2005: What the fuck is going on?

I eagerly await the announcement of President Bush's real nominee to the Supreme Court. If the president meant Harriet Miers seriously, I have to assume Bush wants to go back to Crawford and let Dick Cheney run the country.

Unfortunately for Bush, he could nominate his Scottish terrier Barney, and some conservatives would rush to defend him, claiming to be in possession of secret information convincing them that the pooch is a true conservative and listing Barney's many virtues – loyalty, courage, never jumps on the furniture ...

Harriet Miers went to Southern Methodist University Law School, which is not ranked at all by the serious law school reports and ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report. Her greatest legal accomplishment is being the first woman commissioner of the Texas Lottery.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are the words of...Ann Coulter.

ETA: Seriously: What the fuck is going on? In The Washington Times--typically somewhere between The Corner or Drudge and Fox News in the "fair and balanced" department--we read:

"I can't stomach another 'trust me' from a Republican" in the Oval Office, Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich told Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman at Mr. Weyrich's regular Wednesday conservative coalition luncheon.

ETA, again: About that "trust" issue. One theory has it that the reason Bush has been making so many colossal blunders lately is that he has been denied access to his "brain." Karl Rove has been too distracted by thoughts of the Plame ax falling, so the theory goes, to really Mayberry Machiavelli it up like the good old days.

I saw some sense in this theory. It certainly seemed like as credible an explaination as any for Bush's seemingly inexplicable "betrayal of the faithful." But if what The Washington Times is reporting here is true (and again, with The Washington Times, that's a pretty big "if"):

Senior Bush adviser Karl Rove was "very involved" in President Bush's Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, who was selected in part because she has no judicial track record, according to a Republican with close ties to the administration.
"We know that Rove was very involved in the process, and he's certainly well tuned in to the Hill and how it works," said GOP strategist Charlie Black. "I suspect the Senate leadership might have given him the advice to take into consideration on how hard or how easy someone would be to confirm."

I'm wondering now if this isn't just something they're putting out to try to shut the hysterics of the party up: Hey, you guys, it's Rove! Wink, wink. See, we're up to something! But, again in The Moderate Voice:

President George Bush's nomination of his lawyer Harriet Miers to the Supreme
Court is now turning out to require a sales job that may not necessarily require
an emergency visit by super salesman Zig Zigler — but all the King's horses and
all the King's men may not be able to put George Bush's agenda and trust from
some factions of his party together again.

Lord knows I've thought Bush was an incompetent for a long time. But in the last day or so, I've started to think... it may be worse than any of us have ever imagined in our most darkly cynical moments.

On the other hand, I just quoted Ann Coulter and The Washington Times (twice!), semi-approvingly, in the same post. Well, I see the the writing on the ole' wall. It's time to check myself into the funny farm.

Come visit me, won't you, and tell me how things still are in the outside world?