President Bush, like a repentant schoolboy allowed to retake his failed final exam, has aced the re-do by appointing Samuel Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court. Alito fulfills President Bush's promise to appoint a Scalia-like jurist to the Supreme Court, and in spite of the calls for a diversity pick, the President appointed somebody who truly could be considered the most qualified person for the job. A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, an attorney in the Solicitor General's office, a former prosecutor, and federal appellate judge with a 15 year tenure on the bench, Alito stands out as exemplary of the brilliant men and women who have become the mainstay of the conservative legal movement over the last 30 years.
The coming battle in the Senate will be more brutal than the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas or Robert Bork. This appointment truly tips the scales of the Court, and moves strongly toward establishing a solid conservative majority on the court, with four true conservatives occupying the bench: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Kennedy will remain a swing voter, and hold the keys to many important landmark cases. It will be interesting to see how he rises to the occasion. Be ready, though, Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy, and Ralph Neas are in complete terror at this nomination, and we will almost assuredly see a filibuster of the Alito nomination. Be forewarned: Democratic Senators in Red States. If you try to "Bork" Alito, we will most certainly "Daschle" you. Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Robert Byrd, Kent Conrad, are all supposedly popular democrats in their home states, but Daschle was too. Judicial obstructionism ended Daschle's career, and right now, those four democrats are without serious challengers (except Bill Nelson). Filibustering Alito will not only draw a challenger, but a likely defeat.
This is my new verb for the day: to Daschle "The act of defeating a Red State Democrat Senator for obstructing the confirmation of conservative judicial nominees."
The line in the sand is drawn.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Iranian Diplomacy
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proven himself a capable instigator and a pretty poor diplomat. His call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" surely sends chills up the spine of anybody who abhors bloodshed. Even Palestinian and Egyptian diplomats rebuked Ahmadinejad for his radicalism. The incident, however, crystalizes the total failure of the Europeans to contain the Iranian situation. For the last five years, the Europeans have insisted that diplomacy must rule the day in dealing with Iran, and that they, as extraordinary diplomatists, are capable of remedying the problems in Tehran. Although it is humorous to laugh at the overstated braggadocio of the French and Germans, the situation is dire. Far from advocating a full-scale military operation, I think it is time to re-evaluate the current strategy for handling Iran. Although we have had stellar success in Iraq, despite many missteps (it wouldn't be a war without them), Iran is overwhelmingly a different level of threat, with conventional military capabilities far exceeding those of Iraq's. Remember, Iran has been funding its nuclear and conventional military capacity with legal oil money over the years, when Saddam was forced to accept mostly French, German, and Russian money only (as an aside, three cheers for Paul Volcker standing up to the corrupt entrenched bureaucracy of the sham that is the United Nations). It is time for this administration to quit outsourcing our Iranian policy to Paris and Berlin, and do something before there are 7 million dead Israelis and a nuclear cloud lingering over Jerusalem.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Bush's Opportunity
Harriet Miers's withdrawl from the confirmation process for the Supreme Court was welcomed news today for me and millions of other people across the country who were concerned about her ability to go straight to the nation's highest court for a lifetime appointment without so much as fifteen minutes practicing constitutional law. Had she been a state judge, a federal appellate judge, solicitor general, or anybody else whose job involves constitutional law, her appointment would not have been such an utter and total failure for President Bush. This, of course, is not Miers's fault, it is the President's. If he really thought Miers would make a Supreme Court Justice, why not have named her to the federal bench a couple of years ago, like he did John Roberts; or why not make her Solicitor General or Deputy Attorney General? Well, all of that is past now, but he is back to square one, and he has a tremendous opportunity to completely undo all of the damage that has been done to his administration this year by Katrina, Miers, the failure of Social Security reform, the Rove/Libby/DeLay legal investigations, and the fact that he has not pushed any number of other reform agendas promised during the 2004 campaign.
Bush must do several things to rebound from the last 10 months of political hell.
1. The President absolutely has to appoint somebody like Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, J. Michael Luttig, or Michael McConnell to the court. If he does, regardless of the reaction from the left, every single rank and file conservative/republican in the country will instantly rally to his cause. Let us remember that Tom Daschle was defeated in 2004, if for no other reason than that he was an obstructionist on judicial nominations. Conservatives will in fact fight, and they will, based on history, win. If the President bunts again, and gives us Alberto Gonzales, then the President might as well begin tenuring his resignation, because everything he has done for the last 5 years will instantly fall apart, because everybody who worked hard for him in 2000 and 2004 will desert him without hesitation.
