Premature political eulogy for Miguel "the snitch" Estrada
Miguel...is toast, possibly well done toast...

As of yesterday Miguel "the snitch" Estrada's prospects of getting on the Federal Appeals Court (and thus one buttcheek away from a seat on the Supreme Court) were lookin' mighty slim.
Senate Republicans failed to stop a Democratic filibuster of the nomination....Majority Leader Dr. Bill "baby face" Frist got his clock cleaned on his first serious errand on behalf of the White House. So the vast rightwing conspiracy finally collected nice painful kick in the shins....well what of it?
No matter how much chaos and doubt invades the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal Government, the great cause of reviving feudalism in the 21st century marches on!
The Estradas of this world may falter and fall, but the Rehnquist Court still stands a lonely heroic watch on the battlements of post modern conservative civilization.
Where there is a seal to be clubbed
A gay marriage to prevent
An endangered species to be ground up
A pregnant woman to hassle
A Wilderness to be bulldozed
An election to overthrow...
Justice Bill Rehnquist and his Posse will be there...count on it.

Ned Flanders in Chief:
One last note re. Howard Fineman's servile profile of the President's religious beliefs in the current "Newsweek".
Howard would have us believe that Bush gets up before dawn to earnestly read his bible prior to starting the daily abuse of common sense and the laws of the Republic.
On the one hand, you can dismiss this as the sort of hopeless hackneyed junk that was once used by the odious likes of Mark Hanna to fob William McKinley off on the voters.
On the other hand we are living in embarrassingly unsophisticated times, so it's probably true that the Prez is down to five hours of sleep on account of his compulsive bible study.
No doubt this morning Bush found a quiet little spot in the family quarters to pour over the battle scenes in the Book of Judges or edify himself in the most gruesome way possible with the "Song of Solomon.
Sick
Demented
Typical...

An advance on Mother's Day:
Last night John IAT's venerable mother said the following:
"Far be it for me to criticize anyone's faith. Mitt Romney's religion won't let him drink, smoke, or touch caffeine-but he sure can LIE like a son of a b*tch! So THAT won't get him sent to hell, but if he drinks a coke he's doomed?"
3-5-03 10:17pm EST

A note to Boston Globe Ombudsman Mark Jurkowitz re. his profile of Mike Savage in today's Arts and Entertainment section.

I have to fault one aspect of your Michael "Savage" profile today...

Mike is also the proud sponsor of a weird quasi vigilante group called the "Paul Revere Society" which he heavy promotes on his website www.paulreveresociety.com.
Herein is the PRS basic program:
The Paul Revere Society 9-Point Program
MEN AND WOMEN PROTECTING AMERICA

1. Make tax cuts permanent.
2. Close the borders now.
3. Deport all illegal immigrants now.
4. Eliminate bilingual education in all states.
5. Require health tests for all recent foreign born immigrants.
6. Eliminate as many entitlement programs as possible.
7. Reduce the number of Federal Employees.
8. Oil Drilling on U.S. Soil.
9. Tort Reform "STOP LAWYERS".

Clearly Savage has some of the same obscene ambitions that once animated William Dudley Pelley and his fascistic "Silver Shirt Legion". Pelley was hung up on immigration and hanging everyone who scared him just like Savage. Now back in the dim dark 1930's guys like Pelley were marginalized as cranks and brutes....but fortunately we live in enlightened times and nowadays ethnophobes like Mike Weiner can look forward to lucrative television contracts and straight-up profiles in the Boston Globe.
You might have at least described this hate group in your piece...just for the purposes of full disclosure.

Yours
John IAT

Notes for Future Veterans:
Assuming we DO go to war in Iraq, what skylarking world of wonder have we promised our victorious veterans?
1.) A zip-lipped snitch named Miguel Estrada is awarded a Federal Judgeship. Moreover, a notorious narc for massacre-advocate Anne Coulter, Estrada is on the short list for a seat on the Supreme Court.
2.) Grandma and Grandpa will be forced to choose by a beneficent Government between their Medicare coverage and a threadbare prescription drug benefit.
3.) Meanwhile the Attorney General will still be reading your mail, cataloguing your e-mail, compiling lists of the videos you rent, and no doubt seizing excrement samples for forcible analysis.
That is if you are not already in jail for buying a bong on line....
4.) Oh...and your Boss? She or he will be ludicrously over capitalized thanks to relentless tax cuts. In effect they will join a new unprecedented class of wealthy tax exempt GOP clients and social deadbeats.
5.) The one trillion dollar cost of the war you won will be paid for by you, your progeny, and possibly their offspring as well.
6.) Whoops almost forgot to mention, a white power activist named Mike Savage now has a talk show on MSNBC. Boy when Grand-dad was drafted back in 1942 creepy tinpot stormtroopers like Mike were treated as the brutes and buffoons they were. But it's a new era in 2003 and those selfsame falangists can look forward lucrative careers on cable television.
Frankly, in some ways, you guys are a lot safer over there than we are back here at home...all you have to do is topple Saddam....we've got to deal with freakjob hammerheads like Coulter, Savage, Will, Limbaugh, Severin, Hannity, Carlson, etc etc etc...
:)

Me and God in Washington:
Newsweek has found it's own Hugh Sidey.
I refer of course to Howard Fineman who has the White House Beat for that fine and noble newsweekly.
Unlike Sidey though, Fineman restricts his nauseating brown-nosing to the person of the incumbent President Mister George Bush Jr.
In this week's heavily hyped cover story Fineman "examines" the stale religious kitsch that passes for the President's closely held Christian faith. As an article it manages to render the President's alleged victory over chronic inebriation in terms that would do justice to a medal of honor winner. It is certainly not Fineman's fault that our standards of public heroism have fallen so abysmally low that one can aspire to the top ranks simply by drying out.
No, Fineman's sin is a one of omission-but it is a glaring one. Howard manages to churn out the usual hagiography without once calling the President a "mean drunk" which is what he was back in his drinking days, assuming those drinking days are done.
The problem with mean drunks is that sometimes they dry out only to be mean sober citizens...this has got to be the case with GWB. He's got that blood crimson angry look in his eye that comes from chronic hallucinations wherein congress turns into loud dancing Jack Daniels' bottles...this is when the President's faith comes in and he starts making with the harsh over the top threats.
Sick
Demented
Typical...

All Power to the Jacoby-ins

Jeff Jacoby, yet another one of the Boston Globe's poor helpless token conservative op-ed trogs, thinks the proposed "liberal" talk radio show won't work.
It's pointless to wallow in why he thinks it won't work-the real reason is, Jeff doesn't need the competition.
Like most regional conservative columnists Jeff desperately wants to rake in the big bucks with a television sinecure or better yet a full time radio gig like Boston Herald Columnista Howie Carr has got.
And why not?
For today's jingo-propagandist-punditocrat, the loose journalism standards to today's talk radio/opinion teevee are a potential goldmine...one can profitably call for the elevation of George Bush Junior to the Sultanate or accuse Senator Clinton of necromancy sans reproof or damage to advertising sales.
Jeff has wanted such a gig for so long he can taste it, I recall with the simplest nostalgia the smirking constipated rictus he'd affect on WCVB's old "Five on Five" sunday morning yakfest.
It was like he was rehearsing his game face for the notional "Jeff Jacoby" cable-show.
Mark my words he wants it and he wants it bad, beating up a liberal radio show that'll never come to pass is just the dues he has to happily pay in order to get scheduled after Mike Savage on MSNBC.
Sick
Demented
Typical...