Open Threads

Mike Krempasky has a pretty reasonable round-up on why the full-blooded conservatives are so adamant about the SCOTUS nominee:

I’ve been thinking more about what a Gonzales nomination could mean for conservatives – and it’s not good.
We’ve watched over the past 5 years as President Bush has, politically, made many gains. He’s done so with extraordinary performance at the ballot box, at least in the Senate. Last year’s elections were extraordinary – not at the top of the ticket where the President beat John Kerry by a tiny margin using the most sophisticated and professional campaign in history – but in the US Senate elections across the country.

But we’ve also watched this White House snub its nose at the conservative agenda. Those of us who believe the Republican Party is the best vehicle for conservative principles have become all too practiced at the art of excuse-making for the President.

– Steel tariffs in an attempt to satisfy unions
– An education bill that the President brags about, and Ted Kennedy smiles about.
– An unacceptable delay in signing the Partial Birth Abortion Ban
– Campaign finance regulation, despite the President’s insistence that it failed the constitutional test
– Support for the extension of the so-called assault weapons ban
– The largest entitlement expansion in forty years, one that adds a burden to our children that makes Social Security look tame

Throughout it all, we have supported the President (if sometimes grudgingly). His support for economic freedom generally, and political freedom (around the globe) specifically, is worthy of praise.

But the real determinant of our support has been and will be (certainly in the continued absence of any real leadership on cultural issues) the President’s firm and demonstrated committment to putting good men and women on the federal bench.

Let me be clear: We have given the President MANY a pass almost SOLELY because of his judicial appointments.

He is right, to some extent- everyone feels somewhat betrayed by this administration (insert obligatory “see- Bush IS a uniter” quip here). They have spent so much time triangulating, signing bills I would never want supported, that for many conservatives, this is it- the judicial nominations are all that are left.

Yesterday, I described my unwillingness (to be honest, I also forgot to get a ticket) to attend the Bush rally here in my hometown:

Not to mention, I don’t fit into the two defined categories, that of Bush-supporter or Bush-hater. If they had a separate section for “Republicans who voted for Bush and support the war in Iraq but who are so pissed off by everything else this administration is doing they don’t want to be perceived as giving blanket support to the President” (John Cole, party of one), I might have gone.

The only people Bush has left are the social conservatives, and he is, it appears, going to have to dance to their tune in order to remain viable for the next few years. My only hope is that whatever conservative is nominated will have a real libertarian streak and everyone will be wrong about the nominee. I doubt it, and thus, my ‘Sullivanesque hysteria’ regarding the demands from the social cons.

I don’t agree with the agenda of the religious right, but I FULLY understand why they are making so much noise and demaninding they get what they want. They did go to bat for this administration. So did I. If I had received more in the way of what I wanted, I might be willing to look the other way about some of these issues, but instead, I have received the worst of both worlds. A fiscally reckless administration that appears to betray all of the core conservative beliefs while giving too much say (in my opinion) to the religious right. And administration that speaks in code words about homosexuals while signing McCain-Feingold. An administration that is supposedly free trade, while implementing steel and shrimp tariffs (not sure where we stand on sugar subsidies- I thought they were working to end those). You get the point.

Where to go from here…

Why The Nomination Is So Important to ManyPost + Comments (33)

And, just to let you know that Tony Perkins never sleeps, we have this:

The investigation into whether some cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy went too far in preaching Christianity has generated a separate controversy. Pro-family conservatives now say evangelical Christians might be suffering discrimination at the hands of the Air Force.

“I am concerned that efforts to address a few unfortunate incidents may become an excuse for discrimination against evangelical Christians,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote in a letter to Gerald A. Reynolds, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Chairman (USCCR).

Perkins was referring to the investigative council established by the Air Force in May to study allegations of “religious intolerance” at the academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The “intolerance” allegedly included senior cadets harassing non-Christians by denying them off-campus passes to attend other religious services; cadets uttering anti-Semitic slurs and academy professors “proselytizing” in class.

Between May 10 and 13, the 16-member investigative council, headed by Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, personally met with more than 300 cadets, instructors, and academy personnel.

As a result, the Air Force on June 22 promised in a press release that it would “work on developing wider cultural awareness,” among the students and staff at the academy and that it would remind commanders to make sure individual religious beliefs were accommodated.

