The Second Opinion

Whining about Miers

I've about had enough of conservatives whining about Harriet Miers.  I've heard Rush, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity do it.  I've seen other conservatives do it in print.  To all and sundry:

Please shut up.

Miers is not the pick most of us wanted.  We wanted a person of known conservative principles who we could feel sure would bring an originalist interpretation of the Constitution to the Supreme Court.  President Bush thinks that Miers will do that.  He ought to know: they've worked together and been friends for over ten years.  Yes, she may turn out to be a liberal in conservative clothing, as did O'Connor, Souter, and that idiot Anthony Kennedy.  The president, like the rest of us, can't see the future and know what effect (if any) living in DC and sitting on the bench will have on Miers and her principles.

Neither do the rest of us.

But let's be fair.  Let's see how she does in her confirmation hearings.  Let's see what she has to say over the next few weeks.  Let's give her a chance and stop whining about it.

If at first you don't succeed...

Ronnie Earle has apparently read some of the scathing criticisms of his 'indictment' of Tom DeLay, because he's gone and got another one.  According to the AP's April Castro:

The latest indictment, for one count of conspiring to launder money and one count of money laundering, was brought hours after DeLay's lawyers attacked on technical grounds another indictment handed down last week.

District Attorney Ronnie Earle did not return repeated phone calls from The Associated Press, but legal experts say the new charges from the Democratic prosecutor were likely filed to head off a potential problem with the previous charge.

Defense lawyers asked a judge Monday to throw out the first indictment, arguing that the charge of conspiring to violate campaign finance laws was based on a statute that didn't take effect until 2003 — a year after the acts in question.

Money laundering is a much more serious charge than... um... er... Well, it's a much more serious charge than whatever Ronnie Earle charged DeLay with in the first indictment.  DeLay and his supporters, natch, are none to thrilled with this turn of events:

"The judicial incompetence and political hatred that Ronnie Earle showed today demonstrates that Texans did not elect their best and brightest to the position of Travis County DA," DeLay spokesman Stuart Roy said. "Ronnie Earle may truly be the Elmer Fudd of politics."

Again, I don't know if DeLay is innocent.  As many people have observed, one doesn't reach such a high position in American politics without having some bodies buried SOMEWHERE.  However, Ronnie Earle's indictments certainly seem to be more political hatchet jobs than serious criminal investigation.  His first indictment, handed down on the last day of the grand jury's term, was completely non-specific and indeed appears to charge DeLay under a statute that wasn't even law when the alleged crime was committed (can you say ex post facto, anyone?).  Now he's gone back to the well to find other charges.

DeLay has been pilloried by the liberal press and the democrats in Congress, mostly because he isn't nice to them.  Ronnie Earle publicly called him a bully.  Well, being a bully isn't a crime.

It may well be that nothing DeLay did was a crime, either.

Spoiling for a fight

Many Republicans, including Michelle Malkin, Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry, are less than thrilled with President Bush's choice of Harriet Miers to replace Madame Justice O'Connor.  It seems to me that their problem is not with Miers per se.  Though they complain a bit about her lack of judicial experience and the appearance of cronyism, their real problem seems to be that they were spoiling for a fight with the democrats in the Senate and hoped that Bush would appoint a person of unquestioned conservative principles.  Instead, they got... a cipher.  The fact that some democrats actually seem happy with the choice of Miers doesn't help their mood.

I would be happier with a nominee of the sort that Malkin et al want, and not only for partisan reasons: I think that a Supreme Court justice really ought to have experience on the bench, though I accept that there are good arguments for having justices who have experience outside the bench.  However, I don't see that any good is served by having a battle with the Senate dems unless it's unavoidable.  Let them bear the onus for picking a fight; let them look foolish and petty by picking apart the private life of the nominee; let them hang themselves.

Miers may not be the best legal brain in the country.  She may not have the solid conservative credentials that so many of us would like to see.  But she does have one major point to recommend her: George Bush, who knows her well, thinks she'll be a good justice.

Only time will tell if he's right.

Harriet Miers for SCOTUS

Well, the dems said that they wanted a woman to replace Madame Justice O'Connor on the bench.  Think that President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers will make them happy?

NAH!

