Many readers will remember that line from Rick Nelson’s 1972 gold record “Garden Party,” that described his experiences during an October, 1971 concert at Madison Square Garden. It was more than a bit ironic that one of his biggest hits would chronicle his frustration with some of his fans, as well as the music business in general. And now, that Harriet Miers has withdrawn from the Supreme Court, perhaps George W. can emulate Nelson’s creed.
Whether or not it really was Harry Reid who suggested Miers, it is clear that someone else’s hand was controlling this whole affair. What other explanation can be proffered in light of the sterling recommendation of Ben S. Bernanke for Federal Reserve chairman? Bush is no fool, and can certainly pick a great individual, so what went wrong with in the Miers affair?
My take is that dear Laura Bush was still calling in her chits from back when W. had an alcohol problem. And, now that this latest favor has blown up—and badly—maybe W. has removed the monkey from his back. You can even speculate that he knew how badly this one would go over, and was quite happy to see it fail.
My hope is that he removes the rest of the monkeys.
With the 2000 election results being as close as they were, the Dems were only too happy to keep reminding him that he had no real mandate, and should respect and love the other side. Of course, this nonsense has no historical precedent in the US, even for those elections that had to be decided by the House. There is no “partial” winner of an election: you either win or lose. Bush was too polite to remind them that the whole legal controversy, and all the rubbish about chads was started by the other side, and it almost worked for them.
Even in the 2004 election, they tried similar tactics, by questioning results in Ohio, despite the 110% Dem control in the precincts they were complaining about. A more aggressive Republican party would have looked into the massive voting fraud that occurs in just about every Dem-controlled inner city precinct, based on lax registration policies, a transient population, and flat-out buying of votes. Indeed, this was all happening in New Orleans for years, creating a stupefyingly corrupt municipal government, that could barely get out of its own way during Hurricane Katrina.
Bush should also stop worrying about trying to please the Left-leaning so-called mainstream media. As Michael Savage has duly noted, their only constituency at this point is themselves. Circulation and ad dollars in these publications are in free fall, yet the pubs respond by being even more insular and more Leftist. They don’t seem to realize that even if their politics were not so distorted, they would still have a very tough job convincing anyone under 40 as to why he needs a hard copy daily newspaper, anyway.
Finally, he should take a serious look at the value he places on loyalty. While his administration is orders of magnitude more ethical than Clinton’s (not that this would be terribly difficult), I am puzzled by why he holds onto Karl Rove. After all, if this guy is so great, why did he bring us two cliff-hangers, rather than two landslides?
With his second term, he should be doing exactly what HE wants. The only question is: When will he start?