South Dakota Politics

Tom, We Hardly New Ya

Remember this dust up in the Rapid City Journal from last year's election? 

Two years after Sen. Tom Daschle sent out a fund- raising letter for the National Abortion Rights Action League saying he had "stood up for a woman's right to choose," Daschle refuses to say whether he is pro-choice on abortion.

The South Dakota Democrat avoided making a direct response to the question several times Monday during a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. Rather than address the pro-choice question directly, Daschle stated his long-standing personal view that each abortion is a tragedy but that the solution lies in finding better options rather than criminalizing the act itself.

And the RCJ went on to quote Daschle saying this:

"As a citizen and a lifelong member of the Catholic faith, I will do everything in my power to persuade others that abortion is wrong because I am firmly convinced that persuasion, not legal action, is the only proper and the only truly effective way to limit abortion."

In a 1986 campaign letter, Daschle said he was "unalterably opposed to abortion on demand" and went on to say this:

"This is a battle over human life. It must be won the only way it can ever be won, by persuading the young woman on whose decision the life or death of an infant depends that the taking of that life is terribly wrong."

My how a Senate defeat and an possible attempt at the presidency changes things.  According to the Santa Barbara News-Press, Tom Daschle is now singing a different tune. 

The former Senate Majority leader from South Dakota enjoyed plenty of support as the keynote speaker Sunday at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser held in the backyard of a private home in the hills of Montecito on Sunday night.
 
"We don't have too many of these in South Dakota," he said jokingly,
referring to the swanky home.
 
The annual fundraiser, called "Politics, Sex & Cocktails," benefited the
organization's action fund in Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo
counties. The money is used to support candidates and political causes that
preserve women's reproductive rights and health options.

Well, we don't have many swanky homes in South Dakota, although I understand they have a few in Washington, D.C. Another thing we don't have alot of in South Dakota are shindigs entitled "Politics, Sex & Cocktails." 

According to the News-Press Daschle warned of:

the looming threats to all women -- such as the Parental Notification Law, requiring the parents
of girls under 18 seeking an abortion to be notified...

Yes, it's a looming threat to women that under-age girls might not be able to get abortions without their parents knowing. 

Daschle said:

"People at Planned Parenthood risk their lives to defend the rights of women
today," he said.  He said he has always had a special affinity for the organization, as the
two have similar enemies within the Religious Right and elsewhere.

No wonder Daschle didn't want to talk about abortion during the election.  But I am sure he's making friends among Democratic primary voters as represented at swanky parties thrown by limousine liberals in California. 

What Is To Be Done?

William Kristol of the Weekly Standard:

. . . It would be awkward, of course, if a combination of conservative and Democratic votes defeated Miers. But this is a moment where it is more important that conservatives stand for core principles than that they stand with the president.

It may be--we can certainly hope--that Miers will be very impressive and that conservatives can support her in good conscience. But if not, they will be doing a favor to the conservative cause, the Republican party, and--believe it or not--the final three years of the Bush administration by voting no on Miers's confirmation. Conservative congressional opposition to the 1990 budget deal was a key to Republican success in 1994--and the absence of such opposition would not have helped the first President Bush in 1992 anyway. Conservative opposition to Nixon's policy of détente was crucial to laying the groundwork for Ronald Reagan's success in 1980--and didn't appreciably hamper Gerald Ford's already uphill struggle in 1976 in any case. This is a time when loyalty to principle has to trump loyalty to the president.

President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers was an out-of-the-blue act of loyalty to a longtime staffer. Is it too much to hope that she might reciprocate by withdrawing, thereby sparing her boss the chance of lasting damage to his legacy that her appointment to the Supreme Court may well represent?

Angels Beat Yankees!

11 to 7 in a magnificient post-season game.  One professor I know of sports a Yankees jacket during most Octobers.  Its always more fun to talk to him when the Yankees lose.  It is true that some NSU faculty have been seen wearing Twins hats.  But there is no truth to the rumor that Northern is a Twins-Dominated Campus. We have even been known to hire Cubs fans. 

