Oh, Snap!

Ann Coulter is slagging on Miers, and it's viciouslicious. Entertaining both in itself and for the spectacle of a rottweiler turning on its owner.

Update: Reader Alan Vanneman responds:

Love the way Ann Coulter ridicules Harriet's defenders for not knowing the proper use of "which" (as opposed to "that"). Also the "au contraire." Finally, I get it. Bush was supposed to appoint her to the Supreme Court. Although I gotta wonder how you can "compose clearly reasoned opinions about ERISA pre-emption, the doctrine of equivalents in patent law, limitation of liability in admiralty, and supplemental jurisdiction under Section 1367" with a wad of blonde hair that would choke a horse hanging in your eyeball. I guess that's what I get for not graduating from an elite college.

Comments

[Jesse Walker]

The more I see people criticizing Miers for where she went to school, the more I feel like giving her a pass on the two dozen or so perfectly good reasons to oppose her.

[Jeff P.]

Nice photo, Ann. Looks like you're holding a mouthful of a pusher's spunk in your mouth until he gives you the syringe. (That's called am "uncalled for ad hominem attack," by the way)

The blond incarnation of Morton Downey Jr. isn't happy with her fearless leader's vapid choice. Maybe if she hadn't been instrumental in the wholesale trivialization of political discourse we'd have a president that makes actual policy choices. Ed Anger at Weekly World News is more relevent than this woman.
Her crack about Cheney running the country is a real gem, too.

[thoreau]

Wow. Even Ann Coulter is against this pick? And on the basis of her resume, not just because Coulter worries that she's not ideologically correct?

Wow.

I know that Ann Coulter isn't exactly a power-broker, but when put into context with the other critics, it shows deep skepticism from the right. Toss in those Democrats who will vote against ANY nominee, and there's a chance, just a chance, that Miers might be rejected.

[Legate Damar]

I'm not swayed by the "she didn't go to the right school" argument any more than I'm swayed by the "and she also hasn't been a justice before" argument. Were she a truly superior intellect, these things would be minor irritants rather than legitimate bullet points. But there's no indication that she is.

I AM, however, worried as hell that the best argument Bush has in her favor is "trust me." That's the very definition of "damning with faint praise."

[MB]

Amen, Jesse.

[Evan Williams]

First, I think that this was just a shameless attempt by Julian to get us Firefox users to catch another glimpse of the gone-but-not-forgotten carpet-humper.

Second, I find it perhaps just a tad hypocritical for Ann Coulter of all people to be criticizing the right for blindly following Dubya. She says,

"First, Bush has no right to say "Trust me." He was elected to represent the American people, not to be dictator for eight years."

Say what? I think I'll revise that sentence for Ann: "First, Bush has no right to say "Trust me", unless it's about something that I support, like Operation Iraqi Slaughter, or the Patriot Act. He was elected to represent my interests and those of my cohorts on the right, not be dictator for eight years."

Ann has no problem putting all her trust in Dub when it's something that she already supports, but when it comes to something she doesn't, oh, he doesn't deserve it? Pshhht. She's as transparent as single-pane low-E glass. No, he doesn't deserve to just be trusted, not on this nomination, not on Iraq, not on our civil liberties, not on his ghastly spending sprees. But to pick and choose when Bush should "just be trusted", speaks loudly of Coulter's rediculous lack of intellectual integrity. Not that it needs to be said, though.

Jesse:

I know, attacking where you went to school is not the most relevant thing, but, Cooter does have a point when she says, "It is conservatives defending Miers' mediocre resume who are playing the Democrats' game. Contrary to recent practice, the job of being a Supreme Court justice is not to be a philosopher-king. Only someone who buys into the liberals' view of Supreme Court justices as philosopher-kings could hold legal training irrelevant to a job on the Supreme Court."

[NoStar]

All the king's horses and all the king's couldn't put Humpty together again.

[GWB]

Ann Coulter is a traitor.

[dead_elvis]

Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him,

Uh, like you Ms. Coulter, every other day of the last 6 years? Sorry, you don't get some kind of medal for this one time.

I like your assessment, Jeff.

[thoreau]

I couldn't care less where a 60 year-old went to school. Seems to me like the 30+ years after law school matter more.

But Coulter has a good point (did I really just type that?) about those years.

[thoreau]

More to the point, I agree with Coulter (I really need to go to Confession, after taking a bath in Holy Water) about how there are better conservative choices out there. I have no illusions that the absolute best person will be chosen, and I know that plenty of Justices have come from the lower tiers of the talent pool. But we should still be disappointed when a nominee isn't from the top tier.

