A supreme pick

What’s a disgruntled Democrat to do when the president nominates a respectable Republican to the highest court?

We learned last week when President Bush nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge John G. Roberts Jr. for the Supreme Court.

Bush introduced his choice for the nation’s 109th justice July 19 in a prime time East Room ceremony and, as they say, flipped the script.

A portrait of Roberts emerged as a lawyer and jurist who earned solid conservative credentials but built a strong resume. His profile exposes him as man with a sharp legal mind who knows how to temper his views with a dose of practicality. He is affable, charming, and most of all, fully qualified. He also passes the Norman Rockwell test, with a family that includes two precocious toddlers.

“Qualified and likeable, what do we do with that,” Dems wondered aloud.

I learned the next morning when I received this email dispatch from John Kerry:

“Dear Nate (Why does John think we are on a first name basis?),

This much is clear already. Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O’Connor (Don’t you like it when politicians point out the blatantly obvious?).

Last night we learned that President Bush wants to replace a woman who voted to uphold Roe v. Wade with a man who argued against Roe v. Wade, and that sends a clear signal that this White House remains bent on opening old wounds and dividing America.”

He “argued against Roe v. Wade” — there was the totality of John Kerry’s objection to Judge Roberts. We were expecting the second coming of Robert Bork and got a man who “argued against Roe v. Wade.”

Here is some free advice for John Kerry and his party: you won’t do any better than this. President Bush is not going to nominate a liberal or even a Sandra Day O’Connor. If you got a nominee who is known for being fair, you should be celebrating.

Here’s what you do, confirm Judge Roberts unanimously. Practically speaking, you won’t defeat him, and strategically it could pay dividends for you.

The Republicans have been doing a moderately successful job of painting Democrats as obstructionists. They have been hammering “liberals” for not giving nominees to lower courts an “up or down vote.” Confirm Judge Roberts unanimously, and you can silence all that nonsense.

Save your weapons for a candidate you know that you really can’t live with. If you confirm Judge Roberts, you will have credibility to wage appropriate battle against the next Robert Bork. No longer will anyone be able to paint you as an obstructionist because you will always be able to point at Judge Roberts and say, “give us a decent candidate and we have proved that we will do the right thing.”

Spend your political capital fighting someone that everyone acknowledges is fair and qualified, and Americans will shake their heads every time you object to a nominee. “If we couldn’t trust you to be fair to a guy who was a good pick, how can we trust you on any others?”

The fact that John Kerry doesn’t have the good sense to see this and fall in line is probably only one of many reasons he isn’t the person picking the nominee.

Bombs and stones may break our bones but our web-site...

Someone created a website, www.werenotafraid.com, as a response to the latest terrorist attack in London. Now do-gooders on both sides of the Atlantic are rushing to post pictures of themselves, their pooches, their parents and kids...all with the headline "We're not afraid."

I, too, paused with a sentimental, yet defiant smile until I thought about folly of this symbolic stunt. First, do terrorists really care if we post our pictures on a web site? Perhaps they will be hunkered down in their safe house, wearing their FREE SADAM t-shirts when they'll see the Jeanie Moss piece on CNN. They'll gasp in horror, pop open their laptops and log on (using their neighbor's wireless signal). They'll see pages and pages of defiant Brits and Americans boasting that they aren't afraid, curse Allah that the infidels have responded in such an unexpectedly strong fashion, and immediately convert to Christianity. Or... they'll chuckle and strap another five pound bag of fertilizer on the newest recruit and wait.

What makes the site even more ridiculous is that it simply isn't true. We ARE afraid. Terrorists strike a continent away, and we immediately ratchet up the terror alert to Orange. Up until last week, your bladder could explode during the first 30 minutes leaving from or last 30 minutes arriving to Washington's Reagan National Airport, but your fanny could not leave the seat. If so, you'd be gang tackled by all the undercover marshals and perp walked to the nearest federal facility.

Try and board a plane without stripping down to your bare feet lately? Now they want to do the same thing for Amtrak trains. You don't even have to travel to feel the effects. The federal government wants to be able to see all the books you check out of the local library, as well as the web sites you've visited.

All this doesn't sound like the reaction of people who aren't afraid, and we aren't fooling the terrorists by emailing our pictures in. We seem to be fascinated with symbolic feel-good gestures: wearing the flag pins on our lapels, the yellow ribbon magnet on our cars, and now posting our pictures on a web site. If we could only get that kind of support to change the policies that make us such attractive targets.

You can't fire me. I stay!

Ever wonder what it would be like to have a job where you couldn't be fired for forced to retire? The Supreme Court Justices know.

Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80 and in frail health, smacked down the chattering class last week by announcing he had no intention of retiring. Sure he's dying of cancer. Sure he can barely get around. Sure he could barely raise his hand to swear in President Bush during the inauguration. But he's not retiring, and you can't make him. How's that?!

Not even federal workers have it that good. At some point, you have to submit retirement papers. Why should the justices be able to serve until death do them part? Perhaps it is time to look at a new system that gives them a set number of years on the bench -- one that staggers the end of their tenures so no one presi-dent can stack the bench. Maybe justices should have a mandatory retirement age. Why should they be exempt the rules that govern the rest of the workforce? Is this really in the best interest of the country?

Leak or the lie, Wilson gets leveled

If Joe Wilson is complaining that the White House tried to ruin him by outing his wife, he probably figures he’ll give them another chance to do the job right.

Wilson is now vocally complaining...aligning himself with Democratic senators...and playing right in to the Republican strategy to fight this latest Karl gate.

Check this out from a July 13 article in the Washington Post:

"The emerging GOP strategy -- devised by Mehlman and other Rove loyalists outside of the White House -- is to try to undermine those Democrats calling for Rove's ouster, play down Rove's role and wait for President Bush's forthcoming Supreme Court selection to drown out the controversy, according to several high-level Republicans.

Mehlman, who said he talked with Rove several times in recent days, instructed GOP legislators, lobbyists and state officials to accuse
Democrats of dirty politics and argue Rove was guilty of nothing more than dis-couraging a reporter from writing an inaccurate story, according to RNC talking points circulated yesterday."

The circular nature of this whole story is so ridiculous. It started, supposedly, when the Republicans were trying to discredit Wilson for crossing them. Now it ends with the Republicans using the same tactics of which they are originally accused while they are denying it.

The White House can't comment about comments they made about an investigation that they shouldn't have commented on originally.

And now Joe Wilson is being destroyed the way the Republicans should have probably done it the first time.

Meanwhile in the rest of America....who won Dancing with the Stars?

What crime, Beth?

Am I the only person in the world who thinks the Aruban government needs to release everyone they are holding in the Natalie Holloway case and quit assuming it is a crime?

Natalie Holloways's mom has been so effective at drumming up media coverage and casting suspicion on the last three people to be seen with her daughter that everyone seems to have overlooked one significant fact: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF A CRIME!

There is no grassy knoll, no bloody glove, no hair, no fiber, no claims of responsibility from Al Qaeda, nothing.

Instead, Aruban police have been acting like Beth Holloway-Twitty has some Abu Ghraib pictures of them. Up until recently, they have arrested, released and detained anyone she wanted. When they finally decided to follow their own minds, Beth threw a hissy.

I'm sorry for your grief, Beth, but there is no evidence that Natalie didn't just cut her hair and hop on a Greyhound to Vegas.

That whole proximity argument is ridiculous. Being in the back seat of a car on the receiving end of Natalie's southern hospitality doesn't make you a killer. That wouldn't hold water in a U.S. Court and it shouldn't in Aruba. Johnnie Cochrane (God rest his soul) would have a field day if the LAPD used that as a reason to arrest Todd Bridges or any of the Drummond kids. Arrest an honor student son of a judge and Johnnie could phone that in from the Armani store.

Instead, these boys were held in jail for weeks while everyone assumed they were guilty. Let's all take a deep breath and call this what it really is: a missing persons case and not a murder investigation.

Who knocked off Natalie Holloway

(Off the front pages, that is.)

Two days and no stories about Natalie Holloway's mom. Everyone is blaming Al Qaeda, but it seems the Arubans had just as much to gain. :-P

Jailed Journalist heralded and forgotten in the same news cycle: Priceless

Don't hold your breath waiting for fair and balanced coverage of that journalist who went to jail.

Media reporters were tripping over each other for their opportunity to denounce the sentence. Keith Oblemann went so far as to pronounce the judge as the worst person on the planet.

Meanwhile Judith Miller is getting her Martha Stewart fame -- success on a scale she never enjoyed when she plied her trade and was the target of scorn from many of those same journalists. You have to wonder if she's not secretly enjoying this as she pens her book: My time in a suburban DC jail.

Sucks to be the other reporter whose source allowed him to talk. Damn! His book: Almost a martyr, out soon.

The irony is that journalist's outrage was short lived when a real tragedy knocked them off their soap boxes. Thanks to "the terrorists" nobody seems to care about the plight of a jailed journalists anymore.

Now Judy sees how it feels to try and create news coverage on the same day a big story drops. Feel the pain of PR hacks everywhere.

For the record, I think having the government jail reporters for not revealing sources is a bad idea. But it's not like I claim to be fair and balanced.