The Northern Valley Beacon Revisited

Long time readers of this blog will remember the days when we regularly quoted and discussed our neighbor, the Northern Valley Beacon.  Back in those days it carried an affiliation with Brown County Democrats, and we thought it altogether proper to engage it.  Eventually the Beacon announced that it was closing down due to our withering criticism, but reopened, unannounced, under a new address.  From that address, David Newquist continued to slander us behind our backs.  Since the new blog no longer carries a party affiliation, we thought it less interesting and have mostly left it alone.  But I confess that I still read it.  It is a fun blog.  Recently I noticed these remarks directed at Professor Schaff and myself:

Most prominent is that the two professors who comprise the political science department are part of the blog, South Dakota Politics, which is notorious for its mean and nasty ad hominem attacks on people who take issue with them. Furthermore, they are given to self-preening crowing and shameless ego-inflation on their blog, like annoying bantam roosters, about their faculty positions and their special insights. According to an e-mail sent me, one of them bragged about going to an academic conference on blogging and identifying himself as a contributor to the blog that knocked Tom Daschle out of office.

No one questions the right of faculty members to voice their personal opinions and to engage in political activity on their own time and with their own resources. However, the self-preening egotism displayed and the utter scurrility of their personal attacks does call into question the probity of their conduct as professors and casts the pall of a petty and vicious partisanship over the institution.

What is astounding in this is the almost perfect lack of self-reflection.  He accuses our blog of "mean and nasty ad hominem attacks on people who take issue with them."  Ok.  Then I suppose he believes that mean and nasty attacks are bad?  But then then he complains about the "self-preening crowing and shameless ego-inflation on their blog, like annoying bantam roosters."  Maybe this dead spot on, but for heaven's sake, David, isn't it a mean and nasty attack? 

I just scrolled through the last several days of SDP posts and found nothing that was particularly mean and nasty, nor much that constituted any sort of attack.  Mostly what we post are news items and political opinions about national and local news.  The NVB, by contrast, consists of almost nothing but attacks.  The Aberdeen American News is called the "Anal Aberration News."  Isn't that just a bit mean and nasty? 

And what about this:

[P]eople in South Dakota do not like scientists and other intellectuals very much. They regard their teachers as akin to slaves, or at least bonded servants.

I confess that I have only been living and teaching in South Dakota for fifteen years, but I have failed to notice this attitude.  It is clear that David Newquist does not like the people in South Dakota very much.  On that we will have to disagree.  I think they are the finest folk I have ever had the privilege of living among.  For that reason, win or lose, I am in no danger of becoming bitter. 

One final note.  David says that "the two professors . . . comprise the political science department" at Northern.  This is inaccurate.  There are three political science positions.  The third is occupied by the person who, I believe, is the faculty representative of the College Democrats.  She was hired with the full support of Professor Schaff and myself.  The sociology wing is occupied by four persons none of whom, I am confident, voted  Republican.   One, I believe, described herself as a Marxist.  Another is a proponent of socialism.  I am reasonably certain that if you polled the Northern Faculty, Democrats would outnumber Republicans at least two to one.  So much for the charge of a Republican dominated campus.

David sees Northern and South Dakota through a lens of terrible bitterness.  For that reason he knows very little about either.

Letter from a Lawyer

We received this note from a friend of mine who, apart from being a Democrat and a lawyer (I know, aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?) is actually a fine fellow.  Attached is my reply, upon which his permission to post his letter was conditioned.  Just in case any of the NVB birds is circling out there, my note is a joke.

Ken,
>
>           Gee whiz.  I stumbled over the South Dakota Politics weblog and
>wondered why on God's good earth you folks don't have any advertisers.
>Someone should be getting paid for good, sound political commentary like
>this.
>
>           Just kidding.  I must admit that I enjoyed your entries, though 
>I
>wish there was a comments button under each one so a feller could put in 
>his
>two cents.  Maybe I didn't spend enough time on the blog to find that
>feature.  I saw permalink and trackback but I don't think those quite fit
>the bill.
>
>           Too bad there isn't some liberal South Dakota weblog counterpart
>to this one.  (Or is there?  Hell, I don't know.)  Such a weblog is
>unnecessary, of course, as the left's views are so aggressively and
>insidiously espoused in each and every political article published in the
>Argus Leader.  Who would have imagined that a VLWC could be so
>systematically perpetrated upon the conservative folks of South Dakota by
>its largest and most profitable newspaper?
>
>           Your exchange of views on evolution and intelligent design with
>Talmadge Ekanger was quite interesting (and refreshingly respectful).  You
>handle the ID argument with characteristic grace and good humor.  Would 
>that
>the enormous sums of money spent by religious conservatives on these kinds
>of red herrings could have gone towards helping widows and orphans, as 
>Jesus
>possibly, perhaps, maybe, allegedly would have wanted.
>
>Ron Wager

To which I replied:

We are very fond of widows and orphans.  With a little butter sauce and 
garlic, they're delicious.