Surprised? No. Disappointed? Yes.

I'm off to bathe in Holy Water.

[Ruthless]

As I hinted earlier, it's such a waste to quibble about qualifications.
How hard is it to get bad decisions from nine people? Not hard, granted, but, would we really recognize them as bad at the time? As an anarchist, I'm looking for one really obviouly stinky decision after another. We need a badminton match of bad decisions-new laws from Congress... faster progress is made by shaking things up.

[independent worm]

Legate Damar wrote:

I AM, however, worried as hell that the best argument Bush has in her favor is "trust me."

To be fair to Miers, that's the best argument Bush has put forth for anything.

[Happy Jack]

I'm off to bathe in Holy Water

Does it leave a ring in the tub?

[mediageek]

But, worm, you have to admit that it's ok for Bush to ask us to trust him. After all, Jebus has his ear.

[Jennifer]

"which?? (as opposed to "that??).

Why does the Reason server turn apostrophes into ??

If Thoreau bathes in holy water he won't leave a ring in the tub--he'll leave a halo.

[Jennifer]

Oh, I see the ? symbols have been reconverted. I'm still curious, though.

[liberty4all]

As a former avid reader of Ann (what can I say, I was young), I was really shocked by her column. Not shocked that she is against Miers so much, but the fact that she was not goose stepping to the President's nomination.

I think this is very telling of how little even Bush's most rabid supporters are starting to get fed up with his shtick.

Now, if Frist opposes her, I'm stocking up on survival gear because the apocolypse is approaching.

[thoreau]

I'm seeing that the apostrophe symbol's working fine for me. I can't imagine that the problem's due to a difference between our computers.

Or at least it's working fine in preview. I'm not going to place any bets on how it'll turn out when I hit "post."

[Number 6]

Damn-Jennifer beat me to the halo comment.
I'm not sure why it is that Coulter presumes that people from ivy-league schools are more able to memorize arcane precedents. Being a Yale graduate (or Harvard, or wherever) does not make one a legal genius any more than graduating from a lesser-known school makes one a dolt. While there may be some tendencies in either case resulting from how selective a school is, there is nothing even vaguely resembling a hard and fast rule.

Let's not forget that W graduated from Yale.

[Crushinator]

This is the first time I read anything by Coulter. I thought her essay was poorly organized, rambling, and sometimes incoherent. I expected much better writing from a Cornell grad.

I propose a nomination we can all get behind - how about installing Dr. Kevorkian as White House physician? Of course he would have to "cure" Cheney first.

[Jeff P.]

Cuntservative.

[Number 6]

Coulter's comment about the misuse of 'which' is just pretentious nit-picking. Even Strunk and White regard that one as a lost cause.

[Ruthless]

liberty4all,
Don't fear the apocolypse.

Would anybody buy that bumper sticker, if I got some made?

[Jennifer]

Thoreau--

The weird symbols were there, and then when I posted my question and went back they had vanished. So I'm guessing it was a case of someone fixing them.

I can see why the Commodore 64 server can't handle foreign symbols, but apostrophes? Bizarre.

[thoreau]

Crushinator-

I think you should be extremely careful about things like what you just suggested about Kevorkian. I mean this not as a joke or as commentary on anything, but simply as sincere advice.

How about Justice Gary Gunnels? He knows more about the law than just about anybody else on the planet. Or so he says. And he's great at spotting the contradictions in an argument. He'd tear the lawyers to shreds during oral arguments.

[Baylen]

Ann Veneman reads Hit & Run? Cool.

[Warren]

Jennifer,
Change curly quotes to straight quotes and vice versa

Word automatically changes straight quotation marks ( ' or " ) to curly (smart) quotes ( or ) as you type. You may not want curly quotes in some cases ? for example, if you're using quotation marks to designate feet and inches. To turn this feature on or off:

1 On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect, and then click the AutoFormat As You Type tab.

Show me

2 Under Replace as you type, select or clear the Straight quotes with smart quotes check box.

Note You can find and replace all instances of single or double curly quotes with straight quotes in your document. To do this, clear the Straight quotes with smart quotes check box on the AutoFormat As You Type tab. On the Edit menu, click Replace. In both the Find what and Replace with boxes, type ' or ", and then click Find Next or Replace All.

To replace all straight quotes with curly quotes, select the Straight quotes with smart quotes check box, and repeat the find and replace procedure.

[Jennifer]

Warren--

I know, I'm just curious about what's wrong with this board's server.

