The laughable appointment

George W. Bush has now outdone himself with the most outrageous, laughable, ridiculous Supreme Court appointee ever. I have nothing against Harriet Miers whatsoever, but only Bush could have come up with something like this. He is trying to appoint someone who is plain and simply a Bush loyalist. She was his personal attorney in Texas, he brought her to the White House and made her chief counsel, she is on record as having said to someone, "George Bush is the most brilliant man I have ever known." If that in and of itself is not enough to disqualify her what would or could? She is widely known to be a Republican loyalist, donates money to the Republican cause, probably was involved in whitewashing Bush's military service, and is known to be a firm friend of the Bush family for many years. In spite of this the Senate seems to consider this a serious nomination. They should have said plain and simply this is so inappropriate as to be utterly ridiculous so don't even bother. Not only that, she has no particular qualities that would make her a serious nominee. Granted she is actually a lawyer, and granted she is a woman, and granted she has a record of being active in various lawyerly doings, she is certainly not particularly distinguished. There must be dozens if not hundreds of other candidates far better qualified. Someone remarked that "this is Bush's ticket out of jail." Given her complete loyalty to Bush, along with Robert's similar loyalty, this may ultimately prove to be true. If the Democrats allow this they have gone completely bonkers (actually, I think they already have).

But let us consider for the moment another question. The U.S. is refusing to extradite Posada, a known terroritst, to either Venezuela or Cuba on the grounds that he could be tortured there. This from an administration that has knowingly been surreptitiously shipping prisoners to other countries known to be torturers. If this is not another example of hypocrisy it is difficult to know what would be. Is it any wonder why the reputation of the U.S. is a shambles and getting worse day by day?

And of course there is the DeLay issue. Now he is the subject of a second indictment within the same week, and by a different Grand Jury. I guess these grand juries just have it in for poor old DeLay. Just because he is doubtless the single most sleazy, dishonest, ruthless, arrogant, narrow-minded, bible-thumping, unpleasant, without-any-redeeming qualities whatsoever, Republican Congressperson ever shouldn't give any grand jury the right to indict him - should it? Republicans still support him. Does that tell you something about Republicans? If not, try to get a brain transplant.

The Kurds are about to take their oil fields and go home. The Shiites are about to take their oil fields and go home. The Sunnis are going to be left in the middle with nothing (unless we can murder them all first). There is only one (1) count it, battalion of Iraqi troops ready to act independently after all these years of training and billions of dollars expended. Bush/Cheney insist this is progress. If so, progress is no longer "our most important product."

The situation of the U.S. at the moment is so totally absurd as to be truly laughable. This is true both domestically and internationally. The Bush/Cheney administration carries on as if everything is going well. Leading Democrats go along with the gag. Bush is going to appoint a known not very well qualified crony and loyalist to one of the single most important positions in the U.S. government, and the Senate is taking this seriously. If the U.S. public stands for this they truly deserve what they are getting.