Endgame?

Here’s an independence day nightmare: “With the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the conservative movement has within its grasp the prize it has sought for more than 40 years: the control of all levers of the federal government.

Yes, the right-wing fundies’ time is now, which is why they are already trying to spike Alberto Gonzales as too moderate and imploring Dubya to pick the “right” kind of conservative. Meanwhile, as the two parties gear for battle (despite talk to the contrary) and Dems reconsider the filibuster, Senate Judiciary Chair Arlen Specter contemplates his own legacy, which, if past behavior is any indication, likely means rolling over on command.

Critiquing Catkiller.

“‘The constituencies are in tension with each other…His leadership of the Senate has faltered so far as he has tried to cultivate the constituency of Republican primary voters,’ Sandel said.” Responding to the recent Bolton switcheroo, the WP questions whether Bill Frist has the wherewithal for the presidency. Probably not. I mean, judgment-wise, he had already lost me with the whole murdering kittens thing, to say nothing of his goofy Schiavo diagnosis or his many prostrations before the fundies. But, hey, don’t fret, Senator…The bar for presidential judgment these days is pretty low.

A Conspicuous Silence.

There’s not much these days that the two parties in Washington can rally around, as evidenced by the increasingly shrill tone here. You might think that one thing on which everyone in both parties could agree would be a resolution apologizing for the Senate’s failure, over many decades, to make it a federal crime for racists to hunt black people like animals and hang them from trees.” Terry Neal wonders why eleven GOP Senators refused to sign the recent anti-lynching resolution. (Cliopatria‘s Robert KC Johnson posted a list of the eleven Senator’s responses from Roll Call a few days ago.)

As I’ve said earlier, I can see how a mea culpa that’s coming anywhere from thirty to 130 years late may not be the most useful legislation ever passed by the Senate. But, when it comes time to mark your name down against an abomination like lynching, why not take the opportunity? To paraphrase Karl Rove, moderation and restraint is not what I feel when I see African-Americans strung up and mutilated by mobs of white folk. But, for one reason or another, a sizable number of the GOP think different. Therapy and understanding for the attackers, perhaps?

Speaker for the Dead.

Here’s an oldie-but-goodie from the GOP…by a margin of 286-130, the House pass another variation on the anti-flag-burning amendment. “‘Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center,’ said Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, R-Calif. ‘Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment.'” Yes, I’m sure the victims of that day were calling their loved ones by cellphone during those horrible moments to voice their support for a freakin’ flag-burning amendment. Have you no shame, Mr. Cunningham?

Don’t Mention the War.

“Taken in context, Durbin’s premise — that the techniques characterized in the FBI memo are consistent with those deployed by ‘mad regimes’ — is worth debating. But of course, such invocations are never debated in their precise context.” In light of Senator Dick Durbin’s recent apology for bringing up Nazis to discuss Gitmo, the WP discovers Godwin’s Law.

No more paradoxes.

‘Things aren’t getting better; they’re getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality,’ said Hagel, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. ‘It’s like they’re just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.’” Two quality links via the consistently splendid Follow Me Here: First, Republican Senators McCain and Hagel call out Dubya on the war. Between this and “Freedom Fries” Jones, are the floodgates opening in GOP-land?

And, on an altogether different note, physicists cast doubt on the possibility of time travel paradoxesWhen Greenberger and Svozil analysed what happens when…component waves flow into the past, they found that the paradoxes implied by Einstein’s equations never arise. Waves that travel back in time interfere destructively, thus preventing anything from happening differently from that which has already taken place.” (Well, looks like time-traveling historians won’t need to worry about any Primeresque recursions, then.)

Dubya cries foul.

With Social Security privatization going nowhere and Bolton still in mothballs until the White House coughs up the requested info, Dubya gets testy about Democratic “obstruction” at a GOP fundraising affair. Well, it’s good to hear the right-wingers are rattled, but at some point, the Dems do need to get a proactive agenda on the table, so the “road block” schtick doesn’t stick.

Sorry, Buster.

“‘This could literally put us out of business,’ said Paul Stankavich, president and general manager of the Alaska Public Radio Network, an alliance of 26 stations in the state that create and share news programming.” Well, that’s the idea. The House GOP moves to kill off the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, getting rid of liberal Bill Moyers and that lesbian-loving rabbit in one fell swoop. “‘Americans overwhelmingly see public broadcasting as an unbiased information source,’ Rep. David Obey (Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said in a statement. ‘Perhaps that’s what the GOP finds so offensive about it. Republican leaders are trying to bring every facet of the federal government under their control…Now they are trying to put their ideological stamp on public broadcasting.’

Nose-cutting, Face-Spiting Dems.

Ambitious Dems Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. and Governor Mark Warner try to establish their presidential bona fides by joining in on the anti-Dean pileup. I wouldn’t have used Deans’s “white christian” line — We shouldn’t be in the business of reinforcing the GOP’s hold on white Christian voters, particularly when so much of the Republicans’ bellicose, intolerant, and avarice-fueled agenda is flagrantly anti-Christian in any real sense. Today’s GOP may talk the talk of Jesus, but their leaders continually prostrate themselves before the altar of Mammon. As any good Christian knows, you can’t serve them both.

All that being said, it’s highly dismaying to watch the Dems eat their own like this. Obviously, our lazy, cowed excuse for a national newsmedia is going to leap at every possible note of intemperance to emanate from Dr. Dean, because it’s an easy story that won’t tick off the White House and doesn’t involve much in the way of reporting. So every two-bit Democratic official that wants to start generating some media buzz and moderate cred for a 2008 bid is currently mouthing off to reporters about the former Governor of Vermont.

Do Republicans do this? Not hardly. I don’t remember GOP officials rushing to lambast Bill Frist for his “against people of faith” photo-op, or Tom DeLay for all the garbage that routinely comes out of his mouth, to say nothing of all the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Coulters, etc. But one Dem uses stronger rhetoric than usual to characterize the opposition and we fall over each other to condemn him in the name of electable statesmanship. It’s pathetic. Word to the wise, Dems: Let Dean be Dean — we didn’t pick him for his social nicety — and concentrate your rhetorical firepower on the opposing trench.

Buyer’s Remorse.

“Frist called her “a superb judge” who applies the law ‘without bias, without favor, with an even hand.’ Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of the 14 negotiators, called Brown “an extremely talented and qualified judge” who will ‘advance the cause of conservative judicial philosophy.'” As Janice Rogers Brown moves through the Senate, some Dems and left-leaning groups start rethinking the benefits of last month’s nuclear compromise.