Out of the Closet

I suppose now is as good a time as any to come out of the closet: I voted twice for that Bush guy. You know, that guy who was twice either elected or "elected", depending on whether or not you yourself voted for him.

I'm not proud of this fact. I only take solice in the fact that, however mediocre he's been, the other two guys would have been worse.

The Republican party, and the Right in general, has been a coalition between social conservatives and small government types. Count me among the latter. Here's my basic philosophy on government:

It's the government's job to make sure there's a road on which to drive myself to work, and that it doesn't have Chinese tanks on it. They get those two things right, and I'm probably going to be happy.

Anything else, either I can do myself, or I can give my own money to help out on. And each dollar spent on things like a $315 million bridge connecting to an island with 50 inhabitants to a town of 8000 inhabitants, or $280 million, 85-acre indoor rainforest in Iowa, is one dollar that is no longer available to be spent on things like an office in which to file articles of incorporation, ideally one that hasn't been reduced to cinders by a suicide bomber. And, as any MBA grad would advise, figure out your core competency and concentrate on it. I don't think ersatz rainforests or bridges to nowhere qualify as what ought to be the federal government's core competency.

But Bush didn't campaign on ridding ourselves on any of that. Quite the contrary. This is a man who once said "When someone gets a boo-boo on their knee, it's the government's job to kiss it and make it all better." Okay, that's not a direct quote, but it's pretty close to it. And if he's upset by any of these projects, he wasn't so upset as to do something like, I dunno, veto the bills that had these boondoggles in them.

On the other hand, when the guys he's running against rant and rave and stamp their feet about how "stingy" he is, who am I supposed to vote for?

Famous J's Ironclad Rules of Politics #1: If a politician is promising to increase spending, they'll probably keep that promise.

This is the fact about America: the plurality of Americans would be defined as socially conservative and economically liberal. (It's true! I have numbers to back it up!) They might whine about how the government can't balance the budget. But in the end, they don't really care about that so much as to want to either pay more in taxes or have less government. Politically, austerity doesn't pay. Sure, there are a few curmudgeons like me who wish the government would leave me alone, but for every one of me, there are three or four who want it quite a bit bigger, and eight who don't give a crap one way or the other.

As Kurtis Blow said, "These are the breaks."

So, in an effort to give the voters what they want, we have one party in favor of more government and another party in favor of a lot more government. And what can those of us who want less goverment do? Two things. And one of them is "Jack".

So, I voted for a guy who promised to make government bigger and then did, for the simple reason that the other guy was promising to make it bigger. But my support for this guy was very tepid at best. The only other things that I was looking for out of him was: 1) that he'd act like he had a pair in international relations (i.e. he wouldn't present his back to the French and politely ask them to stab it), and 2) that he'd put decent people on the Supreme Court.

And then... and then this Harriet Miers business happened.

When I first heard that Bush had nominated his personal attorney to be a supreme court justice, I thought, "Okay, lemme get this straight: You want to hire a crony of yours for the Supreme Court, and her only qualification seems to be that she's a good buddy. And you want us to trust your judgement that she'll be good. [Dr. Evil] Rrright [/Dr. Evil] Is this the same judgment responsible for hiring the notorious incompetent Michael Brown at FEMA? Another man whose only qualification seemed to be that he was one of your good buddies?"

That was just my first impression. Then I started reading more about her, and my esteem went through the floor.

I found out that she's one of those people who, when you send them a memo, they'll spend an hour correcting spelling, grammar and punctuation, but not read a single word of substance in the thing. God, I hate those people. Nothing I've read seems to indicate her as being anything but a small, petty bureaucrat. And 80% of the reason I'm a small-government type is that I hate hate bureaucrats and want to see as few of them as possible empowered. What I don't want to see is them on the supreme court.

I'm far from alone on this one, too. So far from alone, that those of you on the Left, who have been wondering, "Jesus, what does this guy have to do?" I think he's done it. I think what the Left was hoping is for the center to (finally!) take notice of this administration's perfidy, and rise up in disgust. Well, as anyone who spent any time on the Right during the Clinton years can tell you, it ain't gonna happen. This is not a nation of risers-up.

Instead, what you have to hope for is that the president's base will give up on the guy. And that's what's happening right now. And it's not so much the pick. If it were just the pick, Bush could say, "Sorry! I screwed up!" and pick someone else. But he can't do that. That's not how he works. When someone starts attacking a friend of his, he fights back. He can't help it.

So, he's been fighting back. Well, at first it was less fighting and more reasoned defense, but since she doesn't actually have any, um, qualifications, that didn't work. So he trotted out his wife to try some name-calling, and she suggested that people who aren't getting behind this mediocrity of a supreme court pick are guilty of sexism.

If any of you get into political consulting, here's something to keep in mind: Whenever you accuse some Republican of being sexist, racist, homophobic, whatever, they have two responses: "No I'm not, and by the way, f*@# you."

It's getting ugly out there. And if Bush decides he wants to win dirty, it'll get uglier still.

Here's an excellent recap of the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on on the Right. David Frum, who worked for this White House and knows Miers well, has been all over this.

And thanks for letting me rant. Sorry about the length.