Shenanigans - AGAIN
Okay, the wedding is all behind me now. BUT, I'm home sick with a cold or flu or something. I just want to sleep. So this will probably be short.
One - Bush appoints Harriette Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Huwah? Now, I know that plenty of Supreme Court Justices have been appointed in the past without having any judicial experience, so there's ample precedent for that. But this one reeks of cronyism. Worse, it reeks of short-term thinking. Bush seems to be concerned only with having someone personally loyal to himself on the Court, and is not giving sufficient consideration to the fact that, barring unforseen circumstance, Miers will be on the Court and contributing to its decisions for probably the next thirty years. If she gets confirmed.
Because there's also rumblings from both sides of the spectrum that she's not what either fringe is looking for. There also seems to be the beginnings of fractures in the Republican party being exposed by this nomination. Apparently having learned nothing from the flailings of the Democrats over the last decade or so, the Republicans are now going to engage in self-destructive nonsense.
Ah well. Bush was never a real conservative anyway, so I suppose I should have seen this coming. The 2006 elections should be instructive, at least. Hopefully the Dems' continuing habit of telling half the electorate that they're stupid will continue to backfire on them. Then again, I expected a real ugly fight over the Roberts nomination and he sailed thru with barely a hiccup.
Two - Tom DeLay gets himself indicted again. The first one was the catch-all "conspiracy" thing, which looked very much like politically motivated "gotcha!" rubbish. But now there's actual money-laundering charges floating about. Of course, DeLay has stepped down from his leadership position as required by the Republicans' own rules. This is probably the end of his political career, since in this day and age the simple announcement of the indictment is taken as proof of guilt by the masses.
I myself am in the odd position of being married to someone who knows Tom DeLay in person, and she assures me that in real life he is an absolute asshole . . . arrogant, vindictive, and just plain nasty. Since I don't know him personally I have no basis to refute this assessment. Either way, it looks like the end of another once-mighty politico, brought down by dirty dealings.
How many more times are we going to see this circus played out? Is there no-one at the upper levels of government with clean hands? Both major parties have had their cases of exposed shenanigans bringing down bigshots. I wonder if the office corrupts the person, or if the person is already corrupt and just brings that to the office?
These things depress me, because I'd like to believe that the people running the country are trustworthy. Unfortunately, I'm shown time and again that they're just another bunch of idiots flailing about in a sea of their own incompetence. *sigh*
One - Bush appoints Harriette Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Huwah? Now, I know that plenty of Supreme Court Justices have been appointed in the past without having any judicial experience, so there's ample precedent for that. But this one reeks of cronyism. Worse, it reeks of short-term thinking. Bush seems to be concerned only with having someone personally loyal to himself on the Court, and is not giving sufficient consideration to the fact that, barring unforseen circumstance, Miers will be on the Court and contributing to its decisions for probably the next thirty years. If she gets confirmed.
Because there's also rumblings from both sides of the spectrum that she's not what either fringe is looking for. There also seems to be the beginnings of fractures in the Republican party being exposed by this nomination. Apparently having learned nothing from the flailings of the Democrats over the last decade or so, the Republicans are now going to engage in self-destructive nonsense.
Ah well. Bush was never a real conservative anyway, so I suppose I should have seen this coming. The 2006 elections should be instructive, at least. Hopefully the Dems' continuing habit of telling half the electorate that they're stupid will continue to backfire on them. Then again, I expected a real ugly fight over the Roberts nomination and he sailed thru with barely a hiccup.
Two - Tom DeLay gets himself indicted again. The first one was the catch-all "conspiracy" thing, which looked very much like politically motivated "gotcha!" rubbish. But now there's actual money-laundering charges floating about. Of course, DeLay has stepped down from his leadership position as required by the Republicans' own rules. This is probably the end of his political career, since in this day and age the simple announcement of the indictment is taken as proof of guilt by the masses.
I myself am in the odd position of being married to someone who knows Tom DeLay in person, and she assures me that in real life he is an absolute asshole . . . arrogant, vindictive, and just plain nasty. Since I don't know him personally I have no basis to refute this assessment. Either way, it looks like the end of another once-mighty politico, brought down by dirty dealings.
How many more times are we going to see this circus played out? Is there no-one at the upper levels of government with clean hands? Both major parties have had their cases of exposed shenanigans bringing down bigshots. I wonder if the office corrupts the person, or if the person is already corrupt and just brings that to the office?
These things depress me, because I'd like to believe that the people running the country are trustworthy. Unfortunately, I'm shown time and again that they're just another bunch of idiots flailing about in a sea of their own incompetence. *sigh*
posted by Lanz at 10:22 AM
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