Macho Nachos

"Physically Painful to Read"

That's a good friend's assessment (he may feel free to take the credit, if he reads this story and so desires) of the most recent writing sample from Harriet Miers. It's hard to disagree.

Some folks will fault her for her sentence construction. Some will doubtless point out that her sentencess seem to be deliberately constructed to thwart any attempt at discerning substantive meaning from them. Myself, I have no room to complain about these things, given the structural quality of my own writing.

However, I know intellectual vapidity when I see it. Additionally, I've sat through more of my share of worthless "diversity training," in which empty platitudes are repeated ad nauseam in a fruitless attempt to control thought through the sheer volume of empty syllables. The Miers writings released today are a horrid combination of the two:

 

More and more, intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems.

We must end collective acceptance of inappropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism.

When consensus of diverse leadership can be achieved on issues of importance, the greatest impact can be achieved.

"An organization must also implement programs to fulfill strategies established through its goals and mission. Methods for evaluation of these strategies are a necessity. With the framework of mission, goals, strategies, programs, and methods for evaluation in place, a meaningful budgeting process can begin."

"There is always a necessity to tend to a myriad of responsibilities on a number of cases as well as matters not directly related to the practice of law." Any yet, "Disciplining ourselves to provide the opportunity for thought and analysis has to rise again to a high priority."

Ye gads.

Really, folks. At this point I'm looking for a reason to lay down my sword and at least tolerate this nomination. Instead, every day I find a new reason to return to stage 2. Someone help.

The Argument Not Answered

Robert Bork gets it. He is one of the few, apparently, who do.

Bork was on Hannity's radio program this afternoon, and when Hannity asked him why he opposed the nomination of Harriet Miers, Bork immediately hit on the reason that I have been advocating since day one - and which I have yet to hear any pro-nomination folks answer.

Much of the discussion thus far has centered around Harriet Miers as a person: whether she is qualified, whether she is an originalist, whether she will vote to overturn Roe, whether she is pro-affirmative action, and (for some bizarre reason) whether she is a dedicated Christian. Alternately, the debate has centered for some around George W. Bush, since his endorsement has been the most substantive defense of her nomination: whether Bush a true conservative, whether his record of nominating conservative judges is enough, whether Bush is personally motivated by social conservative causes. In the third place, the argument has centered around the political wisdom of the nomination: whether this was the right move for the Republican party, whether any other judge could have been confirmed, whether opposition to Miers is harmful to the Republican party's electoral chances, whether a "fight" in the Senate over judicial philosophy would have been appropriate, and whether the resultant push for Miers has been effective.

To some extent, all of these are legitimate areas of concern and fertile ground for argument in this nomination battle. However, they also ignore the larger fact that this nomination is about more than Harriet Miers, or George W. Bush, or even short-term electoral jockeying. What is at stake here is the future shape of the federal judiciary, perhaps for an entire generation.

This nomination has done much to harm the shape of that future, and so must be rejected.

 

As many of you know, I am a law student. I have been fortunate enough to be able to attend one of the top 20 schools in the country. I am actually the second person in my family to go through law school - my older sister graduated around nine years ago from a smaller school in a much more conservative area of the country and used to regale me with stories about her moonbat professors and their flagrant disregard for all things not embodied in common law. Thus I was fully prepared for a three year immersion in liberal orthodoxy, surrounded by ideological hostility from students and teachers alike. What I have found is that in a few short years, even the culture in which young lawyers are trained has changed tremendously.

One of the things that I'm sure all former law students remember with fondness are student activity luncheons. These are great for a starving law student because for the first six or seven weeks of the year, you never have to buy lunch - some organization or the other will provide it for you if you will come and listen to their sales pitch during lunch. I've been to probably 15 or so of these luncheons, and was delighted to discover that the Federalist Society meetings have by far been the most well-attended of all. One of my professors testified on behalf of John Roberts recently. I feel that if I am in an ideological minority at all, it is only a minority by a very small margin.

I would imagine that if you took a trip to most any law school in the country, you would see conversions like this taking place. Young conservatives, motivated by the desire to change what we perceive as an out-of-control judiciary, have decided to enter the system and see what we can make of it ourselves. Many of us were inspired by the writings of people like Antonin Scalia, whose brilliance and vision of textualism and judicial restraint struck resonant chords with us about how the judiciary ought to work.

Scalia and Rehnquist were also important to those of us who paid attention to politics in the 80s. They showed us that judges who had a bold vision of judicial restraint, and were vocal about that vision, could someday aspire to the highest court in the land, where real change might be possible. It gave us hope that if we wanted to enter the system, one day we might become a significant part of fixing it.

Since the confirmation of Scalia and the elevation of Rehnquist, that hope has been gradually fading. With the nomination of Harriet Miers, following closely on the heels of John Roberts, the final nail has been pounded into the coffin of that hope.

Of far more important consequence than the dashing of the hopes of various law school students, this nomination has done significant harm to conservatism in the federal judiciary, by sending a chilling message to federal judges who are currently sitting on the bench. That clear message is, "Keep your head down. Don't do anything controversial. If you have a controversial opinion, keep it to yourself, and for Heaven's sake, don't vote conservative on a controversial case." Such a standard does not apply to liberals - only to conservatives. Liberals are free to be as vocally liberal from the bench (and anywhere else) as they might desire. Favor the legalization of prostitution? No problem. Favor the abolition of Mother's Day and Father's Day in favor of Unisex Parent's Day? No problem. On the record numerous times in favor of upholding Roe v. Wade? Step right up, your SCOTUS seats await.

But if you're a conservative in the judiciary, you'd better do everything within your power to hide it; because if you don't, someday a Republican President will inevitably disqualify you from consideration, even if his party is in the majority in the Senate. This is an unacceptable policy amounting to discrimination on ideological grounds, and it must end. The repercussions of allowing this policy whereby those with strong conservative positions are consistently passed over for promotions in favor of blank slates and liberals will have a devastating effect on the lower federal judiciary if it is left unchecked.

The Supreme Court grants cert. to around 100 cases a year. It denies cert. to around 7,000 or 8,000 cases a year, which means that the overwhelming number of cases are decided by the lower judiciary, state or federal. This does not even count the cases for which a writ of certiorari is never even petitioned.

Is it worth the potential effect this nomination might have on all those thousands of cases in order to place one vote on the court which might potentially turn out to be a reliable conservative vote? More to the point, is it worth that potential effect to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court?

I maintain that it is not. I have not yet seen any Miers defender maintain that it is, either. I believe that this is because not many folks are able to embrace the level of myopia such a position would require.

Oh. Well, Great.

I'll admit, I know very little about American Girl products. I don't have any pre-adolescent females living in my house, and haven't since I was about 6 years old myself. Before writing this story, however, I consulted with someone who does who informed me that they a very big deal indeed.

