Can the police break down your door and burst in on you if they smell marijuana burning?

They don't have a warrant, but no warrant is needed under "exigent circumstances," such as when there is evidence of destruction of evidence. In the case argued in the Supreme Court today, after the police knocked and announced themselves, they heard a toilet flushing. Is that enough?

Kennedy uses this opportunity to ask why the smoking of marijuana itself doesn't constitute the destruction of evidence.

Tina Brown entices Robin Givhan...

... to leave the Washington Post for the new Newsweek. What a coup!

Ms. Givhan spent 15 years at The Post, most notably as fashion editor, the job that earned her a Pulitzer in 2006 for criticism....

Her writing was famously provocative and punchy. She once described Vice President Dick Cheney’s outfit at a solemn Auschwitz memorial as “the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower.”

(Link added. Picture of Cheney in his embarrassing parka at the link.)

In a column about  Condoleezza Rice, then the secretary of state, Ms. Givhan wrote about the images of sex and power that Ms. Rice’s  high boots and fitted dresses conveyed. “Rice looked as though she was prepared to talk tough, knock heads and do a freeze-frame ‘Matrix’ jump kick if necessary,” wrote Ms. Givhan.

(Link added. Pic of Condi at the link. Hey, let's see the new Secretary of State try that.)

When First Lady Michelle Obama’s sleek attire turned heads at the 2009 Inauguration, Ms. Givhan declared “the era of first lady-as-rectangle had ended.”

(Link added. With pic — showing that the era of first lady-as-Glinda had seemingly begun.)

ADDED: Above are the examples of Givhan's writing that the NYT selected. Law folk are most interested in this one about John Roberts — on the occasion of George Bush announcing his nomination to the Supreme Court. Givhan took a shot at Roberts's wife and children —  "groomed and glossy in pastel hues -- like a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of Jelly Bellies, three little Necco wafers."

There was tow-headed Jack -- having freed himself from the controlling grip of his mother -- enjoying a moment in the spotlight dressed in a seersucker suit with short pants and saddle shoes. His sister, Josie, was half-hidden behind her mother's skirt. Her blond pageboy glistened. And she was wearing a yellow dress with a crisp white collar, lace-trimmed anklets and black patent-leather Mary Janes.

(Who among us did a double take? Two cute blond children with a boyish-looking father getting ready to take the lectern -- Jack Edwards? Emma Claire? Is that you? Are all little boys now named Jack?)

The wife wore a strawberry-pink tweed suit with taupe pumps and pearls, which alone would not have been particularly remarkable, but alongside the nostalgic costuming of the children, the overall effect was of self-consciously crafted perfection. The children, of course, are innocents. They are dressed by their parents. And through their clothes choices, the parents have created the kind of honeyed faultlessness that jams mailboxes every December when personalized Christmas cards arrive bringing greetings "to you and yours" from the Blake family or the Joneses. Everyone looks freshly scrubbed and adorable, just like they have stepped from a Currier & Ives landscape.

Yeah, that was mean — but deliciously so. (Mmmm.... Necco wafers.)

Yeah, it was political. Note that Cheney was underdressed, the Robertses were overdressed, and First Lady Michelle Obama was just right.

I hope that, teamed with Tina, Robin gets even meaner and more political. I love the fashion-politics-culture genre, and I want to see Givhan do her thing. And stop fawning over Michelle Obama!

Tina Brown.

Victorious.

Hey, what happened to Kausfiles?

I was complaining yesterday that in 3 days, there were only 2 paragraphs showing on the front page of the blog that got all us bloggers noticing that it went to Newsweek.

Today, I go there and not only is there no new post on this, the fourth day of the blog, the whole page is blank. The original 2 posts are gone!

I do see some sidebar links to other stuff in Newsweek, like "GOP 'Pledge to America' Looks Unlikely to Inspire." Ha. Well, to me, Newsweek looks unlikely to inspire. What ridiculous writing! How does one look unlikely to inspire? What a phrase. Could they hide their bias a little better? They can't report on something new that the other side does without getting the jump on it and assuring their brain-dead readers that it can't possibly be any good.

Jeez, the Kausfiles blank page looks likely to be the most readable thing over there.

UPDATE: Now, the page is back, with the original 2 posts, plus a new post, "Isn't Anybody Against Porn?"

Are we really such an advanced nation that even an extreme "staunch social conservative" has to deny opposing pornography? There's something depressing about that. If not Christine O'Donnell, who?

Not just "staunch," but "extreme 'staunch'"! What's that like?

"I tell you if there's anything worse than dealing with a staunch woman... S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There's nothing worse, I'm telling you. They don't weaken, no matter what."

