Start Over: When all else fails, revert to picking white males.
Honestly, that's an unfair comment I just made. One thing that has impressed me about the Bush administration is that, even though he speaks out against affirmative action, he still practices it -- finding qualified women and minorities with Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and others. It's nice to have a politician's actions exceed his rhetoric.
But that all seemed to go to hell with the Harriet Miers nomination. She appeared to be a token girl nomination with few qualifications to sit on the highest court in the land. And when critics lambasted her, administration officials fell back on the desperate tactic of labeling opponents as sexist, etc.
Alito seems to be a qualified jurist, although he's too conservative for my taste, but I don't think anybody expected anything less after what all has happened. However, after all the talk about possibly having the first Hispanic appointment, this is a bit of a disappointment.
But the Democrats are lining up against Alito already. So it appears we may have the exciting confirmation battle us news junkies have been waiting for after all.
Round and Round: When was the last time we had a president who wasn't embroiled in scandal during his second term? That would be Eisenhower.
Since then, LBJ (essentially in his second term, though he was eligible for another) had Vietnam, which prevented him from running for re-election. Nixon had Watergate. Reagan had Iran-Contra. Clinton had Lewinsky. Bush is now pestered by Valerie Plame.
What's disturbing about this trend is that each scandal seems to diminish in importance, but they still serve as a big distraction for the sitting president.
Clinton was impeached for lying about cheating on his wife. Bad man, but Republicans should have left the presidency out of this.
I still maintain that this Plame thing is overblown. Bush hasn't done anything wrong. I don't even think any of the White House aides knowingly identified Valerie Plame to get back at the nobody who is her husband. But that doesn't seem to prevent a Ken Starr wannabe from fishing for something, anything, to get an indictment.
"Scooter" faces charges of obstruction of justice, false statement, and perjury. No mention of any charges for outing a covert CIA agent. This is eerily reminiscent of Clinton getting charged with perjury about Monica Lewinsky, when Ken Starr was supposed to be investigating Whitewater -- an issue for which the Clintons were later exonerated.
Granted, the Plame case is far from being over, unfortunately. So the story isn't finished yet. And if we've learned anything in politics, it's that anything is possible, even if it seems unreal.
No Way, Dude! My blog is worth more than $30,000? Um, any takers? (via Centerfield)
My blog is worth $31,614.24.
How much is your blog worth?
Thud: Executive privilege has now become the greatest excuse known to man. Clinton used it during the Lewinsky scandal. Now Bush is using it as a mulligan.
Of course, everybody knows that Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination for the Supreme Court because she was in over her head. The bipartisan consensus was that she was not qualified, and the scant amount of information available about her record made her nomination a scary prospect. Still, the White House maintains that she withdrew to protect lawyer-client confidentiality.
I hate to see all this happen. I'm sure Miers is an intelligent woman and a good lawyer. The fact that she was pushed into the deep end and unprepared to fight the ensuing piranha attacks is the president's fault. Bush made a bad choice. His credibility is hurt, and he has also mired the reputation of a good friend by putting her in that situation.
The Senate has come out looking strong, especially the Republicans for refusing to be a rubber stamp for the president. This, I'm afraid, may lead to a new nominee who is overtly conservative. That's what the base wants, and Bush doesn't have much political capital left to do otherwise.
I'm just curious who will be willing to be Bush's second choice. Hopefully the lure of becoming a justice on the top court in the land will overshadow the fact that the next nominee is filling in for Harriet Miers. And then, we'll still have a tough confirmation battle to fight.
Look Out! After Syria has been found to have possibly been involved in a political assassination, President Bush wants to convene the United Nations for a response.
I would say that it's about time for Bush to do something about Syria. But I'm a little nervous, looking at Bush's popularity plummet, wondering whether he may overreact to remind everyone that he's a wartime president. There are few things scarier than a desperate politician.
I'll be out of town most of next week. Y'all tell me how it goes.
No News is Good News: BobJYoung at Centerfield is tired of the hype about hype. Bloggers and critics rail against the media for alarmist stories about Y2K, SARS, and a litany of other maladies -- all of which were duds.