It turns out that they sell dolls and books and gifts and all sorts of stuff that would appeal to girls who are, I would guess, somewhere in the 8-13 years old range. If you clicked on through to that last link, you'll notice on the right hand side of the screen toward the bottom, that they are selling and promoting something called an I can band. Prominently displayed on screen are pictures of young teen and pre-teen girls wearing their I can band. Says the website:

American Girl will give 70 cents for every dollar of "I CAN" band sales, plus a $50,000 donation, to Girls Inc.®, a national organization dedicated to inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold.sm

It all sounds just fine and schmaltzy until you saunter over to the Girls, Inc website and discover what their vision of a strong, smart, and bold girl is:

We recognize the right of all women to choose whether, when, and under what circumstances to bear children. Reproductive freedom and responsibility are essential to other rights and opportunities, including pursuit of education, employment, financial security and a stable and fulfilling family life. Restrictions of reproductive choice are especially burdensome for young women and poor women. Girls Incorporated supports a woman's freedom of choice, a constitutional right established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 in Roe vs. Wade.

Girls, Inc. on "sexuality":

To make responsible decisions about sexuality, pregnancy and parenthood, girls need and have a right to sensitive, truthful sexuality education; convenient access to safe, effective methods of contraception and protection from disease; and referral to comprehensive information, counseling, clinical and other services that support their responsible decisions. We recognize that any sizable group of girls includes those who face issues related to their sexual orientation or that of a family member and who face discrimination based on this sexual orientation. Girls have a right to positive, supportive environments and linkages to community resources for dealing with issues of sexual orientation.

They also feature on their website under "resources" a pamphlet for those of lesbian, bisexual and "questioning identities" that advertises such illuminating reads as Annie on my Mind, which is described in the pamphlet as:

A fictional account of the high school experiences of 17 year-old Liza Winthrop, who was a freshman majoring in architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time of publication. Her vivid memories of meeting her friend Annie at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and their mutual attraction for one another comes back to her as she writes a
letter to her special friend several years later. The subtle sexual awakening in Liza is sensitively portrayed as the two girls become friends with two of their teachers who are lesbians. The reading level is appropriate for older middle school or junior high girls.

Am I the only one who thinks this is an absolutely insane cross-promotion for girls of this age? What about this or this?

I find it absolutely bizarre that a mass marketing company like American Girl, who markets to relatively young women, would knowingly engage in such a cross-promotion with a company whose mission includes pro-abortion indoctrination and orientation advocacy for junior high girls. If there is a sane and rational explanation for this, I would love to hear it.

Assume the Position

Columnist extraordinaire Jack Kelly has a post up today in which he analyzes some of the reaction to the Miers nomination. Among other things, his post extensively quotes a Freeper with "inside information," who is one of the very few people I've seen to switch from being anti-Miers to pro-Miers (the number switching the other way seems to be growing.)

To basically summarize, the Freeper in question makes three points, based upon inside information that he believes to be trustworthy. First, he claims, Harriet Miers is literally the only candidate on the President's list who could have gotten through the Senate. Second, he says, Specter was ready and raring to Bork another judicial candidate. Third, this is all the Senate's fault, and if we want the problem fixed, we need to work harder to get even more Republicans elected.

Now, this Freeper (Pukin Dog), is very well-stated, and his position sounds very reasonable. "We wanted to do better, but political realities are what they are. WHy don't you get out there and beat the paths in 2006, and maybe next time it will turn out better?"

Sounds reasonable right? I'll tell you what, Mr. Anonymous Inside White House Source, you send a decent candidate down to the Senate first, and if they reject him/her, then you come to me with this madness-dressed-in-sanity crap. Don't explain to me why you pre-emptively surrendered with, "You folks need to get out there and work harder."

Let's get this straight. Some blame is gonna go around if this judicial nomination bombs. If the President wanted to insulate himself from that blame, he owed it to his own administration to give it a shot and place the onus squarely on the Senate to oppose a qualified candidate on purely ideological grounds. Make them do it in front of the whole nation - Democrat and RINO alike - and if the chips fall that way, then let em fall, and then you can give us this, "I have to send my staff attorney in there now, she's the best person who can get through."

I'll tell you why this is important, Mr. Source. Whenever we hear stuff like this as an explanation for why something cannot be done before it is even tried, it lends a little more credibility to what the moonbats have been saying for years - that the party really doesn't want to overturn Roe v. Wade, and that you're using it to string us all along and get easy votes.

Personally, I'm done being your cash (vote) cow. You can prove to me that you mean to be a pro-life party in more than name, or I'm going to start giving serious credence to the belief that you really are duping me, and I really hate being duped. You can successfully accomplish this by withdrawing this miserable nomination and at least trying to send up a worthy nominee. If that nominee fails because of Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee, then you can come back and talk to me about working to increase your majority even further.

Until then, I'm tired of being told, "I'll respect you in the morning."

Coalition of the Illin' Logo

Thanks to Doug at Bogus Gold and the Freedom Dogs for whipping up a logo for the Coalition for the Illin' (prominently displayed in your screen's top right-hand corner). Now Patrick Ruffini can no longer taunt me for my lack of cool logo. :-)

Seriously, Patrick is great, even if he is dead wrong from time to time (like right now), but the Freedom Dogs say it's actually the Coalition of the Shillin' that he's heading. Ouch.

By the way, the folks at What Now have joined the coalition, and congratulations on the Corner link.

In the Event of Defeat

There's been a lot of rumbling and unease among the conservative punditry lately about what might happen if the Miers nomination is defeated/withdrawn. Even a lot of folks who just as miffed by this ordeal as I am seem to be nervous that if the Miers nomination is stared down, that will somehow spell doom for the Republican party. Well, what about this worry?

I suppose that, historically speaking, it is legitimate to be concerned, at the very least, about 2006. The best historical indicator we have to go on, of course, is the 1992 election, which immediately followed two consecutive Bush 41 disasters: the violation of "read my lips" and the nomination of David Souter. In response to this outright betrayal, many conservatives stayed home/voted Perot, and thusly we got eight years of Bill Clinton. Not such a great outcome, I know. However, the aftermath was actually what revived the Republican party.

You see, after 1992, a bunch of smart political guys like Haley Barbour and Newt Gingrich decided that appeasing liberals wasn't such a hot way to go, electorally speaking, and that for one election cycle, they ought to just be unapologetically conservative. Stand straight up for less spending and smaller government. Sell the conservative message hard and direct to the people, and see if they buy it. The result, as I'm sure you will remember, was the revolution of 1994, and the re-awakening of the Republican party.

Now, at this juncture, we stand with even less to lose, politically speaking. Let us suppose that the defeat of this nomination necessarily would entail electoral losses in 2006 (a debatable proposition at best). We would still be better off now than we were in 1992, in that we would not be opening the door for a Democrat to take control of the Presidency for 8 years - and I would view the Presidency as being the more significant prize, electorally speaking (especially given the current GWOT). Also, we would be looking at a Souter-style revolt without the added indigestion of having a justice like David Souter actually put on the bench for at least 15 years. In other words, it's perfectly possible to send a message to the party apparatus that they're forgetting their principles and ticking all of us off without losing nearly as much as we did in 1992. And, ironically, it may be the same man pulling the party out of the fire in 2008 that pulled us out in 1994 (Haley Barbour).

