Worst American President

Watching the current administration in action is similar to sitting at an intersection watching an impending car crash. You see it coming, you know it's going to happen but there is nothing you can do but watch.

Occasionally someone raises up and says "can't we stop this thing" or "this person should lose their license." Unfortunately it doesn't happen much. In politics that event happened the other day when New York Sen. Hillary Clinton pointed out that the Bush administration will go down as "one of the worst" in U.S. history.

One only has to look at Bush's accomplishments: turning a surplus into a deficit, turning the world against the U.S. (no easy task when after September 11 even the French said we are all Americans), and helped game the electoral system.

However what most people will hear about the speech is that Sen. Clinton said Republican leaders have run the House "like a plantation. " Of course those on the Right were appalled and immediately criticized Clinton, conveniently forgetting that in 1994 former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich, shortly before Republicans won a majority in the House, said Democrats "think it's their job to run the plantation" and that "it shocks them that I'm actually willing to lead the slave rebellion."

But hypocrisy is nothing new for those on the right. On Tuesday, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan called Al Gore (winner of the 2000 Presidential election) a hypocrite because Gore said that Bush broke the law by letting the National Security Agency monitor e-mails and phone calls to and from the United States without approval from a special federal court.

McClellan claimed the Clinton-Gore administration had engaged in warrantless physical searches, but what he didn't say was that at the searches in 1993 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act required warrants for electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes, but did not cover physical searches. The law was changed to cover physical searches in 1995 under legislation that Clinton supported and signed.

See if McClellan had told the truth, he couldn't have called Gore a hypocrite. And knowing that the press would most likely bury the technical aspects (i.e. facts) of the story, this left him free to lie with little reaction.

All in a day's work for staff of the Worst American President.

GOP: Don't Worry Be Happy

With all the talk about the current Republican scandals, a continual series of books by former adminstration officials who served in Iraq complaining about how the administration didn't know what it was doing, one might think that the GOP would be worried about the upcoming election.

Apparently not. According to blog reports, a number of right wing bloggers met with RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman and party strategists earlier this month and message they passed on was that there was no need to worry, that conservative's efforts to prevent the public from voting them out of office, no matter how bad they acted, has been successful. Basically, the system has been rigged.

Oh of course they didn't say that in so many words. Apparently they couched it in terms that in comparison to 1994 when the GOP took over Congress, this year there are a limited number of GOP retirements expected; there are almost no districts to be contested that were decided by less than 5% in 2004; and there are few districts that went for Kerry but voted for a GOP representative.

So despite news reports that Americans are leaning sharply toward wanting Democrats to take control of Congress those Americans will have to settle for continued Republican rule. This should come as no surprise. In 2000 the GOP figured out to lose the presidential election but gain the White House. In 2008 they are working on getting fewer votes but retaining the House of Representatives.

So apparently the word to the GOPers worried about losing power because of excesses and corruption: Don't Worry, Be Happy.

Washington Typists

One of the criticisms of the Mainstream Media (MSM) is that too often it eagerly serves as a foil for conservatives, pretending to debate their talking points but instead ending up in a role similar to that of the Washington Generals vs the Harlem Globetrotters.

In their role, members of the MSM (or perhaps the Washington Typists) discuss or disseminate talking points developed by conservatives, bringing them onto the national stage and giving them legitimacy, but never challenging them enough to show their fallacies.

A potential new member of the Typists may be Deborah Howell, the new ombudsman of the Washington Post, who on Sunday attempted to show Post is fair because both conservatives and liberals have problems with the Post, saying conservatives forget the Post was tough on Clinton and The liberals seem to expect The Post to be the house organ of Moveon.org.

(Note to Howell, no, conservatives have not forgot the Post's questionable coverage of Clinton, they just expect the media NOT to investigate Bush with the same gusto they went after Clinton.)

The problem with Howell's cheap shot about Moveon.org is that it is merely a repetition of a conservative talking point that liberals want a third party, such as Moveon.org to direct the news decisions of the media.