Mind if I post this letter?  No good deed should go unpunished.

Ken

Evan Bayh

While Daschle will be speaking to the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in a few weeks, Evan Bayh will be speaking to the New Hampshire JJD dinner:

If you happen to be a New Hampshire voter, lock your doors ... the politicians are coming.  Candidates with an eye on the White House in 2008 are pouring into the state this fall to watch the foliage change and -- oh yeah -- make sure they meet as many voters in the first-in-the-nation primary state as possible.
...

Oct. 29: Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.) keynotes the New Hampshire Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Manchester.

Bayh's communications director, Dan Pfieffer, was Daschle's communications director for the past few years. 

Rolling Stone & the Antiwar Movement

Rolling Stone is wondering if the anti-war movement is too fractured to be effective.  Excerpt:

But rather than centering the rally around vets like Gordon and family members like Palmatier and Frederick, organizers seemed intent on alienating them. Demonstrators carried papier-mache masks of George Bush as the Great Satan, raised their middle fingers toward the White House and chanted, "Bush is a terrorist!" Speakers at the rally, all but ignoring the plight of soldiers in Iraq, demanded that the U.S. end its "colonial occupation" of Haiti, called for the dissolution of the state of Israel and urged protesters to ally themselves with Iraqi insurgents "who fight back against the criminal U.S. occupation."

It is not only the fracture in the antiwar movement that is hurting it.  What is really pathetic is that they can't frame an honest debate.  Making shrill, unproven claims of "Bush as a terrorist" or chanting we end our "colonial occupation"  or labeling the U.S. a criminal is not going to change anything.

There is much to learn from history.  War is not something anybody should strive to, but we learn that with war democracy is more than just a teary-eyed ideal that the United States is trying to enforce on others.  Although democracies are not perfect (what government system is?), the system has the virtue of liberating people and fostering their creativity.  Those that flash the peace sign (or middle finger) as an alternative to solving the world's problems oversimplify the reality that when evil and cruel people are entrenched in power, sometimes war is the only answer.  We have shown this time and again, with the likes of Adolf Hilter in World War II and Saddam Hussein.  There is no doubt that the people of Iraq are better off under the new form of government than they were under Hussein.  A new, more propserous, and stable Europe emerged after World War II (as did a new democratic Japan) and both were because of the United States.  Our rebuilding efforts in Iraq can be comparable to what the Marshall Plan did in Europe.  Given the historic generocity of the United States, it is frustrating that criticisms of this country are spoken by those who know so much less about history.

Despite the claims of "mission accomplished," the war is not over.  The ultimate verdict of war depends on the success of the peace. 

Volesky and Daschle

Ron Volesky of Huron will be entering the race to be South Dakota's next governor soon:

Former state legislator Ron Volesky of Huron will make his formal announcement for the Democratic nomination for governor Nov. 4.  The announcement will be made at noon at the Oakes Hotel in Sioux Falls.  Volesky served 16 years in the Legislature and currently is a Huron city commissioner.

The next day, November 5, will be Tom Daschle's major presidential speech in Iowa testing the Presidential waters:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D, is returning to political life with a new political action committee and an upcoming appearance in Iowa.

Daschle has quietly eschewed most publicity since his defeat to Republican John Thune last November. But Steve Hildebrand, director of the new committee and Daschle's former campaign manager, said Daschle "is not going to rule out opportunities to play important roles in public service."

"It could be president, it could be vice president, it could be something else," Hildebrand said. "It could be nothing."

The Religious Right and Conservatives

By nominating Harriet Miers, President Bush has opened up a rift between two essential parts of his political base: the religious right, and conservatives.  I suspect that the President's trust in Ms. Miers is probably grounded mostly in two facts: that she has been a loyal member of his own team, and that she is a born again Christian.  The former tells him she is on his side now, and the latter tells him that she will not be easily dazzled by the Beltway Babylon during her tenure on the Court.  I suspect that most persons on the religious right will be inclined to side with her and to take attacks on her as attacks on them. 