I know there are some that disagree with me, but I just can't shake the feeling that since 1994, the party has lost its conservative way. They've become bloated and short-sighted in their approach, attempting to bribe the people with their own money, as it were. In other words, they've almost become the very Democrats they supplanted (with the exception of foreign policy, which is again controlled in the largest part by the President, not the Congress).

We've tried sending emails and phone calls. We've tried getting the message through in blogs. The current furor over Miers is the most sustained message I've ever seen from a base to its elected officials. If this doesn't work, I don't really know of an effective way to get their attention short of hitting them where it hurts - the ballot box. And if that can bring back Republicans again, I don't think it will be such an awful price to pay.

To be clear - I don't think the rejection of Harriet Miers will necessarily produce an electoral disaster in 2006. In fact, I would posit that her confirmation poses an exactly equal risk of electoral disaster, especially if she turns out to be anything short of fantastic, given the open hostility that has erupted over the past week, and seems to be growing. But even supposing that it does, I have reason to hope that the party will be able to right the ship in time for 2008, and that the climate will be right for another conservative revolution then.

Coalition of the Illin', Old School Style

The Pile-On continues. The number of big-name conservative and old-school thinkers opposing the Miers nomination grows longer every hour:

Robert Bork: "I think it’s a disaster on every level."

Charles Krauthammer: "If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her."

George Will: "If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers's name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists."

Bruce Fein: "Cronyism is the signature of the Bush administration. Harriet Miers' nomination to the United States Supreme Court is the high-water mark. The Senate should reject the nomination to honor the original meaning of the Constitution."

Bill Kristol: "President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers was an out-of-the-blue act of loyalty to a longtime staffer. Is it too much to hope that she might reciprocate by withdrawing, thereby sparing her boss the chance of lasting damage to his legacy that her appointment to the Supreme Court may well represent?"

What I am waiting for, at this point, is a single old-school conservative thinker to come out in support of this nomination. Interestingly, the only candidate thus far is Leonard Leo, whose Federalist Society Harriet Miers has dissed. The pile-on just keeps getting larger.

On Judicial Philosophy and "Legislating from the Bench"

Here we are, almost a whole week after the announcement of Harriet Miers as the President's nominee to fill the seat of Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. A lot of things have been said and feelings have been hurt, and I've seen folks at each other's throats that I never in a million years expected to see on the opposite side of any argument.

Putting aside for a moment the unhelpful accusations of elitism and true believer syndrome, I'd like to look for just a moment at why Bush's constant assurance that Miers will not legislate from the bench is accurate in distinguishing, say, a Scalia from a Stevens, but not a Stevens from a Kennedy.

Jurisprudence, like most disciplines, is not easily reduced to one-sentence platitudes - and like most other disciplines, it is also difficult to predict performance on the part of one who has never before performed.

Textualism, as a philosophy of jurisprudence, is not a simple flat rule that you can throw onto any case and arrive at an easy answer. It is quite simply not enough for someone to approach the judiciary with the commitment to not to outright make law from the bench. There are several reasons for this.

In the first place, there is a legitimate place for judge-made law, or common law. Certain statutes are deliberately ambiguous or vague as they are passed by the legislatures. Legislatures will often do this out of a desire of delegating to the courts the power to make the specific applications of law, and to flesh out the specifics of the general purpose they want accomplished on a case-by-case basis. Take, for instance, the Sherman Anti-Trust act, which in effect declared that the Legislature wanted the courts to keep monopolies and trusts from forming - and left the specifics entirely up to them. More recently, the IDEA and other statutes have done the same.

So, despite the confident assurance of Bush that Miers will not "legislate from the bench," what do we know about how Harriet Miers will rule on anti-trust cases, or cases involving education for those with disabilities - or in general about her view about how the common law ought to be properly formulated in such a situation? At this point, diddly squat. These may not be important issues to you, but by far the larger number of cases that the Supreme Court hears are not cases where there is a clearly defined statutory provision, where the answer is as simple as, "Do I apply this law, or invent my own?" The court of last resort is specifically intended to deal with the questions for which there is no easy answer, and the truth lies somewhere in the gaps of the existing common and statutory law.

Another reason that a commitment to refrain from "legislating from the bench" is an inadequate approach to jurisprudence is that some statutes are inherently vague - due in no small part to the limitations of language itself (among other factors). Consider, for instance, H.L.A. Hart's famous "No Vehicles May be Taken Into the Park," hypothetical - which posits that in a certain hypothetical park, someone had posted a sign, in accordance with a city ordinace, that said, "No Vehicles May be Taken Into the Park." This seems, prima facie, to be a remarkably easy statute to interpret, but its application becomes stickier when put to some interesting tests. For instance, does the law apply to:

• A war memorial which includes a military jeep placed on a pedestal
• A riding lawnmower
• A motorized wheelchair
• A nonmotorized wheelchair
• A bicycle
• A baby stroller
• A child's wagon

Clearly, a mere commitment to "not legislate from the bench," does not answer the broader question of how one approaches ambiguity in statutes in general, for there is where much judicial decision-making is found. It also ignores the broader questions about how one deals with legislative intent and purpose, or even if one deems those to be relevant - or even discernible.

For instance, many judges feel that they are doing right by the legislature when they consult legislative history - committee reports, floor speeches and the like - when the meaning, intent or purpose of a statute is unclear. They are not legislating from the bench, after all - in fact, they reason, they are trying to do their due diligence in determining exactly what the legislature wanted them to do. Without getting into a lengthy discussion, this is perhaps the greatest battleground of statutory interpretation today, and "I won't legislate from the bench," is simply not an answer. Is it appropriate to consult the legislative history? Why or why not? Is there a way to determine what Harriet Miers will do once she is on the court, given the information we have available now? I submit that it is not possible whatsoever to know - and further that this is one of the primary differences that separates a Scalia from a Kennedy.

Also unanswered by "She won't legislate from the bench," is the extent to which textualism will be applied, even when the plain meaning of the statute produces "absurd" results. For instance, in the infamous McBoyle v. United States (283 U.S. 25), the court examined a statute which prohibited the transportation of a stolen motor vehicle across state lines. The statute read, in part:

The term "motor vehicle" shall include an automobile, automobile truck, automobile wagon, motorcycle, or any other self-propelled vehicle not designed for running on rails."

The court held (unanimously) that an airplane was not a motor vehicle as designated under the statute in question. To what extent would Harriet Miers be willing to avoid the temptation to apply a little elasticity to avoid what would seem to be an absurd result? Or what about another infamous case, Wadsworth v. Siek (254 N.E.2d 738), in which a man, John Siek, beat his wife to death. He was indicted for first degree murder but pled guilty to the lesser offense of manslaughter - and was convicted and sentenced to prison. The court examined whether he should be allowed to inherit a portion of his wife's estate. The Ohio statute to which the court turned read in part as follows:

No person finally adjudged guilty * * * of murder in the first or second degree, shall inherit or take any part of the real or personal estate of the person killed. * * * With respect to inheritance from or particiaption under the will of the person killed, such person shall be considered as though he had preceded in death the person killed

Hmm. Well, Mr. Siek was not "adjudged" guilty of anything, and certainly not of murder in the first or second degree. Yet, it seems clear that the intent of the statute is to prevent people from benefiting from a death that they have caused. Do you go ahead and disallow Mr. Siek from inheriting, adhering to the apparent intent of the statute's creators, or follow the letter of the statute itself? I submit that these are the kinds of questions that you do not know how you will decide until they come before you in court. One kind of judge will allow the inheritance, and another will not, and neither will think in their mind, "I have just created law from the bench." We knew how John Roberts would decide in such a case, as we read his opinion that dripped with scorn for the statute which led to the imprisonment of an adolescent girl for eating a french fry on the Metro - but he applied the law anyway. About Harriet Miers, we know no such thing.