No, what liberals want is for the media to do their jobs. Liberals want media coverage to be accurate and complete but get upset when it is incomplete, inaccurate or pointedly conservative. Conservatives, on the other hand, EXPECT media coverage to support conservative views and are upset when it does not. If you have any doubt of this, consider the supposed media of choice for conservatives (FOX News) and liberals (NPR) and which is more accurate.

And while Ms. Howell thought she was disparaging liberals, the sad thing is that Moveon.org is now working to help the media with a campaign to reverse the Tribune Company's staff cuts at some of their papers (i.e. help keep more journalist reporting).

A few members of the media do go against the grain and outline problems liberals have identified, such as John Harris of the Washington Post saying in 2001 that Bush was getting break from the media, to Mark Halperin of ABC News in 2004 and Ken Silverstein of the Los Angeles Times saying the media attempts of an artificial balance of coverage of the two parties was poor reporting because balance isn't always fair.

So while the appointed media protectors may question the motives of liberals regarding the type of journalism they would like to see, what the protectors don't understand is that while they are ridiculing liberals about their views of the media, their own coworkers are providing ammunition to refute their arguments. So while the Howell's of the world are calling us crazy, their co-workers are saying 'maybe so but that doesn't mean they are wrong."

Gaming the election system

It should come as no surprise that a judge nominated by George W. Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court may hold views that question a fundamental principle of democracy in America today - one man, one vote.

As reported in the Washington Post, in 1985, when Samuel Alito Jr. was applying for a political appointment in the Reagan administration, he wrote that he disagreed with decisions by the Warren Court in the 1960s involving "reapportionment." Those rulings required electoral districts to have equal populations and helped ensure greater representation of urban minorities.

Previous to the 1962 Baker vs. Carr case, some states either didn't reapportion or did it by geography, resulting in disparities in representation. A column in the New York Times pointed out that prior to the ruling at the time, legislative districts had wildly unequal numbers of people, and representatives from underpopulated rural districts controlled many state legislatures. In Maryland, 14 percent of the voters could elect a majority of the State Senate, and 25 percent could elect a majority of the State House.

While pinheads at the Wall Street Journal snidely criticize people like Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware for questioning Alito's view while representing a state that has the same representation as California in the Senate. Apparently the Journal forgot that the Senate was set up that way and that the House of Representatives was supposed to be the house of the people.

To mollify Democrats, Alito apparently has put out the word that he now views one man one vote as a bedrock principle. Great, he may not believe in it, but he accepts it, for now.

The potential bigger historical issue is if Alito is claiming he just wrote what he wrote in 1985 because he was trying to get a job in the Reagan justice Department. So what does that say about the Reagan Justice Department? That they were a bunch of crackpots and that applicants had to spout the crackpot company line to get hired?

Apparently Alito's defense may be that was just trying to impress the crazies at Justice and so today he is saying "hey, I wasn't that crazy." What a comfort. In reality, once confirmed Alito will have the opportunity to do whatever he wishes, which, like Bush vs. Gore, may come back to haunt America.

Fair and Balanced Isn't

Continual conservatives complaints about the media are paying important dividends for Republicans as the media has become too frightened to give context for events and instead look to report on stories on a "fair and balanced" manner.

Instead of pointing out that in event after event that Republicans are more guilty, or push the envelope to a greater level than Democrats, the media has slunk to supplying muddled mush to the public.

Unfortunately only a few in the media have noticed. In 2004 ABC's political director Mark Halperin complained about the press pursuing an artificial balance in truth-squadding the claims and charges of the Bush and Kerry campaigns, saying that the media would usually run through an equal list of questionable statements by each candidate, giving the impression that both candidates were equally stretching the truth. Instead Halperin said that although both President Bush and Kerry distorted the truth, the Bush team has gone way beyond what Kerry has done.

The New York Review of Books outlined a similar case involving the LA Times. Ken Silverstein sent a memo to an editor on a story he wrote on voting irregularities in Missouri saying the "insistence on 'balance' is totally misleading, adding there was "a real effort on the part of the GOP...to suppress pro-Dem constituencies." The GOP complaints, by contrast, "concern isolated cases that are not going to impact the outcome of the election."

In "The Republican War on Science" (reviewed in the New York Times) author Chris Mooney wrote that "politicized fights involving science, it is rare to find liberals entirely innocent of abuses, but they are almost never as guilty as the Right."