Well, he says, that's because the added attention helped raise awareness and allowed people to do something about it before it became a catastrophe. Ask any computer expert about Y2K, and they'll tell you that it took a lot of work to make sure everything ran smoothly. The media likes to hype the problem, but not the solution.
Interesting take on the panicky press. Read the whole thing and join the discussion.
Relatively Peaceful: Drudge links to a report saying that the number of wars and violent conflicts in the world has been decreasing lately. That's fine and good unless you're currently in a war. In case you need a reminder, here's a roundup of news and images about the genocide in Darfur.
Strategery: President Bush has pledged to kick every single illegal immigrant out of this country. Yup, all 11-million of them.
This crackdown seems to be an appeal to the conservative base, which is still dumbfounded by the whole Harriet Miers nomination. But it's meaningless rhetoric. Nothing can come of it. This would be like pledging to put all criminals behind bars.
But the pledge has consequences. Bush, I assume, still wants to go ahead with his immigrant-worker program. Under the plan, illegals could continue to work legally if they register with the government, all on the promise that they might be given legal status someday. However, now that Bush has made it clear that he wants them all gone, don't expect too many more illegals to come out of hiding and let Uncle Sam know what they're up to.
Bush is hurting in the polls. Fair or not, he has been hurt by Katrina and Rita. Although the economy is doing well, the hurricanes have slowed some of that expansion, and have added to overall inflation with skyrocketing gasoline and energy costs. And the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer Bush's saving grace. He's looking for some other peg to capture the nation's attention.
But this is beyond a flip-flop. President Bush is doing what we call, floundering.
They're on to me: I've ranted before against the annoying fundraising drives conducted by public radio stations. However, because we have two stations in DC that play NPR, I would normally switch back and forth between the two while the other was fundraising.
Now, both 88.5-WAMU and 90.9-WETA are fundraising at the same time. That means neither of them are playing any news. All we get are the soft-spoken broadcasters whining endlessly about how they need money.
I still argue that these public radio stations should be allowed to play commercials. I know they're nonprofit, but they already have corporate sponsorship from the likes of Wal-Mart and other businesses. Their hands are forever tainted with the green of corporate money -- take advantage of it.
Most people would rather hear a 30 second jingle on occasion than a solid two weeks of all whining and no content. Commercials are at least designed to be somewhat entertaining.
Oh well, at least the Classic Rock station is playing music in the morning. I'll just listen to that until this is over and done with.
The Devil in Disguise: A Prince William County, Virginia, school official has decided the marching band must stop playing a rendition of Charlie Daniel's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" because of the song's controversial subject matter.
After the devil went down to Georgia, it seems, he got censored in Prince William County.When I first read that, I assumed that it must be another goddamn right-wing Christian do-gooder trying to save us from even the mention of anything salacious or evil. But that's not the case.
This time it's a godless left-wing PC nut who believes the song violates the separation of church and state. He wrote a letter saying as much, and the band director immediately took the song out of the music lineup.
In this case, it's nearly unanimous that the lone dissenting voice shouldn't be taken seriously, and the school official overreacted badly. Even the guy who wrote the letter says things got carried away.
Still, isn't it funny how easy it is to confuse the extreme Right and the extreme Left? Their tactics and their goals blend imperceptibly into one big mess.
Awww: Red State Romance. Complete with a spelling error.
Spotlight: Things have been busy here. That, and I haven't been able to find much to blog about. The news is dominated by the Harriet Miers nomination, the conservative backlash, and the Republican division. The blogosphere is seems to echo the mainstream media -- overkill on reporting some issues, not enough attention to others.
Let's put these news stories in perspective. The Coalition for Darfur reminds us that thousands of people are being murdered in Sudan.
Katrina and Darfur
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last month, the American public was privy to 'round-the-clock media coverage of the disaster, especially of stories relating to the extraordinarily difficult living conditions faced by those who had been unable to evacuate. Thousands of people were left without food or water for days; their homes and cities destroyed, they were left to fend for themselves, trapped in squalid conditions and at the mercy of roving gangs of well-armed criminals.