Other questions remain absolutely unanswered by "She won't legislate from the bench." Supposing that she is a textualist, to what extent is her textualism founded on Public Choice Theory (which often makes a tremendous difference in outcome)? Does she apply a linguistic canon like expressio unius (the expression of a thing is the exclusion of another)? Some other? How rigidly? To what extent are more substantive canons applied? To what extent will she be influenced by the potential consequences of her decisions, or the morality of them? How willing is she to apply the rule of lenity?

Now, I am not one of the yammering fools in the media who have bought into belief that Bush is dumb, and therefore incapable of even understanding these questions. But I am reasonably sure that they are not questions that he has to deal with on a daily basis. Bush, after all, has spent his entire life in politics in the executive branch, making administrative kinds of decisions. Legal decisions are of an entirely different sort, and require an entirely different set of presupposed questions. This is not a bad thing - I don't want Bush to approach things like he would if he were a Supreme Court judge. But it also means that when the President says, "she shares my judicial philosophy," which he explains as, "she won't legislate from the bench," I don't exactly assume that the above questions I have raised (and they are but a very few of the many appropriate questions) simply have had occasion to occur to him - and if they have, he's given me no indication what he thinks about them, so that I can have any idea what the heck he means when he says, "She shares my judicial philosophy."

Now, these are questions that are answerable for anyone who has sat on the bench for any length of time, and issued opinions in difficult cases. Similarly, even for some lawyers and clerks who have slogged their way through the constitutional muck, leaving a trail of memos and briefs along the way, a general tenor of the nominee's jurisprudential philosophy may be gleaned. For Harriet Miers, we might as well disembowel a goat and spread the entrails on the ground and try to divine the answers in that manner.

And I know that there are a lot of folks out there who still have a lot of trust in Bush where judges are concerned, and that's fine. Constantly, we are reminded of Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor. But Bush has nominated literally hundreds of judges to the federal judiciary system over the last five years - and if I wanted to, I'll bet I could dig through and find three that turned out to be pretty crappy, too. None of this is intended as an indictment on the President, except to alert you to the fact that there are questions that a judge must consider that a President doesn't, and that Bush may well be assuming that he has all the knowledge he needs about Harriet Miers when in fact, he does not.

A commitment to "not legislate from the bench," is only a jurisprudential philosophy to someone who is not a judge - it is merely a platitude when one gets into the open areas of the law. And unless that platitude rests upon a solidly constructed foundation of broader legal principle, we may well be discussing the difference between whether we get a Scalia, or a Kennedy, or an O'Connor.

It's still a risk I'm not willing to take.

In Which I Go Completely Insane

This is enough to make me want to pluck out my eyes and pour hydrochloric acid in the sockets:

In an initial chat with Miers, according to several people with knowledge of the exchange, Leahy asked her to name her favorite Supreme Court justices. Miers responded with "Warren" -- which led Leahy to ask her whether she meant former Chief Justice Earl Warren, a liberal icon, or former Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative who voted for Roe v. Wade . Miers said she meant Warren Burger, the sources said.

AHHHH!!!!

In the first place, nobody calles Supreme Court justices by their first name. I think she meant Earl Warren! In which case, she's either ignorant or evil. But even if she meant Warren Burger, she's praising the most incompetent chief in history! Who, coincidentally, also voted for Roe!

I don't know how much more of this I can take.

No, Hugh, It Wasn't Because She Turned in my Papers Late

Yesterday, in response to a devastating criticism of miers by David Frum (based on personal knowledge), the ever-increasingly hackish Hugh Hewitt responded by musing aloud with a bunch of baseless speculation. Gee, I can't really respond to anything my opponent has said, guess I'll just insinuate that he's evil:

The ordianrily persuasive and careful Frum doubles down (triples down?) on his first blast at Miers, and does so in such a fashion as to raise the question of whether there is some personal ax being ground fine here.

I don't suppose there's any possibilty in the world that Frum was, you know, accurately reporting on events as he saw them, is there, Hugh? No, because that wouldn't fit with your preconceived notion of Miers as a "B+" candidate for the SCOTUS, now would it? Therefore, Frum must be hiding something.

Unfortunately for Hugh - and this is happening a lot nowadays - he's outclassed in this particular fight. Frum responded this morning in cool fashion, and took the invitation to clarify exactly what he meant:

Hugh Hewitt asks whether there isn't some personal animus or motive behind my comments on the Miers nomination. A number of readers have raised the same concern. I suppose it's a natural question. So let me answer for the record that my relations with Miers were always professional and correct when we worked together. I always thought she was a fine and decent person, and I have no personal animus or motive of any kind in this matter.

And though this is probably unnecessary let me add here also: I have been and remain a supporter of this administration and this president. For the past three years, I have been speaking and writing in defense of this administration's goals and this president's character, not just in this country but around the world, most recently in for example The Financial Times. This summer I even proposed to do a documentary about decision-making inside the Bush administration, in hope of refuting once and for all the unfair stereotypes about the way in which it does its work.

The rest of the article is absolutely devastating to Miers supporters, and I would suggest that you read it all. Then I would suggest to Hugh that he drop this argument and move on to something else - he's losing.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that if Miers is a "B+" in Hugh Hewitt's estimation, I've chosen the wrong law school.

Your Causes are Worthless, Too.

Cross Posted: RedState

We've had some great debate on this site over the Harriet Miers nomination, and I want to say thanks to everyone who's participated. Even those who have made just want to scream have, for the most part, put forth your arguments in a reasonable and civil fashion. Here I offer my apologies for any I've offended in a fit of emotionalism. And I also might offer a pre-emptive apology for any I might do it to in the near future. This stuff is important to me.

Which is kind of the whole point of this diary. If people want to disagree with me, that's fine. Even if they want to do it in a way that displays no class or ability to reason, that is also fine. What is not fine with me is worthless garbage like this that denigrates the sincerity and conviction of others:

What does irritate me is those conservatives who basically want to take their marbles and go home since they're disappointed in Bush's nomination. Fine, stay home next election. I hope your sanctimonious conservative purity is warm comfort through the years of Hillary's presidency. Remember that our choice is rarely between the perfect candidate and some other person. Mostly, we have to deal with two imperfect candidates and figure out which one would be less bad for the country. If you're lucky, there might even be a candidate you can like. My experience is that such politicians are rare.