Recently stories on Jack Abramoff seem to try to mention he gave money to members of both parties, implying equal guilt yet the money and numbers of legislators involved were vastly different.

As Silverstein said, "Balanced" is not fair, it's just an easy way of avoiding real reporting and shirking our responsibility to inform readers." Not to be cynical, but Conservatives apparently figured out how to game the "fair and balanced" approach.

FOX News, Bushes join war on Christmas

With sinking poll numbers, scandals enveloping key members of the Republican Party, and the public realizing what a mistake it made in November 2004, conservatives knew there was only one thing to do - change the subject.

So it should come as no surprise that conservatives are pushing the "war on Christmas" story. John Gibson, Fox News host, wrote The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought, which of course was heavily publicized on Fox News. Bill O'Reilly didn't blame it on liberals rather "It's the far left. It's the loony left, the Kool-Aid secular progressive ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] America-haters. That's who's doing this."

A funny thing happened on the way the war on Christmas. Apparently some of the foot soldiers are Fox News employees and the President and Mrs. Bush. You see the FOX News store decided to sell "holiday ornaments" and the Bushes sent out a card with "generic season's greetings," just the type of things that conservatives blame the left. Realizing the ridiculous nature, FOX quickly changed their store description to read holiday rather than Christmas, figuring they can fool most of their readers.

One can wonder why this is all going on. Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank on Countdown suggested that it merely reflected the ability of groups to raise funds by riling up their followers. Instead it is a way to change the subject. This so called war really got its first publicity last year, right during the discussion on whether the Ohio vote was on the level. This year the news returned as Bush's approval fell to record low levels.

Surprise, Surprise. With a war over Christmas easier to fight than a fight on his record, administration, or party, expect a lot more stories.

Using the Media

The recent reports that the U.S. military was paying to plant positive stories in the Iraqi media in order to promote the war efforts highlights the debate the White House and conservatives face about whether role of the media is to report the news or promote the aims of those controlling the media.

While the White House may say they are looking to build a democracy in Iraq, one has to wonder, what type of democracy? Rather than a western style democracy it looks more like a Eastern European approach where the government takes an active role in the media, no more different than what the White House attempted with PBS.

One of the amazing things about the Bush's dislike of the media is that they owe so much of their "success" to their ability to press to act as their agents. Throughout their campaign their goal was to buddy up to the press in order to generate positive stories. On the otherhand Democrats such as Al Gore and John Kerry were viewed as aloof because they weren't buddy-buddy. One only has to look at the booing by the press core of Al Gore during an early 2000 debate to show the media's true view.

So from the recount of 2000 to the media's lack of interest in the Bush National Guard story, the media was Bush's friend, yet conservatives always yelled that the media was liberal, which ended up to be a good strategy. By confusing the public and labeling the media as liberal, when the media finally woke up in 2005 conservatives bought the lie that the resulting negative stories were just more of the same from the so called liberal media.

The only thing preventing this strategy from working is that the White House lost control of the press. One might say the turning point came when the Daily Show (a comedy show) had the gall to show tape of Vice President Dick Cheney denying he said "it was pretty well confirmed" that terrorist Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi official in Prague, then show Cheney saying it. Perhaps many the media figured out that one, they were being lied to, and two, a "fake news" show was doing a better job reporting the news then they were.

So slowly the media beast has risen to look into a few stories, upsetting conservatives. Perhaps conservatives just don't understand the media. Afterall if you've grown up reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page or watching FOX News, one might think that objectivity, fairness, and accuracy play minor roles in journalism and when those traits are employed and bright lights are shown on the adminstration the resulting picture isn't pretty.

Cheney calls Americans dishonest

A recent poll of Americans show that nearly 60% of Americans do not believe George Bush is honest, which after everything that has come out regarding the run-up to the war in Iraq it is no surprise, yet he and Dick Cheney are the ones complaining about others being dishonest.

One has to wonder if Republicans have figured it out that by criticizing those against the war they are now criticizing the majority of Americans. Not that they care. Throughout their term they have strived to be the 51% party, just enough support among voters to stay in power, but not enough support among the public to have to care about the wishes of the majority.