So, when the Air Force finds that things aren’t kosher, that people were acting out of line, and that things need to be addressed even though the conclusion is the abuses are not systematic, the FRC worries that those alleged to be causing the problem might be persecuted.

The best defense is a good offense, and we know how these guys (Perkins and crew) love to play the victim card. After all, it is your Commanding Officer’s right to tell you that you have to believe in his God or burn in the fiery pits of hell. Everyone knows that. At least, everyone at the FRC.

The entire letter is here.

More Persecuted ChristiansPost + Comments (7)

Sometimes you just have to laugh at the right wing of my party. President Bush asks the mkindly to pipe down about Supreme Court nominees, because, quite frankly, they are looking like a bunch of salivating extremists, and this is the response:

“The only ones who could make somebody sound extreme,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group, “are some of the president’s allies talking in an inappropriate way and themselves sounding extreme, which then gets tagged to the nominees.”

The wingnuts, of course, got the message and extended a middle finger to the President:

Gary Bauer, president of American Values and a Christian conservative candidate for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, said, “A lot of people feel that the administration shouldn’t be reluctant to talk about the values we hope the nominee will embrace.”

“If all my side does is talk about process – ‘we want a fair hearing, etc.’ – while Ted Kennedy is talking about ‘we are not going to let somebody on the court who is going to take away the rights of individuals,’ as silly as I think that is, it will affect the way people think about the battle,” Mr. Bauer said.

Tom Minnery, director of public policy for Focus on the Family, an evangelical group and broadcaster based in Colorado Springs, blamed leftist advocates for the “decibel level” of judicial confirmation debates and said his group planned to continue to address mainly social and cultural issues “to get our constituents to understand how important this battle is.”

Officials of several Christian conservative groups, who did not want to be identified because of what they said was pressure by the White House, said they were continuing to urge the president not to nominate Mr. Gonzales.

Tuesday evening, Focus on the Family transmitted an e-mail message to supporters with the title, “Bush Defends Gonzales. Some conservatives wonder if attorney general is right for Supreme Court.”

Other groups circulated a statement from a prominent opponent of abortion rights, C. J. Willkie, describing what he said were private statements from Mr. Gonzales on the subject in an effort to discredit him further with social conservatives.

“Go to hell, President Bush- we got you elected,” seems to be the consensus. And don’t forget this rundown of what they want.

The Eternal Sunshine of the Clueless MindPost + Comments (9)

Katherine Harris is going to be a real gift to bloggers web magazines in the upcoming election. I don’t even know where to begin with this story:

Four years ago, as the state labored to eradicate citrus canker by destroying trees, officials rejected other disease-fighting techniques, saying unproven methods would waste precious time and resources.

But for more than six months, the state, at the behest of then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris, did pursue one alternative method — a very alternative method.

Researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test “Celestial Drops,” promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its “improved fractal design,” “infinite levels of order” and “high energy and low entropy.”

But the cure proved useless against canker. That’s because it was water — possibly, mystically blessed water.

The “product is a hoax and not based on any credible known science,” the state’s chief of entomology, nematology and plant pathology wrote to agriculture officials and fellow scientists after testing Celestial Drops in October 2001.

In the same letter, Wayne Dixon recommended that the state break off its relationship with the promoters of Celestial Drops.

If you collect enough Celestial Drops, do you get Jesus juice? Seriously- this sounds like the start of a joke:

“A rabbi, a cardiologist, and a politican all walked into a bar and ordered Celestial Drops…”

Celestial DropsPost + Comments (3)

I am going to migrate to a new server. Who do you all recommend?

ServerPost + Comments (6)

President Bush and his entourage made what is becoming his annual 4th of July pilgrimage to West Virginia yesterday:

It appears President George W. Bush now equates the Fourth of July with democracy, freedom and West Virginia.

Bush made his third Independence Day trip to the Mountain State Monday, addressing a large gathering outside outside West Virginia University’s Woodburn Hall in Morgantown. On July 4, 2002, Bush spoke in Ripley, W.Va., and last year he made his Independence Day speech in Charleston.
“Coming to West Virginia is becoming a Fourth of July tradition for me,” Bush told the crowd in Morgantown. “Every time I come here, I appreciate the beauty of West Virginia – and I appreciate being with decent, hardworking, patriotic Americans who call the Mountain State home.”