As it turned out, many of the more horrific stories were later found to be false. Yet for the people of Darfur, the horrors that befell the people of New Orleans have become a way of life.
For more than two years, nearly 2-million people have been relegated to displacement camps across Darfur, with limited access to food, water and medical attention. They live in makeshift tents that provide little shelter from the elements, and in constant fear of rape, looting, and death at the hands of the Janjaweed militia.
An aid worker and blogger known only as Sleepless in Sudan, who has been working in Darfur for six months, has been kind enough to provide this assessment of the conditions in which the displaced are now living ("Sleepless" has chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect herself and the agency for which she works from the very real threat of retribution from the Sudanese government):People are living inside temporary shelters, covering their branch or wooden huts (those who have been there longer have built mud brick ones) with plastic sheeting from the aid agencies, and even this has often already been torn apart by the rains. Everyone sleeps on the floor, sometimes in puddles -- 10 people in a little shelter is not unusual, more is common.While the United States government was blamed for a poor response to the Katrina catastrophe, the government of Sudan is directly responsible for the catastrophe in Darfur. And whereas the state and federal governments are now in the process of cleaning up, and will soon begin the process of rebuilding, the devastated Gulf Coast, the people of Darfur currently have no prospects of ever being able to leave the camps because insecurity is still rampant.
Now that the aid agencies are operating in many camps there is regular water supply, there are latrines, there are medical clinics and most importantly, there is a monthly food distribution of staple grains and things like oil -- but this does not mean people have it easy. This season has brought many floods and people have lost their belongings or even shelters, huts and latrines sometimes collapsed in the rains, and the food is never enough (and people have to scramble for things like fresh vegetables themselves anyway, as these are not included in the distribution). Malnutrition inside the camps is still high.
Overall, I would say conditions are adequate for survival -- though some camps (especially the ones further away from big cities) are a lot worse off than others (Abu Shouk, for example, has dozens of aid agencies, while places just a few hours outside of it have one or two). Whether they are adequate for what you would consider a normal life is debatable -- I would say absolutely not, and I have no doubts any American would find them a lot more "unacceptable" than New Orleans.
I suppose the worst part of living in the camps is having absolutely no idea how much longer you will be there (many people have already been there for two years) and also constantly having to worry that you will be attacked -- Aro Sarow showed us that even large scale attacks and killings inside IDP camps are still a threat. In many camps -- Kalma, Tawila, etc. -- it is part of everyday life to hear shooting at night, and in nearly all of them it is still very dangerous to wander outside and carry out chores like collecting firewood. Knowing that you are constantly at risk of looting and assault is be an easy thing to live with.
In the last few weeks, there have been a series of attacks on villages and camps that have created several thousand new refugees. In addition, nearly 40 African Union troops and workers were kidnapped over the weekend and, in a separate incident, five members of the AU force were ambushed and killed. And even if a semblance of peace does ever come to the region, the people of Darfur have nothing to return to, as their villages and homes have been utterly destroyed while their land and possessions have been stolen.
The post-Hurricane nightmare faced by the victims of Katrina has been the reality in Darfur for more than two years -- and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Lesson in History: Aside from the likeable Roberts, George W. Bush has made other questionable judicial appointments in the past. As governor, he passed over a qualified appellate judge waiting next in line to become chief justice of the Court of Appeals for the Third District of Texas, and instead he appointed a lawyer who was former chairman of the Travis County Republican Party and who had no previous judicial experience.
In Texas, the governor appoints judges with no legislative confirmation. However, Texans vote directly to elect all judges. And in the next election, the voters removed the Bush appointee from office and gave the appellate judge her expected promotion.
In the Miers case, the people don't have a vote. But the Senate does. And it appears likely that Republicans and Democrats alike aren't going to put up with cronyism this time either.