The idea that President Bush MUST appoint a woman to replace O'Connor is witless, of course: it implies that the law somehow applies differently to women than it does to men, and therefore only a female justice can judge such cases correctly.  Should we then have an all-female Supreme Court to judge cases that apply to women?  How about an all-black Court, or an all-Latino Court?

The idea is ludicrous, but is a logical outgrowth from the politicization of the Court.  Those who call for judges and justices to be appointed on the basis of gender, skin color, ethnic heritage or any other physical trait is confusing the job of a judge with that of a politician.  It is the job of an elected politician is to cater to one or more interest groups.  The role of a judge is and should be to say what the law is without fear or favor.  If the president and the Senate would keep this firmly in mind, it would greatly smooth the process of appointing judges and justices, and I think the cause of the law would be much better served.

Tom DeLay and Ronnie Earle

Now that more right-wingers have had time to react to the indictment of Tom DeLay, they've been able to dig up a bit more about the case and the prosecutor, Ronnie Earle.  To put it mildly, this guy seems to be a malicious fruitcake.  He has a history of bringing charges against political opponents, charges that are shown to be baseless in court.  In 1993, he indicted Kay Bailey Hutchinson on a variety of charges which he dropped after the case went to court.  Michelle Malkin has a great deal more about this guy. 

The Washington Times' Hugh Aynesworth has this to say about Earle under the headline "A Tough Prosecutor":

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has long been a nemesis of Texas Republicans, particularly of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. He called the man Washington knows as "the Hammer," for his partisan toughness, a "bully."

He has persuaded grand juries to indict several prominent Texas politicians of both parties, including the current senior sitting U.S. senator, although several of those high-profile cases failed.

The late Bob Bullock, a Democratic lieutenant governor, once compared Mr. Earle to "a little boy playing with matches."

John Podhoretz is less charitable in a New York Post editorial:

DeLay's prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, has a long history of using his office in questionable ways against political rivals. DeLay played some major political hardball back in Texas a few years ago when he masterminded a successful effort to redraw the state's congressional districts — behavior about which Texas Democrats remain plum loco — and Earle has been on his tail ever since.

Earle was humiliated in 1994 when he sought to drop a case he had brought against Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on the eve of trial just so he could switch judges and give it a second shot — only to see the judge swear in a jury to assure that Hutchison receive a full acquittal.

Some liberals defend Earle on the strange grounds that he isn't guilty of using his office to play politics because he's also indicted fellow Democrats. But in the highest-profile case he had before Hutchison, Earle was also humiliated when an absurd bribery charge he had brought against Democratic state Attorney General Jim Mattox led to a quick jury verdict of "not guilty." He also indicted himself once — on some campaign-finance charge — so there's some reason to believe he might be a bit cracked.

Attorneys Mark Levin and Barbara Comstock believe that the case will collapse simply because there's nothing to it.  Says Levin:

Other than a statement that "one or more" of 3 individuals, including Tom DeLay, entered into an illegal conspiracy, I can't find a single sentence tying Tom DeLay to a crime. That is, there's not a single sentence tying DeLay to the contribution. The indictment describes the alleged conduct of two other individuals, but nothing about DeLay. You would think if Ronnie Earle had even a thin reed of testimony linking DeLay to the contribution, it would have been noted in the indictment to justify the grand jury's action. Moreover, not only is there no information about DeLay committing acts in furtherance of a conspiracy, there's no information about DeLay entering into a conspiracy. I honestly believe that unless there's more, this is an egregious abuse of prosecutorial power. It's a disgrace. I understand that not everything has to be contained in an indictment, but how about something!

Comstock (e-mail to Michelle Malkin):

The Problems with Earle's case:

In an effort to contrive jurisdiction over DeLay, Earle charges that because Congressman DeLay may have known about the transaction before it occurred, he was then part of a conspiracy.

However, Earle's office has sworn testimony and other exculpatory evidence showing that Congressman DeLay did not have knowledge of the transaction.

In addition:

No corporation or labor organization was indicted in this conspiracy. Neither Jim Ellis nor John Colyandro is a corporation or labor organization.

No corporation or labor organization made a contribution during 60 days of an election.

What constitutes a contribution under the Texas Election Code is not strictly defined.

Neither the RNC nor RNSEC constitute a political party under Texas election law. They are considered PACs, just as the DNC is.