2. The President needs to formulate an actual plan for Social Security Reform, and send it to Congress before Christmas. Obviously, Congress will not have time to act on it, but at least then, the President can begin re-selling the idea of reform. Only this time, he needs to talk about the ownership society, and the benefits of real investment rather than blabbering on about hypothetical benefit cuts.
3. Bush should fire Andrew Card yesterday. Card, according to most news reports, was behind the Miers nomination. That is reason enough. But beyond that, it is just time for some new blood at the top levels of leadership in this White House. Things are getting too sloppy, and this is from an administration that for the first few years ran one of the tightest ships in recent memory.
4. Bush should further rally his base by moving on extending the 2003 tax cuts, as well as formulating an actual plan for genuine tax reform, taking into account all of the work that Connie Mack's Presidential Commission has done recently.
5. The President must point out all of the good that is occurring in Iraq, and he's simply not doing it. The passage of the new constitution, coupled with extraordinary turnout in the referendum is more than satisfactory performance for a country that has never known anything but harsh dictatorial governments throughout their entire multi-thousand year existence.
Hopefully we will see all 5 of these things occur, and in short order. He might turn a beleaguered 5th year into an oustandingly unprecedented second term.
Bush must do several things to rebound from the last 10 months of political hell.
1. The President absolutely has to appoint somebody like Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, J. Michael Luttig, or Michael McConnell to the court. If he does, regardless of the reaction from the left, every single rank and file conservative/republican in the country will instantly rally to his cause. Let us remember that Tom Daschle was defeated in 2004, if for no other reason than that he was an obstructionist on judicial nominations. Conservatives will in fact fight, and they will, based on history, win. If the President bunts again, and gives us Alberto Gonzales, then the President might as well begin tenuring his resignation, because everything he has done for the last 5 years will instantly fall apart, because everybody who worked hard for him in 2000 and 2004 will desert him without hesitation.
2. The President needs to formulate an actual plan for Social Security Reform, and send it to Congress before Christmas. Obviously, Congress will not have time to act on it, but at least then, the President can begin re-selling the idea of reform. Only this time, he needs to talk about the ownership society, and the benefits of real investment rather than blabbering on about hypothetical benefit cuts.
3. Bush should fire Andrew Card yesterday. Card, according to most news reports, was behind the Miers nomination. That is reason enough. But beyond that, it is just time for some new blood at the top levels of leadership in this White House. Things are getting too sloppy, and this is from an administration that for the first few years ran one of the tightest ships in recent memory.
4. Bush should further rally his base by moving on extending the 2003 tax cuts, as well as formulating an actual plan for genuine tax reform, taking into account all of the work that Connie Mack's Presidential Commission has done recently.
5. The President must point out all of the good that is occurring in Iraq, and he's simply not doing it. The passage of the new constitution, coupled with extraordinary turnout in the referendum is more than satisfactory performance for a country that has never known anything but harsh dictatorial governments throughout their entire multi-thousand year existence.
Hopefully we will see all 5 of these things occur, and in short order. He might turn a beleaguered 5th year into an oustandingly unprecedented second term.
Monday, October 24, 2005
America, 2005
America, 2005
(by Skinner Layne)
Thomas Jefferson! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
America hath need of thee, for she is trudging down that road
To utter ruin; Bring us thy wisdom, which once hath flowed
In pen and deed; O bravest man who from tyrants didst not cower,
We have replaced thy Republic with a Kingly power,
The likes of which thou couldnst n’er envision,
Whose Senators and Viceroys rule with Roman precision.
Brings us back to independence shining from freedom’s tower!
Thy mind was like a Flame, and gave us lofty aspirations;
Thy words motivated the generations to fight for liberty,
With the ardor of your kinsmen, to preserve our great country.
So didst thou travel a treasonous pathway,
To bring hope for freer future generations,
O Jefferson, come back to us and save us this day!
(by Skinner Layne)
Thomas Jefferson! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
America hath need of thee, for she is trudging down that road
To utter ruin; Bring us thy wisdom, which once hath flowed
In pen and deed; O bravest man who from tyrants didst not cower,
We have replaced thy Republic with a Kingly power,
The likes of which thou couldnst n’er envision,
Whose Senators and Viceroys rule with Roman precision.
Brings us back to independence shining from freedom’s tower!
Thy mind was like a Flame, and gave us lofty aspirations;
Thy words motivated the generations to fight for liberty,
With the ardor of your kinsmen, to preserve our great country.
So didst thou travel a treasonous pathway,
To bring hope for freer future generations,
O Jefferson, come back to us and save us this day!
