Stories by Leon H Wolf
Posted at 2:02am on Sep. 22, 2005 An Open Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats<br>Part 2
By Leon H Wolf
Dear Distinguished Committee Members,
I have to confess, I'm a little disappointed with your response to my first letter. It seems that you haven't decided to heed my advice at all - and I'm hearing today that it's possible that all of you except (certainly) Kennedy and (perhaps) Biden are going to vote for John Roberts? Chuckie Schumer, say it ain't so!
Do you mean to tell me that you think it's a bad idea to take strategy advice from these two? That "getting 34 No votes" isn't a victory? I mean, c'mon, I thought we had an understanding!
You know, of course, that you're providing some great incentive for Bush to send up another pick who's just like Roberts, and I think that's pretty much a loser for both of us. It's bad for you, because you lose a perfectly good opportunity to pontificate about the evils of "Emilio Garza's America," which would presumably involve the internment (or at the very least deportation) of all minorities. Forget about the facts, we're talking about political theater here - and I'm sure you'll agree that it's not very emotionally satisfying to have to invent the radical conservativism of your opponent, especially when there are real life radical conservatives out there that you'd rather be hysterical about. Plus, you get the added benefit of keeping your funding base happy, and losing less folks to the Green Party next election.
And hey, between us, we're pretty sure that we got the short end of the stick in trading Rehnquist for Roberts, which is what usually happens with Republican nominees who have no paper trail (see Souter, David. See also O'Connor, Sandra Day. See also Kennedy, Anthony.) So we're pretty much in favor of the President not having incentive for throwing unknowns up there.
So you see there? It's a win-win for us both. I hereby renew my call for bipartisan comity, expressed in a good old-fashioned party-line vote. It's not too late for you to change your mind and go 10-8 tomorrow. Then, later, we can really put the screws on Max Baucus and see if we can't forge a 55-45 final tally. Whaddya say?
It's not about this nominee, after all, it's about the next one.
Regards,
Leon H
Posted in The Courts — Comments (1)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:48pm on Sep. 21, 2005 Open Thread/JetBlue
By Leon H Wolf
This is an open thread. Consider it an opportunity to discuss this or anything else.
Update [2005-9-21 21:23:29 by Clayton]: That was an absolutely amazing landing. Congratulations to the pilot on an outstanding job.
Posted in Elections — Comments (23)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:31pm on Sep. 18, 2005 Sunday Open Thread
By Leon H Wolf
Go ahead. Discuss Halliburton until your little heart's content.
Posted in Elections — Comments (26)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:34am on Sep. 18, 2005 In Which I Am Hopelessly Flummoxed
By Leon H Wolf
If there's one thing I like about (most) modern liberal Democrats, it's that they are generally predictable. I know that they like to think that they are generally more interesting and "edgy" than most conservatives, but generally they're just "better" at using four-letter words, and dressing up illogical arguments with hysterical rhetoric. There's nothing particularly interesting about this once you realize that their playbook hasn't really changed much over the last two generations, even if their rhetoric has become a lot more "flavored."
Then, today, they threw me a one-two punch that genuinely left me speechless. And, for the life of me, I can't figure out what the strategery here is. I take a stab at it anyway below the fold:
Posted in Democrats — Comments (39)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:10pm on Sep. 16, 2005 Roberts Confirmation Hearings Roundup
By Leon H Wolf
Well, after a week of sound and fury (okay, there was no fury) the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on John Roberts are over. After this week of virtually pointless political theater, what have we learned?
The short answer is: Not much that we didn't know already. More below the fold:
Posted in The Courts — Comments (13)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 6:25pm on Sep. 15, 2005 An Open Letter to the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee
By Leon H Wolf
Dear Distinguished Committee Members,
It seems to be the general consensus that if and when John Roberts gets out of the Judiciary Committee, he will enjoy enough bipartisan support that he will probably garner at least 70 votes. Many Republicans seem to think this is a good thing. I am writing you this letter to let you know that this Republican disagrees. I personally hope that all 44 Democrats hold the party line and vote "Nay" on Roberts, and I hope that you take the lead for your party, and unanimously vote "Nay" in committee.