Wake-Up Call: I have a strange confession to make. I've always thought the most ideal job in the world would be Supreme Court justice. Lifetime employment, lots of time off, and you get to set the law to be whatever you damn well want it to be. I even had a dream one night a few years ago that I was nominated to be a justice. There was some controversy in the dream about the fact that I didn't even have a law degree, let alone judicial experience. But, hey, it was just a silly dream, right?
Maybe dreams can come true. While Bush hasn't done anything as nutty as nominating me, he hasn't done much better with this random chick he's chosen. I know some observers say that we need justices who dwell outside the isolated world of circuit courts, but Harriet Miers is a political crony who has remained hidden in Bush's back office for years.
What surprises me though is the skepticism among conservatives. They need reassurance that Miers is a right-wing nut like them. It seems obvious to me that they have nothing to worry about. Newspapers were able to determine within seconds of her nomination that this woman is strongly pro-life. My guess is that Bush chose this stealth nominee because he wanted to try to slip a rabid right-winger under the radar.
Moderates and liberals are the ones who should be most concerned. We don't know how far to the right Miers is. Granted, Bush chose a well-qualified conservative with Roberts, so the president has some history of making a sane choice in this regard. But the whole, "trust me, that's all I can tell you about my business" Michael Corleone thing is a little unnerving.
Here's a roundup of reaction from The Reaction.
Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler: I got to see New Orleans and the surrounding areas. You've heard all the horror stories and seen the footage, so I won't bore you with tales of destroyed homes and toppled trees.
I am happy to report that Louisiana continues to be the friendliest place on Earth. The people I talked to are tired and frustrated, but they're holding on to their optimism. It may take some time, but the great city of New Orleans will bounce back.
On the Run: I'll be out most of next week. I'm heading down to Louisiana to cover the rebuilding efforts after Katrina and Rita. I'll let you know what I see. Take care.
Explain Yourself: Al Qaeda terrorists were recently arrested in France for planning to bomb the French subway (via Power Line). This comes more than a year after a bomb was found on a French rail line but was disarmed before it could cause any damage. Al Qaeda is also suspected of planting the bomb that was found on Spanish rail lines a month after the original Madrid bombings, and after Spain promised to withdraw troops from Iraq.
Any talk that the London bombings or the Australian attacks are reaction to those countries' involvement in Iraq is entirely inconsistent with what Al Qaeda has been saying and what Al Qaeda has been doing. All of us in Western Civilization are targets. There's nothing we can do to make the terrorists mad, because they already are mad. There's nothing we can do to stop them from getting mad, because they already are mad. The only thing we can do is defeat them.
Inescapable: I'm not sure what you have to do to get the United Nation's attention nowadays. Break their sanctions, they do nothing. Commit mass genocide, they do nothing. I'd honestly like to think that liberal and conservative commenter alike can agree that the miserable failure Google bomb belongs with the United Nations. An update from the Coalition for Darfur.
Anarchy and the UN
As Darfur descends into anarchy, the United Nations appears unable to do any more than express concerns and continue to ask the parties involved to cease their violent attacks.
After rebels attacked and took control of the town of Sheiria last week, the Sudanese army said it was prepared to retake the town, to which the rebels replied that they would "repulse anything from the Sudanese government's army."
The upsurge in violence forced thousands more out of the villages, swelling the ranks of the internally displaced that already numbers nearly 2-million.
As the violence was raging, even the UN's own Special Representative Jan Pronk, a man who tends to see everything in Sudan through rose-colored glasses, was forced to admit that the violence was spiraling out of control. He was joined by the US government, which stated that the "uptick in violence ... is of concern to us" and the UN's genocide advisor, Juan Mendez, who acknowledged that Khartoum had done little to disarm militias or end the "culture of impunity" that exists in Darfur.
