Robert explains it all*
I'm not sure which bodes worse for George W. Bush and the Repugnican Party: That Bush's approval ratings are now the lowest that they've ever been or that usually uber-loyal right-wing pit bull/lap dog Ann Cunter is now writing anti-Bush phrases and sentences that I could have written.
First, Bush's ratings:
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll of 1,000 Americans nationwide taken Oct. 3-5 shows that only 39 percent of Americans approve of the job that Bush is doing, while 58 percent disapprove.
A CBS News poll of more than 800 Americans nationwide taken Oct. 3-5 shows similar results: 37 percent approving and 58 percent disapproving.
Take heart, Repugnicans: A Zogby poll of just more than 1,000 Americans nationwide taken Sept. 29-Oct. 2 gives Bush a whopping 43 percent approval rating and a 57 percent disapproval rating, a whole 1 percent less than the AP-Ipsos and CBS News polls! And a Newsweek poll of just more than 1,000 Americans nationwide taken Sept. 29 and 30 gives Bush a whole 40 percent approval rating and a 53 percent disapproval rating, with 7 percent unsure of whether they approve or disapprove.
CBS News reports that its poll's approval rating of just 37 percent for Bush is the lowest approval rating during his occupancy of the White House.
No wonder, then, Bush and his puppeteers trotted out his tired old "war on terror" speech on Thursday.
The speech really is a piece of ... work. The hypocrisy is stunning, even after almost five years of Bushian hypocrisy. When dictionaries define "hypocrisy," they can use excerpts from the speech, such as these [with my comments in brackets]:
"In this new century, freedom is once again assaulted by enemies determined to roll back generations of democratic progress." [Um, how about the Bush regime's relentless assaults on civil rights, voting rights, labor, the environment, a woman's right to choose, etc., etc.? The Bush regime has been all about rolling back what progressives have achieved democratically over generations.]
"Yet while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane." [Like the neocons' ideology of a U.S. takeover of the Middle East -- indeed, of the entire world -- which they outlined long before Sept. 11, 2001, isn't evil -- and insane. And reminiscent of the geopolitical goals of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.]
"Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism. Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom." [Oh, like the Bush regime's version of "Christianity" isn't a fucking perversion of everything that Jesus Christ taught! The Bush regime exploits Christianity to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism, of a totalitarian empire -- or at least a U.S. corporate empire. But it's OK when we Americans do it, because we're good "Christians"!]
"Many militants are part of global, borderless terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, which spreads propaganda, and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists, and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like September the 11th." [Oh, please. The Bush regime produces nothing but war [and its attendant death and destruction] and propaganda, and was the "shock and awe" that the Bush regime visited upon Baghdad in March 2003 without any provocation or cause or justification whatsoever not a "dramatic and brutal operation"? And the United States has a long history of providing financing and technical assistance to extremists -- such as to Saddam Hussein when Iraq was at war with Iran.]
"We know the vision of the radicals because they've openly stated it -- in videos, and audiotapes, and letters, and declarations, and Web sites. First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions." [We know the neocons' dark vision, too, because they've openly stated it. The neocons' think tank, The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), on which sat, among others, now-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and now-World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, in September 2000 published a report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses." On page 51 of this report, the neocons acknowledge that it will be difficult to achieve their aim of hyper-militarizing the United States "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." They got their "new Pearl Harbor" on Sept. 11, 2001.] And the Muslims don't "want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because (the United States stands) for democracy and peace." They're not the stupid little sand monkeys that the wingnuts think they are or wish they were, but they know that "democracy and peace," coming from the United States these days, really means that U.S. corporations are going to rob them of their natural resources and exploit their labor -- or push them aside altogether, and that pushing them aside includes slaughtering them like so many animals.]
"[T]he militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments." [Oh, please. That is one of the United States' main reasons for illegally, immorally, unprovokedly and imperialistically invading and now occupying Iraq: to be able to bully the surrounding Middle Eastern nations. But again, it's OK when we do it, because we're good and they're bad.]
