A Pit Bull in Size 6 Shoes

Sometimes I just don’t know what I’d do without George Bush.

This morning as I prepared to write this column I had no idea what I would write about. As usual I microwaved yesterday’s leftover coffee to jumpstart my neurons while the new coffee was brewing. Then I sat down and checked my email, because I’ve come to believe that if ever the Apocalypse began overnight someone would email me to let me know I missed it. Besides, I subscribe to a host of email news alert services. I call these “trumpets.”

So today, a CNN trumpet, at 5:14 AM, tells me that George W. Bush has picked Harriet Ellan “Wormtongue” Miers, current White House counsel, to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. Thank you, George!

George refers to Miers as a “pit bull in size 6 shoes.” I’m not going to dwell on her feet. I’m going to talk about the fact that she’s never been a judge; she’s the White House Counsel; she’s been Bush’s staff secretary; before that she was George Bush’s personal lawyer. This raises two questions that have come up before but that I have mostly avoided addressing until now: 1) How stupid does George Bush think we are? And: 2) He really is stupid, himself, isn’t he?

OK, in the past there have been Supreme Court justices who were never judges. Miers was a clerk for a judge, so she could know as much about judging as, say, William Rehnquist did, before he became a Supreme Court justice. Oh boy, she could be another Rehnquist.

Does George Bush even understand that he isn’t president of Bushland? The Supreme Court is a US court for the people of the US. The people want their own judge, not George Bush’s judge.

Please note that I’m not saying Harriet Miers can’t be a great Supreme Court justice. How should I know? All I or anyone else is going to have to go on, unless she screws up in the Senate, are these kinds of reassuring quotes from White House chief of staff Andrew Card: Harriet Miers is “one of the favorite people in the White House,” Harriet Miers, by being invited to join Bush at Camp David regularly enjoys “a privilege that is not enjoyed by a lot of staff,” and Miers is “a quiet, highly respected force and someone who is seen as not having any agenda other than the president's.”

Terrific. Let’s firm that up. She’s a George Bush pet. She has no other agenda EXCEPT THAT OF THE PRESIDENT. She doesn’t have my agenda, she doesn’t have your agenda, she doesn’t have the nation’s agenda, she has George’s agenda. She’s a quiet pit bull with tiny feet, who will sneak up behind you in her size 6s, bite you in the butt and never let go, all for her love of George. Whoopty.

Wormtongue. She’s been the lawyer whispering in George Bush’s ear for longer than he’s been president. Her most recent assignment was to advise George Bush in his selection of a replacement for Sandra Day O’Connor. Again, allow me to firm that up. My head is spinning, maybe it’s the stale coffee. Her most recent job as White House counsel was, apparently, to advise George Bush on her own promotion to the Supreme Court. And he said yes, because she’s a favorite!

Here’s an interesting bit of history. Rehnquist’s last job before being nominated for the Supreme Court was to help screen nominees for the Supreme Court. That seems to be good career direction for aspiring lawyers.

I like to call actions and ideas stupid. Not people. But I hear “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” How can that not represent stupidity incarnate?

Bush thinks the schools should teach Intelligent Design. I think the schools should teach the theory of Stupid Design: that a Creator as dumb as George Bush designed the world. It would explain everything.