A Chit Chat with Republicans About the Stimulus

A Primer About Obama's Recovery Plan85

It has become very intellectually chic to chuck pot shots at the Recovery Program of President Obama. Of course, we expected the really “trailer park” fizzle from the vacuous, foaming mouths of the neo-cons. One female host, Tammy Bruce, actually called Michelle Obama “trash” on a network interview last week.

However, once we exclude the “drug addled gas bag,” the whining “pretty little mama’s boy,” and the ultra pious, self-appointed, "stalwart defender of The Church," we are still left with some unsettling whimpers arising from unexpected quarters -- quarters we had always previously assumed to be more rational.

There are comments that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Director of the White House's National Economic Council, Larry Summers, should be fired for lack of purity and effectiveness. That would be “lack of purity” from having been a Fed Bank President during the Bush bailout in Geithner’s case and from having been a Clinton advisor in Summers’ case, that would have been before he was President of Harvard University. All these comments can be immediately discharged because they are founded on the premise that what we are doing right now is, somehow, logically similar to something we have done before. Any hope of that happy serendipity betrays a frenzied dash for the refuge of history, hardly a behavior we would expect from the brave knights we have sent to kill the dragon.

The Treasury Secretary is a frighteningly intelligent man who has been seriously cautioned by the Obama White House to try to “de-accelerate” his speech enough so it can be captured on an ordinary, modern video camera during his interviews. Naturally, neo-cons -- being allergic to leadership of any type thanks to their toxic, soul consuming cynicism -- are quite uncomfortable with a man who constantly needs to concentrate on speaking more slowly so the rest of us can possibly follow him. Neo-cons like slow drawls so Southern that most Americans either won’t listen to them or can’t understand what is said. You know, ... southern ... coach ... pastor ... You know.

But some modern liberal pundits seem to be put off because they can’t understand it either. They think that the reason they can’t understand it is because what Geithner is saying isn’t even remotely similar to anything they have heard before, the lingering, predictably desperate test of validity for those who have found themselves unable to think. The most limited, self promoted, modern progressives don’t believe that anything can be progressive now if it hasn’t already been progressive before. Those talkative folks identify themselves by providing endless explanations of exactly who was at fault for almost everything that threatens their pretend, historical, progressive "status quo."

But this post is all about having a chit chat with Republicans. There are actually a few of them still visible who are so inebriated on the Kool Aid and so head strong that they continue to claim a tiny, forgotten patch of Bush Jr.’s, medieval fear mongering “high ground.”

If you have had a creepy, out of focus feeling while talking to these Republicans and other aging reactionaries about Obama’s plan, don’t blame yourself! The person standing before you in those conversations isn’t actually saying anything. What you are hearing are talking points! The actual words being uttered in such conversations have been “piped” down to eager repeaters by their “thought masters,” repeaters who, when considered generously, have nothing else to say besides more road weary talking points about the Stimulus Package, Socialism, abortion, gun control -- well, you already know the list of topics they prefer.

On to the water cooler.

Although MeanMesa usually avoids inserted diagrams and charts, please consider this following exception. Perhaps we can spend just a minute with this National Debt record as an introduction to a few points which might “flesh out” your conversational repartees.

click to enlarge

The large block of red at the far right of the diagram is an estimate of the accumulated deficit of the Bush Jr. autocracy. Politically unpopular spending such as the war in Iraq is, of course, omitted. However, the total of the eight year deficit since the Supreme Court appointed Bush Jr. amounts to roughly three trillion dollars. What might have been a rather lack luster disaster was converted into the present calamity by two large tax cuts which directed vast windfalls to the very richest Americans, and the utterly outrageous PHARMA written Medicaid Prescription Drug Plan, designed to channel boat loads of tax money to the “pill masters” of the pharmaceutical lobbyists. The PHARMA bill was passed at 3 AM in the House. The tie vote in the Senate was broken when the Vice President Pretender voted in favor.

An often overlooked aspect of the trillions which disappeared into pockets of Bush cronies has to do with the rest of the economy, you know, the part where we live. After the extraction, that sudden, purloined flatulence among the rich and mischievous found itself stranded with nowhere to go. When we speak of financial instruments such as securitized toxic mortgages, incredibly leveraged, shadow assets on the profit and loss books of all the investment banks we are presently rescuing, and other Wall Street Casino speculative doodads, we see the “new home” all these suddenly wealthy “businessmen” found for their less than legitimate good fortune.

