RePackaging Miers

The White House is beginning to look more and more like the set of Saturday Night Live. Now that Conservatives and Liberals alike are criticizing Harriet Miers for failing to live up to Supreme Court standards, the White House spinmeisters are changing their approach. They've decided to back away from touting her religious affiliations and now wish to highlight her stellar career as a lawyer.

Unfortunately, that seems to be backfiring as well. In an effort to find evidence of legal prowess, all that's been turned up, it seems, is a stash of obsequious and poorly written invitations and thank you notes to high level officials--many of them written to George W. Bush. Here's a taste from a recent Washington Post article:

Here is one example, from a May 1996 letter asking George and Laura Bush to appear at a ceremony honoring her,  "I am respectful of both of your great many time commitments and I realize you receive many, many requests," she wrote. "Of course, I would be very pleased if either of you is able to participate. However, I will be pleased with your judgment about whether participating in this event fits your schedule whatever your decision. . . . I feel honored even to be able to extend this invitation to such extraordinary people." If that's not ass-kissing, I don't know what is.

Republican Senator Rick Santorum remained unmoved by Ms. Miers conciliatory tone. His comment appeared in another Post article, also published Saturday:

"I don't know yet," Santorum said, according to an account yesterday in the Public Opinion newspaper of Chambersburg, Pa. "But I am concerned President Bush nominated someone who is a blank slate. I'm disappointed he wanted to nominate someone like that instead of someone with a record."

Here's another sizzling example of her "tortuous prose," from a 1997 handwritten card, also courtesy of the Washington Post: "Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are 'cool' -- as do the rest of us. . . . All I hear is how great you and Laura are doing. . . . Keep up all the great work. Texas is blessed!"

Even pro-conservative political pundits are having a hard time standing by Ms. Miers. Here's what Times' columnist David Brooks had to say about columns Miers wrote in the early 1990s, when she was president of the State Bar of Texas. "The quality of thought and writing doesn't even rise to the level of pedestrian."

Meanwhile, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card responded to the intense criticism of Miers by political pundits, lawyers and activists by saying that he was "a little surprised that they came out of the box so cynically." Card also denied having had to "shout down opposition" to the Miers appointment in staff meetings. "That is fiction," he said, "and I live in a nonfiction world." (Odd that the distinction between reality and fantasy was not so apparent in the lead up to the Iraq war.)

So to all those Conservatives who keep saying that Bush picked Miers to avoid a fight, all I can say is: it didn't work very well, did it?

Manuel Miranda, head of a coalition of conservative and libertarian groups that oppose the Miers nomination put it plainly: "Right now the base is completely fractured and people are very concerned about the impact on the 2006 elections. The troubling thing is that the Supreme Court was the gold ring and the president's thinking appears indiscernible, unless you're willing to take it as a matter of faith." Funny how the faith thing keeps coming up, isn't it?

The Marriage of Church and State

I have a conservative friend (or two) and they've been quick to point out that the nomination of Harriet Miers is a huge disappointment because, in their opinion, Miers is not a substantial enough candidate to warrant a Supreme Court nomination. Their feelings have been backed by plenty of other notable conservatives, among them, George Will.

Will, who appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulis last Sunday, stood behind his earlier comment, that if Bush had asked for the names of 10,000 qualified potential nominees for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers would not have appeared on anybody's list.

When asked why he thought Bush chose Miers for the high court, Will (and my conservative friends) all seemed to agree that it is because George Bush wants to avoid a fight. This is an interesting assumption, because if true (which I think is debatable) it presupposes that liberals will blindly accept the Miers nomination, despite the fact that there is virtually no information on which to rely to assess her qualifications for such a prominent appointment.

She's never been a judge, and though she has been White House Counsel since Alberto Gonzales was appointed Attorney General, her work has gone largely unnoticed. Sure, she battled the sexism that made all women of her generation work that much harder to succeed, and yes, she is a close personal friend to the president. But do those two things qualify her to sit on the highest court in the land? I think not. And I'm not alone.

But why, then, did President Bush nominate Harriet Miers? Here's my theory: he wants Harriet Miers to act as an extension of himself. He's not looking for a stellar thinker--he's looking for a loyal follower--who is as fanatical about evangelical Christianity, and the need to spread the word of God, as he is. Bush is seeking the very thing John Roberts is not: a Supreme Court nominee who will use the Bible, not the Constitution, as her guidebook.

