A BuzzFlash Reader Contribution

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Alito Nomination: Manufactured Distraction?

'Let's Keep Our Eye on the Ball. This Nominee Shouldn't Stand, But It Isn't the Whole Ball Game.'

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Carol Davidek-Waller

The shotgun wedding approach to Supreme Court nominees by the Bush administration should not be seen entirely as a victory for the right wing. It could well be another act of desperation.

The unseemly rush to nominate after the drubbing the White House received for sloppiness and thoughtless cruelty in the nomination of Miers has all the earmarks of a political maneuver. It could well be designed to get reality-based America's knickers in a twist in the hope that they will forget about the giant hole blown in the Bush White House by the grand jury indictments of last Friday. Short of starting another war, it's the best they can do under current circumstances.

Let us be clear about the Fitzgerald Grand Jury indictments. They aren't talking about a slippery miss-statement of private conduct or what amounts to legal entrapment; these charges involve a deliberate cover-up of behavior at the highest level of the Bush administration that endangered national security. There were multiple players (conspiracy?) and more to come.

That this nomination seems to follow in the footsteps of the "stinking thinking" that produced the thoughtless and cruel nomination of Harriet Miers should give pause. Her nomination did provide a useful distraction from the consistently awful news from Iraq and the approaching storm of the Fitzgerald investigation. Of all the sorry aspects of the Miers nomination, I found the endorsement of Reid to be more offensive than the expected self-serving actions of Bush. I don't buy the theory that Reid set Bush up. A worse nominee could cause a bigger distraction.

Unless the Democrats are well and truly dead, they know they cannot ask the American people to put them in charge of Congress next year if they sell out 60% to 70% or more of voters by agreeing to criminalizing abortion, contraception, civil rights, human rights and common sense. But that doesn't mean that they won't try.

I have a hard time believing that the majority of Americans would even accept such a court as legitimate or the elimination of ordinary freedoms acceptable. Raw power has its limits. Even a group as thuggish as the gang in the White House can push only so far without awakening major resistance and reminding Americans of the weak legitimacy of their claim to power. That they are aware of this fact and fear such resistance is evident from their policy making in the many and varied ways they have attempted to grab illegitimate legal and military power for domestic use.

For a president obsessed with the appearance of strength and toughness, caving in to the extreme right wing and their insistence on a "qualified candidate" after personal endorsements and promising a fight, seems uncharacteristically limp-wristed. I believe they hope the hue and cry of political activists at the nomination of a credentialed "wing nut" might well drown out the solemn flight of chickens coming home to roost. They might well want us to forget that this administration can be pushed around by appearing to decisively push on with their agenda.

And who knows, the feckless Democrats, hopelessly nosing after the mythical swing voter and in the grip of serially ineffective pollsters and political advisors may well let this pass.

We should remember that a president who is forced to cave in to 22% of non-thinking America is a cult leader with a tenuous grip on power. We need to remind the Democrats of this as well as the reasons they wanted us to send them to Washington.

Let's keep our eye on the ball and not get distracted by a "Rovian" cat fight. This nominee shouldn't stand, but it isn't the whole ball game. We must force congressional Democrats to do their jobs on all fronts. There is simply no excuse for them to vote for another CAFTA or another right-wing judge, but they must do even more.

What We Can Do

This White House is badly damaged and the trial or trials haven't even begun, nor is the investigation finished. There are other investigations that appear to be intersecting with Fitzgerald's. The FBI investigation of AIPAC comes to mind. The FBI are also investigating the source of the forgeries that the Niger claims were based on. Tom DeLay's money machine is in jeopardy and may intersect with the "Coingate" scandal in Ohio and the Abramoff scandals. The Ohio scandal links directly to the White House. There are major ethics violations complaints due to unfold in the House: Cunningham and Ney who links to Coingate are subjects of complaints. The majority leader of the Senate is in deep trouble with the SEC and the ethics committee. Pressure is being brought to bear for an independent investigation of pre-invasion manipulation of information.

The majority of Americans may not follow politics, but they do follow scandals.

We have to be a "strict parent" with the Democrats. If they don't do their chores, no privileges and no treats.

Let the Democrats know they can whistle for campaign contributions, volunteer hours and votes unless they block this nomination.

Let them know they have to fight for ethics investigations and go on the offensive or we'll think they are just as corrupt and unprincipled as the GOP.

Let them know that we believe our troops can do nothing positive in Iraq and that we should begin withdrawal immediately and that we won't elect anyone who wants to "stay the course." Write them, badger them at public meetings.

Just so they know you're serious, start supporting any of the many groups fielding and funding serious progressive candidates. Democracy for America and the various local chapters (Democracy for Washington in my state) are doing a good job, MoveOn has a PAC and Common Cause is active in recruiting and supporting progressive candidates. Wellstone's legacy, Progressive Majority, is a good group and Craig's list has job openings for fundraisers and canvassing directors for progressive organizations.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/

Demand that Democrats and Republicans launch a real independent investigation of this administration's march to war and their deception of Congress and the American people. For those pointing at the 9-11 Commission as a model, forget it. The White House, as subjects of the investigation, vetted the investigators, decided on the scope of the investigation, blocked investigation when it became inconvenient, refused to testify under oath, and all but blocked the release of the half of the investigation they didn't censor. The result of this exercise is that everyone who screwed up is still in place and none of the recommendations that were made have been implemented. This time, we want the real deal - and before this administration uses the same fraudulent tactics to march us into Syria and Iran.

Support all those in Congress who are doing their jobs. Write them a thank you note and contribute if you can. The following website has everyone's homepage or mailbox.

http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html

Let the Democrats know that there is a direct relationship between the fact that our election system is broken and that we have the worst, most extreme, most incompetent, dangerous and ignorant government in our history.

Let the Democrats know that you don't want to vote on or have your votes counted by GOP-owned machines. You don't want a partisan Secretary of State and their acolytes purging voter roles, throwing away voter registrations, hiding absentee ballots, challenging voters, denying and corrupting recounts, illegally purging voters, denying opportunities to vote and generally corrupting the process.

Help the Democrats understand that their pipe dream of a landslide based on GOP self-destruction is as much an adolescent dream as the PNAC poppycock of dominating the planet.

Remind them that it has been 30 years since Democrats had such a victory and since then there has been a dramatic shift of wealth toward the extremist GOP as well as almost complete control of major media by the same. Tell them to put pressure on the media to do their jobs or lose face losing their licenses.

The media are the only business to have special privileges granted them in the US Constitution. In exchange, they have special constitutional responsibilities to tell the truth, all of it, and not have a dog in the fight. Tell them to support more public media, public broadband and wireless and infinitely more diversity. Work outside party politics to these ends by joining a media reform group in your area.

Alert Democrats to the fact that if they don't get busy fixing the broken voting system right now, they literally cannot count on your vote in 2006.

Carol Davidek-Waller
Kirkland, WA

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION