You look around you at the possible presidential contenders for 2008. Jeb says he's not going to run. Fair enough. After he couldn't find enough Viagra in the state of Fla to macho his way into a Constitutional crisis. (Imagine, police officers balking at the idea of kidnapping a helpless woman from her hospice and legal guardian). It seems likely the Freepi Cannibals may well catch up to him before his gubernatorial term is out. Dr. Video shot himself so full of lead he had to complete backtrack on the activist judges meme the party you're supposed to be a leader of was counting on to cram the Ten Little Judicial Indians through confirmation. Ricky the Pure has a senatorial election to win in 2006 before he can solidify his Preznidential ambitions.

So, one morning while you're shaving you look in the mirror, and realize, it's time. You may have toyed with the idea of getting one of those kewl robes, (after being on the Supreme Court in Texas how hard could the SCOTUS be? But why not go for the Big house? The Freepi like the idea.


So, you get up on a nearly vacant Senate floor and in your best pensive jurist voice you say:

…it causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions. And no one, including those judges, including the judges on the United States Supreme Court, should be surprised if one of us stands up and objects.

And, Mr. President, I'm going to make clear that I object to some of the decision-making process that is occurring at the United States Supreme Court today and now. I believe that insofar as the Supreme Court has taken on this role as a policy-maker rather than an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives of the people, it has led to the increasing divisiveness and bitterness of our confirmation fights. That is a very current problem that this body faces today. It has generated a lack of respect for judges generally. I mean, why should people respect a judge for making a policy decision borne out of an ideological conviction any more than they would respect or deny themselves the opportunity to disagree if that decision were made by an elected representative?

Of course the difference is that they can throw the rascal -- the rascal out -- and we are sometimes perceived as the rascal -- if they don't like the decisions that we make. But they can't vote against a judge because judges aren't elected. They serve for a lifetime on the federal bench. And, indeed, I believe this increasing politicalization of the judicial decision-making process at the highest levels of our judiciary have bred a lack of respect for some of the people that wear the robe. And that is a national tragedy.*

And finally, I – I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news. And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in -- engage in violence. Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share.**

Don't look now, but I think you just pulled your ambition muscle.


I know, I know, you've been a good little water carrier. Though in some cases it really, REALLY paid well. $193k well.

There was that one oversight. Just a dirty cop, prosecutorial misconduct, and some innocent blacks convicted of drug trafficking. Innocent people were rotting in prison while you refused to investigate, but hey, you were busy being used as window dressing for the Reed, Abramoff, Scanlon Shakedown Machine.

Well, okay, not this particular one:

The small vignette that unfolded during a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing last month reads like a heartwarming tale befitting the holiday season. A rich Washington lobbyist reaches out to an impoverished Indian tribe on the Texas-Mexico border and offers to buy insurance for all the tribe’s elders. The insurance will be free to American Indians over 75 years old, even those who are not enrolled members of the tribe. The lobbyist offers to pay all premiums for the Elder Legacy Program.

“It means the world to me,” he says.

There’s a catch. It’s term life. And death benefits will not be paid to family members, but to a private school in Washington, D.C. The school, founded, funded and directed by the lobbyist, will then pay the tribe’s lobbying fees at his law firm, Greenberg Traurig. It was a bold, innovative plan. Public policy advocacy secured by deferred income based on cold actuarial calculation. Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was both benefactor and beneficiary, speculating on the lives of the elder members of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Tribe of El Paso and collecting death benefits in Washington.

But when you were working over the Tiguas to close down the Speaking Rock casino, you were money in the bank for Abramoff et al, that's why they brought Ralph Reed in to stiffen your political spine:

Abramoff hired the former director of the Christian Coalition to keep the pressure on Cornyn and watch for Tigua gambling bills in the Texas Legislature. While with the Coalition, Reed had worked with a network of pastors in Texas. Under contract to Abramoff, he returned to his Texas network as the leader of a Christian anti-gambling crusade. He told no one he was working for lobbyists who were paid by gambling interests in Louisiana. For the $4.2 million Abramoff paid him, Reed led and organized a group of Texas pastors into the fight to close the Tigua’s casino and watched over Abramoff’s interests in the Texas Legislature. He promised Cornyn broad support and pressed him to act quickly to close the casino, according to e-mails released by Senate Indian Affairs. Reed was also soliciting phone calls from pastors and congregations across the state and patching the calls into the AG’s office. He knew which pastors to call to keep the public pressure on Cornyn.

“talked to ed young again today,” he wrote in one of his lower-case e-mails to Abramoff. “incredibly engaged and excited. he is planning on hosting a breakfast with the top pastors in houston to get them all mobilized and to provide cover for cornyn. we may invite cornyn to address them.”

Ed Young is the pastor of Second Baptist Church, a congregation of 35,000 with three campuses spread out across suburban Houston. He hosts a national television show, Winning Walk, and has served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. The size and wealth of his three-campus operation, which recently acquired a fourth church and congregation, are enough to make him a statewide player. When Abramoff informed Reed that the attorney general was going to “get whacked” by protestors in El Paso, Reed responded that he would send “50 pastors to give him moral support.”

450 people loose their jobs, but Reed, Scanlon, et all go home rich, so it's all good right?

And that worked out pretty good for you, too. When Phil Gramm took that golden Senatorial parachute (though he kept moderately busy suggesting the demise of retired teachers could be made into a windfall for the great State O' Texas) you were ready to grab that baton for all you were worth. Hey, doesn't that scam sound familiar?

Anyway, there you were, right place at the right time. Just like now.

*We leave aside for the moment that you know damn good and well that some judges are indeed elected, because, just like Judge Greer in Florida YOU WERE AN ELECTED JUDGE.

** Sorry, but as Jack McCoy (a fictional character who outdoes you as both a lawyer and a man) would say. You can't unring a bell. You said it because you meant for it to be remembered. To play to the Fright Wing with whom you are so familiar as you soaked yourself in the Rovian kool-ade. I hope you choke on it.

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit