{"id":10601,"date":"2007-08-30T20:48:22","date_gmt":"2007-08-31T00:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2007\/08\/30\/10601.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:56:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:56:56","slug":"not-to-mention-rick-santorum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2007\/08\/30\/not-to-mention-rick-santorum\/","title":{"rendered":"Not to mention Rick Santorum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Adele Stan over at Tapped looks at Richard Viguerie’s Picks for Attorney General<\/a>, and brings up (and Chris in her comments makes explicit) something that gets right up Your Humble Blogger’s nose.\n

If Senate Democrats fail to use the confirmation process to make clear that Alberto Gonzalez’ actions as Attorney General are unacceptable and to demand that the nominee repudiate them and swear to uphold the actual constitution and the laws the Senate passes<\/I>, then they (a) fail to carry out their constitutional duty, and (2) look like pathetic wimps who can’t be trusted with the nation’s responsibilities. If, on the other hand, they do use the confirmation process to make clear that Alberto Gonzalez’ actions as Attorney General are unacceptable and to demand that the nominee repudiate them and swear to uphold the actual constitution and the laws the Senate passes<\/I>, then they (1) are making political hay out of an unfortunate situation, and (b) cannot put partisanship aside to make the machinery of government actually function. In other words, they can’t win<\/strong>.\n

Now, that isn’t necessarily true. The way I read the political situation and the way the news and newsy broadcasts, I think that’s the likeliest scenario. That is, the partisanship<\/I> filter is so firmly affixed in front of the cameras that I don’t think you could pry it off with a crowbar, and the mommy party\/daddy party<\/I> filter is pretty solidly stuck on there, too.\n

There is another filter that could be in place, the one that has inscribed on its frame these words: The reason the President and the Republicans in Congress are so unpopular is because of all their failures. Viewed through what we might call the failure party<\/I> filter, the situation looks more like ...\n

If the Democrats in the Senate use the confirmation process to make clear that Alberto Gonzalez’ actions as Attorney General are unacceptable and to demand that the nominee repudiate them and swear to uphold the actual constitution and the laws the Senate passes<\/I>, it’s because (1) the unpopular failure we call Our Only President has once again nominated somebody from his secretive cabal of crooks and incompetents, and nobody can trust this nominee as far as we could throw Sen. Kennedy, and (b) the Senate is doing its damn’ job already. On the other hand, if Senate Democrats in the Senate use the confirmation process to make clear that Alberto Gonzalez’ actions as Attorney General are unacceptable and to demand that the nominee repudiate them and swear to uphold the actual constitution and the laws the Senate passes<\/I>, it’s because (a) they are concentrating on the future, and not letting the unpopular failure we call Our Only President distract them from the war, the power grab he (not the Attorney General) has directed and is responsible for, and the teetering economic and environmental situation, and (2) they have forced the unpopular failure we call Our Only President to back down, eat their shit and nominate somebody they demanded.\n

Of course, it is possible that the story the country tells itself about the replacement of the disgraced Attorney General will depend on whether Our Only President really does once again nominate somebody from his secretive cabal of crooks and incompetents or if he eats shit and nominates somebody from Sen. Reid’s list. But I think that will be difficult to determine. Which list is Orrin Hatch on? Which list is Ted Olsen on? Which list is George Terwilliger on? Which list is Laurence Silberman on? Really, the people who get to decide that are the ones with the cameras, many of them looking through the wrong filters.\n

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adele Stan over at Tapped looks at Richard Viguerie\u2019s Picks for Attorney General, and brings up (and Chris in her comments makes explicit) something that gets right up Your Humble Blogger\u2019s nose. If Senate Democrats fail to use the confirmation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18094,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions\/18094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}