What might have been expected as “risks” associated with such a move were gleefully buried under the cover of a dysfunctional Justice Department, a conveniently blind Security Exchange Commission (Remember Madoff? Enron?), ruthless gangs of well paid Federal Appointees and an overly protective Executive (Autocrat) who had already hit his management high point bankrupting professional ball teams and oil companies his father gave him.

The Independent Senator from Vermont noted this unusual development:
Not everyone has had a hard time during the Bush years: “The top 400 richest Americans have seen their personal wealth increase by $630,000,000,000 - $630 BILLION - since George W. Bush was appointed President by the Supreme Court in 2000.” (Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sept. 18, 2008)

The point? When this much of the economy’s liquid money was effectively removed, it caused a bit of a shortage. After that initial insult to the economy, when the reckless schemes which had absorbed all these dollars fell apart, it created even more of a shortage. The spending which normally fuels the US economy ground to a halt. No one had any money, and no one could borrow any.

Yes, of course, all these “genius investors” immediately started bellowing for a bail out from the Bush Jr. -- Paulson crime family, but they were able to loot only a paltry $350 billion before their sponsoring syndicate was run out of Washington. That left them hungry for more. Their eyes, naturally, turned greedily toward the Obama Stimulus Plan. If that legislation could be converted to even more tax cuts, then looted as it straggled through the Congress, they could be made whole by the tax payers, a veritable wet dream for any self-respecting neo-con.

The Obama plan replaces all that “missing” spending with Federal spending. It is clear that such a bold move is probably the only chance still on the table to avoid a repeat of the World Wide Great Depression of the FDR days. The amount of spending in that spending bill is, unhappily, astronomical. That would make it roughly the same size as the take that Bush Jr.’s fellow looters snatched during the eight years when frenzied high crimes were the constant currency of the day. The economy was supposed to tank after the Bush crime family was safely back in Texas, just in time to blame Obama for everything, but, as is usually the case for everything Bush Jr. dreamed up, it exploded prematurely.

When your Republican starts off with complaints about too much spending and out of control deficits, show him the chart. Agree with him -- in a condescending way -- that it really is too much spending and that the deficit it will cause really is too high. Tell him -- compassionately -- that we have already paid off the neo-con extortionists once while they were gang raping us the first time, but that we are willing to pay again to save the country.

Then walk away.

For a comprehensive explanation of the contents of the 2009 Stimulus Bill,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009
and for an overview of the President's 2010 Budget, submitted to Congres in 2009,
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/

What will replace the “media?”

A study in over reaction? Sure, unless you like be lied to. 75

All kinds of things are showing up in the light of day. Stinky old secrets that were paying good wages only a few months ago seem to be shamelessly, well, exposing themselves in public places. These media giants, once the envy of the world, have become trailer trash so obnoxious that not even their truth masters can get the lip stick back on them.

Staggering about with vague credentialism from the the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the “Big Five” media corporations have, probably, terminally “soiled” themselves. The news manipulation so brazenly crafted by these opportunistic corporations is now growing more damagingly obvious every day. The dark creatures who had guided and protected these deceit peddlers have, judiciously, withdrawn from the new light. Like comatose patients awaking after a long sleep, even the most credulous viewers are growing suspicious of a massive public deception. Suspicious, and a little embarrassed.

By “credulous” we mean “automatic.” Automatic viewers are those who spend no time with alternate sources of news and are unaware of the tide of voices warning the public about what’s gone on. For years these stalwart media fans could be counted on to fill the roster of the millions of users these media conglomerates exploited so profitably. Regardless of the clear disconnection between even the reporting offered to viewers on one day and contradictory reporting on the same story a few days later, these automatic viewers had been artfully coaxed into, well, habits.

That habit was to park the car, pour a drink and relax with the news, then discuss it as if it were fact the next day at the water cooler. The factual nature of what had been reported as fact was reinforced by others in the conversation who had seen an almost remarkably similar story on another network. In the absence of any reporting done outside the editorial control of these media monsters, things meshed. Stories supported each other. There might have been an occasional debate about what appeared to be the substance of these stories, but never a debate about the credibility of them.

After all, every newsworthy network always agreed on all the newsworthy facts.