However polls now show Bush's support in the mid-thirties which may mean that members of Congress aren't as willing to support anti-America policies. Even Sen. Rick Santorum found a way not to be seen with Bush at a recent event.

With a growing lack of support, Bush and Cheney are attempting to fight back. Their main claim is that the Democrats saw the same information that they did and that other countries shared the same views. Former Sen. Bob Graham disputes this, but the administration's argument also assumes the relationship between Congress and the president is that among friends. "Hey, I think we should invade Iraq, what you think." "Sounds good to me."

As part of their imperial presidency the Bushes wanted submission and blank checks from Congress, but now that those deferrals are coming back to haunt them and the administration wants people to believe it the policies were developed among equals, rather than forced down their throats. Maybe in theory this is how it works, but in practice Congress gave Bush wide latitude, which apparently they couldn't handle.

Rewriting History

After hearing George Bush's remarks criticizing Democrats for "rewriting history," the word that comes to mind is Chutzpah. This from an administration that is all about lying and rewriting history, from aluminum tubes, to yellowcake, to Jessica Lynch, to the death of Pat Tillman. In each instance the Administration pushed the limits of being able to say they didn't lie in order to further their agenda or score political points.

Anyone who questions their need to score political points only has to remember that Bush pushed for a vote on the authority to go to war prior, not after, the 2002 election. During the same 2002 election the GOP used images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to defeat Democratic Senator Max Cleland.

In 2004 this manipulation added up to just enough votes to stay in the White House, but as Abraham Lincoln said "You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time."

And that's the problem Bush is facing. Too many people feel fooled. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll found that 57 percent of Americans agree that Bush "deliberately misled people to make the case for war with Iraq."

So in reality, what Bush is concerned about is not that the Democrats are rewriting history falsely, but rather that the Democrats are informing the public about the actual events that transpired, thereby rewriting the White House's questionable version of history.

Buyer's Remorse

Looking at the election returns in Virginia, New Jersey and Minnesota, one has to wonder if they are reflective of more than just local politics and instead an indication that the public has turned on the Bush White House.

While poll after poll has showed Bush's approval drop to levels associated with a failed presidency, many in the public have also given Democrats low ratings.

So is the public just mad at both sides and politicians in general; made a bargain with themselves that they can admit they have lost faith in Republican if they say the same about Democrats; or have the Republicans lost their base because the public has figured out they lied and Democrats have lost the middle because they lost their chance to get rid of Bush last year?

After four years of mismanagement the public was just about ready to vote against him until a despicable campaign managed to shift the campaign from a referendum on Bush to a referendum on a distorted view of Kerry.

However it one thing for voters to voice dissatisfaction, it is another thing for voters to actually step up and be willing to admit they made a mistake and vote against a sitting president.

Today they may be able to admit that they made a mistake and say today they would vote for Kerry, but as the Bush White House knows full well, it's a year too late.

Did the Coverup work?

With the announcement in October 2005 of an indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff it became clear that the effort to delay the investigation worked, stretching out the release of the findings until after the 2004 election.

As Fitzgerald said of the lack of cooperation "we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005" if people had cooperated.

Or as E.J. Dionne, Jr. in the Washington Post pointed out "Note the significance of the two dates: October 2004, before President Bush was reelected, and October 2005, after the president was reelected. Those dates make clear why Libby threw sand in the eyes of prosecutors, in the special counsel's apt metaphor, and helped drag out the investigation."

Does this really surprise anyone? No. Could anything have been done? Yes. The members of the media who were approached by Karl Rove and Libby could have decided either that they weren't bound by confidentiality as the story being pitched was an attack and not a news story or one of them could have told another reporter the details of the story and informed the public.

Instead Time and the rest of the media's inaction impacted the election. As MediaMatters pointed out, the issue of Time's actions over the past two years was revived by an August 25 Los Angeles Times article stating that the magazine did not pursue a waiver from Rove allowing Cooper to testify in part because "Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year."

Perhaps the press was in a no win situation. The press could have sat on the story and deceived the public. Or they could have told the public and be accused of playing sides. Gee which side is worse? Inform the public and get criticized or keep the public in the dark to support a cover-up?

