Quick Hits

• On Monday, NBC's Andrea Mitchell had an interesting idea. She suggested to Chris Matthews on Hardball that the Prez should just follow the polling and pardon Scooter Libby. What's not clear is exactly what polling she was talking about. Maybe she polled her Beltway Bubble pals. Maybe it was a Bush administration poll. For all we know, she just asked Alan Greenspan over pillow talk. According to Media Matters, the only poll to discuss the question was this CNN survey released Monday afternoon. And according to that, a Libby pardon is supported by only half as many people as those who think the Prez is doing a good job. Talk about scraping the bottom.

So will Mitchell's shilling for Libby help change some minds? I can't imagine that it particularly will. Libby's going to have to figure out what to do (or wait until the Prez pardons him in defiance of the polling--far more likely, now that I think about it) by himself.

• Halliburton is taking this whole outsourcing thing a little too far. Its offshoring itself by moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai. They claim that Dubai scores higher on the where-the-oil-is meter than does Houston, but they're maintaining U.S. registration, so they're still subject to U.S. law. Although it might make some sense in the larger picture, boy, do these guys have a tin ear when it comes to public relations. But at least this means that Dick Cheney will have to live in the Middle Ages if he rejoins Halliburton after the end of the Bush administration (rejoins?? Does that mean he's ever really left their employ?). When it comes down to it, there may not be anything wrong with this, but it sure smells fishy, doesn't it?