Precisely what media monsters do we mean?

Easy. CNN (AOL Time Warner), NBC (General Electric), Fox (News Corp.), CBS (Viacom) and ABC (Walt Disney). Of course there are many more, but these are the specific corporations presently enjoying the great masses of viewers, followers, acceptors, addicts, subjects, you know, believers. This handful of companies represents only the mountain tops. For example, CBS owns 37 television broadcasters, 47 radio broadcasters and more than 20 publishing houses. Between all of these organizations we see a dismal presence in every major media market in the country.

Major media market? Of course. That’s where they were convinced the treasure rested.

The treasure? Narcotized addicts, lockstep volunteers for their toxic hypnosis. Why, the zombies could vote, send their sons to any war made necessary, and, most important, elect without question.

So what’s the crime? Think about it. Some years ago we received First Amendment reporting that Sadam Hussein had poison gas, bacteriological weapons and delivery systems. Think about it. You received that reporting, didn’t you? Try to remember.

It was, of course, false. We could care about its source, but for right now, let’s consider whether or not broadcasting known falsehoods is consistent with First Amendment protected Freedom of Speech. By the way, that broadcast propagates itself through airwaves owned by the recipients of the lies.

That would be us. We’ve been gang raped.

Keep thinking. Was there a retraction? Was there a correction? Was there more later? Any in depth reporting as to the exact story of how this got broadcast to us? Who benefitted? Why it was done? Keep thinking. Try to remember.

What about 911? Keep thinking. Who knows if there was a conspiracy -- probably no one in my acquaintance knows. Who is interested in whether or not there was a conspiracy? Just about everyone I know. Try to remember. What news organization spent so much as a second on this story after its fabrication had delivered the public opinion to start the war? Was there a retraction? A clarification? An explanation? Were there any questions asked and answered? Try to remember. Did we get our First Amendment Free Speech’s money worth from the free press broadcasting over our air waves? Try to remember.

Was there some innocent reason we’ve never seen coffins returning from Iraq? Was it just an oversight? Perhaps, never -- never once -- newsworthy? Try to remember. Try to understand. Never newsworthy?

Is it a coincidence that every neo-con knuckle dragger on Fox came up with the identical talking points day after day? Maybe it was simply a sign of very thoughtful selection of newsworthy topics. Maybe some blogger left his group address enabled. Try to understand.

Was Reverend Wright so newsworthy that his ranting somehow deserved millions or billions of dollars worth of free press news treatment? Did so many Americans worry whether or not Obama was a Muslim that the question had to be resurrected day after day? Did a same or similar calamity befall all the candidates equally? Try to remember. Was there a retraction? A correction? An explanation? Think about it.

Let’s pause for a moment. All these companies has every right to maintain and promote an editorial policy and make editorial comments, all well protected by the free press clause in the First Amendment. Because they are profiting from their control of our air waves, it might not be out of line for us to require them to identify these editorial comments of theirs in a way which would prevent them from being promoted as news or fact. That would be something like “public interest.”

Further, can we countenance outright incompetence in this news reporting process? Sure. Everyone can make a mistake. But what else might we expect? A correction? Try to remember. Were there corrections? Even more important, would corrections have had anything to do with “public interest?” Does accuracy have any place in the First Amendment’s protection of a free press? Even when the lie is covered with American blood and treasure? You know, accuracy? Fact?

The worst transgression of all, and exactly the one which should push all these parasites out of business and into the dustbin of neo-con failures is the 5% lie, the innuendo, the uncorrected minor mistake. Now we will see that what these giants have been reporting to us, every word and utterance of it, has been carefully toxified by their ownership to produce just the “automatic” reception they wanted. The reception they needed. To keep their vampire scheme well oiled.

This contamination is not manifest in flaming, outrageous lies. It is carefully presented with omissions. Ever hear a story about why Al Quaeda wanted to hurt us? Wait. The “they hate our freedom” thing is no more than odorous rubbish. Not newsworthy? Doesn’t exist? Try to remember.

How about stories explaining why the Palestinians are attacking Israel? Try to remember. Are they just crazy or is there actually some kind of reason? We wouldn’t know. Why would anyone want that one sided war to happen? Is it First Amendment Free Speech? Is it “fair and balanced?” Is the reporting we get complete? Try to remember. Maybe there just isn’t any reason that’s newsworthy? Try to remember. Take a moment. Do you really understand anything about what’s happening in Gaza? Does anything in the story we got make sense?