Harriet Miers is not just a close friend of George W. Bush; she's a woman who, bound by religious zealotry, is determined to push her religious agenda. She is also the kind of woman who will staunchly stand by her man (meaning George W. Bush). In other words: she's just the kind of woman Bush likes best.

While pundits debate her merits, another loyal supporter and practitioner of the Tammy Wynette philosophy, First Lady Laura Bush, is tackling the resistance to the Miers' appointment by slapping the label of "sexist" on those who question Miers' qualifications. Mrs. Bush is quoted in Wednesday's Washington Post as saying that it's "possible" that questions about Miers's intellectual qualifications are "sexist" in nature. Mrs. Bush, a graduate of the Karl Rove School of Understated Slander, knows that a suggestion and a smile are more powerful than outright condemnation, and she's workin' it like a pro.

Meanwhile, nobody conservative or liberal is talking about what I believe is really going on here. That is, that our president is pushing a nominee to the Supreme Court who will work actively to promote a "culture of life" that includes reversing Roe v. Wade thus shoving George W. Bush's personal vision of democracy down our throats.

In short, George Bush is attempting to put in place an unqualified lackey whose sole loyalty will be to him and his twisted version of Christianity. I offer up, as evidence, some interesting moments in our President's history:

- When the tragedy of 9.11 occurred, President Bush used the word "crusade" and was strongly criticized for inciting the anger of Muslims the world over. He immediately stopped using the word, but he hasn't stopped preaching the message.

- In a New York Times article from April of 2004, David Sanger wrote that Bush "described an America chosen by God to spread freedom. He never used the word 'crusade' . . . But he described one."

- In October of 2004, Ron Suskind, in his New York Times Magazine piece Without a Doubt, quoted Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush. Bartlett said, ''Just in the past few months, I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.''

- On January 24, 2005, the Washington Post printed an article titled "Bush Hails Progress Toward 'Culture of Life'" in which Bush is quoted as saying the following, during a speech given at an anti-abortion rally: "'The America of our dreams, where every child is welcomed . . . in life and protected in law, may still be some ways away, but even from the far side of the river . . . we can see its glimmerings.'"

- On October 7, 2005, Bush was the subject of an extremely disturbing article in the UK's Guardian. Here's an excerpt:

George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.

Mr. Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did.'"

Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."

George W. Bush believes he is a modern-day prophet, and as such, he is obsessed with his own self-importance. Having given up drugs and alcohol, he has channeled his innate compulsivity into a self-delusional obsession with being a chosen spokesperson for the man upstairs.

Like Church of Latter Day Saints founder, Joseph Smith, a former fraud and charlatan who was booted out of one city after another for pretending to have skills he did not have, our President has taken a string of pathetic failures and turned them into a campaign to convince the world that he is somehow a conduit for the word of God.

The very fact that he is the President is all the proof Bush needs to continue to feed his own perverted concept of reality. He is the leader of the so-called "free world." By failing to see through his psychological disorder, the American people have validated his sick and twisted concept of himself and his place in the world. He has arrived; and there is no longer any possibility of a rational, sensible, response to his delusions of grandeur.

So, if you want to understand why George W. Bush has nominated an evangelical Christian with no judicial experience to be the next member of the Supreme Court, just listen to what Bush said on October 12, 2005, after an Oval Office meeting with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski:

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. And part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Make no mistake, our President is planning a marriage between church and state--and Harriet Miers is the blushing bride-to-be. -- Laurie

What a Week

The last week of September pretty much slipped by me. After getting behind on the news during the Labor Day weekend, then being inundated with pretty much nothing but the news of Katrina and the mind-boggling incompetence and callousness of the democratically-elected government that is supposed to be looking out for us, a lot of other stuff just got overlooked. So here's a recap of some of the things that you may also have missed, or perhaps merely glossed over.

PFC Lynndie England was convicted on six counts for her role in the infamous Abu Ghraib scandal: one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. England, who is best known for smiling while holding one detainee on a leash, and posing with others while they were in forced into humiliating positions (naked, piled atop one another, etc.) is only 22 years old.She has been described as having an "unusually pliant" personality. She is uneducated, appears to have below average intelligence. She was also having an affair, at the time the photos were taken, with then-Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., who is currently serving time for his part as the "ringleader" in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. Graner is also the father of England's son, and was her supervisor while at Abu Ghraib.

