Andy’s whereIstand Blog

I second Nick’s motion of Alito’s non-cringe-worthiness. But my paranoiac heart wonders if the Bush corp. nominated the heroically incompetent Harriet Miers just so the next nominee would look like a golden god in comparison. Maybe we’re looking for another abyssmal failure and aren’t cringing because Alito doesn’t seem like a total creepshow.

I like how the AP article "Bush Nominates Alito for Supreme Court" covers the "hot button" issue of abortion by first quoting his mother:

Alito’s mother shed some light. "Of course, he’s against abortion," 90-year-old Rose Alito said of her son, a Catholic.

Okay, so in the lesser of two evils land, coming from the Catholic anti-abortion angle is better in my mind because most of the Catholics I know who are against abortion by dogma but still regard the matter as a personal moral choice. So not to generalize too much , but I’ve known that anti-abortion people can be pro-choice, unlike those who come from a different place of real anti-choice.

Now I’m not speaking for Alito here, but maybe I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, you know, in that lesser of two evils land. Could be has the article quotes Senate Minority leader Reid:

"The Senate needs to find out if the man replacing Miers is too radical for the American people," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. A rare Democratic senator who opposes abortion, Reid chided Bush for not nominating the first Hispanic to the court.

"President Bush would leave the Supreme Court looking less like America and more like an old boys club," Reid said.

This may be true. In fact I know it is. But chiding someone for making choices based on identity is as ridiculous as purposefully not doing that. You end up sounding like Frist in a moment of Zen. Which is gross.

Perhaps Alito is too radical for America, but can we really expect anything better from Bush?

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• nick
• Donovan
• Should Samuel Alito be confirmed for the Supreme Court?
• “Will” Harriet Miers be confirmed for the Supreme Court?

The New York Times said in its article "After Upheavals, President Seeks to Steady Course" today:

Administration officials, outside advisers to the White House and Republican strategists said that some personnel changes were likely to occur eventually, regardless of Mr. Rove’s fate, if only because so many administration officials have been on the job for so long. They would probably be gradual and draw primarily from a pool of people already in Mr. Bush’s orbit.

We already know Bush has an awfully low orbit. It’s his prerogative who he employs to advise him on his cabinet, but I wouldn’t want the job. It would be practically asking to be the next scapegoat fall-guy for the biggest of wigs.

I thought originally that this indictment business would be awesome, something would finally stick to the really big bad guys on the right - Rove and Cheney. But that was wishful thinking. No one is going to bring those two down. But there is an army of fall guys in the administration’s orbit that is waiting to either go down for a future mess-up or get nominated to a position for which they are completely unqualified to fill.

Well, then again, I’m watching Hardball with Chris Matthews right now and everyone here seems like Rove might be screwed. My roommate says this could make Watergate look like a Pig Circus. So I don’t know.  If this keeps going, then I’ll be happy. If this is something that finally nails some big cogs in the evil empire machine then I will be completely stoked.

Donovan is right when he says that Clinton Perjury and Libby/Rove/Cheney Perjury are different. I drew the comparison because such a huge deal was made out of the Clinton debacle when in proportion to the heinousness of the charges, this Rove thing should be publicized more than American Idol and raise more public fur than anything Janet Jackson’s nipple could do. It scandalizes the whole country. And it’s gross.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Donovan
• Will Karl Rove be forced to step down over his role in the Plame leak?
• Will the Left and Right ever find a way to live with each other in a civilized manner?

Boo Ya!

Word, Nick, word.

Here’s what I love - are you ready for this? Activists and leaders on the right have warned Bush to choose for his next nominee some one with clear conservative credentials. They didn’t tell him to not waste their time with nominees who are clearly unqualified nits and cronies from the Oval Office or the Texas Capitol. It’s great that conservative critics can spell it out so succinctly:

In the CNN article "Conservatives Look Past Miers" Phyllis Schlafly said

"It is hard to find anyone else like Miers, unless you are talking about Gonzales," she said. "Most of the same arguments would be there. I think [conservative critics] would simply pick up where they left off."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/10/27/scotus.next/index.html

None of these future nominated apples will fall far from the tree. Miers was the archetype, Bush will just find one like her until it sticks.

This is Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Donovan
• nick
• “Will” Harriet Miers be confirmed for the Supreme Court?

I actually hope so, but I don’t know what is happening in OZ these days when the Wizard has lost his magic and the Scarecrow is left unscathed.

This belongs here.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Will Karl Rove be forced to step down over his role in the Plame leak?
• Will the Left and Right ever find a way to live with each other in a civilized manner?

I do hope so.

whereIstand Tags

• Will Special Counsel Fitzgerald indict White House Officials in the Plame case?

With the threat of indictment hanging over Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, and even Veep Cheney another indictment is looming on the horizon for President Bush. Or so I would hope. I just posted about the backlash that should befall Bush after the Katrina aftermath and the dubious appointment of Harriet Miers. Now we have Rove, the spin master Bush owes his election to and Cheney the puppet master who was attributed most decision making magic by the popular pundits during the first GWB term both under fire for perjury.

