If I didn't know better, I'd begin to believe that my name was Alice and I have found myself down a rabbit hole . . . because there seems to be an ever-increasing disconnect between reality and how people are reacting to certain events of the world.
Ferinstance: the White Sox?!?!?!? In a sweep!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Ferinstance the second: Harriet Miers's withdrawal of her nomination to the Supreme Court. I never found her lack of judicial experience a flaw--the Constitution does not require that judges only are eligible for selection to the highest court in the land. Heck, the Constitution doesn't even require that nominees be attorneys!
The Founding Fathers were onto something there. The Court could use a non-lawyer or two. And I am speaking as someone who graduated in the top 10 (not top 10%, top ten) of her law school class. Lawyers get so caught up in the niceties of the law that they can forget how reality works. An example: there is a legal concept that someone who is drunk has diminished capacity and thus is less responsible than a sober person would be for his actions which resulted in harm to another. As a purely intellectual exercise, I understand that. However, as a human being I object to the entire concept. No one poured the booze down the drinker's throat. Why can't it be said that since the drinker knew he was drinking, which by definition put him at risk of drinking to excess, he assumed the risk of having to take full responsibility for whatever harm he caused while drunk?
Anyway, I seemed to be in the minority, but I actually thought Miers's lack of ivory tower experience in exchange for "real world" experience was a plus for her. Oh, well. It's moot now.
My objection to Miers was that she seemed to be the sort of person who would say whatever she thought her audience wanted to hear . . . and that she didn't seem to have a serious grasp of certain Constitutional issues and principles to boot. In a written questionnaire submitted to her some time ago by a right wing group, she said she would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Yet some time later, in a speech before a women's group in Texas, she said she would work to protect a woman's right to choose. I do think that, lawyer or not, judge or not, someone who is nominated to sit on the Supreme Court ought to have a basic philosophy of life other than (and higher than) naked expediency.
As I said, however, it's moot now. But before I thank the gods for that, I must warn us all to brace ourselves--because whomever Dubya nominates now may be 1000 times worse than Miers ever could have been. I sense a "be careful what you ask for" moment coming. That leaves me in a state of generalized dread.
Another, but milder, disconnect: "Scooter" Libby has been indicted, not for violating any laws about revealing the name of a covert CIA agent, but for lying about whether he revealed the name. As with Watergate, it's not the act, it's the coverup, that's going to bring the bad guys down. And yet Karl Rove remains unindicted . . . for the moment. Don't get me wrong: I understand entirely prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's rationale for indicting Libby as he has. Fitzgerald knows he can prove the lies, which constitute perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice; he doesn't yet have the evidence, largely because of the lies, to indict for the underlying violation. Emphasize yet. I hope he doesn't stop there, despite what George Stephanopolous said about Fitzpatrick's body language indicating that he's done, because there is obviously more dastardliness to be revealed.
Will the true believers get it, however? No. They are still claiming that Dubya was not wrong to go into Iraq because "the intelligence was faulty." They are conveniently ignoring the fact that Dubya knew the intelligence was faulty and insisted on using it anyway, but that's because that's not what they want to hear.
And more than 2000 of our precious troops are dead. I agree with John Kerry on this one. It's time to get our act together in terms of pulling out. The Iraqis have their new constitution; let them fight it out amongst themselves as to what final form it will take. The longer we stay, the more we are naught but a recruiting tool for Al Quaida.
And a few random disconnects to complete the missive: have you ever noticed that the people who assure us that "money isn't everything" are the people who have all the money?
Likewise, the people who say "money can't buy happiness" are in complete denial about the misery that the lack of money can cause--especially when the lack of money interferes with getting decent health care or other basic necessities of life.
Likewise, the people who squawk the most about people needing to take "personal responsibility" for their actions are the ones who won't take same for their own misdeeds. Whenever this is pointed out to them, they switch to the tactic of blaming the victim. Neither leopards nor cheetahs (say it with a Bostonian accent to get "cheaters") ever change their spots, apparently.
And now for something completely different: God bless Rosa Parks. I'll bet she's sitting at the very front of St. Peter's bus.
No comments:
Post a Comment