This posting gives examples which are present in our immediate thoughts. There are thousands more. Just when our democracy was in the most threatened moment in its history, our view went blank. The pablum oozing from our television screens was an insidious, yeah, you got it, conspiracy. Everything we received from our First Amendment Free Press, everything being broadcast over the public airwaves in the “public interest,” had been tilted just enough.

Now they've already started in on our new President.

As an informed public, we have no idea what is going on. Somebody thought that was a good preparation for selling us all sorts of stupid, destructive half truth. They delivered their media torpedo of deception and lies. We bought it. When the main players began the looting, the manipulation, the fear mongering and the lies, they assumed that we were entirely prepared to do our part.

Our part? To believe.

Pissed? Try to remember. They are counting on you to not be able to remember. They tell you that your memory fades in a few days. In fact, they tell you that over and over -- sort of like “they hate our freedom” and “cut and run” and “appeasers” and “stay the course.”

God. What were we thinking?

Anyone else in favor of dumping this “free press” of ours before it destroys us? Oh my. What could replace it?

How about a free press?

An educated electorate needs to know what’s happening in the world. You know. What’s really happening. Both sides. Bad news. Questions. Answers.

Yeah, that stuff.

For an interesting self-test concerning media objectivity (you own view...), try:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=121

and an interesting, short visit to Al Gore's book:
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=2-9781594201226-2

The Presidential Pardon Party -- Happy Holidays!

The last act of the strange dark drama in the White House?

Don't count on it.

Think of it as a office gift exchange. 74

Two almost identical young men stood waiting outside the Oval Office in a line with several dozen more, every one an almost perfect copy. All aspiring young attorneys from K Street or elsewhere, they seemed to have arrived from a call to central casting. The hair cut of each one was conservative, identically short and stylish. The well scrubbed, boyish faces all emphasized the overpriced, tailored suits and the multi-hundred dollar silk ties. The practiced mood of subdued reverence was one obviously mastered for missions such as this one.

“Are they doing this in alphabetical order?” the younger of the two asked, turning to face the man next to his position in the line.

His slightly older friend whispered an answer. “Sort of alphabetical, I guess. They started at about 10 AM with Jeb, Harriet Meiers and a list of secret pardons from Cheney. A big bound book of Wall Street names took an hour after that -- we’ll never know who was in there. They did Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham early this morning, than a bunch of rapid fire ‘B’s’ -- you know, Bolton, Blackwater, Blackwell, and Brownie, et cetera. Giuliani and Rumsfeld came as twin drag queens.”

“Michael Scanlon and Tom DeLay’s attorney were here early yesterday. But, after those two, they did Bob Ney and Ralph Reed. An attorney even got the gay guy, Gannon, pardoned. His lawyer didn’t have much of a cash bundle, so I figure they must have had a little dirt of some kind. I guess the male prostitution business isn’t so lucrative anymore.” he continued.

The door opened momentarily to discharge a small group of the previous supplicants. The line inched forward as another small group of the young attorneys entered. The younger of the two quietly peeked through the crack for a glimpse at what was awaiting him when his turn arrived.

The scene was a surreal theater.

All the normal furniture of the Oval Office had been removed, replaced with garish things suggesting screen props from an 1950’s version of Alice in Wonderland. The place was filled with potted ferns and roses. Geese, goats and gerbils seemed to be rushing around in the open area, each contributing its voice to the clamor. Providing background music, a quartet costumed as Cheshire Cats with banjos and harps struggled along with a faint timbre of what might have been some cheerful Transylvanian folk dance had it been produced with more suitable instruments.

A single drummer, dressed as the traditional hooded figure of “Death,” beat out a melancholy, yet consolidating rhythm on a solitary snare held by a suspiciously decorated leather strap around his neck and shoulder. His drumming seemed to inspire the animals, at least the geese, to attempt to synchronize their squawking with the beat.

The President was seated at one end of the room on an elaborate sort of medieval chair. He was dressed in a theatrical lime green tuxedo with tails. Obviously inebriated, even though still early morning, he slumped with the detachment of a depressed imperial indifference to the events in the room. He wore a great, green top hat, probably made of foam rubber, adorned with rhinestones and peacock feathers in a long flowing plume.

