There was a ton of stuff up on The Corner and elsewhere today about the big news of some evangelical endorsements of GOP candidates. Sam Brownback endorsed John McCain, and Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani.

That was a big coup for Giuliani, and it made me wonder how things were going with Steve Dillard's venture Catholics Against Rudy. I discussed that group a few months ago, and expressed the opinion that I didn't think it would go anywhere. I may have been right. The site doesn't appear to have been updated for a while.

I doubt Steve and his friends have much love for Pat Robertson. But he still holds some sway. And I totally agree with the word NR's Rich Lowry is hearing that the Robertson endorsement will give cover to others on the religious right to come out for Rudy, and "If Rudy is the nominee, they're going to vote for him -- period." Maybe the Catholics Against Rudy site will update sometime between now and then.

I'm planning on having some more political content next week. Stay tuned.

I was vaguely following this story about the 25-year-old Nebraska teacher who absconded to Mexico with this 13-year-old boy she'd allegedly been having a sexual relationship with. But I happened to catch the detail that the boy had to stay in Mexico after authorities found the couple, because he was in the United States illegally. I was amazed by this. I assume the woman will use this as her defense now: she wasn't running away with the boy, she was a one woman Minuteman, solving the illegal immigration issue one person at a time. You know, by sleeping with them and luring them across the border. I assume the GOP will endorse this approach leading up the 2008 election.

I previously discussed this issue here and here, so start there to get caught up. PG and I also had a little back-and-forth in the comments.

The latest is that Howard Bashman has provided a lengthy and detailed account of the incident in his latest law.com column. Basically, he had two reasons for his position that he should leave the withdrawn Second Circuit opinion his post. First, essentially, the genie was out of the bottle, and that's true. As I argued, though, this didn't mean that Howard had to be the one rubbing the lamp.

Second, to quote Howard, "I decided to read closely through the Higazy decision to see whether anything in the decision seemed so inflammatory that I should join the 2nd Circuit in taking the decision off-line. However, I did not find anything that resembled an important government secret or information that would prove harmful to anyone."

Again, I'm willing to concede that may be true as well. And I really do believe that Bashman the Journalist probably has every right to post the opinion, regardless of the Second Circuit's order sealing portions of the record that ended up in the opinion. I'm just still not convinced that Bashman the Lawyer is free to second-guess the court's order and post the opinion if he disagrees with its redactions.

So I guess we'll agree to disagree. And even that may be too strong, as I'm not completely sure Bashman is in the wrong here. I just think it's a closer call than Howard's many supporters do, is all.