You do not have to guess you can simply go to my "about page" and read exactly how I feel about Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Posted on 01/30/2007 6:53:15 AM PST by shrinkermd
You do not have to guess you can simply go to my "about page" and read exactly how I feel about Nathan Bedford Forrest.
I am glad you opened this thread because it gives those of us who do not know how to react to this nomination the space to say so.
Here is a small nugget which might lend some confidence to the pick: Dick Cheney has been all over the airwaves reassuring conservative listeners of talk radio that this nominee indeed has the right stuff. I find is reassuring because, frankly, I feel more comfortable with Cheney's conservatism than I do with Bush's. Clearly, it can be inferred that Cheney has been in on the vetting process and has lent MIER his imprimatur. In my view, Cheney is not the kind of a man that can be sent out as a lackey to spin for the administration unless he has helped to shape the matter beforehand.
I also want to say that I am on record in this forum as long ago is at least one year posting my view that Bush is not primarily a conservative but first a Christian, then a man of intense loyalties, and finally a conservative when that philosophy does not conflict with the first two characteristics. We will have to see whether Bush selected this nominee because she's a Christian, a loyal ally, or a conservative.
Finally, an unrelated word about Pat Buchanan. He is a curious man, who gets so much right but so much wrong. I can recall his speech at the convention in which he was roundly criticized for observing that America was at war, a cultural war. Time has borne him out, he got that part absolutely right. Our paladins in this war wear black robes and wield gavels. It should not be so but it is the left that has started this war and it is the left that has converted our Constitution and our precious rule of law into the battlefield. Like the war against Islamo-terrorism, the war for the cultural soul of America must be won or our democracy will not be worth having.
I count the importance of selecting a supreme court Justice to be no less important than the choice of a field commander in the war against terror. When viewed from the lifespan of our children many of whom will easily live to be 100 years of age, the selection of a Supreme Court Justice might very well be more important than the selection of a general in the field. This pick must be seen in the context of our childrens' lives and, as such, we're contemplating whether their liberties and democracy can survive the next century in this cultural war no less than democracy's survival chances in the war against terror. Why then did Bush nominate a woman who was already 60 years of age? Why then did Bush nominate a woman about whom I, and indeed every other informed FReeper, must confess that he does not know how to react to the nomination?
Absolutely agree.
I worked in both of George Bush's presidential campaigns and have been very disappointed in his lack of conservative commitment.
A president only gets a chance or two (if lucky) to appoint to the Supreme Court - it is a momentous decision. This decision hs the possibility of affecting the country for decades.
At at time when the left/democrat party has upped the stakes by threatening to filibuster a nominee, a candidate must be chosen with outstanding professional qualifications, judicial temperament, judicial record, as well as conservative credentials. Must be someone well known in lega/judicial circles. A relatively unknown person - one not easily defended as the very best choice - starts out the process already in negative territory.
Harriet Miers, with no judicial decisions in her curricula vita, was a difficult nominee for the conservative electorate to assess and therefore support.
As a result of the policies of the Bush administration, Republicans have forfeited their formerly kryptonite hundred year claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Contrary to what Rush Limbaugh says, the Democrats do have an affirmative program, it is to be the party of fiscal responsibility by raising taxes and cutting spending. They will point out that the Republicans are the party of fiscal irresponsibility because they have cut taxes and increased spending. Because Bush and the Congressional Republicans have sought to buy votes with federal spending rather than cut spending in all areas apart from national defense, it is now the Democrats who can plausibly say that it is they who are fiscally responsible.
Their argument will not convince us but it will be persuasive enough, especially when supported by a full-court press from the whole of the mainstream media, to blur the fundamental distinction between the parties and perhaps gain the next election by confusing a fair portion of the electorate.
Thus we have wantonly kicked away one of the legs of our stool. Another leg of the stool was comprised of our ability to go to the electorate, as George Bush did successfully in the last two elections, and persuasively argue that we were the party of judicial integrity. That we were the party which manned the threshold to the Constitution like the Patriots at Thermopylae to check the ravening horde of liberals who would sack the Constitution like a city which had succumbed to a siege.