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Soured Howard
"Never ascribe to malice what can be easily explained by incompetence."
-Napoleon Bonaparte
Screamin'Howard Dean is back at it again. On THIS WEEK today, he declared that the Bush Administration is the most corrupt since Warren G. Harding. Maybe that point is debatable. It seems that Napoleon's maxim would ring quite true, however, since we are talking about the Bush administration. But his subsequent comments are simply hysterical. While talking of the Democrats' imminent return to power, he declared the following: "The first thing we're going to do is we're going to have ethics come back to Washington." [Pause while I pick myself up off the floor from laughing so hard]. Ahem. Well, I wonder if he is reminiscing about the days of Bill Clinton's ethics--you remember Clinton, he's the disbarred attorney who was found in contempt of court for misleading a grand jury and was impeached by the House of Representatives. Yes, yes...Democrat Ethics. They are a special class of ethics, whose status is not yet recognized by most philosophers. Someday. Although, let's be honest. Were there really ever ethics in Washington...ever? Dean makes it sound like once upon a time Washington was made up of upstanding, honest folks. All I have to say is: name one. Since the time that the left wing revisionist historians have sullied the names and repuations of our founding fathers, we have nothing left to which we can point and say with confidence "there is a good model." And so, people behave as they will. It's called human nature. It is not so much that people's behavior is corrupt (even though that is true as well), but that their very nature is corrupt. That is precisely why we are supposed to have separation of powers, and limited government. Limited government means there are certain things that government simply does not have the power to do. Good luck finding examples of that in today's political milieu. O Jefferson! where art thou at this hour? America hath need of thee!
-Napoleon Bonaparte
Screamin'Howard Dean is back at it again. On THIS WEEK today, he declared that the Bush Administration is the most corrupt since Warren G. Harding. Maybe that point is debatable. It seems that Napoleon's maxim would ring quite true, however, since we are talking about the Bush administration. But his subsequent comments are simply hysterical. While talking of the Democrats' imminent return to power, he declared the following: "The first thing we're going to do is we're going to have ethics come back to Washington." [Pause while I pick myself up off the floor from laughing so hard]. Ahem. Well, I wonder if he is reminiscing about the days of Bill Clinton's ethics--you remember Clinton, he's the disbarred attorney who was found in contempt of court for misleading a grand jury and was impeached by the House of Representatives. Yes, yes...Democrat Ethics. They are a special class of ethics, whose status is not yet recognized by most philosophers. Someday. Although, let's be honest. Were there really ever ethics in Washington...ever? Dean makes it sound like once upon a time Washington was made up of upstanding, honest folks. All I have to say is: name one. Since the time that the left wing revisionist historians have sullied the names and repuations of our founding fathers, we have nothing left to which we can point and say with confidence "there is a good model." And so, people behave as they will. It's called human nature. It is not so much that people's behavior is corrupt (even though that is true as well), but that their very nature is corrupt. That is precisely why we are supposed to have separation of powers, and limited government. Limited government means there are certain things that government simply does not have the power to do. Good luck finding examples of that in today's political milieu. O Jefferson! where art thou at this hour? America hath need of thee!
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Lady in Waiting
Dick Cheney had better be getting somebody warmed up in the bullpen, because it is about time for Harriet Miers to be taken out of the game. This was just another embarrassment the President didn't need. It was humorous that he called all of the criticisms of his administration in recent months "background noise." Perhaps. That is, if you would be willing to stand at Cape Canaveral and call the takeoff of Discovery "background noise." This is what happens when the President's Brain is under investigation and his Administrator sick. You know, there's a rumor going around DC that Dick Cheney is going to resign and Condi is going to be appointed Vice President. I have a better idea: President Bush can resign and Dick Cheney can appoint Coindi to be Vice President. Dick Morris could become the new White House Chief of Staff, and we could turn the second term of this administration around, albeit without a principal player or two. Even better, Lynn Cheney, a true intellect in her own right, might give the President some decent advice on who to pick for the Supreme Court...what an improvement that would be over the "Hillary Lite" we have been subjected to as of late. Maybe Laura is gearing up for her own US Senate run in 2008--unfortunately there's not a seat up for grabs in New York until 2010. She could move to Massachussetts and run against John Kerry, though. Now that's an idea. Somebody pinch me; none of this is going to happen, and we will have to endure 3 more years of George W. Bush, and not much will be left of the progress the GOP has made in the last 15 years. Bill Clinton was much better for our party--maybe Newt will come back and rescue us.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Kangaroo Courts and Kangaroo Justices