Now, no one including myself could fault Bush for blame-deflection. He has surrounded himself with so many scapegoats and undeserving cronies and half-heartedly deflected so much blame for poor decision making that at this point all he really looks like to me is a child with Downs Syndrome in a Kevlar pantsuit licking an oil-flavored lollipop with those soulless shark-eyes.

Rove and Cheney. This isn’t just the head of FEMA or Condoleeza Rice anymore, this is big. These are the guys who when the bullets are flying even get to hide behind the President himself. I don’t know if this is an evil empire anymore because I’m not even sure any of them really know what they are doing at all.

I do know that perjury is the same charge Clinton was brought up on in his second term. The perjury is for covering up their actions regarding a CIA operative (Valerie Wilson), reprisals against her diplomat husband (Joseph Wilson), and the truth that Rove and Cheney had an hand in leaking her identity after her husband accused the administration of twisting intelligence used to justify the invasion in Iraq.

Now this is some real Mafia business. Is George Bush the Godfather? Hardly, the NYT had this to report today:

On a day when the mood at the White House was described by one friend of the president as grim, Mr. Bush used his public appearances on Tuesday to show himself as focused on the nation’s business, most notably Iraq, and undeterred by what he has characterized as "background noise."

So the indictment of your two main doods is "background noise"? That must also be what the screams of the drowning Louisianians and the din on the Senate floor having to contend with another incompetent crony you gave them for appointment to the Supreme court.

In the NYT article "Leak Counsel Is Said to Press on Rove’s Role" Dems say

"that Republican rule had fostered an atmosphere of corruption."

I say it’s more than that. It’s not awesome for a government accountable to the people is so secretive and close-doored and shy of scrutiny that charges for crimes like these are even possible at our highest positions of power.

Getting a little head and lying about it is one thing, but the Veep squandering our most precious resource-our troops-on a more-than-potentially unjustified foreign war and the covering it up is just gross.

Plus the dood is a sadist: http://www.wonkette.com/politics/dick-cheney/veep-gives-thumbscrews-thumbs-up-133299.php.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Will the Left and Right ever find a way to live with each other in a civilized manner?

This is looking bad for ole’ Harriet:

Emerging from a weekly luncheon of Republican senators in which they discussed the nomination, several lawmakers suggested that as Ms. Miers continued her visits on Capitol Hill, she was not winning over Republican lawmakers.

- From the New York Times article "Senators in GOP Voice New Doubt in Court Choice."

The problem of course as the article points out in Senator Linsey Graham’s quote is:

"To support the withdrawal would be a rebuke of the president, not her, because she has not said anything yet, so that is a slam on the president, not Harriet Miers, so I don’t think any Republican wants to do that," Senator Graham observed.

This is where party politics destroys all of our faces. Upon discussion of the refusal to disclose documents from her tenure at the White House:

But other conservatives who said they supported the administration’s stance also said that the lack of information about Ms. Miers’s work there could make it harder for her. "It is going to be incumbent on her to get as much information to Republicans as possible in response, particularly, to some of the fundamental constitutional issues," Mr. Thune said. "She has really got to raise the comfort level around here.

She has to raise the comfort level around here? Comfort level. Well I am so thrilled that some on the Judiciary Committee are uncomfortable with the idea of a completely unqualified lady filling a seat on the highest court in the land.

I don’t know about his nomination for Pentagon Spokesman, but does Bush think he has an infinite amount of Washington street cred that he can just flout with impunity regarding some pretty important jobs in high government.

I don’t know if Bush stands to lose face nor gain face, hopefully this (soon-to-be-unsuccessful)nomination compounded with the deathly poor response to the Katrina disaster will reveal Bush for the incompetent, uncaring, crony-loving, closed-door elitist he has been from the beginning.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough faith in the foundering Democratic Party that they can rally enough smart indignation and sound alternatives by closing mid-term elections (like two weeks away is it). I hope I’m wrong. Truth is I have no sound alternatives myself to suggest to the Dems that may give the party a good resuscitation.

Oh and Harriet still has a couple of friends, including Orrin Hatch. on the Judiciary Committee that will be deciding her fate.

And even if she is denied after failing to give everyone on Capitol Hill a hot stone massage, Mr. Bush has tons more people working just down the hall from him. Plus if this new Fed guy doesn’t work out, I’m sure he can find a really great accountant that once did his taxes back in Texas to instate at the Fed.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Donovan
• nick
• “Will” Harriet Miers be confirmed for the Supreme Court?

Oh the Laws the we come up with! Here’s some news from the Gawker Media group about the newest law keeping gun manufacturers safe and sound and Michael Moore totally bummed. Oh yeah, and they are justifying it with Katrina. I love the audacity of the Right.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Will the Left and Right ever find a way to live with each other in a civilized manner?

I have no problem with Donovan’s treatment of this issue, but perhaps he misreads me when he says:

"If you really want to know, I can go through how the logical steps worked.  But I suspect you’re less interested in knowing than in voicing anger and hostility, Andy."

