Politics and other nightmares

So, Hillary has ended the suspense. By voting against Roberts, she seems to be courting the liberal interests groups instead of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. Here's Evan Bayh's chance. By voting for Roberts, he would be supporting a fellow Hoosier (sort of) and moving to the right of Clinton; a good place to be if he can get out of the first few primaries.

FEMA dropped the ball, so it was vilified. Fair enough. But if it improves, it gets praise, right? Guess again:

Democratic critics said the preparations for Rita seemed to exceed those for Katrina, and called anew for an independent panel to investigate why.

Let's see. We have foreign terrorists to worry about, not to mention domestic monsters of all sorts as well as fraud and robbery and kidnapping and God knows what else, so of course we should make the FBI's new prime mission going after adult porn. If this truly is what some suspect, the attorney general's attempt to curry favor with the GOP base in hopes of a Supreme Court appointment, may he end up in Terre Haute as a public defender, representing destitute drunk-driving child molesters.

I'm happy to report that the eminent-domain oafs who tried to muscle in on a group's plans for a private school, reported on yesterday, have backed off. Note that, though school officials had sent the group a "strongly worded" threatening letter, they now say it was all a "misunderstanding." Cretins.

Here is the followup story (from the same annoying newspaper site that requires registration):

Sorry to keep hitting you with all these eminent domain postings, but the Supreme Court's Kelo decision is one of the most serious assaults on our freedom in years. Here' s an up-close view from the Kelo whose refusal to give in led to the case in the first place.

It's fine if these people want to appease fundamentalist offense-finders just to protect the bottom line, but what about the sensitivities of the rest of us? Why are they allowed to keep calling the place Burger King instead of Burger President or Burger Committee Chairperson?

This is an amusing little story about shallow, clueless people, until you stop and realize that it pretty much describes the way government has treated the poor in this country at least as far back as the Great Society. Poverty is a permanent condition you can only throw money at, not a temporary circumstance we encourage people to leave behind.

Suppose his wife's anticipated presidential bid had anything to do with Bill Clinton's classless attack on President Bush? Wonder how it's been affecting the road-buddy relationship of Clinton and Dad Bush?

UPDATE: a memory refresher course for Mr. Clinton. And some scathing reactions here.

When eminent domain is used to take property for actual public projects, such as roads, bridges and schools, instead of private use masquerading as public good, that's OK, right? Well, how about when a group of people spend enormous time, money and energy getting ready to build themselves a priave school, then the local school system comes along at the last minute and says, "Good idea, we think we'd like to build a school there instead"?

Three weeks out from Katrina, it's clearer than ever that people at every level of government made a lot of mistakes, which had a multiplier effect. Those who just can't get past their own political prejudices to take an honest look at what happened will be increasingly irrelevant to the debate; they will add nothing helpful.