Sonia To Join the Supremes

You have to admire the way Barack Obama plays the game of politics. He has put the Republicans in an impossible place with his nomination of Judge Sotomajor to the Supreme Court. If they go after her in a serious way they will complete the estrangement of Latinos begun by Pete Wilson as governor of California and boot away their votes for generations to come. Without significant Latino support the GOP is on course to become a whites only, Southern, and rural party. No one goes to the White House with a base like that. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and other states across the country could be permanently out of reach. The elephant is behind the eight-ball and the side pocket is open.

The evangelicals? Forget it--even they now understand the extent of their delusion in believing that the Republican Party really believed all that sanctimony they peddled during the years of W. It was all a con, as even Karl Rove has said. The GOP belongs to Cheney and Limbaugh right now and they are as religious as a Michael Vick dog fight.

No obits quite yet for the Republican Party, but their congressional leaders are dismally incompetent and they are being outfoxed at every turn by a brilliant Democratic President with the people behind him.
Let them go after Sotomajor and dig their hole a little deeper.

Barack & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Reason won the day at Notre Dame this afternoon as President Obama and Fr. Hesburgh showed everyone how it is done. Ted Hesburgh is almost 92 years old and his simple presence at the graduation ceremony was as strong a rebuke of fanaticism as was the President's excellent address. You can't beat class; Barack and Ted have it and some others there today do not. Well done.

Countdown

I don't know what I would do without Keith Olbermann on TV every night. He's been on Cheney and torture all week and always shows the proper outrage when the laws and traditions of our democratic republic are breached by the powerful and ignorant. When I was in college I was a faithful reader of I.F. Stone's Weekly, a brilliant newsletter and commentary written and published--at his own expense--by the great journalist Izzy Stone. Year after year Stone demolished the Viet Nam policy of Johnson, MacNamara, Rostow, and all the rest. He was a shaft of sunlight in a very dark time. I wonder how many Americans read Izzy Stone in the 1960's and remember him today. A remnant of us do, and if Keith Olbermann can continue to stand up to the powerful and ignorant forces of today he may well brighten his time just as Izzy Stone did his.

Be Seated and Be Quiet, Bishop

As Catholic bishops continue to shriek and ruin their make-up over Notre Dame's invitation to the President of the U.S. to deliver Sunday's Commencement address it occurred to me today that I would never approach a Catholic priest or bishop for any kind of ethical guidance. And I've been a type of Catholic ever since I was baptized a few months after the end of WWII. I mean, their credibility is shot, for reasons known to all. Today on EWTN--the Catholic channel--some religious fanatic called President Obama a "pro death" President because he favors leaving Roe v. Wade the law of the land. Pro-death? And Bush wasn't? It is preposterous statements like this, and the hapless performance of Benedict XVI that have so many Catholics covering their heads and ducking under the pews as Cold War kids were taught to do. In this case it is reason itself that is being carpet-bombed. And the pilots say they really do love us all! Ha!

Dumb & Dumber

Watching Dick Cheney cavort around defending torture got me wondering--who does he remind me of? Someone else in the news lately, someone whose silly behavior belied the gravity of the charges against him, someone who plays up to the press, and then it came to me--it is Drew Peterson, the wacko ex-cop suspected of killing his last two wives. They are both hysterics in more trouble than they can handle who let off pressure by playing the buffoon in public. Now Cheney has gotten one of his daughters in the game, this is Liz, who said the other day that Dad's defense of torture was similar to Al Gore's campaign against global warming! What is it about living in a democratic republic with a Bill of Rights that the crazy Cheney's don't get? It's been clear for years that Big Time is off his rocker but who expected Daddy's little girl to start having sympathy delusions?

Indict this oaf for war crimes, it may shock him back to reality.

Welcome to the Club, Druglord

The editors of Time and Forbes magazines have apparently lost their minds. The former has its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world out this week. And on the list of Leaders & Revolutionaries, right there with Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, and Hillary Clinton is a man named Joaquin Guzman, whom Henry Luce's first-born mag helpfully identifies as a "druglord" and "kingpin." We are not told which one he is--leader or revolutionary. Earlier in the year Forbes listed Guzman on its list of the world's billionaires. What a fun idea! List the mass murderers with the legit powerful when they reach a certain level of influence. Why not post-rehab Sam Giancana and John Gotti if sheer muscle can get you on the list of the elite?

We've watched Time disintegrate before our reading eyes over the last several years, but surely they have hit bottom with this issue. Ink-stained wretches they indeed are.