A troop of immense, bare chested wrestlers had just completed their performance. Staffers were hurriedly ushering them out the far door. A dance team of young women dressed as Vestal Virgins waited impatiently for a signal to begin the next entertainment act. Some had already begun to throw rose petals onto floor at the center of the room.

Several young men from the same waiting line were in the Oval Office moving respectfully around what seemed to be a Bush administration version of the “stations of the cross.”

Wide eyed, the young lobbyist attorney again turned to his more experienced acquaintance, puzzled. “What in God’s name is going on in there?”

His friend answered calmly. “Relax. If you’d been here last time, you would understand everything. I spoke to a guy from the Chief of Staff’s office yesterday. It seems that the Bush wanted to avoid the Berlin Bunker atmosphere for the pardoning ceremony. The President choreographed this whole thing himself.”

Again, the first young lawyer stumbled. “But what does all this mean?”

His acquaintance answered. “In 2004 the motive was the Crusades. This year, it’s the Mad Hatter. Didn’t your boss tell you anything about this?”

The younger man responded, glancing down at the huge suitcase of 1,000 Euro notes handcuffed to his wrist, “All he told me was to make sure that the currency counting machine was stopped after the batch before me before I put all these Euros in it. He said it might not look like it, but that the exact amount of cash was important. He said it was something like a contribution to the Presidential Library Fund or something.”

His friend offered, “Well, it’s good that you’ve got that part straight. What happens in the room is simple enough. You go directly to the Attorney General -- he’s the one dressed in the Supreme Court robes. He will give you a parking ticket with your boss’s name on it.”

“After that, you take the ticket to the tall guy over by the windows. He’s playing the role of the Great Confessor. He’s the one dressed up as a medieval abbot. He’ll ask you if your client wants to voluntarily confess to the charges on the ticket. He means your boss, of course. You raise your hand and say ‘Yes, Great Confessor. My client confesses that he is truly guilty as charged.’ At that point, all the judicial stuff is done.”

“Then put all your Euro’s in the currency counter in front of Paulson.”

He could see Secretary of the Treasury sitting on a great wooden throne, elevated above the remainder of the room. Costumed as an extravagant courtier, he was heavily made up with bizarre cosmetics. Flamboyant lipstick had enlarged the outline of his mouth to reach from ear to ear suggesting a threatening psychopathy. Every detail of the man’s appearance was darkly grotesque.

“Let his little elf there in front of the throne run all the cash through the counting machine. When it’s done, he will whisper the amount in Paulson’s ear. Paulson is the one made up as the Exchequer for the Queen of Hearts. They’ll throw your boss’s, uh, donation in that big pot, and the ‘Exchequer’ will nod at the President.”

Astonished, the first young lawyer asked, “And then?”

His friend answered, “And then the Mad Hatter will wave his hand and the bunch from the Justice Department will issue your boss’s blanket pardon. You want to slowly and reverently back away -- withdraw ceremoniously toward this same door. Bowing subserviently wouldn’t hurt.”

The newer man asked, “What’s the parking ticket’s part in all of this?”

His more experienced associate responded, “That’s important. Blanket pardons can’t be issued without an admission of guilt. Now, we both know that the exact details of the, uh, ‘guilt’ involved here could hardly bear the light of day, so confessing to the parking ticket is a way to cover everything. Think of it as a symbolic act of contrition. Once you confess in your boss’s behalf, the pardon becomes legal. Of course, it centers on the confession to the parking violation, but, once that’s in the bag, the blanket pardon covers everything else. Slick, huh?”

The young man whispered back, “This is nuts. Does anyone on the, I mean, on the outside have any idea what’s going on here?”

His friend answered, also in a low voice, “No, of course not. You’d better believe it’s better that way. This has been going on a for a couple of days now, but the news black out is holding. Murdoch and the rest of the media CEO’s are scheduled for later today.”

He continued, “I plan to record as much as possible on this belt buckle I got through the security screen. I’ll blackmail my boss if his pardon goes through. I’m sure he’s already budgeted enough to pay me off. After all, he is a K Street lobbyist, right?”

“Wow. I work for an investment banker. They’re a little meaner than K Street guys. You know, a little more violent and pragmatic.” He paused for a moment, clearly deep in thought, then continued. “Gosh. All these people getting pardons. They’ve been running everything for eight years.” He mused pensively. “If they’re all gone, you know, pardoned and everything and gone on back to their regular lives, who’s going to run the government?”

