Jan. 12, 2003 - 22:40 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Hearse

Helen Thomas has a column in today's news. "Tricks of the political trade," she calls it. She pretty well outlines Rove's philosophy and practises and tells of his dirty operations from way back in the time of Nixon to the present day. It is quite an article and as near as I can tell, exposes Rove's bum to the world as a specialist in dirty work.

Here is another column in this mornings paper by E. J. Dionne, a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His column is headed, "Talking principle, walking partisan," his opening paragraph is a hummer. "You have to hand it to President Bush and his judge-pickers.They understand the power of the judiciary to shape American political life for years to come. They brazenly use their executive authority to fill the courts with their allies. Then they attack, attack and attack again when opposition senators dare invoke their own constitutional power to slow a juggernaut whose purpose is to remake the world according to the specifications of Justice Antonin Scalia."

Then Mr. Dionne goes on to say, "To make it clear who is in charge, Bush took two Circuit Court nominees rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, when it was in Democratic hands, and sent them right back." Later on Mr. Dionne makes a telling statement, "The real issue here involves not the personal characteristics of nominees, but a political struggle to create an increasingly activist conservative bench." (my words, Activist -- is that anything for a Judge type to be doing ? I thought that impartiality and observance of the law is a judges sworn duty.) Quoting Senator Charles E. Schumer a New York Democrat, Mr. Dionne quotes again, "They realized that if they took over the one unelected part of the government, they could govern for a generation."

Going on, "Clint Bolick, a former Regan Justice Department official and conservative activist, told The Washington Post this week that 'Everyone on the right agreed in 2000 that judicial nominations were the single most important reason to be for Bush.'"

Mr. Dionne cites several different times that politics played a great hand in keeping things under the hats of the administration. "Or consider the ruling of Judge John Bates in December, declaring that Congress' General Accounting Department -- and thus the public -- had no right to learn the specifics about meetings between Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and energy executives and lobbyists." (My words, lobbyists ? energy executives ? secrets ?) "Bates, a Bush appointee, was an attorney for Ken Starr's Whitewater investigation and pushed hard (and successfully) for the release of various White House documents related to Hillary Rodham Clinton's activities. When that guy was working for Ken Starr, he wanted to open the dresser drawers of the White House," said Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, "I guess it's a lot different when it's a Republican vice president." Mr. Dionne says further, "Such suspicions of partisanship in the judiciary are corrosive because, unfortunately, they are now plausible."

Mr. Dionne's column has more in the same vein.

More and more the Emperor is losing his clothes and many of our population and Congress are pretending that His Excellency is clothed in the splendiferous raiment he thinks should be his to wear -- is that the way it should go ?

Things are getting crazy, or should I say crazier ? How long can this kind of activity continue before the system breaks down further and dies. Mr. Dionne's article indicates that the administration is putting the court before the Hearse . . . . . . . . . .

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