"The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror." ["War against humanity"? To my knowledge, the United States has killed far more Iraqi civilians than have the "terrorists." And the concept of Iraq "as the central front in our war on terror" is an interesting one, since we are the fucking reason for all of the terrorism in Iraq.]
"[T]he militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." [Funny. The Bush regime stupidly believed -- or at least claimed -- that by "democratizing" that "one country" of Iraq, the other Middle Eastern nations would soon fall into line. Gee, the Bush regime hasn't even been able to topple the first domino that is Iraq. But the neocons want to establish a radical empire -- or rather, expand the existing radical U.S. empire -- just as much as the Islamist extremists might want to "establish a radical Islamic empire." And it seems to me that if the Muslim people want to have a Muslim empire within their own nations, that's their fucking business. Who in the fuck is the United Fucking States to assert that only it may have an empire?]
"And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously -- and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply." [OK, this is the piece de resistance. First of all, note the use of the word "civilized." We Americans, of course, are "civilized," as are those nations and groups of people that kiss our ass. Those nations and those groups of people that do not kiss American ass, of course, are "uncivilized." When we first dehumanize a group of people, such as by calling them "uncivilized," we then feel that it's OK for us to exterminate them. Because, after all, they are so uncivilized. Funny that Bush should mention the likes of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot, because history will list Bush among the "fanatics" who "consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history." And I wholeheartedly agree with Bush that "Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously -- and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply." Bush is obsessed with ambition, as evidenced by the fact that he was willing to steal at least one presidential election to come to power, and is entirely unburdened by conscience, as evidence by his continual insistence that Iraqis and American troops must continue to die for the war profiteering of Dick Cheney's Halliburton and other war-profiteering subsidiaries of BushCheneyCorp. And Bush should have been stopped long ago -- back in 2000, when he and his henchmen demonstrated that the will of the American voters meant absolutely nothing to them, that only absolute power mattered to them. (Al Gore received more than a half-million more votes than did George W. Bush in November 2000, and Bush "won" the pivotal state of Florida by fewer than 550 votes after the five members of the U.S. Supreme Court who had been appointed by Repugnican presidents stopped the Florida recount effort in order to install Bush into the White House.)]
"Defeating the militant network is difficult, because it thrives, like a parasite, on the suffering and frustration of others. The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization, in which someone else is always to blame and violence is always the solution. They exploit resentful and disillusioned young men and women, recruiting them through radical mosques as the pawns of terror. And they exploit modern technology to multiply their destructive power." [Sounds exactly like the Bush regime to me, the members of which thrive, like parasites, on the suffering of others. The Bush regime must always have an enemy or create one, because unless there's war, Halliburton and the other war-profiteering subsidiaries of BushCheneyCorp can't rake in their billions of American taxpayers' dollars. With the neocons, violence, in the form of war, is always the solution. So blinded are they by their own evil that they cannot seem to see how ludicrous it is to propose to bomb a nation and shoot people into "democracy" and "freedom." "They exploit resentful and disillusioned young men and women, recruiting them through radical mosques as the pawns of terror." Isn't that what U.S. military recruiters do -- recruit disillusioned (or at least delusioned and often, if not usually, desperate) young men and women and use them as "pawns of terror"? Were Lynndie England and the other U.S. soldiers who tortured and even murdered Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison not "pawns of terror"? Really, what's the fucking difference? Our young men and women in uniform are not exploited by the stupid rich white men who run the war-profiteering corporations any less than are the young suicide bombers whom the Islamist extremists recruit.]
"Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001 -- and al-Qaeda attacked us anyway. The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan." [This isn't hypocrisy as much as it is just complete and total illogic. "We were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001 -- and al-Qaeda attacked us anyway." Really, what the fuck is that coming from the mouth of the "president" of the United States of America? This is like saying that your neighbor hated you anyway before you set his house on fire -- and would have hated you anyway after you set his house on fire -- so it's perfectly OK that you set his house on fire. And, like 9/11 and Iraq are unconnected, Russia's stance on Operation Iraqi Liberation -- er, Operation Iraqi Freedom -- and the slaughter of the Russian schoolchildren also are unconnected. It's convenient to make such false connections for propagandistic purposes, but it does not reflect reality.]
"Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence -- the Israeli presence on the West Bank, or the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, or the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago. In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of the killers -- and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder." [Absolutely untrue. Again, this is like arguing that your neighbor is going to hate you anyway, so you might as well go ahead and burn down his house, run over his dog and rape his wife. The fact is that the United States, through imperialist actions such as its illegal, immoral and unprovoked invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, indeed can make things worse, indeed can throw gasoline onto the fire. There is no reason to unnecessarily inflame tensions between the West and the Muslim world, as the Bush regime (with the help of the Tony Blair) has done with its invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, which had done nothing to the United States, had not even threatened to do anything to the United States, and which never even had had the capability to do anything to the United States. Those who argue otherwise are liars or are insane or are insane liars.]
"The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet, in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses." [Yup, with the collapse of communism, the American elites -- that self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the American masses -- needed a new "enemy" with which to divert Americans' attention while they robbed the American people blind. The "Islamic radicals" are that new "enemy."]
"Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, quote, 'what is good for them and what is not.' And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that his -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride." [Oh, my fucking God. Bush is constantly telling us Americans what is good for us and what is not -- this entire speech of his does exactly that. (Namely, that continuing to kill sand monkeys, who are inherently evil, in the name of "freedom" and "democracy," blah blah blah, is good for us.) And Bush grew up in wealth and privilege. And what Bush considers good for poor Americans is that they enlist in the U.S. military so that they can kill and die for his buds' war profits. He assures them that this is the road to "freedom" and "democracy," blah, blah, blah -- though he never offers to go along for the ride, just as he got out of Vietnam by having his daddy get him into the Texas Air National Guard (and then going AWOL even from that).]
"Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life." [Again, the United States has slaughtered thousands of Iraqi civilians in the name of the political vision of "freedom" and "democracy." Making "freedom" and "democracy" sure is messy, like making an omelet, and we Americans didn't mind if we cracked thousands of Iraqi skulls to make that Big Ol' Freedom Omelet, because "democracy" and "freedom" are worth a bunch of other people dying for! Gandhi said this about that: "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"]
"When 25 Iraqi children are killed in a bombing, or Iraqi teachers are executed at their school, or hospital workers are killed caring for the wounded, this is murder, pure and simple -- the total rejection of justice and honor and morality and religion. These militants are not just the enemies of America, or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and the enemies of humanity. We have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before, in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, and the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields." [While I certainly won't excuse the taking of another human life that isn't in self-defense or in the imminent defense of others -- and while I condemn the slaughter of children and teachers and hospital workers, whether by Islamist extremists or by U.S. bombs or U.S. bullets -- the fact is that the terrorist acts that we're seeing in Iraq right now are the direct result of the Bush regime's illegal, immoral, unprovoked and imperialist invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, for which it had never adequately and responsibly planned in the first fucking place. And why did Bush leave Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay Concentration Camp out of his little list of atrocities? (Oh, yeah, I forgot: Because we're the "civilized" ones.)]
"Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy pursues totalitarian aims. Its leaders pretend to be an aggrieved party, representing the powerless against imperial enemies. In truth they have endless ambitions of imperial domination, and they wish to make everyone powerless except themselves.... They seek to end dissent in every form, and to control every aspect of life, and to rule the soul itself. While promising a future of justice and holiness, the terrorists are preparing for a future of oppression and misery." [No comment necessary, really. The hypocrisy is blatant and self-evident, as the neocons have exactly the same goals for the empire of the United States of America.]
"Zarqawi has said that Americans are, quote, 'the most cowardly of God's creatures.' But let's be clear: It is cowardice that seeks to kill children and the elderly with car bombs, and cuts the throat of a bound captive, and targets worshipers leaving a mosque." [I don't assert that car bombs and beheadings and the like are courageous acts, but as Bill Maher famously asked, is it really courageous to launch missiles and to drop bombs from a control panel miles and miles away?]
