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By now you know that Kerry is attempting to filibuster the nomination of Samuel Alito. I appreciate his efforts and wish him success because the nation does not deserve Alito on the Supreme Court.

Alito has a nice resumé, but he is totally around the bend on some of his ideas. People should understand that he doesn’t really believe in the right of privacy. He thinks the government should get involved in a lot of areas that are none of its business.

The man thinks that a Presidential signing statement has the relevance of legislative history in interpreting the law. He advocated the expanded use of signing statements to alter the meaning of the laws Congress passes. In the same vein, he believes in the Unitary Executive Theory which gives unchecked power to the President.

Republicans should be just as worried as Democrats about Alito. Have they forgotten what Bill Clinton did with the line item veto power? The Supreme Court saved the Republicans on that one, or Clinton would have eliminated all of their special projects.

The Harriet Miers nomination proved that Republicans don’t actually believe that every candidate deserves an “up or down” vote. There is no need to acquiesce to a Presidential nomination that could result is a major shift of power away from the Congress to the President.

Alito believes that the President is more important than the other branches, corporations are more important than people, and the government is more important than people. Are Senators really prepared for this radical a shift in the power structure? Alito isn’t a conservative; he’s a radical.

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You can read about it at CNN or the BBC, but the story is the same: two recent reports say the US Army is in major trouble.

Rumsfeld says, no, they are combat-hardened and tougher than ever. He has apparently missed the part about all of the company commanders exiting, the two year time limit on the Reserve approaching, the low recruitment numbers, the busted equipment that isn’t being repaired or replaced. All Rumsfeld can remember is two seeming victories two years ago, and forgets what has happened since.

See, Donald came in with a plan to remake the military according to his ideal, and no matter what happens, he continues with his plan. It’s always amazing to watch a full-bore obsessive-compulsive at work, their ability to ignore the world around them.

The Pentagon has been patching holes with the National Guard and Reserve. They have been borrowing personnel and materiel from those forces without any plan to replace what is used.

The period following 9-11 would have been the ideal time to expand the military, but Rumsfeld had his plan, and there could be no alteration permitted.

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David Mulford, banker and Bush fund-raiser, is another example of why you need diplomats, not cronies, as ambassadors. When you are the American ambassador to a large country, like India, you really shouldn’t go around saying what you think, before you run it by the State Department. Some countries get upset when you threaten them.

While India probably wasn’t going to back the US in the move against Iran before Mulford shot his mouth off, now the government is being backed into a corner: if it wanted to back the US, it can’t without major political consequences.

I think Mulford was correct in believing that the US Congress would probably stop the US-India agreement if they didn’t back action against Iran, but you say that in private, not in public. That’s how diplomacy works – good news in public, bad news in private.

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So the Shrubbery’s push in Middle East democracy is rolling right along, whether he wants it or not. The claims about democracies not being warlike don’t seem to be working out.

The Iranians have elected a man whose campaign slogan would seem to have been “I hate Bush more than any other candidate”, although he seems to agree with Bush on preemptive wars and building nuclear weapons.

Then, in spite of promises as uniters, the Iraqi elections don’t seem to hold out much that is good for Sunnis or other minorities. The winning parties all seem to be based on ethnic or religious divisions.

And now, those tricksie Palestinian voters, tired of all of the corruption of the ruling Fatah Party, which didn’t much like the US, and replaced it with Hamas, which pretty much hates the US, and Israel.

Len at Dark Bilious Vapors excerpts an article with even more examples.

Saying you’re not going to deal with terrorists in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is a bit of a dilemma. People forget that most of the prime ministers of Israel have been members of groups that performed acts of “terrorism” under the British mandate.

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You do realize that we are paying the Shrubbery $400K per annum, twice as much as any other resident of the White House.

It’s nice to know that his salary is like so many other CEOs: the more you pay the less you get.

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