Too media in the media went with the cover-up, just as the White House probably guessed, and the bet paid off. Big time.

A Year Too Late

Conservatives who complain that Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of I. Scooter Libby is unfair, that what happened was little more than rough politics and that this should be left be to the realm of the public arena, know they don't have to worry about "being careful about what you wish for."

For while the public might get a chance a to evaluate all of the evidence in this case and then in the future make a decision on who they want to be their leaders, unfortunately for America this information release has come one year too late.

Fitzgerald's almost two year quest to investigate who exposed and wasted a CIA resource started in plenty of time to investigate and inform the public prior to the 2004 elections. The GOP knew this would be bad for their chances and so they had to drag out the investigation past November 2004, and they succeeded.

If the information that the White House went after someone who disproved their reasons for going to war in Iraq had been released in 2004 then John Kerry would be president today. Instead they ran the clock and Bush narrowly won the 2004 election. All it would have taken was for approximately 60,000 of the 2.85 million (about 2%) Ohioans who voted for Bush to vote for Kerry.

For anyone who doubts this scenario one only has to look at a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll that today by a 55-39 vote people would vote for the Democratic candidate if Bush were again running.

Instead the public only got a half a story to base their vote and the result was a tiny victory. Perhaps rather than indictments last year the White House could have just told the truth. Right.

Kay Bailey Hypocrite

Hearing the comments by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas trying to downplay potential upcoming indictments against White House officials in the Valerie Plame outing case brings out the hypocritical nature of conservatives and it was so hypocritical that even the press had to cover it.

"I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment . . . that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars," Hutchinson said in 2005.

Gee, does that mean Hutchison disagreed with Ken Starr when he was doing something just to show his years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayers dollars.

"I do think . . . that something needs to be said that is a clear message that our rule of law is intact and the standards for perjury and obstruction of justice are not gray,"Hutchison said in 1999.

Her comments were so bad that she had to clarify them, having her spokesman say "She was expressing her general concern that perjury traps have become too common when investigators are unable to indict on any underlying crime."

That a conservative is a hypocrite should not be surprising. In 2000, afraid that Al Gore might win the electoral college while getting less votes than Bush, some in the GOP prepared talking points about the Electoral College's essential unfairness -- a massive talk-radio operation would be encouraged."

The goal would be to challenge the Electoral College and Gore's election. Instead Gore won the popular vote and was ahead in the electoral college until the Bush brothers worked out Florida and all of a sudden it was fine to lose the popular vote but win the electoral college.

So basically there are two sets of rules. One for Democrats (play fair) and one for Republicans (anything goes) and don't you dare suggest that Republicans play by the Democrats rules.

Media Blinders

One of the points "fake" journalist Stephen Colbert told the Washington Post recently about the passiveness of the press is that "there's a sense that if they engaged in what we do at 'The Daily Show,' they'd be accused of being too aggressive."

Carole Coleman would probably agree with that. In an article in the Sunday Times Review, Coleman (the Irish Journalist from RTE who had the gumption to ask Bush tough questions during an interview in 2004 resulting in the White House complaining to the Irish Embassy) relives the interview and the reaction she received from the White House.

Coleman was criticized for actually asking tough questions, as opposed to the "On Bended Knee" approach used too often in America. However Coleman said filmmaker Michael Moore was among those who noted her work.

"In the end, doesn't it always take the Irish to speak up?" he said. "She's my hero. Where are the Carole Colemans in the US press?"

Possibly only on the Daily Show but unfortunately they are dismissed too easily by the establishment press. When Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. was asked why more reporters aren't aggressive like Colbert, Downie dismissively, and cluelessly responded "The Daily Show is entertainment and satire, not news, and Colbert's comments are part of the entertainment."

However the Post's own Media Critic admitted that the Daily Show does makes news and that the methods they use, well, the non-fake journalists ought to be doing the same thing.

But too many haven't and it's the reason it has taken nearly five years for the public to figure out Bush and are now watching the White House implode. Perhaps if there were more reporters like Carole Coleman and Stephen Colbert the American people would have wised up long ago.

What Liberal Media?

If anyone still believes in the myth of the liberal media, one only has to look at two recent stories to show the limits of the mainstream media and how they are anything but liberal.