"And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure. By fearing freedom -- by distrusting human creativity, and punishing change, and limiting the contributions of half the population -- this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible, and human societies successful." [I'd say that this is what's killing the Bush regime -- its inherent contradictions, several of which I've already pointed out here and several more of which I still have to point out here, and its oppression of the American people. The American people do crave freedom -- real freedom, not the perpetual-fear-as-"freedom" bullshit that the Bush regime has tried to shove down Americans' throats since Sept. 11, 2001. Americans have finally awakened at least somewhat to what the Bush regime is really about, and that's why the Bush regime is crashing and burning before our very eyes.]
"Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline and collapse. Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future." [Yup.That's just what I was saying. The members of the Bush regime, because they despise true freedom and true progress, has condemned themselves to isolation, decline and collapse, and free peoples will own the future. Bush and I agree on something!]
"We didn't ask for this global struggle, but we're answering history's call with confidence and a comprehensive strategy." [Actually, by invading Iraq, it looks as though the Bush regime did ask for a struggle between the West and the Middle East. Perpetual war keeps the people in control, as George Orwell described in 1984, and it's great for war profiteering. Just ask the folks over at Halliburton. And what "comprehensive strategy" does the Bush regime have other than to continue to war profiteer for as long as is possible?]
"The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally as guilty of murder. Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization. And the civilized world must hold those regimes to account." [There's that "with us or against us" thing again, and the propagandistic use of the word "civilized." Of course, all that this pronouncement is is an attempt to create an excuse to invade any nation that the Bush regime wishes to invade, based on such solid "evidence" as the solid "evidence" that the Bush regime used as a pretext to invade Iraq in March 2003.]
"The terrorist goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East, and strike America and other free nations with ever-increasing violence." [Funny, 'cause the Bush regime's goal is to overthrow the sovereign Middle Eastern nations for U.S. corporations, or at least to destabilize the Middle East long enough for U.S. corporations to profit obscenely from the pain and suffering and from the death and destruction that said destabilization causes -- just as U.S. corporations like Halliburton are doing right now in Iraq.]
OK, Bush goes on and on, lying through his teeth about the "progress" that the United States is making in Iraq, and I've had enough. You get the idea.
OK, I will point out that his remark, "And no fair-minded person should ignore, deny or dismiss the achievements of the Iraqi people" is a common propagandistic technique of the Bush regime. That tactic is to falsely assert that a valid criticism of the Bush regime actually is a criticism of another party, such as U.S. troops or "the Iraqi people." The idea is to intimidate people from criticizing the Bush regime, to make them fear that the regime's propagandists will try to morph those valid criticisms of the Bush regime into criticisms of third parties that the critics absolutely had no intention to criticize. This tactic seems to work less and less over time, kind of like how a virus makes you sick perhaps the first time or two that you get it, but eventually you gain immunity.
And I will point out that whoever wrote for Bush the line "but democracy, when it grows, is not a fragile flower; it is a healthy, sturdy tree," should be taken out to the desert and shot several times. No jury would convict.
OK, I can't help myself. Here's more of Bush's speech:
"Some observers also claim that America would be better off by cutting our losses and leaving Iraq now. This is a dangerous illusion, refuted with a simple question: Would the United States and other free nations be more safe, or less safe, with Zarqawi and bin Laden in control of Iraq, its people, and its resources? Having removed a dictator who hated free peoples, we will not stand by as a new set of killers, dedicated to the destruction of our own country, seizes control of Iraq by violence." [I've already dissected this hypocrisy, but I will add that the only reason that I can think of that the members of the Bush regime so vehemently oppose a pullout from Iraq is that they and their war-profiteering buds aren't done war-profiteering. These oily blood-suckers don't want to be pulled out of Iraq any more than a blood-engorged tick wants to be pulled off a dog.]
"There's always a temptation, in the middle of a long struggle, to seek the quiet life, to escape the duties and problems of the world..." [Gee, kinda like how Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he received the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." but did nothing about it (Bin Laden struck the very next month), and kinda like how he was on vacation at the ranch when Hurricane Katrina hit and so it took days for federal aid to get to Katrina's victims?]