Pronk went on to state that the UN must give the Sudanese government and rebels an ultimatum to compel them to reach some sort of peace agreement and even made the startling admission that, thus far, the UN has utterly failed to deal with Darfur:Pronk said that when the Darfur conflict began U.N. humanitarian officials agitated for the Security Council to take up the conflict, which it refused to do.Pronk was quoted elsewhere as saying:
A "massive force" was needed [in 2003] then to guarantee security but instead several thousand African Union troops and monitors had to carry the burden. And now the council needed to plan for how to keep the peace in case a peace deal was signed.He said the war situation in Sudan was "everybody's failure" and could have been avoided if the international community had acted quickly.Of course, the international community did not act quickly, nor are they acting quickly now.
How could the present day situation have been avoided?
"I think there should have been intervention in 2003," Pronk said, adding that while the occurrence of genocide in the country was debatable, "There was mass slaughter of people. It needed humanitarian intervention."
In fact, while Darfur burned, the BBC reported that American and British intelligence officials, along with representatives of the UN, China and 12 African nations were in Khartoum discussing cooperation on counter-terrorism operations in the region.Hosting the conference is part of a sustained diplomatic push by Sudan to shake off its pariah status ... When the opportunity for this second regional conference on counter-terrorism came up, Sudan competed for the right to host it ... The decision of the CIA to agree to come to Sudan shows the pragmatism of the intelligence community against the continuing political desire of America to punish Sudan for what has happened in Darfur.Khartoum continues to work to "shake off its pariah status," with Sudanese Ambassador Khidir Haroun Ahmed publishing an op-ed in the Washington Times today claiming that "After two decades of brutal civil war, Sudan is emerging as a reminder that engagement, dialogue and intensive diplomacy can resolve seemingly intractable problems and permit a country to look to the future with optimism."
Meanwhile, the violence and anarchy Khartoum unleashed is now spilling over into neighboring Chad, a country that is already host to an estimated 200,000 refugees from Darfur:A group of unidentified armed men in military uniform crossed into Chad from Sudan early on Monday, killing 36 herders and stealing livestock, the Chadian government said.The violence, in addition to threatening the people of Darfur, is also threatening the relief work that sustains them, as U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland noted yesterday:"If it (the violence) continues to escalate, we may not be able to sustain our operations for 2.5-million people requiring life-saving assistance," he said, adding: "In Darfur, it (aid distribution) could all end tomorrow. It is as serious as that."As Eric Reeves never fails to remind us, in December 2004, Egeland warned that 100,000 people could die a month if humanitarian organizations are forced to suspend operations in Darfur.
Despite all of this, Pronk still managed to recently declare that progress was being made on implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and South and on efforts to reach peace in Darfur.
Such a statement is utterly feckless and shameful.
As Gerald Caplan, author of "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide," wrote last week:But what we are learning from Darfur, which we never remotely imagined, is that even naming a genocide is an utterly inconsequential exercise in hot air ... despite the apparent concern of many western leaders, despite the pressure from elements of civil society, the catastrophe in Darfur is explicitly allowed to continue ... As always, everything takes precedence over the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of distant, exotic others. It won't be the last time."After two years, 400,000 deaths, and an estimated 3.5 million now entirely dependent on humanitarian aid, it must be stated that the UN and every one of its member nations have failed the people of Darfur and, in all likelihood, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Caught Sitting in Front of the White House Too Long? Tom DeLay has been indicted on conspiracy charges, and he is temporarily stepping down from his leadership position. I call for a loooong, in-depth investigation during this trial. That way, no matter what the final result, Tom DeLay will cease to be House Majority Leader for as long as possible.
I say that tongue in cheek of course. We all know that the World's Biggest Asshole will continue running things from the dark corner in which he lurks.
Gung Ho: I don't know if Bush is panicking from his low approval ratings, overreacting to the whopping criticism he got from the Katrina issue, or is being an opportunistic fool.
But now he wants to put the Pentagon in charge of domestic disaster responses. This almost seems like the type of government fallacy that goes something along the lines of:
We must do something.There's a reason why the military should stick to destroying things. I don't want our armed forces having a larger presence in domestic affairs any more than they have to. Now, they do have a role in the domestic portion of War on Terrorism, because it is a war that's being fought, in part, on U.S. soil. But natural disasters, while they have some similar characteristics to unnatural ones, are a different breed. We can fix FEMA without militarizing it.
