November 7
It's been five days since I wondered where this would go with challenging judges on political grounds in the DeLay trial. I spent the weekend in DeLay's district as well as being a tourist around other parts of the Houston area, but I can't tell this is foremost on anyone's minds. At the local daily, the Houston Chronicle, one columnist, Clay Robinson, made mention that the partisanship of judges might be a problem. I like some things about Texas. That's not one of them. Being able to be part of the small but intense crowd at the Houston Aeros game (American Hockey League, the top minor league) was one of the things I've liked. Walking out of a hockey arena and seeing palm trees was just weird. The main thing though is I was accurate in my sort of prediction, "sort of" because I suppose I was suggesting this could happen rather than saying it would.
However, there is something else where I feel justified in saying "I told you so", in this case on my personal site before I started this blog. Over in the quotes column today I added this from a Houston Chronicle editorial today: "It should give Americans of both parties pause when the assessment of ordinary citizens opposing the war, and that of the U.N. officials looking for weapons in Iraq, proves more reliable than the combined intelligence capability of the free world." I was one of those opponents before the invasion. As best I recall, about 30% of the public never bought Bush's sales pitch, and I feel confident in saying the majority opposed the war at least in part because they didn't think the evidence held up. There's a bigger point besides boasting about having been right. What will the effect be of intelligence agencies being so wrong or so misused, whichever you believe? What will the effect be of the government being so wrong or deceptive, again depending on which you believe, and war opponents being so much more accurate then the intelligence agencies, the government, and for that matter the mainstream and conservative media? I suggest all future administrations will have a tougher time selling the public on war, which generally is a good thing, but it isn't a positive for the public to start from the assumption the government is either wrong or lying. It may get harder to sell not just war, but also good things like, for example, energy efficiency or or anti-poverty initiatives.
Supporters of good ideas as well as bad ideas have to get past the point that it doesn't matter if government and media are in agreement when they have a record of being so wrong. Let us hope that once the country can get past the partisan bitterness and some basic level of trust, we'll realize that the credibility problem of the acting president is a function of having such a person as president and having such people surrounding him, and not something inherent to just anyone who might someday work in the White House. Unfortunately, I expect the next president will spend the whole first term just cleaning up Bush's mess, and even the second term and maybe the next president will have to focus on rebuilding American credibility both at home and abroad --- and that's assuming they succeed in rebuilding it. Otherwise, we will be talking about the spectre of Iraq they way we did about Vietnam into the 90's, not to mention the revival of Vietnam's divisiveness in the last election.
November 2
I'm driving down to Texas as I write this, on the same day I read in the print edition of the Kansas City Star that Tom DeLay was successful in getting another judge because the first judge had given money to Democrats. To a degree I don't blame him (though it sounded from the article like he was his usual arrogant smirking self), but I also know he's trying to get a judge who is dependent on Republican campaign cash. It struck me because Minnesota's law preventing judges from running as partisans, collecting large campaign donations, and addressing specific issues, was recently thrown out by the US Supreme Court (but conservatives don't believe in judicial activism, remember that when they, um, judicially activate).
Besides the change in Tom DeLay's judge, I thought of the recent revelation of one of Harriet Miers' scandals, where a judge she gave money to put her crony on a commission that bought her land for ten times market value. I also was reminded of the debate over the nomination of Priscilla Owen, who took a wad of campaign cash from Enron when she ran for the Texas Supreme Court and then ruled in Enron's cases in Enron's favor. I really don't want that in Minnesota, and I start to question the whole idea of electing judges. If Tom DeLay can't get a fair trial from a Democratic judge, can the prosecution get a fair trial from a Republican judge? Isn't it obvious having judges identified by party is just going to undercut the judicial system? One of the smart things Minnesota did was set up a commission for judicial appointments. Think about if federal judges were chosen that way. The fighting over nominations is consistently over nominees with some combination of extreme views, low qualifications, and ethical problems. The result is a judiciary that feels more political pressure than ever, and no originalist can tell me the founding fathers intended the courts to be a branch of one political party.