With Tom DeLay's mugshot in competition against the media's favorite "Guilty Karl" shot of Rove in the race to be the DNC's Goldstein in the upcoming infomercial on CBS called "The Two Weeks Hate," we should all be concerned, Right and Left, about the state of the justice system in this country. [As an aside, that previous sentence will not be at all funny if you haven't read George Orwell's 1984] You know, it used to be that politicians in America were decent, genuine, honest, upstanding folks who abided by the law, did what was right, and made their mothers' proud. We should all remember such righteous politicians as New York county Democrat Party Chairman William March "Boss" Tweed, who embezzled from the City what would be, in today's Greenspan era no-inflation inflated money, around 2.9 billion dollars. Or what about the days when President Harding appointed the angelic Albert Fall to be Secretary of the Interior, and Fall proceeded to lease protected oil reserves to major oil magnates in exchange for incentive bonuses (I'm trying to be politically correct...I wanted to say "bribes" but it just came out kinda harsh). For those of you whose American history training is limited to public high school or university courses, what I just mentioned is known as the Teapot Dome Scandal. Anyway, history is replete with harrowing tales of political chivalry that cause the crimes of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove to whimper in their presence, but all of that is beside the point. DeLay is being prosecuted by a corrupt partisan. At the same time, DeLay no longer deserves to be Majority Leader of the House. The GOP is starting to act too much like the Democrats of old. It's time for some new blood. As for the Rove issue, according to the Washington Post, he has gotten a tongue lashing from President Bush--surely that's punishment enough.
Since the title of this post is "Kangaroo Courts and Kangaroo Justices" I guess I am obligated to say something about the abysmal nominee Harriet Miers and her latest travails in the most concocted effort of cronyism since, as Steve Chapman noted earlier this week, Harry Truman appointed his poker buddies to the court. The Bush administration has even resorted to releasing a document from 1989 when Miers publicly supported a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. Somebody isn't thinking. Granted, President Bush has to get Conservatives back on his side, but he will not succeed in convincing all of them. At the same time, these sorts of stunts will only make Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy fired up to oppose Miers--I only hope they do.
Since the title of this post is "Kangaroo Courts and Kangaroo Justices" I guess I am obligated to say something about the abysmal nominee Harriet Miers and her latest travails in the most concocted effort of cronyism since, as Steve Chapman noted earlier this week, Harry Truman appointed his poker buddies to the court. The Bush administration has even resorted to releasing a document from 1989 when Miers publicly supported a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. Somebody isn't thinking. Granted, President Bush has to get Conservatives back on his side, but he will not succeed in convincing all of them. At the same time, these sorts of stunts will only make Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy fired up to oppose Miers--I only hope they do.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Harriet Miers 2.0, The Re-Release
According to Mike Allen's column this week in TIME, President Bush and his aides are planning to "re-launch" the Harriet Miers nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court after two completely disastrous weeks. The President's cronies have been sqawking this weekend that "few Republicans have attacked this President so frontally and lived to tell about it." Interesting threat coming from a virtual lame duck administration whose poll numbers are flirting with the 30s depending on the day. The White House should learn its lesson from the Democrats' stunning defeats in the 2004 elections: substance matters more than style. The Democrats thought if they just phrased their arguments better that they would win, because their message was right-on, they thought. Wrong. Poll after poll, and Democrat strategist after Democrat strategist confirmed that the Left-wing message of the Democrat Party was what led to their failure in the '04 races.
Why does President Bush think he is any different? For the last five years (yes, since Bush started running for President in 1999) we have been promised and assured that it was always his hope and intention to appoint justices in the model of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. At best, Miers has only the potential to be like Thomas and Scalia. Thomas and Scalia were both appellate court judges with conservative records on their jurisprudential resume. It has obviously not gone without notice that Ms. Miers has no such resume. Instead, the President has demanded (he has certainly not asked nicely) that conservatives trust him. Indeed, trust him like we trusted his Father (Remember David Souter), Ronald Reagan (Anthony Kennedy), Gerald Ford (John Paul Stevens), Richard Nixon (Harry Blackmun), and Dwight Eisenhower (Earl Warren). The Republicans' history of "trust me" nominees is nothing short of catastrophic. George Will , Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, and Robert Bork, have all publicly opposed the Miers nomination, along with countless other conservative leaders. The criticism is the same: Miers isn't qualified and she isn't proven. And as Judge Bork points out, the only people (other than the President's cronies) who are saying anything nice about Miers are Democrats; that should tell the President something.