Also, there's a difference between "opposing pornography" and wanting opposition to pornography enacted into legislation. Her old statement about pornography and adultery was her interpretation of religion. You can have a very high standard as a matter of religion and still leave people alone as a matter of law.

Sorry, I deleted my blogroll last night. It's Mickey Kaus's fault.

I put his new, Newsweek blog on the roll, then, trying to remove his old, dead link, I clicked a button that said "remove." Apologies to all whose links I've deleted. I'll rebuild it over the next few days.

Meanwhile, while I'm on Mickey's case, let me say that I hate the format of his new blog. There's one post a day, and you have to click through a separate page to see that there are multiple topics. So, on the main page, yesterday's post — there's no more recent post (get on it, Mickey) — is headed "Andrew Breitbart 'Pissed' at Glenn Beck?" And you can see the first 10 lines or so before clicking.

Do you click? Maybe not. Maybe you don't care about AB and GB. But if you do click, you get to additional stuff that's got nothing to do with AB and GB:  "why I can't get too worked up about GOP Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's alleged ethics violation"... "the DREAM Act... a familiar tradeoff—compassion in the short term vs. preventing large social problems in the long term..."

So why are those subjects stuck where you might never see them? It's Mickey's old style of collecting in one continuous post what most bloggers would put up as separate posts, combined with Newsweek's format of limiting what is on the front page. That format is, I believe, motivated by a desire to boost page views. This turns something that was fun about Mickey's old blog — the rambling, gossip-column style of going from item to item — into bondage to Newsweek's commercial interests. Blech!

And the truth is, I didn't click through on Mickey's first post until just now — because I didn't bite on the first-page teaser: "Get Me More Sarah Palin! Her secret weapon? She gets hit on." Ah, I realize now that he's making the point I just made. He's grasping after page views. Ha. Anyway, on the inner page, he says:

--kausfiles on Newsweek won't be quite the same as kausfiles on Slate. My early New Year's resolution is to be a lot more interactive (e.g. responding to comments), a bit less insidery, and a lot more Instapundit-y--emulating the wildly popular Tennessee blogger who posts lots of short links to worthy articles by others. Please let me know how I'm doing.

Of course, Instapundit doesn't have comments — except on a very rare occasion when a Madison, Wisconsin revolutionary storms the gates — and I think comments will be great. But this post-page business that I can't stand is something Instapundit doesn't do. One reason we love to click on Instapundit is that there will be so much stuff there right in view, on the main page. Yeah, there are a lot of links, but the vast majority of readers don't click on any given link. He sends a lot of traffic to the people — like me — whom he links, but that's because so many readers go to Instapundit, not because everyone clicks. Why does he start with so much? Because there is so much there to be seen at the first click — exactly what Mickey is not doing.

You can go back to Instapundit many times a day and get your instant reward of something new right there. By contrast, Mickey's blog, with all the fresh attention it's getting for the first 3 days, still only has 2 posts — 2 paragraphs on that front page. That's negative reinforcement for clicking. You can say you want to be Instapundit-y (and therefore wildly popular) but you've got to give and give. You can't withhold. And if you are withholding because big media is hungry for page views, the readers — me at least — are the ones who will withhold.

ADDED: Lots of links on one page is also the charm of the Drudge Report. Talk about wildly popular. It's harder to stay off it than to indulge your addiction and check it out one more time.

Kaus to Newsweek.

"Basically I write about what I feel strongly about, which is the blog's strength and also its weakness. I don't try to cover every topic. Readers know I won't waste their time unless I think I have something to add."

ADDED: The link is to the New York Observer which headlines: "Newsweek Staunches the Flow of Talent with Blogger Mickey Kaus." Well, Mickey is a staunch blogger and Newsweek may be bleeding, but the Observer needs to stanch the flow of usage errors.

Newsweek loves Rielle Hunter.

A ridiculous puff piece by Jonathan Darman. It's called — I am not kidding — "The Quiet Dignity of Rielle Hunter." It ends:

That's not to say we've heard the last of Rielle Hunter. She is too rich and intriguing a character for her story to end here. Eventually, she will talk to someone. When she does the inevitable interview, the questions will be all about the affair: Did John say he loved her? Did she love John? Did she know it was wrong to go after a married man? But I hope someone thinks to ask her about what came after: What was the strength that kept her head down through the years? And why is that strength so elusive to the rest of the world?

Ha ha ha. Well, I've already written about Darman's writing about Hunter — back in August 2008. It ends:

Our adorable reporter tries to do his job as he teeters between falling for her and figuring out what is going on.

"When I worked at Newsweek in the late 90s, I used to wonder at how all these talented people could sit at their desks in a sort of haze..."

"... it was as if a soul-deadening gas was permeating the offices."

Says Mickey Kaus, pondering the problems of magazines that summarize the week's news.