M Scott Eiland's blog
Posted at 11:51pm on Jan. 14, 2006 Footnote To An Unfortunate Choice
By M Scott Eiland
In RedHot, Mark Kilmer notes somewhat tongue-in-cheek that Gerald Ford effectively admitted that he was one of the one of the worst Presidents of the 20th Century when he said this:
In a letter to Treanor, former President Gerald Ford, who appointed Stevens to the nation's highest court, wrote, "I am prepared to allow history's judgment of my term in office to rest (if necessary, exclusively) on my nomination 30 years ago of Justice John Paul Stevens to the U.S. Supreme Court."
While freely admitting that:
- Ford is silly to view Stevens as one of his greatest accomplishments, and;
- Stevens has been a deeply disappointing and annoying appointment as far as Republican appointees to the Court go,
, it's also a bit unreasonable to find Stevens to be a major failure on Ford's part. There were sixty Democrats in the first post-Nixon Senate, and--as Bob Woodward notes in The Brethren--there was no way that a Democratic Senate which had easily batted down two Nixon nominees to the Court in recent years would let Ford replace William O. Douglas with a true conservative. Stevens represented a crapshoot, and Ford lost--a fate that he shared with Ike, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush the Elder as far as one or more Supreme Court appointments go. As bad as Stevens has been, he wasn't as bad as the father of "penumbras and emanations."
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Posted at 3:50pm on Nov. 20, 2005 Memo To House Democrats
By M Scott Eiland
From the Diaries...
My condolences on your ordeal this last week regarding what your leaders have called a "sham" resolution regarding the future disposition of US forces now stationed in Iraq. It is my hope that you will of course contact the D.C. Police regarding the gun that was held to your heads to force you to vote against the resolution, rather than voting "present" or simply finding a better place to be that day--perhaps you should give Mr. Fitzgerald a call and see if he can tie it to his investigation.
That aside, I have a suggestion to solve the dilemma resulting from Representative Murtha's specific language (which language, of course, in no way resembled putting lipstick on a pig) being removed from the resolution brought to a vote by the Republican leadership. In short--you can make your views widely known and completely unambiguous by penning an open letter and releasing it to the media. This letter would contain the text of Representative Murtha's resolution and a statement that all of the undersigned are completely in agreement with that language and pledge to vote for it if it is ever brought to the floor of the House. You would all then sign that letter before it is released to be printed in the newspapers, broadcast over radio and television, and spat out through the Internet for the entire country to see and for the pundits to dissect. The Republicans would be helpless to stop this, and you would have set your position in stone, for better or for worse. It wouldn't take long--a competent secretary could have it ready for you to start signing in an hour.
So--how about it?
We're waiting.
Quite probably for a very long time.
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Posted at 2:47pm on Jun. 23, 2005 New Republican Attack Ad
By M Scott Eiland
[cross-posted from tacitus.org]
Well, actually it isn't--but it might as well be. Kos--in his infinite wisdom--reminds his readers who would be running the show if the Democrats took over Congress. Some highlights:
House Speaker: Nancy "Who's Harold Ford Jr.?" Pelosi
House Judiciary Chair: John "I'm A REAL Chairman, honest!" Conyers
House Ways and Means Chair: Charlie "let's invoke the Holocaust gratuitously" Rangel
Senate Majority Leader: Harry "I make up fake judicial precedents because I hate Clarence Thomas" Reid
Senate Appropriations Chair: Robert "Grand Cyclops of Pork" Byrd
Senate Judiciary Chair: Patrick "In Vermont I'm a moderate" Leahy
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Chair: Teddy "Will Give Submarine Piloting Lessons For Booze" Kennedy.
Memo to Kos--thanks for doing the work, as I was planning on pointing this information out loudly and repeatedly between now and the 2006 election, and your tireless efforts have made my job a lot easier. Keep up the good work.
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Posted at 7:35pm on Jun. 15, 2005 A Burning Question For This Forum
By M Scott Eiland
Has anyone seen the proprietor of The Daily Kos and the current head of the DNC together in one place at the same time? The most recent update to this post makes me wonder if Kos is pulling a Bizarro Batman act by living a secret life as Howard Dean:
We can confidently say that there has been plenty of time and attention on this matter, so that those who were inadvertantly left off the original list have had the opportunity to get on it. Those who remain on it do so because they support lynching.
This is "Scr@w them" Kos saying this, right? Irony may not be dead, but it's definitely on the critical list.
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Posted at 2:22pm on Mar. 4, 2005 A New Low. . .
By M Scott Eiland
. . .for the LA Times--and for a paper that has regularly inflicted the writings of Robert Scheer and Alexander Cockburn on its readers, that's saying something--a front-page paean to pure evil. Hugh Hewitt and Will Collier of Vodkapundit tee off on what is admittedly a dreadfully easy target. Given their disgusting performance during the recall election in California fifteen months ago, I wouldn't have believed that the once-proud paper could have fallen further--but it has, in a truly epic--yet utterly pathetic--fashion.
I'll continue to read it online for free when the mood strikes me, but the L.A. Times will never get another dime of my hard-earned cash.
[cross-posted from Tacitus]
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Posted at 10:46pm on Nov. 7, 2004 Terms Of Cease Fire
By M Scott Eiland
As I've commented here and elsewhere, I have nothing for contempt for Arlen Specter, and think that it probably would have been better for the Republican Party if he had failed in his bid for re-election. However, I am mindful of the fact that a struggle to prevent him from being the chairman of the Judiciary Committee may be destructive, and will give comfort to the other party at a time when they should be preoccupied with their own misery. For this reason, I suggest that Majority Leader Frist be urged to consider the following course of action:
- Make sure that the breakdown of seats on the Judiciary Committee is sufficient to survive a defection from Senator Specter, and preferably by at least one more moderate Republican. With a 55-44-1 breakdown of seats, this should be doable in the Senate as a whole, this should be doable.
- Extract a pledge from Senator Specter that he will not block hearings or a vote on any judicial nominees from this White House, and that he will not delay any such votes longer than a majority of his fellow Republican Judiciary Committee members find acceptable.
- Make the vote on Chairman explicitly dependent on #2, and making it permanently in order to re-open the question of who will be Chairman of the Judiciary Committee should he break his pledge. For that matter, making it clear that his very seat on the Committee is dependent on his keeping the pledge wouldn't be a bad idea.
Not as emotionally satisfying as chasing him out of town at the point of pitchforks and torches would be, but probably quite effective.
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Posted at 9:29pm on Aug. 12, 2004 A Fine Moment
By M Scott Eiland
Promoted from diaries -- a small vignette of the freedoms the President has extended to c.50 million Iraqis and Afghans.
The Iraqi Olympic soccer team beat Portugal 4-2 today in the opening round of their quest for the gold medal. The news had happy Iraqis in the streets, firing their guns in celebration (a bad idea, certainly, but a cultural habit that may be hard to break), rather than to kill. The Iraqis will hopefully enjoy their moment while they can, for they are not favored to reach the medal round. Fortunately--with Uday Hussein pushing up daisies--the defeated Iraqi soccer team will not be returning home to face his private torture chamber as the penalty for "failure." Instead, the team will undoubtedly return home to celebrations in honor of a good effort.
Read on.
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