I don't know who the heck Betsy is, I've never read her page before, and I only got there because Hugh Hewitt (who slides down the scale of my estimation on an hourly basis) linked the aforementioned trash favorably. So, I have no idea why Betsy votes Republican, and don't really care to know. Those kinds of things are often personal, and I'm happy to have everyone in the big tent.

But let's hypothesize that Betsy is a small government conservative, who's primary objective is to see federal spending slashed. I'm behind that agenda, too, but it's not at the front of my burner. Nonetheless, I would never have been so belittling and insulting, in the wake of Medicare "reform," to berate upset FisCons like children and tell them to quit threatening to "take their marbles and go home." It would be insulting, and I'd be frankly ashamed to whisper such a thing to a friend, much less publish it on the Internet for thousands of people to see a day.

This may come as a news flash to Betsy and Hugh, and a lot of other people I've been reading and emailing with, but some of us have what we like to call principles. And we involve ourselves in this incredible mess called politics because we like to see those principles advanced. And when it becomes plainly obvious that after a protracted period of time, our principles are simply not going to be advanced - well, then, we have families and jobs and churches and whatnot that would be grateful for the extra time.

So, if you don't agree with my principles, or just don't hold them as strongly as I do, that's just fine with me. They're my principles after all. But if you go start calling me a kid because I try to live by the strength of those principles, you're just going to expose yourself as a second-rate party hack who views winning elections as an end rather than a means. May I be eternally saved from such a pitiful political existence.

So go ahead and sell out your own soul and use your hours and money to try and get the least crooked crook in office. If that's a profitable use of your time, more power to you. But by trying to look down your nose at folks who work in politics because they actually believe in something, you only make yourself seem even smaller than you actually are.

Coalition of the Illin'

You know, I really didn't understand what the point of the "old" Coalition of the Chillin' was, but this is something that I think is useful, for reasons I'll elucidate later. The simple version is, I think it's important to demonstrate (1) what a horrible political choice this was in the sense of splitting the base and (2) demonstrating to the appropriate people that there is an organized effort that will not go away against this nominee.

If we're going to aggregate the folks who are chillin' right now, I think it's also important to aggregate those who are, as Michelle Malkin says, Illin'. And so, I'd like to start keeping official track of the "Coalition of the Illin'" here. (If someone else already has this up, drop me an email. If you'd like to be included, drop me an email with your blog handle and URL, or just ping my trackback.

UPDATE (10-06-05 17:20:00 CDT):

Conservative Outpost seems to be sitting on the fence.

Bogus Gold: Illin'.

Bill Dozier: Illin'.

Others who have not yet joined the coalition, but Illin' nonetheless:

Gerry Daly: Illin'.

Professor Bainbridge: Illin'.

David Frum: Illin'. A devastating critique for the "you don't know her and Bush does" crowd.

Thomas at RedState: Illin' in the most beautiful post I've seen in a long while

John Cole (John Cole!): Illin'

Jeff Goldstein doesn't do coalitions, but he's illin', too.

Matthew Stinson: Illin'.

Hopefully more soon, I just don't have time to surf like I used to.

No on Miers

I know I've been less than faithful in posting here, but things have been a little crazy lately. Plus, I've been very involved in the fight over at RedState - so if you want more, you can always saunter over there and take a gander at what I'm writing.

It should surprise no one that I'm strongly opposed to this nomination. I've written on it more extensively here and here. More to come soon, I'm sure. For right now, I'm part of the Coalition of the Illin'.

By the way, Hugh Hewitt's behavior in this process has been absolutely shameful. I won't respond to him here, because the only possible response at this point is one in kind, and I don't think that will be profitable.

Frist: Time to Step Down

Cross-posted at RedState.org.

An astute observer might have noticed some time ago that we're not the biggest fans of Bill Frist, generally speaking, here at RedState.org. As a majority leader, I have long been of the opinion that he is ineffective, and he has certainly shown a willingness as an individual Senator to stab both social and fiscal conservatives. There are no other constituencies of the Republican party left to fail.

Unless, of course, you want to examine the fact that he is failing his own constituents in Tennessee by leaving the fight for the 118th Air Lift Wing entirely to Democrat governor Phil Bredesen. Oh yeah, he's also mired in personal scandal that is likely to get much worse before it gets better.

The situation is clear. Bill Frist cannot at this current time act effectively as Senate Majority Leader for the Republican Party, and should step aside from his position immediately.

As majority leader, Frist was badly outmaneuvered by Harry Reid in the fight over the judges, and ultimately allowed his leadership to be hijacked by John McCain. Anything involving John McCain taking positions of leadership is generally bad for the GOP, in the minds of most Republicans.

Also as majority leader, Bill Frist voted against the Coburn amendment which attempted to bring fiscal responsibility to the Senate. Given the manner in which spending has increased during his tenure, this was an unsurprising, if disappointing, vote.

As a Senator, Bill Frist publicly betrayed the trust of social conservatives by flip-flopping on embryo destruction at a critical moment in the fight.

Also as a Senator representing the people of Tennessee, Bill Frist's efforts to save the 118th Air lift Wing from the BRAC have been virtually non-existent. Contrary to the example of John Thune, Bill Frist has stood idly by and allowed Democrat Phil Bredesen to play hero to the people of Tennessee yet again. I sometimes believe that he is actively trying to give his seat to Harold Ford, Jr. in 2006.

Also, accusations that Frist has engaged in insider trading and spurious stock sales have grown louder and more serious. The prima facie case against Frist looks very strong indeed. The defense against these accusations will undoubtedly consume untold hours of Frist's time, and will also damage his reputation, and the reputation of the party. During the next few months, he will be unable to devote his time and energy to advancing the GOP agenda.

Of course, given Frist's version of "advancing the GOP agenda," this might actually be cause for celebration.

The case is clear. It is time for Bill Frist to step aside as Senate Majority Leader, and allow someone more effective (Jon Kyl?) to take the helm.

Roberts Confirmation Hearings Roundup

Well, after a week of sound and fury (okay, there was no fury) the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on John Roberts are over. After this week of virtually pointless political theater, what have we learned?

The short answer is: Not much that we didn't know already.

 

We learned, unsurprisingly, that John Roberts is pretty much always the smartest man in the room, even (especially) when the room is populated with 18 of the most powerful people in this country, and their Ivy League graduate staffers. We learned that he is cool and unflappable under pressure, that he cannot be tricked into making verbal mistakes, and he is apparently entirely without skeletons in his closet. He paid unfailing attention, stated his case carefully without notes or mistakes, and without much effort made sure that nothing he said could be misconstrued. In short, he acted like a man who has made a very good living answering tough questions from men a lot smarter than any of the Senators in question.

We also learned that Roberts poses an interesting problem for the Democrats, if the Democrats themselves are to be believed. They universally expressed appreciation for Roberts as a person and jurist, but almost as universally expressed puzzlement over whether they should confirm him. It truly is a quandary that the Democrats have fallen into - they know they have no basis for rejecting Roberts, but their base increasingly demands it anyway.

And so they scratched their heads and fretted randomly. They soliloquized about the the seriousness of their duty and the importance of the position of Chief Justice. They begged. They cajoled. They wished fervently that they were voting for a political position rather than determining the qualifications of a judge. They tried to wedge serious concern around every compliment that they helplessly offered. The impression was clear: they were impressed. And they were worried.