Conservatives in the most precise sense of the term may or may not be religious, but their politics is not grounded in religion.  It is grounded instead in a set of ideas: that human beings are dangerous by nature, that a strong police force and army are necessary if liberty is to be preserved, that the free market provides the only effective encouragement to industriousness and so is the foundation of personal and public prosperity, that sort of thing.  When it comes to government, conservatives believe that the rule of law is much to be preferred to the rule of unelected judges.  Consequently, conservatives wanted someone on the court who was firmly grounded in the history and principles of the Constitution.  They have no confidence that Harriet Miers is that sort of person.

President Bush probably thinks they have little to complain about.  John Roberts is nothing if not an ideas man, and he is now Chief Justice.  Is it too much to ask that he spend one of his nominations on behalf of that group of voters who more than made up his margin of victory is several key states?

Maybe not.  But it has opened up a hitherto invisible rift in the Republican coalition.  I doubt this is of lasting consequence.  The Democrats are incapable of exploiting this rift for the simple reason that they are incapable of believing in it.  They tend to think that all Republicans are religious fanatics.  If Miers is confirmed and turns out provide reliable support for the conservative wing of the Court, all will be forgiven.  If she does not, that may cause new trouble down the road. 

But just right now the attacks on Ms. Miers by conservatives are irritating the heck out of the religious right.  I doubt that the Administration figured the risk of that into their calculations.

Radicals not happy with SDP

SDP is taking some heat from the "radical" website High Plains Drifter which is "Sowing Seeds of Revolt on the Dakota Prairie."  HPD says that the "Great Plains Anarchist Network met up in Vermillion, SD, from September 16-18" and has a command: "Let the resistance spread across the land like a wild prairie fire."  HPD also says this about Ellsworth Air Force Base: "We don't need that terrorist camp in our backyard. It makes me sick to think of South Dakota profiting off a training camp for the butchers invading and occupying Iraq." 

Budget Cuts

From KELOLAND:

As Congress works to cut three billion dollars worth of agriculture spending,

South Dakota

's senators are among those with concerns.

One Republican proposal would reduce food programs for the poor by 574 million dollars and conservation programs by one billion dollars.

Democratic Senator Tim Johnson says it's hard to see the budget balanced on the backs of poor people and struggling family farmers.

Senator John Thune says he's also concerned. He says lawmakers need to find a way to achieve savings without hurting farmers.

Fall is Here

Well, its currently 34 degrees with wind at around 35 MPH.  Tonight we're expecting a hard freeze.  Though, I shouldn't complain too much.

On the upside, the Huskers are looking as strong as ever, and Denver is steadily improving.

How Omaha Handles Things

This has been sitting on my desk for a few days now, buried under my books.  Excerpt from the New York Times:

IF new construction is the cardinal symptom of municipal economic health, Omaha has to be in the pink of vigor: $2 billion in new construction in the last five years in a city of fewer than half a million souls. This includes an arena and convention center, a revitalized riverfront with a campus built by the Gallup Corporation, skyscrapers from the First National Bank and Union Pacific, and a $90 million performing arts center opening this month.

My friend and neighbor, Curtis Christensen (also the city's public finance lawyer), tells me that Omaha pays its bills on time and that's one reason why Moody's and Standard & Poor's give our municipal bonds their top ratings. Even during the Great Depression, pay as you go was the law of the land in Nebraska: in 1932, construction of the Capitol in Lincoln came in under budget (at $9.8 million) and was paid for before it was completed. If we were a country, Go-Big-Red-State Nebraskans would invade Iraq, but only if we had the money to pay for it.

Thune Sees The Forest

Joe Knippenberg picks up this quote from John Thune:

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said he, too, was nervous about Ms. Miers but also about a fight within his party. "I don’t think that an intraparty battle is what we need," he said. "But I think before too long the left is going to go off on her, and that will effectively bring everybody together."

Evelyn Waugh, RIP

First, let me acknowledge that Evelyn Waugh died 39 years ago.  Second, if you are wondering who Evelyn (pronounced eve-lin) Waugh is, he, yes he, is perhaps the finest English novelist of the 20th Century.  As National Review celebrates its 50th anniversary, they are reprinting some classic articles at NRO.  Today that includes William F. Buckley's obituary of Waugh.  If one wants to laugh, I suggest Waugh's Scoop.  If one wants drama at it's best, you can't beat Brideshead Revisted. 