Bush spoke about freedom and democracy Monday, and he urged Americans to support those troops currently fighting to bring these values to the Middle East. He reiterated his oft-used quote, “We will bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies.”

“Our enemies in this new war are men who celebrate murder, incite suicide and thirst for absolute power,” Bush said. “They seek to spread their ideology of tyranny and oppression across the world. They seek to turn the Middle East into a haven for terror. They seek to drive America out of the region. These terrorists will not be stopped by negotiations, or concessions, or appeals to reason.

“In this war, there is only one option, and that is victory.”

The U.S. strategy in the Middle East can be summed up this way, Bush added. “As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down, and then our troops can come home to a proud and grateful nation,” he said.

Bush told the crowd that many West Virginian soldiers were “serving with skill and honor in the war on terrorism.”

While the crowd was, for the most part (I am told), receptive, there was a vocal anti-war contingent:

The shouts of about 200 anti-war protestors a few blocks away could be heard faintly at times during Bush’s 20-minute speech.

It was his third Fourth of July visit to West Virginia in four years. He carried West Virginia in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

“George W. Bush may have entered the White House a Texan, but we have watched our president become a Mountaineer,” said U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who introduced Bush.

With huge American flags draped from campus buildings as a backdrop, the president spoke outdoors on a grassy plaza between several of WVU’s oldest lecture halls — dating to the 1870s — and near a mast from the USS West Virginia, which was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor at the onset of World War II.

Two hundred of anything attending anything other than a WVU football game is a decent number, but the crowd was, for the most part, pro-Bush. I did not make it, because I completely forgot to get a ticket to the event. Not to mention, I don’t fit into the two defined categories, that of Bush-supporter or Bush-hater. If they had a separate section for “Republicans who voted for Bush and support the war in Iraq but who are so pissed off by everything else this administration is doing they don’t want to be perceived as giving blanket support to the President” (John Cole, party of one), I might have gone.

Despite my inability to adhere to rule #1 of the ‘citizen journalist’ credo (‘Show up, moron’), I do have these pictures my friend took:

It appears that a good time was had by all.

Bush In My Back YardPost + Comments (12)

Fabulous:

The effort to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has already become a fundraising magnet for both left and right that promises to rival the 2004 presidential campaign for the rate of cash flow, if not total dollars raised.

The prospect of shifting the Supreme Court to the right has fueled a quest for dollars by conservative and liberal interest groups that will halt only if President Bush does the unexpected and nominates someone acceptable to all sides.

Under the scenario of an ideological battle, participants predict the competition for cash will turn the Senate confirmation into the most expensive nomination fight in the nation’s history, certain to break $50 million and, if the nominee is especially controversial, likely to approach $100 million.

Most of the money raised would not be publicly reported. With the exception of such groups as MoveOn PAC, many organizations active in the fight are tax-exempt and have few, if any, disclosure requirements.

The nomination process will pit two lobbying and interest-group coalitions that have repeatedly gone head to head during the Bush administration over tax cuts, energy legislation, and class-action and bankruptcy measures. While the business-social-conservative coalition has repeatedly defeated the liberal-labor alliance, the outcome of a far more visible nomination fight would be highly unpredictable.

The mayhem following the Swift Vets cost only a couple hundred thousand dollars to generate, just to offer you a comparison. And when a significant portion of the right thinks that this is the key to what the ‘movement’ has been fighting for, and another portion of the left thinks that this nomination is all that keeps us from moving back to the 19th century, well, you get the idea.

I guess what annoys me most is that battle was already fought. Everyone knew what was at stake during the election, and Bush and Republicans won. We should just leave this to Bush and the people in the Senate who represent us. Sure, we all have a right to be free speech- that doesn’t mean we have anything valuable to say. I know I am not going to like every ruling this new Justice issues, but I am willing to live with the results. These pitched battles make it seem like a large part of the population isn’t willing to do so.

Bush is right:

The president appealed to special interest groups running ads and mobilizing supporters for the anticipated fight over the Supreme Court nominee to “tone down the heated rhetoric.”

Bus is going to appoint a conservative judge, and I am a little tired of the ‘no surpises’ stuff- no one has a right to knowing how the next justice is going to rule ahead of time. It appears that is what many of the activists on the right and the left want, and that means they do not want a judge as the next Supreme Court Justice. They want a political operative.

A Taste of What is To ComePost + Comments (55)