Corporations in Texas could have legally made contributions to the RNC or RNSEC during the period in question under Texas election law.

There was no violation of the Texas Election Code. There was no conspiracy. The underlying transaction was legal. Had corporations sent money directly to the RNC or RNSEC, the transaction would be legal. How could anyone conspire to do indirectly what could legally have been done directly?

But sending DeLay to jail may not be what it's all about.  After all, Earle - who spoke about the case at a democrat fundraiser in May - has provided the dems with the ability to attach the word 'indicted' to Tom DeLay's name.  It may even be that he'll be able to persuade a judge to have DeLay brought to his arraignment in handcuffs... with LOTS of photographers in attendence.  DeLay has already had to step down from his post as Majority Leader.  Even if the charges are baseless, Earle's actions have been VERY good for the DNC.

As I've already said, justice should be done.  If DeLay has broken the law, he should be punished.  But something certainly stinks about Ronnie Earle.

DeLay indicted

After months of rumors and accusations, Tom DeLay has been indicted by a Texas grand jury upon charges of conspiracy to evade Texas campaign finance laws.  The fact that the prosecutor who brought the charges, Ronnie Earle, is a democrat muddies the waters of the case.

If DeLay has committed a crime, then justice ought to be served.  For now, House Republican party rules require him to step down from his leadership position.  He will likely be replaced temporarily by Congressman David Dreier (R-CA).

Truth in politics?

Yesterday, democrat NYC mayoral nominee Fernando Ferrer got busted because he'd posted on his website that he was "educated in pubic schools for most of my education".

Problem is, he wasn't.  According to the New York Post's Carl Campanile, Ferrer almost exclusively attended Catholic schools in NYC.  Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg's campaign was delighted to point out the gaff, which Ferrer blamed on a staffer:

The Ferrer campaign blamed a staffer for the fib, claiming the candidate's Web site writing had been "inaccurately edited."

"In a blog entry from earlier this month, an item submitted by Freddy Ferrer was inaccurately edited regarding Freddy's education. We apologize for the mistake and have corrected the entry," said Ferrer campaign manager Nick Baldick.

During a campaign event with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean yesterday, Ferrer insisted he didn't write the line about attending public schools.

"It's my campaign and my responsibility," he said. "So that's been corrected."

Ferrer denied that he intentionally lied about his schooling.

"That's absolute nonsense and everyone knows it. I'm proud of the schools I went to and the after school programs I went to, and everyone who knows me in public life knows that," he said.

Now, I personally don't care where a candidate went to school (OK, so long as it wasn't Florida, but that's a personal matter).  What really bugs me about this is the lame excuse that a staffer "inaccurately edited" the story.  Politicians must think that we, the voters, are REALLY stupid to fall for this kind of thing.  Would it be too much to ask for politicians to stop playing these silly games, or for the media to call them on it?  I mean, really:

CAMPAIGN SPOKESMAN: "An item on our campaign website was inaccurately edited."

ME: (guffaws) "You must be kidding!!  'Inaccurately edited'???  THAT'S the best you can come up with???"

More to the point, why do politicians seem to find it necessary to fictionalize their lives?  I think it's clear that Ferrer was trying to portray himself to be a good ol' boy from the Bronx.  Why?  Why not simply be honest and tell his real story?  Or does he think the electorate is so stupid that they'll vote for a 'story' instead of ideas?

Ooops...  Maybe he's right!

Schumer uses Katrina to raise money for DNC

While Americans are pouring money into relief funds for Hurrican Katrina, Chuckie Schumer wants them to pour money into something else:

the democrat party

According to the New York Post's Lukas I. Alpert, Chuckie posted an on-line appeal for people to sign a petition urging the president to fire FEMA Director Michael Brown... and drop a few bucks in the DNC kitty:

After being contacted by The Post and Associated Press, Schumer pulled down the page and said any money raised by the anti-FEMA petition would be donated to charity.

When recipients clicked on a link to the petition, the top center of the screen — above the call to "Fire the FEMA director" — had asked for a donation to the DSCC [democrat Senatorial Campaign Commitee, the group that tries to get MORE people like Chuckie, Teddy, Leaky, and Jean-Francois elected].

