On Harriet Miers

Perhaps the single-best part of being a Democrat these days is that George W. Bush is a Republican. Between Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, bin Laden, the economy, jobs, fuel costs, and controversial "fixes" to programs that the public doesn't want, he's made a fine job of opening himself up to criticism.

Some people, mainly from the Right, say that the Democratic Party is not offering any legitimate solutions for people, only criticism of the current administration. I disagree with their argument, but the wisdom is there; if we on the left do not find ways to differentiate ourselves from the Republicans currently in power, and if we don't find a way to actually offer real alternatives, then the electorate at large will lose faith in both parties and won't come out to vote.

Fair enough.

But sometimes alternatives aren't called for. The case of Harriet Meirs is one of those times. She has not made a positive impression on the Senators who would confirm her, and today President Bush denied release of any papers related to his discussions with her (citing attorney-client privelege).

Story here.

It's not so much a bad thing that Bush didn't want to release notes of his discussions with his lawyer; that's fine. Attorney-client privelege must be protected today if Democrats hope to have it protected for their own future presidents.

The problem is that Bush had to make a public announcement that he wasn't going to offer the papers up to Republicans. His party, if he still had any control over it, wouldn't be asking for private papers because they'd have faith that she was the right candidate for the job, simply based on his own ability to lead a vetting process for candidates.

The fact that Republicans are asking for these documents tells everyone that they don't believe right now that she's the best candidate. They should never ask for protected documents otherwise. And now, knowing that they want to know everything they can, means that those Senators on the committee don't believe she's been totally forward with them in terms of answers or other documents they've requested.

Another notch in the President's cane of goofups and failures.

What I've Learned

When Bush was elected, I figured he'd be wrong for the country because he was a Conservative. I didn't really know what a neocon was.

Now I do.

George W. Bush is NOT a conservative. He espouses family values, but saying that you support the idea of "family values" doesn't make you a conservative. It could make you a liberal who still believes in the idea of a two-parent household. "Family values" is a buzzword that means absolutely nothing regarding your own political slant.

Conservatives tend to be more reactive than proactive. Again, George Bush and his cohort are not conservatives - that reactive nature tends to lend itself to an aversion to large federal spending.

These guys in power now are not right wing, per se. They're way off the starboard rails. They spend and spend and spend, then say, "We're not wasteful! Don Young Way is vitally important! National Security! Nine eleven!" Then they go off and try to weaken government so that it will fail, giving them ammunition to say, "Government fails! Private industry! Nine eleven!"

Let me say something, and I'm generally not this clear: Neocons are very, very bad for this country. The real reason that GWB won re-election is because he became a fearmonger in the year leading up to the election, and managed to convince people in North Dakota (where the unemployment rate is well above the national average, so job growth SHOULD have been their major statewide issue) that terrorism could happen anywhere. I watched an interview with a guy from Montana saying he was voting for Bush for that specific reason.

Montana? FREAKING MONTANA?!?!?!? What is al Qaida going to do, blow up a log cabin and a few FREAKING ELK?!?!?

The current group of powerful neocons has managed to take a hugely devastating event and use it to play on the population's basest fears. They've used it to justify an invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us while distracting us from our real mission in Afghanistan, which was to wipe out the Taliban (which we haven't done), establish a democratic government (it's alright), and capture Osama bin Ladan and Ayman al-Zawahri (George Bush: "Who?").

Now we're in Iraq because we were:
-Looking for WMDs (Oops. Our bad.)
-Wait, No! We're protecting our allies and ourselves from terrorists like Saddam Hussein! (see previous justification)
-Never mind. Now we're protecting the people of Iraq from terrorists like Saddam Hussein (Yeah, we're sorry about creating more of them, by the way.)
-Go back a second! We're fostering Democracy in the Middle East (Except for Sunnis.)
-Forget those last four. We were really protecting us abroad from Terrorism at home (How a Syrian angry at the US would decide to blow up Baquba rather than Washington is beyond me.)

Neoconservatives aren't conservatives. They're power-hungry idealogues who believe that if they can thwart government, they can have it dismantled. Sounds a lot like Marxism, actually, that people would be better off in a totally anarchic environment. So they lead us off into pointless wars to create profits for their oil buddies, they forget what the hell we're supposed to be fighting, and they spend the government into what they hope will be an irreparable slide into failure and incompetence.

I don't dislike conservatives. Conservatism, on its face, is an understandable and in some cases correct way to go. But I loathe neoconservatism. It's a political bent that does nothing but encourage fear and hatred and unthinking loyalty and whose single, though unstated, goal is the ruination of this country.

The Magnet I Wish I Had

What can I say? I think this is an idea whose time has come:


Alas, I don't think it'll happen anytime soon.