On October 6 Salon reported that George Bush's 2004 election may have been made possible by a Toledo Blade chief political columnist sitting on a story. The columnist reportedly knew that the chair of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign for Lucas County's had potential campaign violations in early 2004 but suppressed the story.

Salon reported that according to several knowledgeable sources, the Blade's chief political columnist was told of the potential campaign violations as early as January 2004. But according to Blade editors, never gave the paper the all-important tip in early 2004. The reporter, who later went to work for a Republican congressional candidate, said he told his editors about the story.

The publisher and editor in chief of the Blade said that had the story blown up before the 2004 election "that most Republicans I know agree that Kerry would have won Ohio and won the presidency."

On October 10 Washington Post Media Critic Howard Kurtz noted in a story on Stephen Colbert of the "fake news show" the Daily Show on Comedy Central that Colbert said "The most common thing that real reporters say to me is, 'I wish I could say what you say.' I don't understand is, why can't they say what I say, even in their own way."

As an example, Colbert reviews how the Daily Show was the media that showed that Vice President Cheney's denial that he said it was "pretty well confirmed" that terrorist Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi official in Prague was false, showing both Cheney's denial and his original statement. Colbert was left wondering why it was left to the Daily Show to show it.

"That's not advocacy journalism. That's objectivity in its most raw form," Colbert said, adding the reason many reporters won't do that type of reporting is "that there's a sense that if they engaged in what we do at 'The Daily Show,' they'd be accused of being too aggressive."

Kurtz is a prime example of those accusers. In June Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post said following a weak effort by Tim Russert on Meet the Press in questioning RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman that "Russert is fast becoming journalism's answer to the 'E-ZPass,' those electronic tags that allow drivers to go through toll booths without having to stop. Kurtz snidely commented "How dare Russert not act as a Democratic debater!

So in both cases it looks like some, possibly many, in the media aren't doing its job. So if the media can't even go so far as to report the truth, how can it be liberal?

Bush Believes in Cronyism, Not Conservatism

The appointment of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has annoyed conservatives because George W. Bush didn't appoint one of "them" to the Court and now they are wondering about the conservative credentials of the "president."

According to David Broder of the Washington Post, Republican activists angry over his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court confronted the president's envoys during a pair of tense closed-door meetings.

Trent Lott, R-Miss., formerly the Senate Majority leader told CBS "it's not enough for the president to say "trust me," when it comes to the Supreme Court. I don't just automatically salute or take a deep bow anytime a nominee is sent up."

What conservatives never understood was that Bush only appeared to be one of them in order to win elections. Rather than believing in conservatism Bush believes in cronyism. One only has to look at his personal history to understand that.

Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, has suggested that Bush to withdraw her nomination, saying that if Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her.

But just as true is that if George W. Bush was not the son of a president and crony of high ranking Republicans, it is unconceivable that he ever would have gotten into the Texas Air National Guard, been invited to be in a group to own a major league baseball team, successfully run for Governor of Texas, and most of all would not have the crony connections that helped "win" the 2000 election.

Looking at his appointments and his interests one is left believing that Bush is a Cronyista and not a Conservative and to believe otherwise is to be foolish.

Extremist Nation

Listening to the reaction of the right regarding the nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court and how that she basically isn't Attila the Hun (i.e. constitutionalist) and how wrong that is just magnifies the extremist nature of conservatives.

This has forced the White House to work hard to sell the nomination not to Democrats, but to Republicans as many on the Right have questioned the nomination.

"Surely this is a pick from weakness," Bill Kristol wailed in the Weekly Standard. "Is the administration more broadly so weak?"

George Will said First, it is not important that she be confirmed. Second, it might be very important that she not be...The president's "argument" for her amounts to: Trust me. There is no reason to, for several reasons.

Based on his earlier choices for his "Heck of A Job" groupies, trusting Bush is a poor option. One could hope that Bush has figured out that he no longer needs the extremists to get reelected and that it's time to work on his legacy and right now that legacy (stolen election, massive debt, ill advised war in Iraq, poor response to Hurricane Katrina) is moving toward being among the worst presidents in history.