There is no anger, nor hostility intended in my posts, well not the recent ones, just derisive poking-fun at what Donovan calls "inconsistencies." Also, I don’t know how much logic has to do with the cultural processes of religion, and religions certainly didn’t form in steps. Culture is complex and counter-intuitive, so I doubt anything Donovan has to say on this matter.

I obviously respect the religions of the world, for the power they have over people and the power they give people, not for the supposed good they are capable of. I don’t just look for the discrepancies between religions in books and religions on the ground in practice, but I treat the religious things people do as the religion itself. The writings are part of that, but processually the practice concerns me more. It is interesting to look at writings and at practices, and their relationship and the history of changes in both, but I don’t hold the religions in writing to be the ideal or what the religion is "supposed to be" and what people do is some perversion of that. Religions are what people do, and writings depictions are what people once did, or were supposed to do in an idealized form. I don’t know how to judge that against what goes on today, and I’m not saying that American Christians are somehow getting it wrong. I am however interested in the process of how people today came to do and believe what they do.

I don’t know about people hating or loving texts, I know that people can hate or love how texts are used politically by people, through interpretation. The reading of life in the womb that Donovan suggests is the root of a Christian anti-abortion stance is one such example. Some point of view never explicitly stated in a religion becomes an inherent part of said religion by the readings and interpretations of certain key individuals within the religion and that is too much power and influence to not be scrutinized constantly.

I do agree with Donovan about one thing, and he said it better than me:

"Christians add as much as non-Christians to the good in the world - and if it’s a screwed up world, it’s also a beautiful one."

Love the sinner, hate the sin right? 

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Amir
• Donovan
• If I live a righteous life, but never accept Jesus, will I still be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

So this is loaded question, and I don’t believe in Jesus nor is Heaven, but hear me out. What modern Christianity misunderstands from its own book we could just about squeeze in Madonna’s cavernous Devil’s pouch, but whatever.

In fact I was just speaking to my roommate about this, not Esther’s genitals, but the agenda of the Popular Christian movement in America is completely incongruent with what you actually find in the Gospels and in Paul’s letters.

Donovan is right - Jesus hates capitalism - not only does he give away everything to live ascetically, he advocates extreme charity/poverty and has his only shit fit over money being changed at the temple. So how a born again Billionaire Oil Baron like GWB could ever think he is chosen by the sackcloth-wearing OG hippy freak is beyond me. Plus I ain’t seen many camels going through the eyes of needles yet, so we’ll see where rich-ass republican "Christians" end up come rapture (oh yeah that "left Behind" biz ain’t in The Book either). Donovan also makes the point that American Christians are awesome at separating secular moneys and Spiritual actions, turning a blind religious eyes to their finances. Maybe they should take the plank from their own eye, or maybe they are just not letting their left hand know what their right is doing. I don’t know.

Donovan is also right about the inconsistency amongst the Christian right who love the death penalty. Not only is their role model all about forgiveness, he was a victim of the death penalty. Either they are making our criminals into martyrs or comparing them to Jesus in some way or repeating the injustice done to their savior on the backs of present-day convicts. None of these sound awesome at all.

Jesus says nothing about Abortion, nor where life begins, yet Modern American Christians love dealing with this with magical assumptions. I don’t care who knit people together nor if it was in the womb, mistaking poetry for doctrine is retarded.

Jesus has more to say about the evil of lying than anything else, and yet all we hear from are politicians on the right and left. Trust them if you want.

Donovan says:

I can go on at length, questioning where Christian America appears to have turned its back on its own faith.  Indeed, there was a time when I did that for a living, personally, every day, generally attacking and condemning people who called themselves Christians for not living up to their ideals.

I stopped.  Those days are over.  Sometimes, I regret ever having gone through those days.  But now I’ve gained a fairly deep understanding of Christianity, both in word and deed, among the adherents and those who hate it - and on the whole, I respect the belief.

I haven’t stopped. those days are here for me. I can’t respect this faith in any form it takes. Maybe I’m judging History by today’s standards or just repulsed by what the last two thousand years under this paradigm have produced here, today.

I’m not judging people based on my readings the dictates of their faith, I’m just asking. trying to find how people got to where they are. Find out what is from the book, and what is oral tradition, perhaps distorted, perhaps more meaningful/authentic than the gospels even. Religions are more than what people read, they are what people do.

As an atheist, I don’t believe in a Just God - not the "Just" part, the "God" part. I believe people can be Just and kind and charitable. That this good comes from them, the divine part of humanity, not from upstairs, in the sky or anywhere else than between humans.

But the thing is that the Bible and all sacred writings are available for all to read, and for all to spin how they want it. Sacred Writings will be used to further political agendas that have no precedent in the writing itself. Such extrapolation should be scrutinized and questioned especially when so much is a stake with these sentiments fueling debate over the future of this country. And Amir is good to ask his questions.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Amir
• Donovan
• If I live a righteous life, but never accept Jesus, will I still be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?