Free Tom Delay!

Whatever one thinks of Tom Delay, it becomes increasingly clear that the charges against him are bogus and the product of a rogue prosecutor.  It appears even a grand jury in Texas thinks so.  Powerline has the goods. 

Baby Fish Mouth Is Sweeping The Nation

How's that for an interesting blog heading.  For those who can't get enough of Harriet Miers (and who can't) here is a piece by RJ Pestrito that is tough on Miers and Bush, and here is Michael Ledeen telling us to be more patient. 

Herseth

Pardon me for not having some clever title.  Anywho, Denise Ross at Mount Blogmore:

Herseth might feel more strongly than your average House Democrat about DeLay, since his diligent work to redraw districts — both legislative and congressional — in the Lone Star state contributed to the 2004 defeat of her boyfriend, former Congressman Max Sandlin.

Bill Bennett

Here are two pieces on the Bill Bennett incident.  Dennis Prager defends Bennett and Eugene Robinson attacks him.  For those not in the loop, Bennett, former Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration and a commentator on morality policy, now has a radio program.  The other day he go into trouble for an allegedly racist statement.  Here is Prager's summary of the incident:

What happened is easy to summarize. In response to a caller who said that America   "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years," Bennett made the point that one cannot argue against abortion by pointing out anything theoretically positive that could come from either allowing or outlawing abortion. For example, he went on to say, "You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." And he immediately added, for the sake of those who might distort his meaning, that aborting all black babies would be "impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible."

I heard the actual clip from Bennett's show the other day on Prager's radio program, and Prager has faithfully summarized it in his column.  Also, if one hears the actual tape one notes that Eugene Robinson is way off base on one matter.  Far from defending the book Freakonomics, as Robinson claims Bennett did, Bennett explicitly said that he rejects what the book says on abortion and crime.  His sole point was that one does not condemn abortion on utilitarian grounds but rather because abortion takes a human life. 

Of course Bennett's point, also missed by Robinson, was that it would be wrong, indeed "impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible" to abort black babies just to reduce the crime rate.  I recall when I lived in Chicago one of the projects had yet another violent crime spree.  One of the city alderman said something to the effect of "we should do whatever it takes to fight crime."  I remember thinking, "Really?  Whatever it takes?"  Now, we know for a fact that African Americans commit a disproportionate amount of crime.  See FBI statistics here (look at page 268) showing that 27% of all arrests are of African Americans, and then look here at table 2.4 to show that African Americans commit 35.7% of all murders.  This is while African Americans are about 12% of the population.  So when Robinson wonders why Bennett chose to discuss black babies and not white babies in the context of crime, this is why.  Now read closely.  I am not commenting on the reasons behind this discrepancy.  Might racism be a partial explanation?  Perhaps.  How about economic injustice?  Yes, seems quite possible.  Or absence of fathers in the home?  Quite likely.  My point is simply that the statistics are what they are without commenting on why they are what they are.  The point is that if Chicago wanted to reduce its crime rate it could likely do so by throwing all African Americans in prison, regardless of guilt or innocence.  But my further point is the same as Bennett's.  This would lower crime yet also be a grave injustice.  We don't do whatever it takes to lower crime because people have rights.  Bennett actually disagreed that abortion is linked to lower crime, but his greater point was that even if it abortion did lead to lower crime it is still an injustice.  Far from attacking African Americans, Bennett was defending their right to life.  I point out that Planned Parenthood was started by Margaret Sanger to promote contraception and abortion amongst blacks and other peoples she considered inferior so as to decrease their surplus population.  Now that's racism. 

Daschle & SOX

Professor Bainbridge:

Daschle on SOX: Then and Now

On Friday, June 28, 2002, as reported in 148 Cong Rec S 6297, then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle stated:

... the growing list of corporations under question makes clear that we aren't just talking about one or two isolated cases, or rogue executives.

The problem, instead, is a "climate"-a deregulatory, permissive atmosphere that has relied too much on corporate America to police itself. It is as if the line between right and wrong, legal and illegal, acceptable and unacceptable was so little enforced that it became blurred. Bringing it back into focus-as Enron's collapse did-revealed more than a few businesses standing on the wrong side.