In light of all of this, the President has determined to re-launch the Miers nomination. He plans to parade a list of Texas Supreme Court justices who will attest to Harriet Miers' qualifications. Since when do we determine the fitness of a Supreme Court nominee based on character references? This isn't the Good Neighbor of the Year Award, this is the United States Supreme Court, and if Ms. Miers' resume does not substantiate her readiness to serve on the high court, the President should think again.
This is beginning to look like the 4th re-invention of Al Gore during the 2000 Presidential Campaign. Here are my predictions for the Harriet Miers 2.0 Re-Release:
1) Miers will swing through the Southern states wearing ankle-length dresses and a bonnet to appeal to Chauvinistic White Males.
2) James Dobson and the President will do their secret handshake in public, proving to conservatives that Miers really is pro-life.
3) President Bush will apologize again for betraying his base and then beg its forgiveness by singing a trio with Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il entitled "Give Me One More Chance."
4) Pat Robertson will publicly demand the assassination of any Republican who opposes Miers.
5) Karl Rove will accidentally leak to Robert Novak the name of Harriet Miers' undercover stunt double who will be filling in for her at the Senate Judiciary committee.
6) To appease Conservatives, Miers will give a contribution to Tom DeLay's legal defense fund.
7) Miers will grow a beard and randomly insert the word "originalism" into every sentence.
8) John Kerry and Harriet Miers will do a joint press conference Monday morning talking about how they miraculously lost all of their wrinkles over the weekend.
9) Miers will travel to Houston to train for her new job on NASA's new zero gravity BLACK ROBE simulator.
10) CBS will launch a new reality series "Who Wants to Be a Supreme Court Justice?" where Miers and 6 other average attorneys from across the country will run around New York playing "big city lawyer" and then be interviewed by Donald Trump for the job of a lifetime.
Why does President Bush think he is any different? For the last five years (yes, since Bush started running for President in 1999) we have been promised and assured that it was always his hope and intention to appoint justices in the model of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. At best, Miers has only the potential to be like Thomas and Scalia. Thomas and Scalia were both appellate court judges with conservative records on their jurisprudential resume. It has obviously not gone without notice that Ms. Miers has no such resume. Instead, the President has demanded (he has certainly not asked nicely) that conservatives trust him. Indeed, trust him like we trusted his Father (Remember David Souter), Ronald Reagan (Anthony Kennedy), Gerald Ford (John Paul Stevens), Richard Nixon (Harry Blackmun), and Dwight Eisenhower (Earl Warren). The Republicans' history of "trust me" nominees is nothing short of catastrophic. George Will , Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer, and Robert Bork, have all publicly opposed the Miers nomination, along with countless other conservative leaders. The criticism is the same: Miers isn't qualified and she isn't proven. And as Judge Bork points out, the only people (other than the President's cronies) who are saying anything nice about Miers are Democrats; that should tell the President something.
In light of all of this, the President has determined to re-launch the Miers nomination. He plans to parade a list of Texas Supreme Court justices who will attest to Harriet Miers' qualifications. Since when do we determine the fitness of a Supreme Court nominee based on character references? This isn't the Good Neighbor of the Year Award, this is the United States Supreme Court, and if Ms. Miers' resume does not substantiate her readiness to serve on the high court, the President should think again.
This is beginning to look like the 4th re-invention of Al Gore during the 2000 Presidential Campaign. Here are my predictions for the Harriet Miers 2.0 Re-Release:
1) Miers will swing through the Southern states wearing ankle-length dresses and a bonnet to appeal to Chauvinistic White Males.
2) James Dobson and the President will do their secret handshake in public, proving to conservatives that Miers really is pro-life.
3) President Bush will apologize again for betraying his base and then beg its forgiveness by singing a trio with Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il entitled "Give Me One More Chance."
4) Pat Robertson will publicly demand the assassination of any Republican who opposes Miers.
5) Karl Rove will accidentally leak to Robert Novak the name of Harriet Miers' undercover stunt double who will be filling in for her at the Senate Judiciary committee.
6) To appease Conservatives, Miers will give a contribution to Tom DeLay's legal defense fund.
7) Miers will grow a beard and randomly insert the word "originalism" into every sentence.
8) John Kerry and Harriet Miers will do a joint press conference Monday morning talking about how they miraculously lost all of their wrinkles over the weekend.
9) Miers will travel to Houston to train for her new job on NASA's new zero gravity BLACK ROBE simulator.
10) CBS will launch a new reality series "Who Wants to Be a Supreme Court Justice?" where Miers and 6 other average attorneys from across the country will run around New York playing "big city lawyer" and then be interviewed by Donald Trump for the job of a lifetime.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