With three years to make up for five bad ones, Bush may be trying to restore his legacy and put the needs of Americans above the needs of his contributors. However, based on past actions one has to wonder if Miers is an extremist also and Bush is tricking the country into thinking that she is a moderate.

One can dream that Bush has put the interests of the nation first but the idea that Bush made a bad appointment or is screwing the country would be nothing new. The only difference is that this may disappoint most of the country.

Miller's Sentence Should Have Been for WMD Stories

After reading the reasons New York Times reporter Judith Miller gave in deciding to get out of jail, one has to wonder if instead of spending time in jail because she refused to testify about her role in the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative, Miller actually was doing time for her faulty stories on Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

The Washington Post reported that Miller said she "served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources."

Yet Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby gave her permission to talk and Libby's lawyer apparently told Miller's lawyer more than a year ago that she was free to talk, as well.

In addition, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan had told Miller that "she was mistaken in her belief that she was defending a free press, stressing that the government source she alleges she is protecting had already released her from her promise of confidentiality."

Perhaps as the Post's Dan Froomkin offered as one explanation, that going to jail was Miller's way of transforming herself from a journalistic outcast (based on her gullible pre-war reporting) into a much-celebrated hero of press freedom.

Even her colleagues at the Times had to ask Was this a charade on her part for martyrdom, or a real principle?

Arriana Huffington in a Huffington Post column suggested that Miller was the source who gave the information to the White House in retribution for the New York Times running Joe Wilson's column that helped expose her faulty, administration friendly, reporting on WMD.

So why did Miller go to jail? Perhaps in a moment of enlightenment Miller decided she needed to as penance for her stories and damage to America.

America Figures Out Where It Went Wrong

Following the "re-election" of George W. Bush to be president, the Daily Mirror in England had a cover that asked "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?"

With the recent indictment of Tom DeLay, questions regarding Bill Frist's questionable HCA stock sale, the continuing disaster in Iraq, and the disaster in New Orleans, one has to again wonder why so many people voted for Bush.

While his approval rating is dropping towards 40 percent, one wonders what changed the mind of the other 11 percent. Iraq was a disaster last year, the only shocking news about Tom DeLay is that he was actually indicted, there were questions about Frist and HCA before, and Bush has continually pulled resources from the states to send to Iraq, sacrificing the needs of people in America.

But none of that seemed to matter to too many voters last fall, and the Bush administration figured that out. Rather than worry about whether what they were doing was right, the administration followed their beliefs, no matter if they were based on facts or not.

Many voters followed that path. Rather than take a close look at issues, they accepted generalized statements which matched what they wanted to believe, no matter if it was accurate or not. The result was a Bush win.

So the Daily Mirror asked how could so many Americans be so dumb? Easy, the public voted beliefs rather than facts. It's great to have strongly held beliefs but if at the end of the day they are harmful then they need to be examined.

Perhaps the examination has begun.

Bushes Hit Trifecta

With the request by the Louisiana Senators for $250 billion to rebuild the state following Hurricane Katrina, George Bush joins his brothers in being involved in among the most expensive and most appalling events in recent memory.

In 1990 Neil Bush paid a $50,000 fine and was banned from banking activities for his role in taking down Silverado, which cost taxpayers $1.3 billion. As a director of a failing thrift in Denver, Bush voted to approve $100 million in what were ultimately bad loans to two of his business partners. And in voting for the loans, he failed to inform fellow board members at Silverado Savings & Loan that the loan applicants were his business partners. Over all the crisis cost the public $175 billion.

In 2000 Jeb Bush as Governor helped override the public's choice for president, allowing his brother, who prior to Florida was in second place in both the electoral and popular vote, to turn (or some say steal) a disputed vote count in a win for his brother.

In 2005 George Bush, after working to transfer needed funds from homeland programs to an ill advised war in Iraq, faces a bill of $250 billion to rebuild New Orleans. Building the levees to withstand a category 5 hurricane would have cost $2.5 billion and repairs that were denied might have been enough to keep them intact. Unfortunately the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts, federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle.

Looking back at their accomplishments in savings and loans, election theft, and a national disgrace in government reaction, George and Barbara must be so proud of their sons.