I hope that you will take the advice of your money-raising base very seriously when they say, "we can change the complexion of the next nominee." You see, your money-raising base is exactly right.
President Bush has, for all intents and purposes, nominated the most reasonable man he possibly could. Some of you have noted that he is "the most intelligent man to possibly ever come before this Senate." You have universally praised his poise under fire, his aplomb, and his temperment. You have failed to lay a substantive glove upon him. I hope you will vote against him on party lines anyway.
I sincerely hope that you will send a message to President Bush that there is no value in attempting to be reasonable with you - that there is no advantage gained by nominating someone who is eminently qualified, and ideologically reasonable. We hope you help him to realize that you'd vote on party lines to reject the nominee, absolutely no matter who he might send to committee.
In so doing, you will hopefully encourage Bush to go ahead and nominate this guy, since it would be frankly impossible to be any more unreasonable than voting against a candidate like John Roberts along party lines.
This is a win-win situation for us both. You can get just as worked up as you already have, and have the added bonus of not being forced to invent your opponent's extreme conservatism. We save a lot of money on Maalox. We believe that this is an area where we can reach a bipartisan compromise, by agreeing that you will be partisans. What do you say?
Drop Karl a line with your decision ASAP, so that we can adequately prepare for the festivities ahead.
Regards,
Leon H.
Posted in Democrats — Comments (20)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:34pm on Sep. 13, 2005 Tied to Failure<br>Part II
By Leon H Wolf
Yesterday, I examined how the Democrats were taking a dangerous and unproductive gamble in tying their chances for electoral success to the prospect of failure - most specifically, failure in Iraq. Today, the netizens of the left are attempting to tie an even heavier anchor to the ankle of the Democratic party, and encouraging them to fight to the bitter end for the failure of Bush's nominee to the SCOTUS:
Less than half of the country is ready to see this guy confirmed, and that number seems to be dropping fast. There are a lot of minds still to be made up. Also, there are a lot more people concerned about the court becoming too conservative than there are those who worry it will not become conservative enough...
It is time for our first major fight since Bush's numbers began falling off a cliff in late July. It is time to stand up.
More below the fold.
Posted in The Courts — Comments (102)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:14pm on Sep. 12, 2005 Tied to Failure
By Leon H Wolf
As I have watched the Democrats' consensus position on the war in Iraq change over the last three years, my emotional response has run the full gambit from anger to horror to disgust. The anger resulted from their duplicity, when they attempted to court the anti-war vote while simultaneously defending their support for the war. As they attempted to make a dizzying array of justifications for why they should be loved by both sides of the fence, the Democrats bumbled their way to a crushing loss in 2004, which sent them all scurrying for answers.
To our very great pleasure, Jerome Armstrong has found the answer for the Democrats:
The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course". Gary Hart. He's got tough medicine for the Senators that voted in favor of invading Iraq. That should be simple enough for all Democrats to agree-- that staying the course is not an option.
It is hard to decide which is better news - that Democrats are listening to Gary Hart again, or that there has never been a political party more tied to failure than the modern Democrats.
More below the fold.
Posted in War — Comments (26)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:24pm on Sep. 8, 2005 Human Tragedies<br/>A Perspective
By Leon H Wolf
Human tragedies have a tendency to bring out the best in some, and the worst in others. Inevitably, some will rise to the occasion, others will exploit the misery of others, and (in the United States), a finger-pointing commission will afterward be appointed to determine what went wrong.
It is at critical times, when all of us are more keenly attuned to the plight of human suffering, that perhaps, just maybe, we can open up our conscience a little wider and allow the daily suffering of another class of people touch our national attention. What class of people, you ask? I'm talking, of course, about these people:
More below the fold.
Posted in Elections — Comments (92)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:09pm on Sep. 7, 2005 What Katrina Victims Really Need
By Leon H Wolf
One of our editors is registered with MoveOn.org's mailing list (he doesn't have the blood pressure issues I do, apparently), and he recently forwarded along this priceless nugget about how MoveOn is gonna help out the victims of Katrina: