Notable in media catching my attention this weekend:

!. The cover of the June 29 New Yorker is a masterpiece of subtlety. A young woman looking at a punch card. No, a young woman with a head scarf looking at a voting record. No, a young Iranian woman raising her eyeglasses like the vote-counters in Broward County in 2000 to better fix her dubious stare on a paper record of a lost chance for better government.

Here’s a link to the New Yorker contents page where you can admire Barry Blitt’s artwork with the brilliant title ”Hanging Chador.” Wasn’t there a letter in a recent Miami Herald comparing our election two terms ago with what the Iranians now have to endure?

2. The Sunday NY Times Book Review section had a fine surprise on p. 14, with a photo of the lovely former Miami Herald columnist Ana Menendez and, under the headline “Sleeping with the Enemy,” a review of her new novel, “The Last War.” We’ve missed your column, Ana Menendez, but will trot out and get your book that may be about your wandering NY Times war correspondent husband, Dexter Filkins, and the life that adds temptations galore to married people living apart.

Hypocrisy, your name is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Kudos to Ana Menendez, for digging up wonderful old quotes from Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, our congresswoman from Florida’s District 18. Then she was denouncing torture. Now she’s for it, along with her Republican colleagues in the U.S. House, Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25),

The situation then was the Vietnam War, and American captives were tortured by, among others, agents of Castro’s Cuba. Easy to denounce that. But what of torture by American agents? They vote for that, repeatedly – endorsing inhuman treatment in pursuit of dubious goals.

From Menendez’ column in the Sunday Miami Herald:

What a shame. Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts, who are themselves witness to the atrocities committed in the name of ‘national security,’ would have been especially powerful allies in the fight against the erosion of rights in this country.

Instead of offering leadership, they have taken the side of a president who has squandered his and this country’s moral capital.

Indeed, yes, “instead of offering leadership.” That’s what the election is about this year. Leadership is on offer from the challenges mounted by Annette Taddeo in FL-18, Raul Garcia in FL-21 and Joe Garcia in FL-25.

Really good Republican corruption reminder

There is a link in the second graf of this post on Stuck on the Palmetto to a clever reminder of Republican scandals you may have forgotten. This is Washington we're talking about, where the scandals are big, and Slate has rounded up about two dozen of them. This is how loyal Bushies make a living.

But the link above is specifically to today's Miami Herald, and more specifically to Ana Menendez' column with its jaundiced view of the Republican attack on Raul Martinez. We went through a lot of this yesterday. Ms. Menendez appropriately puts this in the category of the pot calling the kettle black.