I'm also wondering what ? in your post was. Intentional irony, or not?

Hee hee hee.

[Warren]

just a cut and paste job. Therefore not intentional, but good irony.

[Jeff P.]

GWB would not have selected a nominee without clearing it with the RNC. The fact that so many righties are pig-piling the prez tells me that this is a ploy to make the right look "divided" and a little less mindless. Or maybe the RNC is beginning the process of distancing itself from the lame duck.

[The Great Ape]

Would anybody buy that bumper sticker, if I got some made?

Not if that's how you plan on spelling 'apocalypse'. 😉

[Number 6]

Jeff P- Your tinfoil hat seems to be out of alignment.

[Matthew Canfield]

To All the folks who are surprised that Coulter is criticizing Bush, she has been disagreeing with many of his decisions for a while. GWB is *not* a true conservative . . .

[R C Dean]

Uh, like you Ms. Coulter, every other day of the last 6 years?

Well, no. I don't read every column by any means, but she has been slagging him off and on for going all wobbly on conservative principles since the "compassionate conservative" days.

[jp]

Anybody know what she means by "mau-mau" in this sentence: "The New York Times isn't going to mau-mau them - as it does intellectual lightweights like Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee - by dangling fawning profiles before them." ???

[duncan]

Jennifer,

As mentioned before, the strange characters are usually from curly quotes and apostrophes (and long dashes in Warren's case). They are one of the banes of my web developer existence. If a web page is not encoded correctly then the browser will spit out gibberish for any characters it doesn't recognize. Worse still, even if the page is encoded correctly the settings of the browser may override it, resulting in the same gibberish.

To get around this, I just use straight quotes or, if I really need the curly quotes, I use escape characters. "Like this."

[duncan]

As for the article:

The devil just called and has invited us all down for ice skating and snow cones.

[duncan]

As for the article:

The devil just called and has invited us all down for ice skating and snow cones.

[dead_elvis]

I can see why the Commodore 64 server can't handle

Wow, a Commodore 64? Hot damn, that's advanced, I'd been assuming this was being hosted on an Atari 2600, or perhaps a "Pong" console.

Yeah RC, I realized that. But I would draw a small distinction between criticizing *degree* of action with criticizing *course* of action. I'll admit I try to avoid reading her, but the times I haven't been able to shield my eyes in time, I have the impression that she's not on his case about his policy choices, but rather the fact that he bothers to compromise with any non-hard liners.

[scape]

Mau Mau Uprising

[jp]

scape -- Thanks for the Wikipedia link re "mau-mau." That makes it seem like Coulter wasn't using the term correctly, or doesn't understand what Wiki-P says happened. Coulter seems to be using the term to mean something like "coopt." But according to Wiki-P, the Mau Maus won the reforms they wanted even thought they were militarily defeated by the British.

[JK]

Re: Mau Mau

British propaganda depicted the Kenyan independence struggle as a series of atrocities committed by tribal African secret societies against the civilised whites. This was the government and predominant newspaper line, and presumably accounts for Coulter's use of the term Mau Mau.

(The Wikipedia article gives a somewhat more realistic account; see in particular the final section on casualties.)

[Crusader Rabbit]

More likely she's using "mau mau" the way Wolfe used it in the title of his essay, "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers." He means (and she means?) getting in their face for the ostensible purpose of raging on principle but for the real purpose of just shaking them down.

[Shem]

Anybody know what she means by "mau-mau" in this sentence

It means Ann Coultier is a fucking halfwit. To "mau-mau" someone is to viciously attack them. It was applied to Kenyan Rebels against the British in the 1950s, and it probably originated as an attempt to compare the rebels to hyenas, whose barking has been described as a "mau-mau" sort of noise.

[Shem]

Which is different from what Coulter intended, to placate moderate people like Jeffords into sitting down and shutting up by making them look like good people in the press.

What a fucking moron.

[Tom Crick]

I can't help the feeling that Coulter trolls through websites like this and feels reaffirmed at having provoked a response. ...that she gets all horney reading her hate mail.

...Seriously guys, if we ignore her, maybe she'll go away.

[deron]

Ahhh....

This is all missing the point. You see, Harry Reid is trying to create dissonance in the Republican ranks by supporting her. Thereby, giving the impression that he knows something about her that the right doesn't, making them feel all icky about her.

Coulter is actually the genious on the right who sees through this thin veil of misdirection. To counter she comes out with mis-direction of her own. By coming out publicly against Miers she'll trick the democrats into supporting her. She will have effectively replaced the republican votes Reids misdirection lead away with democrat votes through her own mis-direction.

