Quick Hits

• Scooter Libby must've been paying close attention to this. It's not entirely clear why Paris Hilton was released from jail earlier today, but the reports that she hadn't been eating jail food suggests the possibility that hunger strikes work. If Paris went just three days (although the sheriff credited her with five), Scooter can starve for longer than that. Even if he doesn't get a pardon, he may be able to significantly cut back on the number of days he goes away.

I guess Scooter's still watching the Paris debacle (who isn't?), but the story got more complicated this afternoon. Does the LA sheriff even talk to the Superior Court? The city attorney is suggesting that the sheriff be held in contempt of court, but the most intriguing line may be:

[Superior Court spokesman Allan] Parachini said at the time, it is the sheriff and not the judge who decides when inmates are released from jail.

So this suggests that after the court sets the sentence, it has nothing to do with carrying out that sentence. Is that true? Are we simply at the mercy of the good will of the prison system (if that's not an oxymoron). Surely one of our many readers involved with the legal system will wander by to set us straight.

• I learned something interesting over at Kevin Drum's blog recently. Apparently the U.S. embargo against Cuba holds over Americans wherever they are in the world. Sure, it's illegal to have or buy Cuban cigars domestically, but I never knew that it's illegal for Americans to buy them in other countries where they're otherwise legally available. That seems to be governing more from spite than logical policy (that doesn't really happen, does it?).

• We were talking about Fred Thompson the other night, and I realized after I finished that there were a couple more points I'd intended to make. If he does get into this contest (and it seems highly unlikely at this point that he won't), he'll have a couple of hurdles he'll have to overcome. James Dobson was quoted a couple of months ago in U.S. News & World Report, saying, "I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression." Yow. Even if he can convince Dobson that he is, indeed, a Christian, Thompson will still have to surmount an awful lot of reluctance on the part of Dobson and potentially other Christian leaders. That's not the kind of comment one makes lightly. Dobson was clearly trying to sabotage a potential Thompson candidacy, and it will take a lot to keep Dobson quiet on the issue, let alone get him into Thompson's corner.

I'm having some doubts about his electoral strategy, too. We already noted his connection to the Scooter Libby case, but he recently added Timothy Griffin, described as "a former protege of Karl Rove," to his campaign. If the Rove connection is not enough, Griffin also ties into the U.S. attorney scandal. He won't say it in so many words, but is Thompson the Bush-continuation candidate? That can't be a winning strategy.

Thompson may also confront a monetary roadblock. I don't know what his residuals for an episode of Law & Order might be, but there's a good chance that episodes that feature Arthur Branch will have to be pulled from their current heavy rotation on TNT. So that's not just money out of his pocket (which probably isn't that much, compared to what he can make from speaking engagements and other gigs), but it's money from producer Dick Wolf's pocket (and I imagine his profit per ep is quite a bit more substantial than Thompson's is) as well as from TNT's pocket (or wherever a corporation keeps its spare change). The cable net TNT is a Time Warner company, so those financial concerns go even higher. Could Wolf and Time Warner already be lobbying Thompson to stay out of the race and on TV? As a former lobbyist, does Thompson have special invulnerability from being lobbied himself?

And one last thing. Getting back to the post from the other night, Stevie T offered a comment noting Thompson's resemblance to Boss Hogg. This afternoon, I got a hit on the blog from somebody googling "Fred Thompson Boss Hogg." So to extend the question I had in the first place, does this mean there are people out there who consider Boss Hogg sexy?