George Will To Deliver Bombshell This Weekend
Rod Dreher at NRO’s The Corner is warning of another George Will piece on Miers this weekend (hat tip to Hugh Hewitt):
…[I]f I were a pro-Miers Republican, I would dread getting out of the bed and opening the paper on Sunday. It’s that powerful.
I must say, I’m beginning to tip towards no on Miers, but it’s not because of the hysterics of the ‘hardcore faithful’, but because of troubling facts, not in her past, but in her present. I’m speaking of the poor impression she is making with the Senate, summed up well by Michelle Malkin here. Miers, more than any nominee I can think of in the recent past, really needs to hit one out of the park during the hearings, a dubious proposition, at best…
Mark: I think you’re right about the hearings but did you read Starr and Cass in the WSJ today supporting Miers for being pro-business? I’ve got to say in the final analysis, this, and the fact that she’s pro-executive on war issues, are probably the reasons why Bush nominated her.
I could live with pro-business and pro-war as conservative credentials.
The Odds on Miers
According Newsfutures (a predictive market), Harriet Miers’ chances of becoming Justice Miers in 2005 have fallen in recent days to 29%. So, maybe there is hope after all. Maybe our system is allowing the wisdom of the crowd to overtake the grou…
AE, I haven’t read that piece yet…I’ll check it out…
What the hell is going on with the “morally superior” Republican conservatives? They have been reduced to cannibalism; the rest of us can only watch, aghast at the feeding frenzy as they rush to eat their own. But whether it’s the Snake or Sissy Hawk they’re eating they’ll still be left with a nasty fiscal hangover to go along with that case of moral indigestion.
Understandably cranky over the 5 year fiscal screwing they have been taking from their “allies” in the White House and GOP congressional majority, the Miers nomination has seemed to unleash years of pent-up frustration; but this time they’re not aiming at those of us whom they view as their moral lessers, they’re aiming at each other!
Well sure, they seem to understand that Bush and his congressional buddies have increased non-defense/security discretionary spending at a rate greater than Lyndon Johnson, but red staters soothe themselves with thoughts of big batches of well-protected stem cells. Sure, they rationalize, Bush and the congressional republicans have replaced the massive program of income re-distribution to those (like themselves) who actually need it with a program of massive re-distribution of wealth to those who don’t need it, but red staters soothe themselves with the knowledge that Bush and the GOP majority despise gays as much as they do. Sure, they rationalize, Bush and the GOP congressional majority want to cut health insurance for the poor and elderly (which benefits 75% of them) to lock in the capital gains tax cut (which benefits only the top 1% of wage earners), but they’ll end the massive epidemic of flag burning in the country, won’t they? Besides, God is on the side of Bush and the GOP, isn’t he? It’s a strange case of moral dwarfism that allows these nice supposedly Christian folks to mortgage their present for so-called moral reasons while passing the very real costs of Bush’s spending binge on to their children and grandchildren. Whether they’ll get their moral reward seems to be up in the air; what’s a virtual lock is that their kids and grandkids will be left holding the bag.
Well, God if is on the side of the GOP, he seems at the very least to have something of a odd sense of humor. They’re quick to note that God saw fit to punish the country for our decadence by taking out New Orleans, ground zero in the front against moral decay. They conveniently forget to note that God swung Katrina over south Alabama and Mississippi, 2 of the most conservative states in the Union. He even destroyed Trent Lott’s house, what’s up with that? If (as their religious leaders tell them) God hates the “gay lifestyle” why the hell doesn’t he take out San Francisco with a well-placed earthquake? If gay marriage is an affront to their God, why doesn’t God send a category 5 hurricane to wipe out Massachusetts? Instead he wiped out one of the most solidly Christian sections of the country! Jesus loves you, this I know; but he has a curious way of showing you so.
And why doesn’t God smite those who are after that pious money-launderer Tom DeLay? And those who are after Karl Rove, who as they well know sitteth at the right hand of their political God GW Bush? And what of those who are after Scooter Libby, who sitteth at the right hand of Bush’s Dick?
The political right is nothing if not compliant. They have dutifully sat on their hands, compliantly absorbing an unprecedented fiscal screwing by their so-called conservative political leaders. “Take your screwing like a man,” they’ve been told by the GOP; “we’ll make it up to you when we have an opportunity to do so on “moral issues.”
But the Miers nomination seems to have triggered a firestorm. Is it because they have been betrayed by their moral leaders over the failure to deliver the moral goods? Or is it that perhaps they have come to realize that the leadership in the White House and GOP Congressional majority is not so moral after all? After all, what sort of curious morality allows Bush and his conservative cabal to offer their supporters limp-wristed reassurance of doing their moral heavy lifting while at the same time lifting their wallets? And weren’t red staters given to believe that, since they elected them on moral issues, that the GOP leadership wouldn’t just be another pack of corrupt liars and scumbags?
So alas, the SS Bushtanic lists alarmingly to starboard, piloted by a leader who increasingly seems to have lost his way. The jackbooted neo-fascists who form the core of the party rush to scuttle the foul craft while conservative moderates impotently wring their hands trying to decide whether to do as they are told and rearrange the deck chairs or whether to rush for the lifeboats while there’s still time. Christ would suggest that women and children be the first to flee, but even he has never had to face a pack of self-righteous self-deceivers who seem to have come all at once to the realization that they have been fiscally screwed by their so-called leaders, and in Christ’s name to boot!
And so the band played on, but despite Bush’s suggestion to play “Happy Days are here Again” the song sounds more like a dirge. Even for those like myself who are grateful that Bush and his intellectually lazy self-deceiving pseudo-moralist supporters are finally getting their well-deserved comeuppance it’s hard to be too happy. After all, it’s my country, my constitution, they’ve been seeking to undermine…and they’re still at it!
I’m sorry, phil, was this your submission to The Nation? “Jackbooted neo-fascists”? Maybe it was the Huffington Post you thought you were replying to. Sorry, we’re fresh out of progressive nonsense today…but you’re in the running for the Weekly Jackass, no doubt…
The “SS Bushtanic?” “jackbooted neo-fascists … rearrange the deck chairs??”
Those Lefties never met a metaphor they didn’t want to mix.”
Commissar, that’s rich, isn’t it? I had to read it twice to make sure it wasn’t a parody…
I don’t want to pile on Phil, nor do I want to defend him. I only wish to point out that it is unfortunate when any side of an issue assumes the mantle of moral superiority. Liberals can point to plenty of conservative Republicans who are ethically challenged: Nixon, Agnew, Thurmond, Gingrich, Bill Bennett, Rush Limbaugh, etc. The right can point to Clinton and Rostenkowski (OK, there must be others, they just don’t come to mind).
Likewise, there are people who even the most die-hard partisans will admit have outstanding moral character (on the left: Jimmy Carter, Joe Lieberman, Mike Dukakis. On the right: Orren Hatch, John McCain, maybe even Rick Santorum).
Human frailty and human excellence are, I think, equally distributed across the political spectrum. To say that you are morally superior to someone you disagree with is an odious thing.
Phil,
Nice blog you’ve got there, but shouldn’t the “SS Bushtanic” be listing aport?
At any rate, good luck with your strange case of mental midgetism.
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Will Miers Make it To Hearings?
Harriet Miers has frustrated officials in Washington with an incomplete questionnaire. According to the Washington Post (hat tip: Michelle Malkin): Barely concealing their irritation during a 35-minute news conference at the Capitol, Chairman Arlen Spe…
So when do I get my jackboots anyway? I’ve been part of the VRWC since I was a kid supporting Reagan in 1980, and no one ever told me where to get my jackboots.