.

And...

If Obama cannot succeed where Carter failed, if the president cannot use this horrifying oil spill to summon the nation to common purpose, then a significant patch of the Gulf of Mexico will have died in vain.

And from The Daily Beast - more references to the "theater" of tonight's address:

"Obama is rolling out the full chorus line for the Gulf this week."
and
"Obama will take center stage tomorrow. And yes, it will be theater. But he is telling us with this stagecraft that he means business. And he has something important to say."