Canthook

They announced the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor this afternoon at the White House. She seems like a nice lady, with a nice back story. I suspect she'd make a nice Mom. She's not gorgeous, she's not stylish, she had a curl of hair out of place, and for some reason, that makes me trust me. I suppose that says more about me than about her, but I hope I'm right about her.

She supposedly has more experience than any of the sitting judges had at their nominations, and that's supposed to make us feel good about her, but it makes me uneasy. If she's so great, how come she wasn't nominated before? It wasn't like Dubya was anti-Latino. But I wish her well, if for no other reason than we'll have to live with her influence on the court.

One of the great things about the Supreme Court is that really great justices have lot of power, and really pathetic justices don't. They get together and kick around the cases, presenting their arguments to each other, and the great justices get the so-so justices to agree with them, while the pathetic justices don't get converts often. It's a bad thing for the country to have dramatic shifts in the legal environment, so it's good that individual justices can't hurt us a lot. But I hope she succeeds, anyhow. Fie on thee, Rush Limbaugh.

So Cool She Was, Like Jazz On A Summer's Day

Steve Winwood must have been singing about some other Valerie, because Valerie Jarrett isn't cool at all. She's hot, in the Marshall McCluhan way. She reminds me of all the reasons I hate stereotypical New Jerseyites. Valerie Jarrett was talking to that nice lady on MSNBC, Norah O'Donnell, and you would think she was being paid by the word, and she needed the money for a life-saving operation on her kid, she was talking so fast. She never smiles, I pointed out to Blondie, and when someone talks so fast, I distrust them, because I think they don't want to give us time to think about what they're saying, they just want to roll over us like a tsunami.

Blondie thought that Valerie Jarrett was the nominee, and said I objected to her because she was a woman. I argued my objections for a couple of minutes, and then hit on the solution: I pointed out that I was making no complaints about Norah O'Donnell. Yeah, Blondie said, but she wasn't nominated by Obama for the Supreme Court. Valerie Jarrett wasn't nominated for the court, either; she's a legislator from Illinois who now works in the White House. Blondie then decided that I objected to Valerie Jarrett because I was a racist. She wasn't serious. Just then, Robert Gibbs came on the screen. No, I explained, I objected to Robert Gibbs because I was a racist. She laughed. Blondie doesn't believe I'm multiracial; she says I'm the whitest of anyone she knows.

Both she and I have liked Robert Gibbs since very early in the campaign. She said, "You know what's odd, about everyone surrounding Barack Obama?" They have a good sense of humor? Valerie Jarrett doesn't know how to laugh, I said. "No," she said, "it's that they're all good at choosing their words carefully." A second later, MSNBC mentioned the name of the vice-president. "Except Joe Biden," she added.

Transparency

Actually, I said, Joe Biden is probably the best among those who surround Obama in choosing his words. If Joe says something, I pointed out, you can take it to the bank. It's just that he doesn't say what Obama thinks, he says what Joe thinks.

"Yeah," Blondie said. "He needs to learn to keep his mouth shut."

I'm not sure about that, I said. This administration is big on transparency. Every administration could use someone like Joe, who says what needs to be said, and nobody throws rocks because of it.

A Mixed Marriage

Blondie is a party-machine Democrat. She doesn't support politicians; she supports the party. I'm an independent, registered as a Republican. As a rule, I vote Republican for president, although I voted against Nixon and Dubya, and I voted against McCain. This weekend, McCain was on AMC talking about how George Patton was such a great military leader and patriot. It made me even happier to have voted against him. Patton was a good traffic cop, but he wanted the glory, no matter how great a price others paid.

Dad was a Democrat from the days of FDR. Mom was a Republican. They didn't talk politics around each other, but it was interesting, none the less. The great gift they gave me was the respect they showed each other.

In 1964, Mom voted for LBJ, thinking that Goldwater was a racist. In fact, his family department store was integrated, both as to employees and customers, in a highly-segregated city. They were the high-end store, and some of his customers could afford to fly to other cities to buy gems, furs, and expensive dresses, but that was awfully inconvenient and it didn't take long for his high-end customers to return. She also thought Goldwater was likely to start a nuclear war. She couldn't stomach voting for Dick Nixon, though, and by the time the 1972 elections rolled around, she was a Democrat for the rest of her life.

Dad, on the other hand, permanently became a Republican when Reagan ran for office. I'm not sure whether it was his stated politics, or it was Death Valley Days. The code of the west was big on honesty, and Dutch Reagan was a good actor; he could fake honesty like nobody's business. Or at least, that's what his administration seemed to feel; they didn't seem to think he meant it.

A Teflon President

The Reagan administration was pretty corrupt, and none of it stuck to Reagan. They call it a "Teflon" presidency. I think people believed that Reagan disapproved of all that corruption. Of course, it's the responsibility of the POTUS to control his administration. It's as if the American people thought he was a good man, and thus a good president, when in fact, he was a good man and a fairly poor president.

Of course, Hillary didn't believe that Bill was screwing around with Monica, either. She thought it was a plot by right-wingers to discredit him. That's not entirely unreasonable to believe; they pulled a lot of crap. On the other hand, if you really believe in someone, it's hard to believe the lies people spread about him, even if the lies aren't lies.

There seem to be two types of people: those who think that people are fundamentally good, if you give them an opportunity to be, and those who think that people are fundamentally bad, if you give them an opportunity to be. In recent years, the GOP has been overrun with the second type of people, the pessimists who think people are corrupt. I've been told, by a psychology professor, that people generally think everyone is like themselves: that if they want to be good, they assume most people try to be good, and vice-versa.

Given that theory, it seems heartening that fewer than 20% of the population is willing to admit to being Republican, that nobody wants to be associated with those evil people. And when you consider that there are people like me, people who call themselves Republican, but think people are essentially good, that's even better news.

Now that we've proven our point, perhaps we can run Tom Ridge for President in 2012. He seems to be a good man and a capable administrator, and he didn't seem very happy about being associated with the Dubya administration. I like Mr. Obama, but it'd be nice to have two good men running for the Presidency for a change, instead of one, or, none at all.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Barry Goldwater - Bill Clinton - Dick Nixon - Dutch Reagan - George Patton - Hillary Clinton - Joe Biden - John McCain - Norah O'Donnell - Robert Gibbs - Rush Limbaugh - Sonia Sotomayor - Steve Winwood - Tom Ridge - Valerie Jarrett