While she faces prison, the men responsible for a system that recruits the poor and ignorant and then places them in positions of power over those they've been taught to hate, while simultaneously failing to instill even the most basic checks on the abusive behavior those same ignorant lackeys are instructed to perform by their even more ignorant (but infinitely more experienced) "superiors" continue to operate with impunity.

Meanwhile, here in the States, a company named AdvoCare began marketing their newest product, a breakfast drink for kids. According to the New York Times, "The drink, called Spark, contains several stimulants and is sold in two formulations: one for children 4 to 11 years old that includes roughly the amount of caffeine found in a cup and a half of coffee, and one containing twice that amount for teenagers and adults."

AdvoCare is promoting the product as a "nutritional supplement" and says Spark is designed to help youngsters to "develop fully as a high-performance athlete" by filling "nutritional gaps." While AdvoCare claims that the drink contains a variety of helpful nutrients, critics are quick to point out that drugs containing caffeine are required, by law, to have a label on them, warning them not to be given to children under 12 years of age because "too much caffeine may cause nervousness, irritability, sleeplessness and, occasionally, rapid heartbeat."

Spark, considered a food, not a drug, requires no such label. The company, a direct marketing enterprise, is based in Texas. (Why does that not surprise me?)

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, that homosexual den of iniquity that makes most Texans blush, the Board of Supervisors has passed "the strongest anti-sweatshop legislation in the country." The legislation requires that tax dollars spent on uniforms, sheets and towels go to companies that pay their workers a fair minimum wage and provide safe working environments. It also forces companies to provide a guarantee that they will not employ children, foreign convicts or slave labor.

And in Washington, our nation's capital (fast becoming the religious center of the universe), FEMA, the organization that couldn't, is drafting plans to reimburse the faith-based organizations that could, and did, come to the rescue of thousands of displaced Hurricane Katrina victims. President Bush appears to have completely forgotten that charity means, well, charity. He is fixing to use federal tax dollars to reimburse organizations that voluntarily provided shelter, food, water and clothing to the homeless.

But he's only talking about reimbursing faith-based charities. Non-faith-based charitable contributions from folks like doctors (and various other groups and individuals) who showed up in New Orleans to help, when FEMA was conspicuously absent, will not be reimbursed. Of course, non-faith-based groups didn't really do all that much. In fact, one doctor up and left in the middle of administering to a patient. Of course, that's because FEMA forced him to stop--right before they sent him away. I guess he screwed up when he showed up, unannounced, and began to administer chest compressions to a dying woman. Apparently, he was supposed to have foreseen the need to register with FEMA before assisting in the disastermath; his valid medical license was not good enough for FEMA. They needed to be able to find him in their system--the same system that broke down entirely and did nothing for several days.

Yet faith-based groups (that hand out a bible with every meal) appear to have managed to avoid the scrutiny of FEMA. The Bush administration's position is clear: The doctor who practices only medicine and not evangelical Christianity is unnecessary during times of crises; however, the rank and file bible thumper is not only welcomed, but will be paid for his service--by you--the people of the democratically-elected government that has written into its Constitution that there must be a separation of church and state. Ah, but lest we forget: Bush is also from Texas.(As is Tom DeLay, who has now, finally, been indicted for something--it was really only a matter of time).

And last, but not least, on September 24, there was a large and well-organized march, in Washington, against the war. While TruthOut.org covered it in great detail (by the way, if you haven't already, please consider contributing to TruthOut.org--they need the money almost as much as we need them), the New York Times conveniently left out the numbers, saying only "vast numbers" of protesters converged on Washington.

I was surprised at the lack of detail, because the coverage from TruthOut made it look like a pretty big deal. So, I broke down a paid for a copy of the full archived Times article and came across this: "Organizers of the rally and march had a permit for100,000 people, but the National Park Service no longer provides official estimates for large gatherings in Washington."

Wow, no estimates for large gatherings in Washington. When did that happen? I guess it must have been about the time Bush and his buddies realized that numbers actually mean something.

There is more, of course, this is just the start. I figure I'm going to need to catch up a week at a time. I can't wait to find out what happened during the first week in October. -- Laurie