oh, and remember to use bugmenot.com to get into any of the newspapers I link to that require registration.
anyway, suicide girls controversy will get the sick among the pure treatment next issue.. in this issue, they talk directly with Missy, of Suicide Girls. I can't help but think of this article: Natural-Born Liars - Why do we lie, and why are we so good at it? Because it works.
set that aside. Right now there's more turmoil and insanity to focus on.. as Howard Campbell pointed out: President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. Miers is a long-time political appointee, campaign counsel, personal lawyer and Bush loyalist who has never served as a judge. And according to think progressive:
...what she lacks in experience she makes up for in devotion. Here is what the National Review’s David Frum had to say about Miers last week:
In the White House that hero worshipped the president, Miers was distinguished by the intensity of her zeal: She once told me that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met.
As loath as I am to admit it, I side with George Will on this issue:
(Bush) has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments about competing approaches to construing the Constitution. Few presidents acquire such abilities in the course of their prepresidential careers, and this president, particularly, is not disposed to such reflections.
Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers’ nomination resulted from the president’s careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers’ name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists.
In addition, the president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked in advance — to insure a considered response from him — whether McCain-Feingold’s core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, ‘‘I agree.’’ Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, ‘‘I do.’’
It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court’s role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president’s choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends.
Yeah. That's right, neoconservative George Will even understands the absurdity of making a supreme court justice of a woman who's never been a judge.
And the real reason she is landing this job, beyond the Evangelical Christian veil draped lovingly about her by the right?
Harriet Miers -- keeper of the President's skeleton closet.
In the run-up to George W. Bush's 1988 campaign, Bush's people paid Harriet Miers $19,000 to review his military records, which are, to this day, mysteriously incomplete. This wasn't the first time Miers has been accused of helping protect
Bush's military record. She was also accused in a lawsuit of using a Texas Lottery Commission contract to buy the silence of former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes about the assistance that he gave in placing Bush in the Air National Guard. Barnes kept that secret until 1999, when he was forced to testify under oath about his involvement in getting Bush a position in the Texas Air National Guard.
posted by insomnia_lj to metafilter
Meanwhile, in texas...
In Texas, The Hammer Runs Into an Anvil
DeLay Prosecutor Says Case Isn't Personal
DeLay, whom Earle charged with conspiring to funnel illegal corporate campaign contributions into the state's 2002 legislative elections, has been forced to temporarily abdicate his post as House majority leader...
In "The Big Buy," an assistant district attorney in Earle's office, Rosemary Lehmberg, says that Earle has pursued the DeLay case despite objections within the office. "Ronnie was the only person in maybe a group of six or seven lawyers in a room who thought we ought to go ahead and investigate," she says.
"One of these guys is not going to come out of this," Keel said, referring to Earle's prosecution of DeLay. He predicts it will be Earle who doesn't.
Not so, says Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), who served briefly in the state legislature with Earle in the mid-1970s.
"He would not bring this case, at what is probably the end of his career, unless it was a case with great merit," Doggett said.
Earle says he has no choice. He was hoping to retire last year, he says, but felt he could not abandon this case.
"The issue that we're faced with is the role of large concentrations of money in democracy, whether it's individuals or corporations," he said. "The issue is the same."
I really want to get a copy of Fog Facts, Larry Beinhart's new book. As Ben Mack puts it:
Beinhart, in no uncertain terms, says that our administration has created this mas delusion in a meditated and calculated fashion. From the man who introduced us to fuckupology comes a structured and sincere analysis of how and why so many Americans are so misinformed.
How does all of this link together? Well, now you know. That's how.
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