This post proves that pardons can be fun! If you'd like to try it yourself -- with just a few actual facts -- link away!
http://news.muckety.com/2008/11/27/in-final-days-bush-likely-to-pardon-more-than-turkeys/7551

NO More Constitutional Ammendments! Okay?

Unthinkable Solutions
The Supreme Court. A National Toothache? 17

Difficult problems, although they seem to have a comfortable, rent-free existence in our thoughts, sometimes go beyond even that. They present themselves as insoluble dilemmas. “Just unpleasant products of fate,” “just the way things are” or “just something we have to live with.”

The unhappy fact is, that as dynamic and adaptive humans, we cease to consider these “tooth ache” challenges and move on to problems with more present solutions. We vote for the lesser of two evils long enough to finally select the very worst. We steel ourselves to resident powers, although we created them, as perpetual things we cannot “un-create.”

We become quite comfortably willing to accept the unacceptable so long as it can groom itself into an image of inevitability. Worse, the ability to perfect this inevitability in our acceptability becomes more material than the essential nature of whatever it was we were trying to solve in the first place. Whatever the desired function was at the outset of these creations of ours becomes somehow secondary to a constant new effort to remain inevitable.

After presenting such a Rumsfeld style introduction (“You can’t know what you don’t know because you don’t know what it is yet.”), perhaps an example would be helpful. What specific “tooth ache” are we currently accepting as unchangeable? What “unthinkable” thought have we gradually eliminated from our human reserve of ideas?

How about the Supreme Court? It has been gradually filled with sub-judicial embarrassments lately thanks to the petty ambitions of the “head crook” and the inspired work of the gang of fourteen. We, as we fulfill our duties under the democracy, have gradually walked away from the scandal. In fact, most of the gang of fourteen will even be reelected!

But that still leaves the problem of the court. Of course there is nothing we can do about it. Of course we just have to live with it. Sure, we can impeach the Chief Justice for conflict of interest. Right. Can anyone remember the campaign to impeach Earl Warren, also a Chief Justice, during the civil rights times? A legion of southern bigots bought roadside billboards and pumped out incendiary speeches, but the busing continued. Chief Justice Warren outlasted them without breaking a sweat.

Now, we have the new, improved Bush version of the Supreme Court. The young, healthy ones are his corporate monkeys, energetically pursuing their dreams of voter suppression, religion in schools and faith-based charities (tax payer extortion) made necessary by disabling parts of the government with corruption. The old, shaky ones seem to still be able to think straight, but their days remaining on the Court are numbered.

Impeaching any of these new justices would take forever. Much sooner than Congress could even consider such a move, the whole Court could well be inhabited by the same types of troubling cultural and judicial throwbacks. So, there is no possibility for us other than to simply “live with it.” Right?

Not exactly. The “no possibility” ideas only exist in thoughts where other “unthinkable” possibilities have been discarded. Perhaps we should consider the entire affair again, this time allowing these old “impossibilities” another chance.

As citizens, under our Constitution, we can dump the whole Supreme Court.

“Oh my God!” Do you mean amending the Constitution? We have been taught that such a thing is nearly impossible! What we have forgotten is that we were taught this by exactly the same folks who stood to lose the most if we ever thought otherwise. Even if we tried, it would take forever! It would take years, possibly even decades, to trot such a thing around to all the States.

Wait a minute. How long do you think we will have to endure the likes of Chief Justice Roberts? Decades after the other insults of George Bush have been disinfected, Chief Justice Roberts and his cronies on the court will still be injecting the same kind of toxic neo-con poison into our society. Anyone who thinks that is too harsh a criticism can review the accomplishments of the so-called Justices in only a year or two.

We can design and create a new Court with a Constitutional amendment. It might require actual judicial expertise in its appointments. It might become quite removed from the endless production of rulings which represent no more than the battle between its conservatives and its liberals.

The highest court in the country is supposed to think about the laws in its judgments, not cheap ideology. Is it impossible to form sound judicial opinions not embedded in the structure of ideology? Have we become mired in the details of personality so deeply that we have forsaken the possibilities of anything more constructive, more judicial?

Bill boards didn’t do it, but a program to promote a Constitutional amendment just might.