The evidence rolling in is now unambiguous. Self-policing is no replacement for a vigilant cop on the beat. It is time to reform and strengthen the system. ...

Senator Sarbanes has done a masterful job in moving it [i.e., Sarbanes-Oxley] through committee with broad bipartisan support.

That was then. This is now, when he is in private legal/lobbying practice (from an articleon today's WSJ$ op-ed page that Daschle and Bob Dole (!) co-authored):

... SOX has also had unintended consequences that generate complaints from small and mid-sized capitalization companies who say that their access to capital from publicly-traded stock markets has been made prohibitively expensive.

... changes to SOX may come in the form of revisions to SEC regulations or, if necessary, new legislation. When Congressional hearings or regulatory review take place, there are likely to be a range of good ideas about how to achieve public protection and lower costs.

What was it Emerson said about consistency? (That's a rhetorical question, I know what he said)

It would have been nice if Senator Daschle had pondered the law of unintended consequences back in 2002, when Congress was rushing SOX through the legislative process with essentially zero regard for costs or nuance. As Texas Congressman Ron Paul aptly observes:

Sarbanes-Oxley was rushed into law in the hysterical atmosphere surrounding the Enron and WorldCom bankruptcies, by a Congress more concerned with doing something than doing the right thing. Today, American businesses, workers, and investors are suffering because Congress was so eager to appear “tough on corporate crime.” Sarbanes-Oxley imposes costly new regulations on the financial services industry. These regulations are damaging American capital markets by providing an incentive for small US firms and foreign firms to deregister from US stock exchanges.

Daschle owes us not just a call for reform, but an apology for having rammed the law through in the first place.

Ah, Memories

Happy St. Francis Day.  This graduate of St. Francis of Assisi Elementary School has fond memories of October 4, as students we'd spend that day doing nothing but playing games.  One thing we'd do is attach a note to a helium balloon and then the whole school would get together as each class launched its balloon in the hopes that someone would respond.  One of the highlights of my elementary school days is the 3rd grade when my teacher chose me to release the balloon.  As I recall, that was the year someone (from Iowa, I think) actually wrote us back.  Those were the days. 

File Under "Be careful what you wish for"

Democrats have been saying for weeks now that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor ought to be replaced by Sandra Day O'Connor.  Since Bush is opposed to reproductive cloning, they should be happy that he has picked a rather reasonable facsimile.  Democrats won't be happy, of course.  If Bush thought they would he made a very bad mistake. 

Conservatives aren't happy either.  Like most of them, I was hoping for a relatively young conservative judge, strong of intellect, and politically savvy.  That is to say, I wanted a clone of John Roberts, or at least of Roberts as I suppose him to be.

So why did Bush pick Miers?  As Hugh Hewitt points out, like Miers shares on of Robert's most important characteristics. 

As I wrote last night, Judges Luttig and McConnell are the most qualified nominees out there, but I think from the start that the president must have decided that this seat would be given to a woman, and it is very hard to argue that she is not the most qualified woman to be on the SCOTUS for the simple reason that she has been in the White House for many years.

In other words, she is a strong team player and its hard to find anything you can trust more than that.  Roberts was a life long conservative Republican, and that is why Bush trusted him.  Miers has the added advantage that Bush knows her well.  I think his strategy  is simply to produce a reliable vote to back up Roberts.  Here is Leonard Leo quoted in National Review:

I have worked closely with Harriet in the past and I am very excited about the president’s pick of my friend. As White House Counsel, she has helped carry out the President’s promise to find and select judicial nominees such as John Roberts who will interpret the law rather than make it up. She played a key role in the Roberts selection process, and was a strong advocate for breaking the filibusters in relation to Judges Priscilla Owen, William Pryor, and Janice Brown, among others.

Here is Miers herself:

From my early days as a clerk in the federal district court, and throughout almost three decades of legal practice, bar service and community service, I have always had a great respect and admiration for the genius that inspired our Constitution and our system of government.  My respect and admiration have only grown over these past five years that you have allowed me to serve the American people as a representative of the executive branch.