The questioning session, as I saw it, was fairly banal. The Democrats couldn't lay a glove on Roberts, and they knew it. But they had to at least put forth an effort. From what I saw, they attempted two basic strategies along this line.

First, they attempted to paint Roberts as a man of privilege - someone who doesn't understand the plight of the "little folks." Over and over again, various Senators pointed out some rather obvious facts about Roberts. That he's white. Harvard educated. Spent his whole adult life around people who were influential and powerful. These facts are undisputed. Roberts is, without a doubt, a prototypical member of the American Bar. It's somewhat mystifying to me that this would somehow disqualify him from becoming its foremost member.

Second, they repeated the oft-ballyhood demand for documents. That's been beaten to death ad nauseam elsewhere, I won't get into it here.

I spent most of the hearings watching the body language of the Democrat Senators to see where they might come down. Sadly, I didn't get to see any of Joe Biden's questioning. I think I caught the rest of the Donks at least once apiece. If body language is a reliable indicator, I think there may be 2 Democrats who would vote for Roberts in committee. The first, shockingly, is Herb Kohl (D-WI), who seemed to be the Democrat on the committee most interested in what Roberts actually had to say, and was the most inclined to accept Roberts' answers. The second, perhaps just as surprisingly, was Dick Durbin (D-Siberia). Notwithstanding DiFi's bloviations about what a difficult decision this is for her, I don't buy that she'll vote "Yea" for a second, based upon her actual behavior. Durbin, on the other hand, had some tough questions for Roberts, but seemed to grudgingly come to the conclusion in the end that Roberts was a good nominee. I certainly wouldn't place money on that handicap, but if any Democrats do flip, I think it will be one of those two (or both). If I had to rank the Democrats in order from least hostile to most hostile (I'm omitting Biden because I didn't see him), I'd do it thusly: Kohl, Durbin, Feinstein, Feingold, Leahy, Kennedy, Schumer. (An aside: if there's a loser in these hearings, it's Schumer. Besides coming off as more of a donkey's rear than he usually is, he was also obviously outclassed and virtually disappeared the third day).

The witness panels also didn't work too well for the Democrats. I got to watch 4 of the 6 panels, and I didn't see that they had a single person who had ever met John Roberts personally on the panel. Instead, they brought up a bunch of people who had never met him, but who could supposedly divine from his record the fact that he was racist and hated women. It was a cheap and sleazy attempt at character assasination, and following on the heels of 2.5 days of flawless testimony by a guy who was also obviously the nicest guy in the room, it went over pretty much like a lead balloon. The "civil rights" panel, in particular, was a disgusting and thinly masked exhibition in race-baiting and innuendo. I'd berate some of the panelists individually, but I think they were pretty self-discrediting, so I'll save the space here. Again, I could be wrong about this, but I don't recall a single adverse witness who had ever personally met John Roberts.

In contract, the Republicans called forth several very well-respected folks who knew Roberts personally, who were universal in their accord for Roberts as a fair jurist and open-minded person. One thing came across pretty plainly. Anyone who has ever interacted with John Roberts respects him greatly. I think that anyone who bothered to watch him during the hearings last week can tell for themselves how ridiculous the notion that Roberts is some backwoods, woman-hating racist is.

Just to illustrate, I personally know one of the panelists who testified on Roberts' behalf, and who worked under him for several years. This individual has multiple graduate degrees from highly respected colleges, has been eminently successful as a lawyer (as evidenced by the fact that he worked directly under Roberts in the late 90s), and is currently a professor at one of the more well-respected law schools in the country. In other words, not someone who is easily cowed or starstruck. Quite apart from this person's testimony, which was unfailing in its praise for Roberts' open-mindedness, fairness, and compassion as a person, this individual has virtually not stopped talking about how great Roberts is since he was nominated.

Perhaps the greatest strategic blunder the Democrats committed was inviting Planned Parenthood and their ideological sisters to sit on the last panel. At this point, most of the Donks had already left the committee room, but it was about exactly the time a lot of folks in the Central time zone were getting home, and the Eastern zone folks were settling down in front of their TVs. If they were interested in tuning in for a little bit of hearings after a long day of work, they tuned in just in time to watch Karen Pearl talk about how the right to an abortion is absolute, including the right to PBA, and then some "seminarian" from the U of C promptly escalate the rhetoric. About this time Orrin Hatch grabbed his mike. A lot of folks around here like to disparage Orrin, but he's taken part in the confirmation hearings of every single justice currently sitting on the court, and he doesn't forget a thing about any of them.

Hatch then lit in to a defenseless Pearl over her organization's knee-jerk reaction to every single nominee put forth by a Republican president. He read through a short litany of the hysterical things they had said in the past about judges who turned out to actually be pro-choice. Most damning, he pointed out their ridiculous opposition to David Souter (may he be afflicted with a severe case of psoriasis), who's turned out to be one of the best friends they'd ever had. I hope to soon have a copy of the transcript of this "exchange," because by the end, any rational person could see that Planned Parenthood would have opposed the nomination of Kate Michelman, if a Republican had nominated her. Pearl was literally without response to any of these charges.

Then, Senator Trainwreck took the mike and really polished them off. He pointed out that he was a "known quantity," and took pride in being the most pro-life member of the Senate. He said that he sat down with Roberts for two hours and had no idea afterward how he would vote on Roe and that it was ridiculous for them to claim to be able to read the sheep entrails and know what Roberts would do, despite never having met him - and further especially eviscerated the U of C panelist for throwing mud on Roberts' character that flatly contradicted the testimony of anyone who'd ever known him. Said that the people like them were trying to play political games and divide the country and make us hate each other. Given that they had spent about 15 minutes doing exactly that, they had not much in response. And thus the hearings ended. I sincerely hope that the Hatch-Coburn one-two is the image that sticks in people's minds over the next week, because it was absolutely brilliant in its execution, even if the Democrats did lob it up there like a softball for them to whack out of the park.

In the end, I think that these hearings have made it very difficult for the Democrats to oppose John Roberts. CW right now seems to be that they will hold the party line and vote 10-8, but my gut feeling says that it will probably be 12-6 or 13-5. As I've said before, I hope they're not that reasonable. I hope they're perfectly willing to fight to the death in a hopeless battle that they can't win, and that has no payoff for them even if they do. However, there are still some capable political strategists on the other side of the aisle, and I think that in the end, cooler heads will prevail.

Also, I would caution some of the folks on our side of the aisle who are attempting to read the entrails, too. There are many posters on this board who are ultimately convinced that we've been Soutered (may he wake up in the night with foot cramps over and over and over) again. I think it's safe to say that there really is no risk of that. For one thing, it takes a special kind of stupid to make a Souter. For another thing, Souters do not begin their professional career in the Reagan administration. I think, in a worst-case scenario, we are looking at another Kennedy - but I think that a more realistic one is that we've traded Rehnquist for a virtual carbon-copy, although perhaps a shade to the left.

