Daily Archives: January 25, 2012

Gerald Goddamned Ford by Paul Constant – Seattle News – The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper

Just ran into this critique/obituary of the Ford presidency today.

Cannot say I have much I can say wrong about it. If Nixon went to prison, the man who followed him – and his cronies – would have been pariahs in the GOP. Plus, any president who overstepped his authority would have seen he could do time for it.

Hell, probably any Nixon appointees would have been sullied whether they deserved it or not.

Let me take the article a step further. Reinquist probably never becomes Chief Justice. Reagan would NEVER have deigned to try the Iran-Contra disaster. No Cheney, no Rumsfeld.

Bush the Lesser couldn’t have been president as Bush v. Gore would never have made it to the Supreme Court. Even so, even he wasn’t dumb enough to invade Iraq with the specter of prison for lying to the nation. Plus, his cast of puppet masters, from Cheney on down, would be off shooting their friends in the face on a ranch as they’d have been cast out of government.

Sheesh.

Yeah, thanks for nothing Jerry.

We still ignore basic tensions in immigration policy | Jay Bookman

Jay Bookman has been pretty astute in trying to figure out all the nuances in our immigration system, such as it is. Particularly since Georgia has been front and center in the debate since passing their draconian law last year. Here is a slightly old article on how even those Republicans trying to be level-headed are faced with trying to address and explain some very complicated ideas to their very simple- and single-minded constituents.