"As we do our part to confront radicalism, we know that the most vital work will be done within the Islamic world, itself. And this work has begun. Many Muslim scholars have already publicly condemned terrorism, often citing Chapter 5, Verse 32 of the Koran, which states that killing an innocent human being is like killing all humanity, and saving the life of one person is like saving all of humanity." [Gee, we already knew that Gee Dubya isn't a Christian. Now we know that he isn't a Muslim, either. I mean, iraqbodycount.org estimates that the Bush regime has killed more than 26,000 innocent Iraqis, which, according to the verse of the Koran that Bush quoted, is like killing all of humanity more than 26,000 times.]
OK, that's it for Bush's speech, really, except that I'm a bit shocked at how out of touch George W. Bush & Co. are, even for George W. Bush & Co.
I mean, the Bush regime was able to invade Iraq illegally and immorally and without just cause largely because Iraq was and remains just an abstraction to most Americans, most of whom probably couldn't even find it on a world map that did not show the nations' names.
The same dynamic that enabled the Bush regime to invade Iraq -- that Iraq is just an abstraction to most Americans -- is why Bush can't politically capitalize on any progress, real or fabricated, in Iraq right now. While Iraq is still an abstraction to most Americans, Americans' pocketbooks are not an abstraction to them. And talk of "freedom" and "democracy," blah blah blah -- "freedom" and "democracy," blah blah blah in another country, I will emphasize -- will only get you so far when Americans are financially struggling to fuel their gas-guzzling SUVs on which they have slapped their "Pray for Our Troops" magnets.
Hurricane Katrina also was much less of an abstraction to Americans than is Iraq. Katrina struck close to home. Katrina struck home.
Domestically, the United States of America has gone to shit, and the Bush regime's fear-based 9/11-related rhetoric just isn't fucking cutting it as a distraction anymore. The members of the Bush regime got lots of mileage out of 9/11 -- it even won them "re"-election last year -- but the 9/11-for-political-gain gig is over.
But the Bush regime doesn't fucking get that. Said Bush in his speech on Thursday (this really, really is the last excerpt from his sorry speech):
"Recently our country observed the fourth anniversary of a great evil, and looked back on a great turning point in our history. We still remember a proud city covered in smoke and ashes, a fire across the Potomac, and passengers who spent their final moments on Earth fighting the enemy. We still remember the men who rejoiced in every death, and Americans in uniform rising to duty. And we remember the calling that came to us on that day, and continues to this hour: We will confront this mortal danger to all humanity. We will not tire, or rest, until the war on terror is won."
This is a man and a regime still living in the past -- four years and one month ago, to be more precise. No wonder Bush's ratings continue to nose-dive. And, pathetically, the farther south that his approval ratings continue to go, the harder Bush and his puppeteers try to use what worked so well for them for just over three years: Waving the bloody shirt of 9/11.
That bloody shirt is all that the Bush regime has, because instead of having done anything for the country for the past four years, the Bush regime has focused on using 9/11 as a pretext for looting Iraq and for looting the U.S. treasury via Iraq.
It's too late now for the Bush regime to do the domestic work that it should have been doing these past four years or so; the damage is done. America has so rotted from within from the White House's neglect of its domestic responsibilities that it's too late for the Bush regime to save itself or to save the Repugnican Party's political fortunes in at least the short term.
Which brings us back to Ann Cunter (and which marks the largest digression of my blogging career).
In her latest column, ostensibly about Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, Cunter does something that I've never seen her do: She spews at Bush the same venom that she usually reserves for good people.**
She writes [my comments are in brackets]:
I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court. If the president meant Harriet Miers seriously, I have to assume Bush wants to go back to Crawford and let Dick Cheney run the country. [Um, isn't Dick running the show?]
Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him, claiming to be in possession of secret information convincing them that the pooch is a true conservative and listing Barney's many virtues -- loyalty, courage, never jumps on the furniture...
Harriet Miers went to Southern Methodist University Law School, which is not ranked at all by the serious law school reports and ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report. Her greatest legal accomplishment is being the first woman commissioner of the Texas Lottery.
I know conservatives have been trained to hate people who went to elite universities, and generally that's a good rule of thumb. But not when it comes to the Supreme Court.