You all know where I stand and what my issue is, and my gut feeling is that Roberts is with us on this. And further, I think the President has made a smart move with Roberts, in that he hasn't spent political capital that he doesn't currently have on a nominee, in the hopes that sometime soon down the road, his numbers will return to the point that he can threaten some real damage again. He's also handed the Democrats a ticking time-bomb here. Their base is demanding that they stand up in unison against Roberts - because in their gut, they know I'm right. On the other hand, the American public won't stand for it, and if they DO yell and scream and fuss, it perfectly legitimizes a more hard-line conservative like Luttig, Garza or Jones for the next choice.

Here's hoping.

In Which I am Hopelessly Flummoxed

If there's one thing I like about (most) modern liberal Democrats, it's that they are generally predictable. I know that they like to think that they are generally more interesting and "edgy" than most conservatives, but generally they're just "better" at using four-letter words, and dressing up illogical arguments with hysterical rhetoric. There's nothing particularly interesting about this once you realize that their playbook hasn't really changed much over the last two generations, even if their rhetoric has become a lot more "flavored."

Then, today, they threw me a one-two punch that genuinely left me speechless. And, for the life of me, I can't figure out what the strategery here is. I take a stab at it anyway below the fold

 

First, in a genuine shocker, the generally detestable Donna Brazile wrote this:

On Thursday night President Bush spoke to the nation from my city. I am not a Republican. I did not vote for George W. Bush -- in fact, I worked pretty hard against him in 2000 and 2004. But on Thursday night, after watching him speak from the heart, I could not have been prouder of the president and the plan he outlined to empower those who lost everything and to rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Who is this columnist, and what have they done with the real Donna Brazile? I checked my calendar, and we're nowhere near to April 1st, and none of the other major news outlets have reported that Donna Brazile is suing the Washington Post for fraudulent use of her name. So what gives?

And for the love of my sanity, why isn't she done saying nice things about President Bush?

The president also laid out the federal government's goal for rebuilding. It is unprecedented in its scope and ambition, matching destruction that is unprecedented as well. He made the challenge clear: This will be one of the biggest reconstruction projects in history. But he also made it clear that we can and will do this. New Orleans, Biloxi, all of the Gulf Coast will rise again. And the residents are ready to pitch in and do their part.

I know, maybe better than anyone, that there are times when it seems that our nation is too divided ever to heal. There are times when we feel so different from each other that we can hardly believe that we are all part of the same family. But we are one nation. We are a family. And this is what we do. When the president asked us to pitch in Thursday night, he wasn't really asking us to do anything spectacular. He was asking us to be Americans, and to do what Americans always do.

* * *

Mr. President, I am ready for duty. I am ready to stir those old pots again. Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Wow. I was trying to digest the strategery of this (How will she turn this against Bush? How does this help the Democratic party? Is there some sort of secret code embedded in the article that made this confluence of words necessary, independent of their actual meaning?) As I was digesting this, I was simultaneously checking out the musings of the folks on the other side of The Big Ditch™ and came across this, which seemed to indicate that some folks, at the very least, aren't quite so ready to work together with President Bush. At least, I think that was the point:

You ready to pay your fair share in taxes Donna? You ready to ask your wonderful President to ask rich folks like you to pay their fair share?

Cuz I think that is where you can help the most. But maybe you have some carpentry skills we don't know about.

Dude, Armando, what? Are you trying to say that Donna Brazile is opposed to higher taxes for rich people? That Donna Brazile is in favor of the Bush tax cuts? You know that she makes a pretty good living going around the country and telling everyone who will listen that the Bush tax cuts are to blame for the deficit and must be rescinded, right?

And what is this carpentry thing? Are you calling her a chickentaxhawk? A chickencarpentryhawk? A chickenbushcohelpinghawk? Honestly, I don't know what to say about this. Are they really that intellectually vapid, that they're trying to take an illogical argument and shoehorn it into taxes? Against Donna Brazile? Has the chickenhawk meme become so ingrained in your mentality that you haul it out against literally anyone who does anything you don't like, even if they're not talking about the war? If there's a coherent message here (other than, "You're RICH and that makes me ANGRY!"), I'm missing it completely.

A less paranoid person would just say that the Donks have lost their last shred of sanity. But I'm still looking over my shoulder for the Clinton curveball in all of this. I'm sure Nick will sort it all out for me soon.

At the risk of being overly optimistic, I would speculate that if Bush's speech made a believer out of Donna Brazile, then we are soon to see a wave of approval polls trending in the upwards direction for the President. And really, if that happens, I don't know if the netizens of the left will be able to recover from the shock.

Somebody pass the popcorn.

Thank God for the Federal Judiciary

Because otherwise, we'd have no one to protect the right of doctors to puncture babies' skulls while delivering them. And I don't know if the Republic would survive the destruction of that particular liberty.

In other news, in case anyone was still on the fence, Burger and Blackmun were bumbling fools who knew not what they did. 40 million children say "thanks."

Tied to Failure

As I have watched the Democrats' consensus position on the war in Iraq change over the last three years, my emotional response has run the full gambit from anger to horror to disgust. The anger resulted from their duplicity, when they attempted to court the anti-war vote while simultaneously defending their support for the war. As they attempted to make a dizzying array of justifications for why they should be loved by both sides of the fence, the Democrats bumbled their way to a crushing loss in 2004, which sent them all scurrying for answers.

To our very great pleasure, Jerome Armstrong has found the answer for the Democrats:

The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course". Gary Hart. He's got tough medicine for the Senators that voted in favor of invading Iraq. That should be simple enough for all Democrats to agree-- that staying the course is not an option.

It is hard to decide which is better news - that Democrats are listening to Gary Hart again, or that there has never been a political party more tied to failure than the modern Democrats.

 

There is, of course, a sense in which the minority party automatically becomes the "opposition party." When a single party controls both chambers of Congress and the Executive branch, they will of course drive the agenda for what is happening in the country. For the Democrats at the federal level right now, there is little hope of pushing positive agenda matters through most committees right now, much less into law. So, as a matter of practicality, there are two options left to the Democrats on many issues: (1) Obstruction and (2) complaint.

What the Democrats have yet to realize (and, to be fair, it took the Republicans a long, long time to figure this out as well), is that opposition is not a winning electoral strategy. They have, with the exception of a delusional few, realized that they are, in fact, losing. However, the disaster for them is that they have determined that the solution to their losing problem is to make their opposition even more rancid. Perhaps, they have rationalized, the problem is that the American public has not yet realized just how much they hate Republicans and everything they stand for.

This kind of strategy is all well and good for riling up the base, and creating a lot of sound and fury. However, it's not so much something average Americans will latch onto. What the Donks do not realize is that the American people, by and large, are an optimistic bunch of people. Sure, we get angry sometimes, and there are moments when we are capable of despair, doom and gloom. But part of what has made America a great nation is our irrepressible optimistic spirit - our refusal to capitulate in difficult circumstances. That spirit, although arguably diminished what it was in times past, is still a large part of our national consciousness. And part of that spirit is that we don't like whiners and defeatists.

