Cronyism, Martial Law, and Espionage

I'm back from journal hiatus, and there's plenty going on in the Bush administration and with the Eagles to get me all riled up for a new entry. The new Supreme Court nominee, who happens to be Bush's personal attorney of 10 years, is being criticized from all political camps due to her stunning lack of experience. She has never served as a judge, but according to Bush, she was the best candidate available to fill a void on the nation's highest and most revered court. Wow, that's quite an insult to U.S. judges everywhere! "Hey everyone, my attorney here is more qualified than any of you, namely because she's never done this before!" Bush can't even fool his base with this SNAFU. For once, the evangelicals have criticized W. more harshly than the Dems have. Unfortunately, I don't see how the Democrats can safely vote "no" during her confirmation: Bush won't screw up again if given the chance to field another nominee, and he definitely will try to close the wounds he's opened with his staunchest supporters. Even though the current nominee spells bad news for liberals, too, I think this is the only opportunity we're going to have to avoid someone who actually has a track record of disappointing judicial philosophy. I can't help but recall that after Bush nominated John Roberts, he attended a press conference and told reporters something to the effect of: "I will now begin to consider a nominee to fill Justice O'Connor's seat on the court. I want you all to notice that I was glancing at Al Gonzales as I said that." That night, John Stewart astutely noted that "Wow, either the next Supreme Court nominee is going to be Alberto Gonzales or else President Bush was being a real dick to Alberto Gonzales!" But who needed this irony to confirm that Bush is a dick, anyway?

I'm not sure if you caught this yet, as it's a developing story. During yesterday's press conference (one of those rare Bush-meets-the-press-unaided-and-the-White-House-holds-its-breath type conferences), Bush fieled a question regarding America's preparedness for a possible avian flu epidemic. Rather than commit to stockpiling vaccine and improving the public health infrastructure, Bush radically declared that we should evaluate whether the military could play a containment role in quarantining large populous areas in the evident of an outbreak. Critics jumped all over that shit today, correctly likening the scenario to martial law in our very own freedom-loving democracy. Analyists advise that Bush should have considered fixing the terrible bureaucracy while he had the chance. Instead, we're fixing the bureaucracy and emergency response capabilities of Iraq. Go figure.

An even newer developing story, as yet available only to viewers of tonight's exclusive report on ABC World News Tonight (formerly World News Tonight with Peter the Great), is set to rain havoc on an already-reeling White House. A Filipino-American marine formerly stationed in the White House (part of Dick Cheney's staff, to be precise) has been discovered to be a foreign spy! He used his top-secret security clearance to access over 100 computer files, which he downloaded and then emailed to insurgency groups in the Phillipines. The files contained damaging information about the president of the Phillipines, and the group receiving the secret documents utilized the information to plan a coup d'etat. Terrorism experts say this is a truly unprecedented event -- it is not believed that the White House has ever previously been infiltrated... until now. I can't wait to see how the administration paints a rosy picture of this situation, and I will be nothing less than mortified and shamed if this issue does not drive the Republicans from office for a long time to come. Now just might be a good time to be a liberal. Hope may still be on the way, courtesy of Republican incompetence more than anything else.

Tidbits: The CIA will not discipline agents who ignored key information prior to 9/11. Super Agent Goss doesn't want to jeopardize the incompetency of future terrorism operations by calling attention to (and rectifying) the failings of his agency... The Eagles enter this week's matchup with Dallas as the NFC's elite team to beat. Stunning the Chiefs last week with their highest squandered lead in Kansas City franchise history, the boys in Green are riding high on their 37-31 victory (having trailed 24-6 at one point). Donny Mac may have a nagging sports hernia, bruised breast bone, and injured shin, but he is on pace to set numerous NFL passing records after recording the first-ever back-to-back-to-back 300 yard passing games. Maybe he should play hurt every year... As for med school, we extracted the heart from the mediastinum last week, so tomorrow is as good a time as any to collect the lungs, no?

Music of the Moment: "Hail to the Thief" W's new theme song