First, Bush has no right to say "Trust me." He was elected to represent the American people, not to be dictator for eight years. [OK, he was never elected, but I'm shocked to read Cunter write that sentence. I mean, it smacks of the slightest hint of an acknowledgement that we're supposed to be a democracy when a Repugnican occupies the White House.] Among the coalitions that elected Bush are people who have been laboring in the trenches for a quarter-century to change the legal order in America. While Bush was still boozing it up in the early '80s, Ed Meese, Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork and all the founders of the Federalist Society began creating a farm team of massive legal talent on the right. [I'm shocked -- seriously -- to read Cunter mention Bush's history alcoholism. Usually she just omits anything and everything that is unflattering to the Repugnican Party.]
To casually spurn the people who have been taking slings and arrows all these years and instead reward the former commissioner of the Texas Lottery with a Supreme Court appointment is like pinning a medal of honor on some flunky paper-pusher with a desk job at the Pentagon -- or on John Kerry [there's that gratuitous libel of a Democrat that I expect from Cunter!] -- while ignoring your infantrymen doing the fighting and dying....
To be sure, if we were looking for philosopher-kings, an SMU law grad would probably be preferable to a graduate from an elite law school. But if we're looking for lawyers with giant brains to memorize obscure legal cases and to compose clearly reasoned opinions about ERISA [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] pre-emption, the doctrine of equivalents in patent law, limitation of liability in admiralty, and supplemental jurisdiction under Section 1367 -- I think we want the nerd from an elite law school. Bush may as well appoint his chauffeur head of NASA [great -- Cunter probably just gave Bush an idea] as put Miers on the Supreme Court.
...However nice, helpful, prompt and tidy she is, Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on "The West Wing," let alone to be a real one. Both Republicans and Democrats should be alarmed that Bush seems to believe his power to appoint judges is absolute. This is what "advice and consent" means. [Again, I am shocked -- seriously -- to read Cunter acknowledge that Bush's power in any matter is not absolute. Maybe she's been hitting the Absolut, as she recently accused New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.]
I disagree that an individual needs to have come from an Ivy League school to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. George W. Bush received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1975 and went on to bankrupt the United States of America. So much for the Ivy Leagues.
But I do think that you should have been a fucking judge before you sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and that's my main problem with Miers: The woman hasn't spent a day as a judge and now Bush wants her to sit on the highest court of the land. What's next? Completing a course in first aid will qualify one to be surgeon general?
But you know what? I don't think that Cunter's latest frothing is even really about Miers.
Cunter's anxiety, I think, is over the fact that she knows that the Bush regime has killed the Repugnican Party, at least in the short term. I mean, Harriet Miers is the least of the Repugs' problems right now, which include the quagmire in Vietraq, the sluggish U.S. economy, the gaping holes that have been discovered in the nation's disaster response system, the indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom "I Am Not a Crook" DeLay for money laundering, and the probable indictments of other high-profile Repugnicans in the near future.
But, I suppose, it's easier for Cunter and her ilk to wrap their small brains around small things like Harriet Miers when the Big Picture for the Repugnican Party is so fucking bleak.
The Big Picture for the Repugnican Party, as I said, is that like his father before him, George W. Bush has ignored his domestic responsibilities to the United States to the point that it is now too late for the Repugnican Party to save itself, at least in the short term. The American people have had it with King George II and we're going to see the Democrats take back at least the U.S. House of Representatives in 2006 and -- it pains me to admit it -- it looks like Hillary Clinton probably will be our next president.
She is by far the potential candidate that most Democrats want to see run for president in 2008, and I surmise that with the surname of "Clinton," a majority of American voters in November 2008 will see her, correctly or incorrectly, as heralding the return to Clinton-era peace and prosperity. (As I have written before, I only hope that the President Bush-President Clinton-"President" Bush-President Clinton pattern ends with Hillary.)
It is The Hillary, I think, that Cunter really fears, and as King George II's approval ratings continue to sink, Hillary's chances for 2008 continue to rise.
*That's not what I had intended to title this piece, but that's what it turned out to be...
**Admittedly, I don't read Cunter often, as she makes my skin crawl and turns my stomach, so if she has ever substantially criticized Bush before, I just never read it.
11:49:38 PM 
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