This is something.
Therefore, we must do this.
The military operates as a force that doesn't mesh well with a free society. Granted, in major disasters you sometimes have to temporarily curtail some rights. But militarizing every big disaster is overkill. Plus, I don't want the military to become the default answer for every domestic problem in the future.
Enough! I really didn't approve of Cindy Sheehan before, but I sympathized with her being the mother of a dead soldier. Now after her concocted arrest, I have lost all respect for that woman.
It's one thing to for a mother to embarrass her son when he's still alive. It's reprehensible for her to dishonor Casey after he's dead. Casey Sheehan was not some child victimized by President Bush. He was an adult who volunteered to join the military, finished his tour of duty, then re-enlisted to continue fighting in Iraq. He believed in what he was doing.
Cindy started this whole scene by trying to meet with the president -- even though Bush had already met with her and spoken with her. Now she's just trying to bring attention to herself. She has become a media whore, barely able to stand the few moments that the news focuses on hurricanes and more noteworthy stories, that she has to go and pull a stunt like this.
Cindy Sheehan and the rest of the "antiwar" protesters from over the weekend are a bunch of frauds. These people aren't against war. They are just for the other side. They vocalize support for the terrorists and insurgents and celebrate every downturn in our fight.
I'm not saying that as some right-wing, if-you-don't-vote-for-Bush-you-hate-America nut. The liberals I know love this country -- they are critical of the war effort because they want us to win, and they don't like how Iraq is being handled. But many of the left-wing nuts who gathered this past weekend really do hate America. But for some reason the press doesn't have the balls to report this, and actually tries to depict these people as ordinary Americans. This is a complete lie.
It's a shame that these people have such loud voices and command so much attention from the media. There is a valid debate to be had about the war. Unfortunately, the voices we hear are those who support the enemy and hope they defeat our American troops.
Oops: Hamas terrorists accidently blow themselves up during a celebration in Gaza. Children were among the casualties. I only hope that the Palestinian people will now see what stupidity they have fighting in their name.
Shot Down: The NRA filed a lawsuit against New Orleans officials for seizing guns from law-abiding citizens, and it appears the group has won a temporary injunction while the case is being tried. No more guns are to be taken without valid reason.
I hope that this case is appealed to a high enough level that it sets a precedent for these types of situations. It would be nice for the Supreme Court to maintain that state or federal government is not allowed to disarm the population without due cause, especially when people are left vulnerable because regular law enforcement duties cannot be carried out.
Slow Motion: It's taking 16 hours for Houston residents to drive to Dallas. That's a trip that can usually be done in four. Cars are being abandoned on the road as they run out of gas. At least Houston officials have opened southbound lanes on Interstate-45 to northbound traffic. Still, there's no way that all of these people will be able to escape in time. All we can do is hope for the best, and say a little prayer.
Who's Acting Like Children Here? I'm scanning Amazon.com for children's books. My niece is turning 3, and she loves to read -- or at least look at the pictures while Mommy reads to her. In addition to the classics are some new books that have become popular within the Amazon rankings, including No, George, No! The Re-Parenting of George W. Bush and Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed!
In case your kids aren't indoctrinated enough, you can teach them valuable lessons of mistrust by depicting our president as a malicious doofus.
This is a book about a President named George who has a dream. In this dream, George becomes a little boy, and he meets a Truth Fairy who is trying to teach him lessons about How to not manipulate the Media, How to treat Veterans, How to be honest, How to be respectful with families who have lost soldiers in war, How to go to War only when necessary, How not to label people as Boogeymen, How not to invade countries, How to control greed, How to hold fair elections, and How to behave as a leader.And while painting is fun for kids, they should have even more fun learning to paint political enemies in broad brush strokes that are easy to vilify.
This full-color illustrated book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland.Luckily my family isn't at all political, so my nieces won't be getting either of these books. I think I'll just stick with Harold and the Purple Crayon.