It's brilliant.

[Ruthless]

The Great Ape,
We're just learning how you use a stick to measure depth of water. Now we learn you are Miss Spelling Expoit? Doubtful.

Why don't youse just say you don't have the scratch to buy a bumper sticker?
Hell, you don't have a car, do youse?
Get back to scratchin'.
As you were.

[scape]

I agree that they way the term is used doesn't really fit with its history. I haven't heard it that often but figured that it meant to bully, attack or dominate an opponent by scaring them into submission with your bark rather than your bite. Which is probably why Coulter is familiar with and used the term. She's probably heard it used many times to describe her style.

[JD]

As far as I've ever heard it used in American discourse, to "mau-mau" just means "to savage". Nothing very specific intended.

And to do a bit of general grumping - is Miers' nomination really so damn fascinating that it requires something like 10 H&R topics in three days?

[dhex]

scotus nominations are generally a pretty big deal.

[Tina]

Annie has finally recovered from her "Mission Accomplished" orgasm.

Or could this be a fiendishly clever plan? A couple of nasty questions from "R's" during the hearings, GWB withdraws her nomination "to minimize divisiveness in the party and the country" and puts up Brown/Gonzalez/Barney. Then - voila - he's a genius!!

[Tom Crick]

As to the definition of "mau mau", I bet it showed up in her thesaurus for something or other.

...As to the implications, we're not tryin' to figure out what Coulter really means beneath it all, are we? ...'cause I don't think we need a long plumb line for that.

[raymond]

it's viciouslicious

Nice word. And rare. (I found only one instance of it via google. Interestingly enough, when I clicked on the proffered link, I landed on a job-offer site. Education and Experience: "Not Specified". So if the SCOTUS thing doesn't work out for her, Ms. Miers can always try AppleOne.) I'd have dropped the first "s", though. Vishalishis (that's phonetic) is easier to say, and cuter.

Though she is not happy with the nomination, Ms. Coulter's piece is mostly an attack on elite schools. The message that comes across is that where Ms. Miers went to school is irrelevant. (I'd agree with that.)

This is the first time I read anything by Coulter. I thought her essay was poorly organized, rambling, and sometimes incoherent. I expected much better writing from a Cornell grad.

I thought so, too, but figured that perhaps the fact that I was reading it at 5.30 in the morning might have something to do with it. / It seems to me that educational standards have fallen all across the American-educational spectrum. Today's BA is the new GED.

On "trust"... This story is in several UK papers this morning. Why settle for a philosopher-king when you've already got an Old-Testament prophet?

Here's a little something for Jennifer: ? ? ? ? ? ?

Eat your heart out.

[belle waring]

I just think it's nice that she closed her column with a reference to the senate's duty to "advice and consent."

[David]

See bartleby.com for a reference for "mau mau."

http://www.bartleby.com/61/83/M0158350.html

TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: mau maued, mau mauing, mau maus

Informal: To attack or denounce vociferously, especially so as to intimidate: In years past, [the civil rights leadership] would mau-mau the government or the corporate sector or the white community (Joseph Perkins, Atlanta Constitution January 12, 1994).

ETYMOLOGY: After the Mau Mau, a secret society of Kikuyu terrorists that led a rebellion against the ruling Europeans in Kenya in the 1950s, from Kikuyu mau-mau, sound of the voracious gobbling of a hyena.

[Jennifer]

Thank you, Raymond.

I was thinking about Miers this morning while NPR blabbed through a story on Miers' religious conversion, and I thought about this Ann Coulter piece. And here's my conclusion: ever since 2001 these so-called conservatives have been little more than a fucking personality cult centering around Bush. Torture's okay (if Bush is president) and expanded government power and secrecy is okay (if Bush is president) and arresting and holding American citizens without trial is okay (if Bush is president) and starting an unnecessary war under false pretenses is okay (if Bush is president), and running the deficit past the moon is okay (if Bush is president). . .but Harriet Miers is not acceptable to the personality cultists.

So for that reason alone, I now support her nomination. Seriously. I still think she needs to tone down the Goth hooker eye makeup, but anyone who can make Bushbots turn against Dear Fearless Leader must have some good qualities.

[thoreau]

Jennifer-

I know what you mean. I had to bathe in Holy Water yesterday for saying that I agree with Ann Coul....can't say it again. Just can't bring myself to say it again.

I still oppose Miers' nomination, but damn is it difficult!