And thus the Democrats stumble unwittingly into further electoral defeat in 2006, in that they have hitched their entire wagon to defeat in Iraq, and complaint about the President's prosecution of that war. There is very little question that the public at this point is tiring of the war and that the President's numbers are suffering because of it. Mistakenly, this has led them to believe that a party of folks screaming "I told you so," at the top of their lungs can capitalize on this discontent. Perhaps, if the election were held this November, they could (even though the polling numbers are equally consistent that the Democrats are not benefiting from the President's drop in popularity). Given that the next major elections will not happen until next November, they will not.

Inbetween now and next November, a number of highly significant events are going to take place. The Iraqis are going to have a vote on ratifying their constitution. They are going to begin to get on their feet as an autonomous government. And, one way or another, some of our troops will begin to come home. Make no mistake that the Democrats are praying that exactly none of these things will happen. What they do not realize is that even if they get their wish, and the situation goes to absolute pot in Iraq - absent a positive policy vision, that will not translate into electoral wins for them.

Say what you want about Bush, or the decision to invade Iraq, or the subsequent execution of the invasion/occupation. Attempting to place a democracy in the heart of the Middle East was a grand policy vision. If this policy vision succeeds, and the Democrats continue down their path, they will have tied themselves to a large anchor and tossed that anchor into the sea. This is a risk, however, that the Democrats seem to be willing to take, given that they are absolutely confident that the vision will fail. I believe, however, given the character of the American people, that even if they are successful in their wager, they will have garnered absolutely nothing with the public, except the right to say, "I told you so."

Saying "I told you so," is satisfying for the person saying it. It's gratifying to revel in the knowledge that you were right and all others were wrong. It's also natural to trumpet your "I told you so," claim to the hilltops, making sure that absolutely everyone knows just exactly how right you were. There's only one small problem. Nobody wants to hear "I told you so." Not even folks who are sitting on the fence. It's the political equivalent of acting like a nine-year-old brat, and it will backfire.

The reaction, however, is so very tempting and so very self-satisfying that I don't think the Democrats will be able to avoid reveling in it. I don't see a Newt Gingrinch on their side who is championing the kind of positive agenda that dissatisfied voters can latch on to. Instead, the folks grabbing microphones on the other side of the aisle are folks whose only mode of communication is complaint, whose only hope is failure, and who are, moreover, genuinely unlikeable people. Howard Dean, Michael Moore and Markos Moulitsas are probably genuinely loved by their followers. The failure of the Democrats is to realize how these folks are perceived by the broader population, and further how disastrous it is to march them out before the voting public screaming, "I told you so!"

Many Republicans will remember that in the wake of the 1992 elections, in which all three branches of government were delivered to the Democrats, there were two distinct and necessary elements that led to the victory of 1994. First, you had Rush Limbaugh keeping the base fired up behind the scenes, and providing a voice for those who felt disenfranchised by the current makeup of the government. Rush even went so far as to publish a book called, "See, I Told You So." As I recall, he at one point promised that he'd release a sequel "See, I Told You So" book every year that Clinton was in office (thankfully, we were spared 8 of these books.) On the other hand, the wonkish and smiling Newt Gingrich became the public face of the party, pushing a positive agenda in the Contract with America which was at once simple to understand, popular in its principles, and daring in its scope. The Democrats these days have managed to out-Rush Rush in their scorn for the other side. Where they have failed is in locating someone who is at least marginally likeable, who has a grasp on what the American people really want (Free hint: It's not socialized health care), whom they can place before the microphones to propound a positive legislative agenda that the American people can stand behind.

What is further depressing, if you are a Democrat, is that it's hard to determine where such a person might potentially even come from. Who do they have waiting in the wings who engenders warm feelings in the average American? Harry Reid? God help us, Joe Biden? Easily their best hope was probably Harold Ford Jr., but they denied him a platform from which he could have done some real damage in favor of the immacuately coiffed and intellectually substandard Nancy Pelosi. Likewise, Barack Obama is too new to the game and has no real bully pulpit to use, at least for another 4 years.

Unless they discover a purpose, a vision, and a personality, the Democrats will be doomed to repeat the same political note over and over again - namely, tying themselves to the possibility of American failure in Iraq, or at the very least, Republican failure at home. However, they will always have a problem taking this approach: no one is inspired by someone who looks for failure, who barely contains their glee when it occurs, and who seeks to capitalize on a misfortune that affects a whole country. That is not the sort of agenda that almost anyone votes for, and it certainly isn't one that's capable of flipping a ten-seat majority.

So, here's hoping the Democrats keep taking Jerome Armstrong's advice. Given the performance of the Republicans recently, we're going to need all the help we can get.

Human Tragedies

I won't repost the whole thing here - but compared to what I normally do, I put a little bit of effort into this post. Check it out, if you have time.

What Katrina Victims Really Need

One of our editors is registered with MoveOn.org's mailing list (he doesn't have the blood pressure issues, apparently), and he recently forwarded along this priceless nugget about how MoveOn is gonna help out the victims of Katrina:

Dear MoveOn member in the D.C. area:

Tomorrow four MoveOn members who were evacuated from New Orleans will travel to Washington, DC to deliver a petition to President Bush demanding he stop blaming the victims of Hurricane Katrina, including state and local officials, for the poor rescue and relief effort and focus on helping them.

You're invited to join them at a peaceful protest and picket outside the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue at 1:00 PM tomorrow, Thursday. Together we'll send the message that the White House blame-shifting is shameful and raise awareness about public anger over the Bush administration failures.

(insert details, times and places here)

It is important as Congress returns and the Bush administration tries to cover over their failures last week that a surge in public concern forces the Bush administration to take care of Hurricane victims.

Where to begin? First, if there is "public anger" over the Bush administration's handling of the hurricane, wouldn't the public be aware of it? Can you not just honestly admit that you're trying to manufacture public anger, not "raise awareness" of it?

The truth, of course, is that the public isn't blaming Bush and further that the "blame Bush" numbers are falling. I guess, in the immediate aftermath, almost half of the people thought it was reasonable to blame Bush. Then, when it became apparent who was carrying the "blame Bush" banner, it suddenly didn't seem so reasonable at all. Or, in an alternate theory of causation, people realized it wasn't reasonable to blame Bush, and then noticed who was still carrying the "blame Bush" banner.

In either case, I predict that the spectacle of this parade, should it actually garner any attention whatsoever, will not be helpful to any Katrina victims (besides the four "protestors", who may have benefited from a free plane-ticket and lunch at Ben and Jerry's), and will contribute to the further marginalization of the Internet Left.

At least some good will come out of it.

UPDATE: Pejman Yousefzadeh emailed me a link to this:

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats said yesterday that they will invoke the vast disparities in income and living conditions laid bare by the Hurricane Katrina disaster to sharpen their questioning of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. at his confirmation hearings next week.

The scenes of devastation featuring primarily poor African-American residents in New Orleans have highlighted the widening gap between rich and poor, said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he, too, will pursue questions raised by Katrina in the Roberts hearings. In addition, civil rights leaders whom Democrats have called to appear at the hearings said they also intend to refer to the scenes from the hurricane-ravaged region.

No. Shame.