The vast majority of Americans see Katrina as a tragedy and are thinking only of what they can do to help.

As we've seen from the shrill voices of some on the left, and now this shameless effort to coin money from suffering, there are some dems who think only of what this disaster can do to help them.

Martin Frost on Katrina response

Former Congressman Martin Frost (D-TX) has written an editorial at Fox News today.  My basic reaction to it is that it's more of the same partisan whining that we've seen since about 15 seconds after Katrina made landfall.

I recognize my partisanship.  Frankly, I don't trust the average democrat any further than I could throw him.  As Chris Muir points out in today's "Day by Day" strip, the dems have brought exactly NOTHING to the table except whining and recriminations.  Frankly, it's not helpful... or unexpected.

That being said, these are some of Congressman Frost's thoughts:

If I were still in Congress, here are the type questions I would want posed to the administration, and I would hope that they would be asked by members of both parties.

1.) Is the new Department of Homeland Security simply an unworkable bureaucracy that is incapable of responding to a major domestic disaster in a timely way?

I was a member of the House Select Committee that created the new DHS. Did we make a mistake by submerging the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) in this massive new department? FEMA seemed to work well as a stand-alone agency. Now, it appears to be frozen.

"It appears to be frozen." Interesting.  The command and control situation in the Gulf Coast is improving but still pretty chaotic, and reliable news is not easy to get.  It may well be that FEMA could have done much better; we won't know until the water has receeded and we've had time to conduct a (hopefully) sober analysis of what happened.

I suggest two issues to consider:

a)  Part of the problem is that big federal band-aids don't always work well, yet this is the immediate and natural response of politicians to any crisis.  Witness the Patriot Act: almost every member of Congress rushed to pass this legislation after 9-11 in the interests of appearing to be doing SOMETHING, but now many of them have had second thoughts about their votes.  Ditto the invasion of Iraq.  There are times for fast action, and there are times for slow, deliberate, and even cold-blooded analysis.  When we get around to trying to learn lessons from Katrina, it will be time to be careful and not slap a band-aid on the problem;

b)  The erosion of our federal system in the past seventy years has left everybody with the idea that DC is responsible for everything.  While the feds certainly have a BIG role to play in a catastrophe like Katrina, let's also remember that the state and local governments have primary responsibility.  What were they doing?  What might they have done differently or better?

2.) Have we made a terrible mistake by relying so heavily on the National Guard for our Iraqi commitment? As everyone can now see, the National Guard is essential to maintaining order in times of a domestic crisis. Should we have relied more heavily on the Reserves and active duty forces for Iraq and left the National Guard in place to deal with disasters like Katrina?

This is partisan horse s**t and represents a shameless effort by the left to use Katrina to further undermine the Iraq war.  There are PLENTY of National Guard troops around, not only in the affected states but in other states as well.  Had Gov. Blanco bothered to mobilize her NG units in a more timely manner AND make a request of other states to contribute some of their own troops, this wouldn't be an issue.

3.) Did we make a mistake by not committing active duty forces like the 82nd Airborne immediately to New Orleans once the flooding began? We have used active duty Army units to help with disaster relief in the past and there are units like the 82nd Airborne that are not currently fully committed to Iraq.

Frost was a congressman, so it's a little surprising that he doesn't understand the relationship between the US military and the states (OK, maybe it's NOT surprising).  First, the governor has to request active duty troops from the feds; if the president had ordered the 82nd into the Gulf without the governors' permission (absent invoking the Insurrection Act), he would have been breaking the law.  The Posse Comitatus Act also prohibits the use of federal troops in law enforcement duties except under particular circumstances.  Given the looting situation in NO after the storm, federal troops might well have had to fire on civilians in self-defense.  I can just hear the shrieks of outrage now...

As it happens, the military HAS showed up in the area, and most people are grateful for it because at last SOMEBODY - General Russel Honore - is taking charge.  On Sept 1 (three days after the storm struck), the DoD announced the deployment of 30,000 troops to the area in addition to all the National Guard troops the were either already there or on the way.

Finally, I can't resist pointing out how stoutly the dems and libs have always resisted military spending and how critical they've been of the military / DoD in Iraq.  Kind of ironic that now they want the same people who inflicted the 'horrors' of Abu Ghraib turned loose on American citizens.