[Jennifer]

I still oppose Miers' nomination, but damn is it difficult!

In an ideal world, I'd oppose it too. (I still have serious qualms about that whole "I support gay civil rights but I don't support the repeal of anti-sodomy laws" bit; I still say an open bigot is preferable to one in denial.)

But we don't live in an ideal world--we live in a world where Bush is the president and conservatism has been transformed into a cult of personality. And in this world, Miers is probably the best we can do.

[Mr. Holy Guy]

t:

I'll drive the devils out of you.

THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!

No charge, but you can pick up the next box of ammo.

[rdkraus]

"But we don't live in an ideal world--we live in a world where Bush is the president and conservatism has been transformed into a cult of personality. And in this world, Miers is probably the best we can do."

No, she's not. Conservatives have helped to elect the Pres and majorities in both houses so that we can have some conservative voices to offset the liberals on the Court. Roberts and Miers are not what they/we were looking for, and certainly not what Bush promised. If we can't jam some real conservatives down the liberals throats now, when?

I love Ann. I frequently disagree with her and she does love to provoke, but she doesn't BS around, she frequently criticizes Bush, and she's been absolutely right on his nominees. She has the gift of being LOL funny, and that's always a good way to make a point. Ironically, despite being blond, she's much better on paper than on TV or radio.

[Jennifer]

Conservatives have helped to elect the Pres and majorities in both houses so that we can have some conservative voices to offset the liberals on the Court. Roberts and Miers are not what they/we were looking for, and certainly not what Bush promised.

Only now it's sinking in that Bush isn't a true conservative? I don't think the folks who voted for him did so on the assumption that he'd expand the size of the government, decrease government accountability, run up the deficit, send the (unprepared and under-armored) military into a lie-based war, increae government power or decrease civil liberties, but he did all this and more.

Face it, Bush voters hoping for a conservative government--y'all got hosed. But that's okay--being screwed is part of what being an American voter is all about. I felt the same way after the reality of Clinton sank in.

[Dave W.]

Is it foreseeable that doctrine of equivalents will even come up?

A little doctrine of equivalents humor there. Very little.

TYIBHAW

[joe]

Does anybody actually find John Kerry medal jokes funny?

Ha ha ha, he was decorated for spilling his blood on the battlefield three times, but someone says he might have only done so twice. So let's laught at him. Get it?

[thoreau]

I think we'll look back on this era and realize that this administration acted like right-wing conservatives, but in the end it was all just a vehicle for a power grab. Yeah, they frequently used their grabbed power to further right-wing ends, but when it came down to it they'd always favor cronies over The Cause.

Yeah, I know, many libertarians would be underwhelmed by that conclusion. But it's a lesson to those on the right and left who think that blind loyalty to somebody from their side will advance their cause. It works for a while, but in the end the person who commands blind loyalty will betray The Cause in favor of cronyism.

Sadly, not enough people will remember the lesson. The world would be a better place if only we stopped re-enacting history. But, sadly, we never do.

[Geoff Nathan]

Just for fun, have a look at the current Languagelog post on Ms. Coulter and her gratuitous grammatical 'gotcha', pointing out, incidentally, that the 'that/which' restriction is based on nothing at all and has no data to back it up.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/

[M1EK]

"But that's okay--being screwed is part of what being an American voter is all about. I felt the same way after the reality of Clinton sank in."

How, precisely? He campaigned as a centrist and governed as a centrist. I didn't vote for him because I couldn't stand the drug hypocrisy and because his opponents weren't as assy as W is, but he turned out to be pretty much as advertised.

[Jennifer]

M1EK--

The way he backed down from his "integrating gays in the military" plan and replaced it with the fucked up "don't ask don't tell" policy was reason enough to dislike him. And the Defense of Marriage Act. And the expansion of the drug war. Becoming best trade buddies with that beacon of liberty and human rights known as China. And so forth.

[M1EK]

Jennifer,

None of those things were inconsistent with his campaign (no, not even the gays in the military thing, in my opinion, although that's the closest one). Although I agree with you on all of those things being bad, it's hard to see how you were 'surprised' by them - they led naturally from his campaign as far as I could tell.

Nonetheless, to equate whatever small shifts occurred in the above to the drastic bait-and-switch pulled on W voters is like calling my 2-story condo and the Empire State Building both "large buildings".

[Jennifer]

M1EK--

Oh, I agree, Clinton was worlds better than the twit we've got now. I was just trying to reach out to disillusioned former Bushies by pointing out that they weren't the only ones to get burned by a politician.

