The New Republic

One of the most remarked-upon aspects of the upcoming Supreme Court challenge to California’s gay-marriage ban is the odd couple leading the charge: Ted Olson and David Boies, the conservative and liberal superlawyers who squared off in 2000 in Bush v. Gore. Much less is known, however, about the old friendship between Olson and their opponent in this case, Charles Cooper, one of the many lawyers who helped Olson on Bush v. Gore. Cooper and Olson are both part of Washington’s tiny tribe of top-flight conservative litigators. Given their similar resumes, it is odd to find them on opposite sides of one of the most politically contentious Supreme Court cases of the 21st century. When Olson and Cooper face off before the court in late March, they’ll not only be debating gay rights, but the nature of conservatism itself.Cooper, known in Washington as “Chuck,” is from Alabama, and he’s best known for his starched French-cuffed shirts and genteel southern formality. His way of speaking, once described by Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory as “Victorian copy book prose,” can come across as impressive or a little unctuous, depending on the listener. If Olson, who also has a flair for oral arguments, is the lawyer who argues before the court this spring, he and Cooper will be evenly matched.  READ MORE >>

Tonight, when #1 Notre Dame plays #2 Alabama for the BCS National Championship at Miami's Sun Life Stadium, Alabama head coach Nick Saban will be on familiar turf: He called the field home during the 2005 and 2006 NFL seasons, when he was head coach of the Miami Dolphins. His presence in the title game makes him a serious candidate for Greatest College Football Coach of All Time. In the past decade, which includes his two years with the Dolphins, he has won three college national championships. In 2010, he joined Pop Warner as the only head coach to win a national championship for two different schools. Including bowl games, Saban’s record at Alabama is 67-13, and overall as a college head coach, he is 158-55-1. In his two seasons with the Dolphins, however, as he struggled to adjust to the pro game (or, at least, struggled to revive a franchise that had gone 4-12 the previous season), Saban went 15-17, including his only losing season as a head coach at any level. And nothing in his tenure became him like the leaving it. Near the end of the 2006 season, with rumors swirling, Saban told reporters, “I guess I have to say it. I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.” Fewer than two weeks later, he was the Alabama coach. Many called him a liar and a traitor; a few noted, more forgivingly, that it would have been inappropriate for Saban to announce he was leaving before the Dolphins’ season ended. But the most revealing aspect of Saban’s exit, which gets to the heart of what has made him the most efficient and accomplished coach of the BCS era, is that it was clearly the correct one. Simply put, Saban is better at coaching college kids than professional adults.When Saban was offered the Alabama job, he had all the leverage. Arguably the winningest program in history, Alabama had won only one national championship and three Southeastern Conference titles since the legendary Bear Bryant retired in 1982. Previous coach Mike Shula—ironically, the son of longtime Dolphins coach Don—had managed only one winning season in his four years. Meanwhile, Urban Meyer’s program at rival Florida looked unstoppable. Only a few years earlier with Louisiana State, Saban had proved he could build a national champion in the SEC—and was rewarded with a huge, five-year contract with the Dolphins. To lure him, Alabama had to give him everything he wanted, which they did.The contract Saban signed in early 2007 promised $32 million over eight years, the highest among college coaches at the time and comparable to those of top NFL coaches, with perks that make his more like a $5 million annual salary. But the money was only part of the appeal. In Miami, Saban was given final say over personnel decisions—itself unusual for an NFL coach—but was still subject, theoretically, to a meddling owner. At Alabama, he was given control over, well, everything, with an athletic director and university president with far less stature than he. “There are coaches at other universities who have similar salaries,” Forbes reported in 2008. “But no coach, including those in the professional leagues, can match Saban’s combination of money, control, and influence.” The magazine chose its words carefully when it put him on its cover with the words, “The Most Powerful Coach in Sports.” READ MORE >>

After a brutal Election Day, Republicans led off the 2014 recruiting cycle with some good news: Popular West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito announced that she would challenge long-time Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller for his seat. Although Rockefeller has never won reelection by less than 27 percentage points and Democrats continue to dominate at the state-level in West Virginia, Republicans have plenty of cause to be optimistic about their chances in the Mountain State.  READ MORE >>

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As the clock ticks down to January 1, and lawmakers try to hash out a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff and address the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, new data on taxpayers in the United States--collected from federal tax returns and available down to the ZIP code level through Brookings’ EITC Interactive--provide an impo READ MORE >>

In the wake of news that more than 80,000 people have signed an online White House petition asking permission for Texas to leave the Union, a single grave concern has united the minds of Americans of all political colors: If the state secedes, where are we going to get our NFL-caliber wide receivers? READ MORE >>

Last week, Gallup released a demographic breakdown of its likely voter survey, which at that time found Romney leading by 4 points, 50-46. But it found that Romney’s biggest gains were in just one region: the South, where Romney held a massive 22-point lead. Perhaps predictably, this aroused latent liberal suspicions that Obama’s deep weakness in the South was responsible for Romney’s strength in the national polls. But a closer look suggests that the gap between the national and state polls probably isn’t the result of deep weakness in the South. READ MORE >>

No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden By Mark Owen, with Kevin Maurer (Dutton Adult, 301 pp., $26.95)   I. READ MORE >>

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For the third consecutive time, Republicans are planning to feature an aggrieved Democrat (or ex-Democrat) at their national Convention to personalize claims that the latest Democratic presidential nominee has abandoned the true legacy of his party and left moderate-to-conservative donkeys no option but to vote for the GOP. READ MORE >>