Bush Is A Bush

EXCERPTS FROM MY CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOME RECENT E-MAIL THREADS.

ALL HAVE BEEN SLIGHTLY EDITED TO MAKE ME SOUND QUICKER ON MY FEET THAN I ACTUALLY AM.

The weird thought that keeps going through my head about Harriet Miers, based on nothing but my vivid imagination, is that the reason W- knows her so well, and the reason he keeps her so close at hand, is that Hariet Miers is George's AA sponsor.

(I use the term loosely, because I don't think W- is in a 12-step progam. W- insists that he got himself sober as part of his conversion, and I actually believe that. However he sobered up, someone has to be serving in some sort of "sponsor" role for him. And I betcha it's Harriet.)


YET ANOTHER E-MAIL

Why does anyone assume that a Supreme Court that was compelled to overturn Roe v Wade would just go back to the way things were, and return the decision making to the states?

Why go through the bother to take all the political heat of overturning Roe v Wade if abortion would just become legal in Vermont the next day?

On the day that Roe v Wade is overturned, it says here, the Court will find that the fundamental 14th Amendment right of the fetus means that abortion is illegal as a matter of Constitutional Law, and the individual states cannot be allowed to find otherwise.

The pre-1970 understanding of abortion as a states rights issue will be found to be just the primitive misunderstanding of simpler times.

Maybe they'll find it in a penumbra -- the fetus's right to privacy in the womb may not be disturbed


ANOTHER E-MAIL

I think the top ten reasons that Harriet Miers was nominated by Boy George.

10 -- I assume she'll vote to overturn, or at least severely limit, Roe v Wade.

9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 -- Executive Privilege. When the time comes and it will, to get Presidential information or documents or testimony on any number of things -- Valerie Plame, Abu Gharib, Gitmo, WMDs, Halliburton, the relationship to Tom DeLay -- don't expect any Paula Jones decision directing the President to testify about where his pimples are.

President and Vice President not above the law? Very quaint.

People like our old friend R--- thought it was time to remove the gloves and show the world that conservatives rule. Get your basic back to the Stone Ager (original intent -- South Carolina style.) R--- felt they had the votes. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. But we won't get the chance to find out just yet.

I don't think Bush is interested in making larger points about political philosophies -- about movement conservatism or God or anything else.

Bush is not a Republican, or an old-school Conservative, or a movement Conservative, or a religious nut job. Bush is a Bush. The point of the government is to enhance and enrich himself and the people in his circle. Everyone else can find their own countries to run.

It's nice to see the Republicans fight amongst themselves for a change.

ANOTHER E-MAIL

Let me clarify my point on Bush and the religious right. I don't think that Bush's religious conversion (or however he characterizes it) is insincere. I don't think that policy choices he makes based on his faith are insincere. However, the key factor in those choices is not his sense of service to the people of this country, or even simply to his political or religious base. It is not out of his love for his country, or out of his devotion to his faith. What drives his political choices is a desire to preserve the family business, and make it prosper. That is what I mean when I say that Bush is a Bush.

Bush has a divine right theory of himself. To some degree, he sees his election by the people as a reflecton of God's will. He sees himself as only the equal of other such "elects." This is why Bush's one public statement of apology for any harm that might have been done to anyone at Abu Gharib was made to the King of Jordan. It is one of the reasons why Bush has been more comfortable dealing with Bill Clinton than one would otherwise think. At one point God chose Bill Clinton, too.


By the way, why isn't Harriet Miers intellectually qualified to be on the Supreme Court? How does everyone know she has no intellectual heft? What difference does it make, anyway? How much intellectual heft, seriously, did Clarence Thomas have when he came onto the bench? How much has he needed since? I disagree with virtually everything Thomas says, but he has made himself clear, and that's really all that matters.

Will a coalition of moderate Republlcans and moderate Democrats provide the votes that W- needs to get this person confirmed? Will the liberal Democrats and the conservative Republicans vote her down?

Which "devil" will the holier-than-thou "movement conservatives" make their deal with?

Nerd Note -- Do you think that any of these "nomination" plays --- like The Best Man, or Advise and Consent --- have the permutations going on that this Miers nomination does?



ANOTHER E-MAIL

Clarence Thomas was not the best choice to be on the Supreme Court, but he was qualified. He had a career where he thought about some of these issues somewhat, and had a clear point of view. Harriet Miers is not the best choice, or the most qualified, but she's qualified enough. She has a client who is very much involved in constitutional law issues. It stands to reason that he may have discussed some of these with her.

You don't need to know the highlights of the 1987-88 term, like Chief Justice Roberts seems to. The Justices pick it up as they need it, and they have clerks and all other kinds of help.

I am way in front of Michael Moore on my "family business" theory of George W. I've been saying that ever since I laid eyes on that "rhymes-with-witch" who runs the place --- way back in the late '70s.

When W- answered that question about looking to the "higher" Father, he was responding to a question about why W would go into Iraq when Bush 41 didn't go into Iraq in 1991, and did not want to go in 2003. But they should have asked W- how Babs felt about it. Betcha W isn't looking to a Heaven when old Barbara gets to huffin' and puffin'.

I suspect, as you say, that the religious right and the movement conservatives will have no choice but to support Harriet Miers. But for these people, it is not enough that Miers will vote with them all of the time. They wanted a clear triumphant moment NOW. Something akin to the thrill they felt, and the shudder everyone else felt, when Ashcroft became the Attorney General. Bush has deprived them of that moment. And even if the religious right and the movement conservatives all support Miers, they will exact their revenge on Boy George somewhere down the line. Don't know how or when, but they will.

ANOTHER E-MAIL

Jack Balkin says this better than I do . That is why he is a con-law Professor at Yale and I ... am not.


ANOTHER E-MAIL ON ANOTHER TOPIC ENTIRELY

Andrew Sullivan on Ian Fishback and his role in trying to determine exactly how widespread the Abu Gharib mindset really is. It says a lot about me both good and bad -- but don't you think they should just let poor Lyndie English go home?

A FINAL THOUGHT ON JUDITH MILLER

If what is printed about you in your own newspaper is even slightly accurate, you should be Dick Cheney's first choice for the Supreme Court. I mean if loyalty is going to be prized as a value before all. You sit in jail until they can determine what you are going to say and when you are going to say it in a way most favorable for the cover-up. I said in a previous post that I wasn't sure if the special prosecutor was in this to indict or to carry water. But it looks like its going to be the latter. And I am going to be so so happy to be wrong if someone other than Judith Miller (and of course those CIA-operatives whose cover got blown) gets into any trouble over this whole Plamegate scandal.