As I read Kirsten Brock’s Feb. 2 Daily Emerald column, “Judging the civility of Democrats,” I was amazed at her contention that a candidate’s qualifications (or lack thereof in the case of Harriet Miers) and the support of the president is all that Democrats should need before rolling out the red carpet to the Supreme Court steps. I’m not saying I fully supported the filibuster vote, but Brock spoke as if Delaware Senator Joseph Biden aggressively questioning Samuel Alito as to why he was a member of a group that advocated keeping women and minorities out of Yale was somehow unreasonable.
However, I was most shocked to see the level of credit Ms. Brock still bestows upon this White House and the Republican Party. In the past six years we’ve seen 7 million people lose their health insurance. We’ve seen an education bill so destructive that 20 states (many Republican-led) have applied for law changes, or a drastic increase in federal funding. We’ve seen a war in Iraq that, well, I think that one speaks for itself. We’ve seen how last year 99 percent (I’m not exaggerating) of working Americans saw their real wage (their wage in relation to inflation) decrease. We’ve seen the vice president’s chief of staff indicted on five federal charges including perjury and obstruction of justice. We’ve seen a completely botched federal relief effort to the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. We’ve seen President Bush take more vacation days in five years than any president in U.S.
history. We’ve seen the president hold the fewest non-scripted press conferences of any modern president. We’ve seen the bi-partisan 9/11 commission (that Bush appointed only after stonewalling it) chastise the president for his lack of changes to national security, calling it, “borderline scandalous.” We’ve seen numerous incompetent appointments (I’m looking at you “Brownie.”) We’ve seen Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay indicted for conspiracy to commit campaign fraud as well as a growing lobbying scandal that forced him to resign his leadership post. And coming soon to a Congressional hearing near you, we’ll see how Bush bypassed an entire branch of government so he could illegally listen to the phone calls of innocent Americans.
So it comes down to this: After all the scandals, the botched efforts, billions of wasted dollars and countless blatant lies, why would you expect the Democrats, or anyone who has been paying attention for the last six years, to simply roll over and play dead for a Bush appointment when so many have been so inept? After the impressive record this administration has accumulated over the past six years, I’d say 18 hours of questioning is the least I expect before a Bush nominee takes to the high court.
I don’t know anyone who could sum this up better than the president himself. “Fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.”
Ben Lenet
Co-chair of the College Democrats