4.) One of the issues identified immediately after the 9/11 attack on New York and Washington was the local police and fire departments did not have the right communications equipment to talk to each other in times of an emergency. Once again, we have had a failure of communications equipment. Why hasn’t anything been done in the past four years to remedy this situation nationwide?

A good question, Congressman.  Why don't you ask the state and local officials in LA what the hell they've been doing with all the homeland security money they've been getting.  As I understand the law, Uncle Sugar just gets requests from state and local governments and cuts them a check; what they do with the money is up to them.  So, if the various cities and parishes in LA can't communicate with each other because they didn't bother to buy the right communications equipment, it's really their fault.

Once again, it's an issue of federalism.  State governors and local authorities get pretty irate when Uncle Sam shows up and TELLS them what to do (witness Blanco, who refuses to hand over control of the LA situation to FEMA for blatant political reasons).  Further, one size does NOT fit all.  Some states and municipalities have - or think they have - good systems in place and don't need some guy from Washington telling them that they've got to change their systems to meet some arbitrary national standard.  Others have systems that have good parts and only need help to bring everything up to the same high level of competence.  Finally, there are those whose emergency plans seem to amount to 'mayor leaves for Baton Rouge and hopes for the best'.

If Uncle Sam is going to establish national standards, then it's going to require a SERIOUS overhaul not only of our emergency response systems but also a total change in the relationship between federal and state / local governments.

Congress in recent years has abdicated its responsibility to ensure that the Executive Branch is doing its job effectively. There are people who will view any questions posed in the aftermath of Katrina as simply a partisan attack on the Bush administration. That is not the case, and it would be a disservice to our country for anyone to attempt to muzzle Congress at this time because the questions are being posed to a Republican president.

Well, he's half-right: Congress HAS abdicated a lot of responsibility, and not just in 'oversight'.  Where was Congress before Katrina?  They have committees, huge staffs, the CBO and GAO AND responsibility for the federal budget.  If enough money wasn't being spent on the levees along the Mississippi, where was Congress?  If enough money wasn't being spent on emergency response, where was Congress?  If money was being wasted, where was Congress?  Last time I checked, Lousiana had a congressional delegation; what have they been doing all these years?  Congressmen and Senators are very adept at making sure their pet projects get funded through pork-barrel spending, but when something bad happens they are equally adept at pointing fingers at the White House.

Does it strike anybody else as contradictory that Frost wants Congress to have greater 'oversight' of the executive branch while at the same time wondering if CONGRESS fouled up in forming DHS and putting FEMA under it?

Congress needs to get off its duff and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

Well, duh.  Does this mean that funding for DoD will be increased?  Fewer bases will be closed?  Congress will start spending more money on levees?  Will there be a congressional investigation of the role state and local governments played before, during and after the disaster?  Or will Senator Mary Landrieu threaten - again - to punch anybody who criticizes local officials in the nose?

Or, within a few weeks, will we be back to business as usual and our tax dollars will return to funding the Robert KKK Byrd Memorial Submarine Base in West Virgina?

I know where I'd put my bets.

Hitting a Blanco wall

(hat tip: Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler)

Lousiana Governor Kathleen Blanco isn't exactly covering herself with glory these days.  Even whil screeching the Washington should be doing more to help her storm-ravaged state, she's stoutly resisting any federal erosion of her official authority.  According to the Washington Post's Manuel Roig-Franzia and Spencer Hsu:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

What's behind her intransigence?  Politics:

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

In other words, Blanco wants the feds to do everything, but she wants it to look like she's still in charge.  Contrary to lefty ideas of Bush the tyrant, he's sort of letting her have her own stupid way:

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Blanco has dragged her heels since before the storm, and certainly isn't doing anything to cut the bureaucratic red tape.  Witness these things:

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

...

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

Color me cynical, but hiring Witt AFTER the disaster seems to me to indicate that she wasn't too happy with the advisors she had BEFORE the disaster.

About the only thing that Blanco, Nagin and the rest of the politicians in LA and NO have done with vigor, organization and planning is... criticize the federal government for not taking care of everything.

Sigh...

When all this is cleaned up in the months to come, the people of Louisiana and New Orleans will need to ask themslves why they bother to pay state and local taxes.