Strategy or Luck

10/12/05

Is this a brilliant strategy or is it just luck?

President Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. I have heard conservative pundits complaining ever since her name was released. The President has commented "trust me" and that she was a loyal and trustworthy nomination.

Rush Limbaugh is upset because he wanted a fight in the Senate. Some people are upset because they wanted a credentialed "Conservative" from the list of approved or vetted judges--Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen or Edith Jones or others often mentioned judges waiting in the wings. These conservatives are wailing about the bad choice so the Democrats are saying something along the lines of, "Well, if they hate her so much, maybe we want to support her."

I don't know what to think of her yet but I am intrigued by the idea that the president may be showing once again that he is so dumb that he outsmarts everyone again as he has done so many times in the past. Ms Miers is a total unknown to me but that doesn't tell me anything. The president trusts her. He says she is a strict constructionist. If you look at his other appointments, he gets good marks. He knows that the Supreme Court appointments will be one of the highlights of his legacy. Therefore, I think he truly believes that she will be an excellent Justice. I reserve judgment on the basis of trust but verify.

Interestingly enough, I have seen reports today that some of the aforementioned conservative judges turned President Bush down for the appointment due to the viciousness of the confirmation process. We all know that he seemed to be strongly wanting a female or a minority. If the women waiting in the wings turned him down, then Ms Miers could have been his last best choice.

Whichever is the case, it looks like fun!

Blue States

10/10/05


Last week, I visited Seattle and stayed with a friend. Although she is about as liberal as it gets, we agreed to disagree on most subjects. We found a few things to agree on such as the fact that FEMA didn't do a great job after Katrina but in general we didn't find much in the way of common ground. Interestingly enough, her only request to my wife was that she try to convince me to watch some news source other than FOX--as if that was the great evil source of some sort of conservative rays that infect viewers. Give me a break!

I can understand and accept that people do not agree with me. That is one of the reasons we have such a great country. People can disagree and not be subject to the dreaded knock on the door in the middle of the night. (To you younger readers, that is what the real Nazi's would do to take you to concentration camps did. Also note: In real concentration camps they KILLED you. They didn't make you cavort in your underwear.)

I have watched with interest the red state-blue state splits but to me it is mainly just shorthand for the differences inherent in the liberal big cities and the more conservative rest of the country (Fly-Over country). I have personally argued that there were some basics that separated the two but I always thought that like most other people, we were all just good Americans following what we thought was the correct path.

After reading the editorial page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I was appalled. I don't think I have ever seen such hatred for a region of the country before. There was an editorial cartoon that indicated that only in RED STATES would someone scream "Somebody call Washington, DC. They gotta rebuild my house" Another shows that "God Hates the Red States".
The letters to the editor have the vilest names and thoughts credited to members of the administration that I can imagine.

I didn't like President Clinton--lots of people didn't either. Some small number of extremists called him and his staff lots of things. Some of them were uncalled for and some of them were found to be, after adjudication, true. Mostly, the conservative public wanted the Clinton Administration to end. Just go away. I know a lot of Democrats and Liberals think that about President Bush. He at least hasn't demeaned the office with interns and stood on national TV and lied about it. The problem is that a very large group of the above mentioned groups of Liberals seem to think that anything that could happen to get rid of W is OK. No name it too vile to use. No charge is too absurd or baseless to throw at the president. Anything that hurts the administration is good and anything that reflects good on the administration is bad.

You have every right to want a change in the administration to whatever you want. You have a right to make slanderous statements about good people trying to do a good job. You have that right. You also have an obligation as a member of a civilized society to have a modicum of decorum. Or, as a famous American once said, "Can't we just get along?"