If you’ve been hanging around this blog for a while, you know that I was less than happy with the way the last presidential election turned out. However, as Andrew Sullivan points out, being on the losing side isn’t always a bad thing:

…Can you imagine how battered a president Kerry would have been by now? He’d be stuck with Bush’s Iraq mess; he’d be constantly told he’s Neville Chamberlain on Iran for doing exactly what Bush has been doing; he’d be ruthlessly attacked by the Hannity right over Teresa, immigration, gays, and any other cultural issue they could exploit. And the GOP would have escaped the responsibility for their fiscal insanity, while Kerry took lumps for raising taxes. As a matter of principle, I do not regret endorsing Kerry. My decision was based on the manifest incompetence and unconservatism of Bush. But in the sweep of history, it is fitting that Bush, for the first time in his entire life, actually face the consequences of his own recklessness. It is also important for conservatives to see up-front what abandoning limited government and embracing fundamentalism leads to: the collapse of a coherent conservatism. There was a silver lining in Bush’s re-election: the unsentimental education of conservative triumphalists.

I’ve been wanting for some time now to vent my spleen about one of the more insidious political strategies currently in play by the right, namely the campaign to convince the average, not-too-well-informed and not-terribly-thoughtful voter that “activist judges” are wrecking the country, but naturally Scalzi has beaten me to the punch. His basic thesis is the same as my thinking on this subject, namely that those who use the term “activist judge” only seem to bring it out when a particular ruling doesn’t go their way. It’s sour grapes, in other words, but it’s also a cynical (and, unfortunately, effective) effort to sway public opinion into thinking the right’s agenda is the natural default setting for the country. It’s also nonsense, since, as John points out,

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As much as I hate to admit it, I think President Bush made a good point yesterday when he suggested that there’s something wrong with opposing an Arab-owned company operating U.S. shipping ports when a British-owned company has been doing the job for years. He’s right, there is a double standard at play in this debate, and it is tinged with an uncomfortable hint of racism, or at least of playing favorites with our allies and business partners.

But the president, in his usual zeal to support corporations and big business deals above any other concern, misses the very important question at the heart of this matter. It isn’t, “Why is it okay for a European company to operate our ports but not a Middle Eastern one?” The actual question is (or ought to be), “Why in the hell are we allowing any foreign company to operate our ports?”

Now, I don’t believe that I’m especially xenophobic or isolationist, but, at risk of sounding like one of them totalitarian, anti-capitalist types, I do believe that certain industries and activities are so intimately connected to our national security that we should restrict them to home-grown companies only, if not outright nationalize them. Transportation is the obvious (and pertinent) example. Communication is probably another. How is it that a president who has built his entire reputation on the rubric keeping the nation safe from outside danger doesn’t seem to see this?

(I’ll give you a hint: the answer is in the second paragraph…)

“It was not Harry’s fault. You can’t blame anybody else. I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend.”

Frankly, I’m stunned. I’ve been working off-and-on all afternoon on a ranty post in which I excoriate Darth Cheney for his stubborn silence on this shooting incident and the Bush White House in general for being so pathologically dead-set on never, ever admitting any kind of mistake whatsoever, and now the guy’s gone and accepted responsibility for something. All the wind has officially left my sails…

Okay, this still isn’t my long-promised travelogue, but I found it interesting enough to share. Andrew Sullivan on what we ought to be hearing from the minority party:

I’m not a Democrat and don’t think I ever could be, but here’s what I’d say if I were in opposition right now. These guys [the Republicans currently in charge of things] are corrupt and incompetent. They have screwed up the Iraq war, turned FEMA into a joke and landed the next generation with a mountain of debt. We’re for making the homeland safer, winning back our allies, and taking on the Iranian dictatorship. We’re for energy independence, universal healthcare and balancing the budget again. Now, let [Karl] Rove do his worst. Hey, we need Democrats who relish the fight, not timid ones who cower at the prospect. Bring back the happy warriors. Please.

Say hallelujah. I am so frustrated at the inability of the Dems to say or do anything effective. It’s not like the other side doesn’t have any genuine vulnerabilities to exploit. Come on, guys, get a frickin’ clue! I could go on, but I need to devote my energies to writing about Yellowstone…

I haven’t been following the Alito confirmation hearings very closely — I figure the outcome is pretty much inevitable unless Alito admits to drinking kitten smoothies or something — but I have caught bits and pieces of them in the car on my way to and from the train station. Frankly, I’m amazed — nay, disgusted — by the sheer pointlessness of them. What exactly is Congress accomplishing with this week-long exhalation of hot air? Judge Alito is obviously following the example set by every SCOTUS nominee since Bork, which is to say absolutely nothing at all that might tell us what he really thinks. Meanwhile, stymied by their inability to get the man to admit he enjoys a nice kitten smoothie every once in a while, Democrats preface each of the questions they know will go unanswered with interminable speeches (the contents of which I agree with in principle, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re really boring and, under the current circumstances, useless gestures). Republicans then overcompensate by falling all over themselves in displays of dewy-eyed fawning that would’ve embarassed even Monica Lewinsky during her beret-wearing days. (Utah’s own Orrin Hatch is particularly irksome in this department. I cringe every time he opens his mouth.) It’s all nothing more than an overly elaborate ritual that does no one any good.

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