(Which was far more mature than my initial impulse, which was to give a big ol' Nelson Muntz-style "HA, ha! You thought you were voting for a conservative!")

[JD]

dhex - Yeah, I agree, SC nominations don't happen that often, and they are important, but A) I don't think Roberts' nomination got this many, and B) most of the topics, like this one, aren't even really about Miers or the process, they're about someone else's reaction to Miers' nomination, and whether that person is using "which" vs. "that" correctly, and what college they went to, and blah blah blah. I don't really give a crap what Coulter thinks, and if I did, I could go read it myself. Every single opinion piece on Miers does not require its own H&R topic.

[JDM]

"He campaigned as a centrist and governed as a centrist."

He used the word centrist to describe himself during his campaign, but the actual content of his ideas during the campaign was much more lefty than what he ended up doing. In other words, he governed as more of a centrist than he would have been if he'd carried out the details of the ideas he campaigned on, which is to his credit.

[joe]

It's funny how people use the terms "centrist" and "moderate."

To most people here, a tax funded, universal health insurance system would be way out in left field. Yet polls show that support for it - even when the question is phrases as "Would you be willing to pay higher taxes for..." - is well above 60% of the population.

[Isaac Bartram]

Yet polls show that support for it - even when the question is phrases as "Would you be willing to pay higher taxes for..." - is well above 60% of the population.

The fact that anti-gay marriage initiatives and the death penalty enjoy about the same level of support confirms my belief that the candidate who promises to incorporate Leviticus into the criminal code and institute free medical care for everyone will win in a landslide.

[Eric the .5b]

Oh, I agree, Clinton was worlds better than the twit we've got now. I was just trying to reach out to disillusioned former Bushies by pointing out that they weren't the only ones to get burned by a politician.

(Which was far more mature than my initial impulse, which was to give a big ol' Nelson Muntz-style "HA, ha! You thought you were voting for a conservative!")

Bush campaigned on Al Gore's right shoulder. The debates were a farce of two opponents trying to work up heat out of disagreeing only on implementation, not on broad policy. Anyone remember "Compassionate conservative"?

Please. Anyone who expected anything like conservatism (except the religious variety) from Bush after his campaign was thinking very, very wishfully.

[Erik]

I've read quite a few of Ms. Coulter's articles, and yes, this one was subpar, not really representative of her writing style. Usually I find her style to be quite readable.

As for the content, I don't always agree with Ann. I definitely agree with her this time, but I hope she's reflecting on the taste of her own dog food, having to half-heartedly reverse her opinion of ivy-league graduates. Maybe this will prod her into thinking critically about the president. She's capable of it if suitably jarred, as I think this demonstrates.

For all you (progressive) people trashing on her for being a hypocrite, two things: first you call her a puppet for supporting the president before, then when she does something that doesn't fit your description, you call her a hypocrite for not being a puppet. Do you see the stupidity of this? You appear to be mad because she didn't live up to your crap epithet. Secondly, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. SHE'S CRITICIZING THE PRESIDENT. And for a good reason, one you agree with! Instead of acting like snarky little twits, why don't you capitalize on this? If Ann Coulter of all people splits with the president on Miers' nomination, I think you can say there's some serious bipartisan opposition to the president's choice. For chrissakes, any rational person is seriously bothered by this nomination. Can we please try to work together long enough to get her nomination sh*tcanned? It's about the future of this country.

[James Anderson Merritt]

Erik said, "Can we please try to work together long enough to get her nomination sh*tcanned? It's about the future of this country."

Hey, I'll pitch in, but can we also please try to work together to get LIBERTARIANS elected to office, instead of the many false and fair-weather friends of freedom who bamboozled voters just long enough to win election? We determinme the future (or, probably more correctly, merely ratify the future dystopia) every time we mark our ballots.

The GOP has long claimed Libertarians as "fellow-conservatives." Libertarians are NOT conservative in the same sense as the GOP has used that word, and if Libertarians ever belonged in the GOP, recent events and officeholders have certainly demonstrated that such is no longer the case.

This time last year, I remember the GOP pit bulls shouting down every Libertarian mention with the mantra that George W. Bush and his Republican Party remained the first, best hope for American Liberty. If anyone out there still believes that, they deserve what they get, but it's a shame that the rest of us have to suffer their same fate.

You're right, Erik. It IS time to take the future seriously. To me, that at least means voting for freedom every time, and never for compromises that can only reduce freedom. Here is where the "lesser of evils" has brought us. Next time, vote for NOT EVIL, please!