The Harriet Meir nomination in a stroke has needlessly compromised our ability plausibly to appeal to the electorate as the party which stands on constitutional principle and eschews judicial opportunism.
We are now left with only one issue which separates us from the Democrats, national security. Like it or not, ever since there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, we've been on the run on this issue. Yes I know we won the last election on this issue but the tide has clearly turned. Watch Hillary contrive to present herself as a plausible candidate who is strong on defense.
Why did we saw off two of our three legs? On the issue of spending some would say it is because Bush was never a conservative. Others would say that it was the war that did it but that would not be the whole truth, at least that would not be the whole explanation. Others would say that it is simply the nature of a politician to buy votes with other people's money and the temptation, even to Republicans, is irresistible.
My own view is that our present dilemma is the product of a little bit of each of the above. For years now I've been posting my view the George Bush is not essentially a movement conservative but a committed Christian. Here's what I've been saying recently:
The truth is straightforward, as usual. Bush is first a committed Christian, then a devoted family man who values personal loyalty to an extreme, and third, a conservative when that philosophy does not conflict with the first two. In this appointment, Bush believes he has satisfied all three legs of the stool. This is what I posted yesterday:
On the limited evidence available, I do positively believe Bush appointed her because she has been reborn. I mean that quite respectfully. I mean that he is counting on her being a new person. Most of the time it means she will vote conservative. But I honestly do not think Bush appointed her to vote conservative. I think he appointed he to vote in the SPIRIT.
The sad thing for us conservatives is to contemplate just how unnecessary the debacle over Harriet Meir really was. One can understand the fear in the legislative heart of retribution from constituents as their snouts are pulled away from the trough. One can even understand Bush's, or perhaps more accurately Rove's, trepidations in dealing with immigration arising out of fear that they will be called racists and out of the desire to pander to portions of the business community. But the whole nomination fiasco is almost uniquely unrelated to identifiable political or policy considerations. In the absence of such temporal explanations, I am left with the conclusion that Bush has selected her because she's Christian.
Cultural conservatives were stridently opposed, while others thought that she would better on non-cultural issues such as federal regulation.
If you got paid by-the-word on these posts, you would be really rich.
True, but people liked Mozart's music more than they liked the king.
Once again, the man whose hero founded the Ku Klux Klan fouls a thread with his bilge.
Some "conservatives" have to go to the whip on Barbosa too!
Pray for W and Our Troops
If you honestly think Miers was opposed because she was perceived as an 'evangelical', you must be smoking some strong crack.
Barack Osama is NOT qualified to be POTUS.
Besides, she wore too much makeup.
****Besides, she wore too much makeup.****
I know you meant that with humor....but...yanno....I'm really tired of Republican women being critiqued on their makeup - like Harris in Florida.
Republicans don't dare do that to democrat women.
No kidding.
From the beginning, it sounded to me as though Ms. Miers did a very good job for the president. He trusted her completely and she served him well. That did not make her a qualified Supreme Court nominee, however, but that was stopped. That mistake was the president's doing, not hers. She has served well and we all ought to be thankful for her.
I have pondered a while now the best way to help you, Wolfstar, with your condition. It is indeed perplexing because the regular nostrums like Ritalin seem to be of no avail. I debated offering personal counseling and I considered that I could recommend some rehabilitation centers where they can, with modern drugs, ease you through withdrawal before you embark on a 12-step program. But these are usually quite expensive and, barring a successful intervention, the patient has a very poor prognosis because he is unwilling to accept the treatment.
All the modern authorities report that the majority of patients once released from rehab inevitably wander back to their keyboards and commit the sin of personal attacks within a matter of hours. Alas, the hard and bitter truth is that the AD HOMINEM DISTEMPER which afflicts you and so many others with access to the Internet, has no known cure, as a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine under this very title has concluded. The statistical relapse rate has been truly disheartening. That is, until now for I have by the grace of a benign Providence hit upon the solution to your compulsion which no doubt will be published in the next edition of the Journal under the working title, FReeper announces breakthrough to cure the Ad Hominem Distemper-an Analogue of Tourette's Syndrome. I will be pleased to send you a reprint upon request.