The wisdom of those who drafted our constitution and conceived our nation as functioning with three strong and independent branches have proven truly remarkable.  It is the responsibility of every generation to be true to the founders' vision of the proper role of the courts in our society.  If confirmed, I recognize that I will have a tremendous responsibility to keep our judicial system strong, and to help ensure that the courts meet their obligations to strictly apply the laws and the Constitution.

I rather doubt that she will turn out to be another Souter.  Still, I am disappointed.  What has been sorely lacking in the Supreme Court of recent decades is legal brilliance.  I think Bush had nominees at his disposal who possess that.  If Harriet Miers does, it will come as a surprise. 

 

Now On To The Important Stuff

In the MLB playoffs I will pull for the Angels in the AL and the Cardinals in the NL.  The best of all worlds is the Cardinals beating the Yankees in the World Series, as that would represent the team  most want to win defeating the team I least want to win.  It'd be shades of 1964 all over again.  As for my Twins, there is always next year. 

Harriet Miers

I had some original thoughts on President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, but now that I have time to blog on them I see all my thoughts have been taken by other bloggers.  Since I can't come up with any original thoughts, would you settle for a couple unoriginal ones? 

The conservative opinion on Miers is mostly negative.  I share the opinion of many, including Todd Zywicki, that whatever virtues Harriet Miers has, there are many potential nominees who had these virtues in greater amounts than she.  My own choice for this position would have been Michael McConnell, but the only thing that recommends him is his brilliance.  But, judging from the praise the White House gives the "diversity" Miers brings to the court, McConnell is too white and too male to be considered.  I have little doubt she's up to the job, but Bush clearly went with a second-stringer. 

Why go this route?  There is a characteristic to George W. Bush that is both a blessing and a curse.  He seems to put a great deal of stake in being able to read the character of people.  I suspect he's actually quite good at it.  Bush's sense of loyalty and trust of "good people" generally works to his benefit.  But it sometimes leads Bush astray, such as when he saw into Vladimir Putin's soul and saw he was a good man.  It means a lot to Bush that someone is a "good guy" or a "good gal." I worry that Bush has looked into Harriet Miers's soul and seen that she is another Scalia, when in fact she is another O'Connor (who turned "why can't we all just get along" into a jurisprudential philosophy).  I'd settle for a jerk who votes like Scalia, which is another way of saying I'd settle for another Scalia.  Considering what is at stake and the importance of the judiciary to many conservatives, I think George W. Bush's supporters deserved more than a "trust me" when it came to this all important judicial pick. 

Demoralized Dems

Howard Fineman:

With George W. Bush’s presidency mired in the muck of hurricanes and doubts about the war, you’d think Democrats would be bursting with energy, eagerly expecting to regain power. But, in a roomful of well-connected Democrats the other night, I was struck by how gloomy they were. They can’t stand Bush, but didn’t have much faith in their own party’s prospects.

Check out the whole thing.

Redskin: An Alternative History

The Washington Post is following this interesting piece:

For many Americans, both Indian and otherwise, the term "redskin" is a grotesque pejorative, a word that for centuries has been used to disparage and humiliate an entire people, but an exhaustive new study released today makes the case that it did not begin as an insult.

Smithsonian Institution senior linguist Ives Goddard spent seven months researching its history and concluded that "redskin" was first used by Native Americans in the 18th century to distinguish themselves from the white "other" encroaching on their lands and culture.

When it first appeared as an English expression in the early 1800s, "it came in the most respectful context and at the highest level," Goddard said in an interview. "These are white people and Indians talking together, with the white people trying to ingratiate themselves."

...
Goddard's view, however, does not impress Cheyenne-Muscogee writer Suzan Shown Harjo, lead plaintiff for Native American activists who, for the past 13 years, have sought to cancel trademarks covering the name and logo of the Washington Redskins.
...

"While people seem to be happier with the agonistic interpretation of past events," he [Goddard] said, "when you get on the ground, the real story is much more complicated and much more interesting."

Reporting his findings in the European Review of Native American Studies, Goddard noted that the first appearance of the word was long thought to have occurred in a 1699 letter written by "Samuel Smith," quoted in a 1900 memoir by his descendant, Helen Evertson Smith, titled "Colonial Days & Ways."

"My father ever declardt there would not be so much to feare iff ye Red Skins was treated with suche mixture of Justice & Authority as they cld understand," the purported letter said. Another part of the letter is quoted in the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary as the etymological origin of "redskin."

When Goddard studied the letter, however, he concluded it was a fake: "The language was Hollywood. . . . It didn't look like the way people really wrote."

And it wasn't. In Evertson Smith's papers at the New-York Historical Society, Goddard found a first draft in her handwriting: "My father ever declared there would not be so much to fear if the Indians were treated with such mixture of Justice and authority as they could comprehend," the draft said. "Samuel Smith's" supposed letter, Goddard concluded, was "a work of fiction."

In fact, the earliest usages of "redskin" that Goddard tracked down were in statements made in 1769 by Illinois tribal chiefs involved in delicate negotiations with the British to switch loyalties away from the French.

"I shall be pleased to have you come to speak to me yourself," said one statement attributed to a chief named Mosquito. "And if any redskins do you harm, I shall be able to look out for you even at the peril of my life." The French used the phrase " peaux Rouges " -- literally "red skins" -- to translate the chief's words. 

Thune Will "Reserve Judgment" on Miers

Statement from Senator Thune:

Senator John Thune Comments on the Nomination of Harriet Miers

Today, Senator John Thune (R-SD) made the following statement regarding President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court:

“The nomination and confirmation process of Judge Roberts was a fine example of the Senate performing its Constitutional responsibility of advice and consent. Just as Judge Roberts received a fair up-or-down vote after a thorough examination by both Republicans and Democrats, I expect the same treatment for Harriet Miers. However, I will reserve judgment on this nominee until the Senate studies her qualifications. It has been my expectation that President Bush would nominate someone in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas and it is my hope that Harriet Miers will prove to be such a person,” said Thune.

What if . . .

These gems from Gene Weingarten, writing in the WaPo:

What if Freud had been a woman?

Sex would not be considered the primary force that drives human behavior. Instead, it would be Fear of Having a Large Behind. All men would be haunted by a condition known as "penis shame." The mind would not be divided into the Id, the Ego and the Superego but the Shoe-Desire Region, the Weeping Center, and the If-You-Don't-Know-What-You-Did-Wrong-I'm-Not-Going-to-Tell-You Lobe. Also, sometimes a dried apricot is just a dried apricot.

What if wishes were horses?

Then beggars would ride. But so would everyone else. We would each have, like, 7,000 horses. They would completely paralyze civilization, consuming all vegetable matter in a week or less. Continents would rise several feet, just from accumulated poo. And anytime anyone wished for no more horses, another horse would appear. The world would end in a terrifying, thundering apocalypse of horses, is what would happen.

What if our thoughts scrolled across our foreheads, like a TV news crawl?

All men would be incarcerated for public lewdness, conspiracy, fraud and crimes against humanity.

What if, as originally predicted, heavier-than-air flight had actually been impossible?

Rocket-propelled blimps. Travel would take a little longer, but the 9/11 plot would have failed, comically.

Harriet Miers

President Bush has nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court to replace Justice O'Connor.  You can view her White House bio here.  The Washington Post did a profile of her back in June, which you can check out here. 

HT to Power Line and Insty.

UPDATE:  John Hinderacker and Paul Mirengoff weigh in.

Gloria Bolger on Inflexible Democrats

This from U.S. News:

No Doubt About It, Democrats Are a pretty happy bunch these days. President Bush's poll numbers are heading south because of Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's indictment on alleged campaign finance violations compounds the woe, as does Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's questioning by federal investigators about his stock sales.  . . .

But wait. Before voters decide to throw the bums out, don't they have to know what they're buying into next? In 1994, Gingrich & Co. produced a "Contract With America" to let the voters in on their plan for governing. Today's Democratic agenda is somewhere between hate for George W. Bush and disdain for George W. Bush. That's not enough for a party looking to revive itself as a governing entity. People already know what they are voting against; they need to know what they're voting for.  [my empahsis]

What is the basic problem? 

Every presidential wannabe--save for maverick Russ Feingold of Wisconsin--cast a vote against Roberts. They knew that a vote for Roberts could kill them, at least with the all-important left-leaning primary voters. They are allowed no flexibility in their views. Indeed, when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced his vote against Roberts, the outside groups claimed to be his body snatchers. "He got the message loud and clear, didn't he?" Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, crowed to the New York Times. Reid, who is not running for president, might be wise to ban Gandy from his office; Democratic presidential candidates have no such luxury.