Monday, January 09, 2006
Squawk
Rick Santorum, on Samuel Alito: "The only way to restore this Republic our founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito." Translation: "Ooga booga booga." Both the quote and my translation have an equal relationship to any objective reality. But given that Santorum was speaking at another Justice Sunday event, in front of an audience of religious twits to whom cause, effect, evidence, and proof are just words in the dictionary, I'm not all that surprised. They could have put a talking parrot or a trained giraffe up there and gotten similarly erudite commentary. The parrot analogy is actually pretty good, when you consider the rhetoric that came out of the event: "homosexual agenda," "Alito good," "pretty bird," "moral values," "original intent," "Polly want a cracker." See?
If you have been paying attention to the debate over Alito, it seems clear that the "Republic" Santorum is talking about Alito restoring is not so much a Republic as it is Merry Olde England before the Glorious Revolution. And the fact that the American Bar Association has given Alito its highest rating means nothing, despite what you saw on TV all weekend: He's undoubtedly qualified to be a justice, in the sense of having the appropriate legal education, training, and experience, which is important, given the Harriet Miers fiasco. His bare qualifications to serve have got nothing to do with his problems: a paper trail proving he'd vote to overturn Roe (despite disingenuous comments to the contrary to a few senators on the Judiciary Committee), and some dangerously un-American ideas on presidential power. That's the real issue at stake in his hearings: How will he rule, and will it be in keeping with the Supreme Court's historic norms?
But back to Justice Sunday: Organizers claim 80 million people watched or listened to the show last night. Not a chance. It may have been available to 80 million viewers through Christian radio and TV outlets--which is not the same thing as all 80 million actually watching or listening. I am guessing that number presumes the Christian station here in Madison, for example, was listened-to by all 300,000 people in the metro area, which it clearly was not. And if there really are 80 million people in the United States who'd actually watch this nonsense--which would be nearly four times as many as watched the Rose Bowl last week, and in the neighborhood of what a low-rated Super Bowl draws--especially when there were new episodes of The West Wing and Desperate Housewives to watch, the rest of us should be on planes for Auckland tomorrow morning.
Recommended Reading: At Daily Kos, Georgia 10 discusses the the current civil war: not red vs. blue, not liberal vs. conservative, but citizens vs. the government.
The highly quotable DCeiver, who subbed a lot for Wonkette over the last few weeks, has his own blog.
And finally, the BBC reports on a talk-show caller who died while on the air. As an ex-radio host who died on the air lots of times, this is a refreshing switch.
Rick Santorum, on Samuel Alito: "The only way to restore this Republic our founders envisioned is to elevate honorable jurists like Samuel Alito." Translation: "Ooga booga booga." Both the quote and my translation have an equal relationship to any objective reality. But given that Santorum was speaking at another Justice Sunday event, in front of an audience of religious twits to whom cause, effect, evidence, and proof are just words in the dictionary, I'm not all that surprised. They could have put a talking parrot or a trained giraffe up there and gotten similarly erudite commentary. The parrot analogy is actually pretty good, when you consider the rhetoric that came out of the event: "homosexual agenda," "Alito good," "pretty bird," "moral values," "original intent," "Polly want a cracker." See?
If you have been paying attention to the debate over Alito, it seems clear that the "Republic" Santorum is talking about Alito restoring is not so much a Republic as it is Merry Olde England before the Glorious Revolution. And the fact that the American Bar Association has given Alito its highest rating means nothing, despite what you saw on TV all weekend: He's undoubtedly qualified to be a justice, in the sense of having the appropriate legal education, training, and experience, which is important, given the Harriet Miers fiasco. His bare qualifications to serve have got nothing to do with his problems: a paper trail proving he'd vote to overturn Roe (despite disingenuous comments to the contrary to a few senators on the Judiciary Committee), and some dangerously un-American ideas on presidential power. That's the real issue at stake in his hearings: How will he rule, and will it be in keeping with the Supreme Court's historic norms?
But back to Justice Sunday: Organizers claim 80 million people watched or listened to the show last night. Not a chance. It may have been available to 80 million viewers through Christian radio and TV outlets--which is not the same thing as all 80 million actually watching or listening. I am guessing that number presumes the Christian station here in Madison, for example, was listened-to by all 300,000 people in the metro area, which it clearly was not. And if there really are 80 million people in the United States who'd actually watch this nonsense--which would be nearly four times as many as watched the Rose Bowl last week, and in the neighborhood of what a low-rated Super Bowl draws--especially when there were new episodes of The West Wing and Desperate Housewives to watch, the rest of us should be on planes for Auckland tomorrow morning.
Recommended Reading: At Daily Kos, Georgia 10 discusses the the current civil war: not red vs. blue, not liberal vs. conservative, but citizens vs. the government.
The highly quotable DCeiver, who subbed a lot for Wonkette over the last few weeks, has his own blog.
And finally, the BBC reports on a talk-show caller who died while on the air. As an ex-radio host who died on the air lots of times, this is a refreshing switch.