It all came to me as an epiphany when I contemplated your symptoms. The malady is easy to describe: The unfortunate patient, unable to deal with the substance of what he reads and bereft of factual answer for it, resorts to attacks against those whom he regards to be the author of his misery, much like the ancient Pharaohs who cut off the heads of messengers bearing bad news. Our modern Pharoah cannot, of course, physically decapitate anyone in ether-space so he becomes a mighty potentate astride his own keyboard and lashes out to assassinate the character of these cyber devils. After he has pushed the Reply button and sent his screed into cyberspace, he enjoys a rush of adrenaline and a psychotic high which, of course, is inevitably followed by a deeper low from which he cannot emerge until he finds another victim for his calumnies. The disease is progressive and up until now there has been no known cure. But I have found the certain cure and I am willing to give it away, free and without charge, out of Christian concern and solicitude for a fellow conservative. You may consider this to be charity but I am also motivated in the interests of science. Since my motives are altruistic you will observe below the absence of any claim of copyright for my breakthrough, I exact no excise for my good works. I do this not just to save you - but for all humanity, that is, to save all humanity from you.
My prescription, like all brilliant breakthroughs which are obvious only in hindsight for their simplicity and brevity, is analogous to the practice which has developed on the Rush Limbaugh radio program in which the caller, to express a whole series of complementary observations merely has to say: Dittos -and all is perfectly understood by everyone with no trouble or bother or any loss of time.
My antidote for your Ad Hominem Distemper is simplicity itself: Whenever you feel an attack coming on do not resist, for that only leads to the cold sweats, rather, you should embrace it because, after all, acceptance of the disease and your powerlessness over it are the first steps in your recovery. Do not try to avoid your keyboard but eagerly reach out for it. We know that you have nothing to say about the substance of the matter, we know that you've been confused by the reality with which you have been confronted, we know how feverish and insecure you feel as a result, we know how much you feel the need to blackguard someone. Nevertheless, go confidently to your keyboard without any anxiety that you will compulsively vituperate - as though you were some wretched victim of Tourette's syndrome - and take your keyboard stoutly in hand to gallantly type the following:
TOUCHÉ
(recent results of phase lll clinical trials have shown that the better course of therapy is to encourage the patient to write the word in italics and in bold letters because it seems to bolster self-esteem, a pathological deficiency common to all these unfortunates)
Now there,Wolfstar, don’t you see how much easier and lighter you feel in your soul? Instead of betraying to the world the poverty of your intellectual estate, you have made a clean breast of your ignorance, which is different from rank stupidity, and it is anyway the first step in your recovery program. More, you will be awarded points because you show the world that you are a bigger man and by no means petty. The therapeutic effects of this balm cannot be overestimated. Phase llB and pivotal phase lll clinical trials have shown that, although my remedy may be sublime, it is not wholly perfect because it brings no cheap and easy rush, no high, but then no crash either, no withdrawal, no need for the next fix. Instead, you can have your life back.
Your friend,
Nathan
Wow! Did I count eight characteristically long-winded, pompous paragraphs in response to my wee post? Tsk, tsk, Nathan. You're slipping.
I'd ask you--why do you think Ann Coulter's private life is any of your business? And what does it have to do with the Miers candidacy? As for your rant about Miers, I'd guess you got most of that from "all the gossip columns" too. It's incoherent.
Sorry you feel that way about me. If you read the article Coulter described Miers as being unable to be a West Wing SCOTUS let alone a real SCOTUS. She had not basis for her criticism and offered none.
Coutler and her cohorts can pass it out but not take it. Someone, in a public forum, is bound to ask her personal questions that she has thus far avoided while attacking others--don't forget she got her start counselling Paul Jones.
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