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I apologize in advance for the disjointed nature of this week's column. There are a lot of odds and ends to cover, including tomorrow's primary picks, a cartoon, and the usual awards and talking points.
But the first of these ends is definitely odd: is it just my imagination, or did Charles Krauthammer (of all people) read my earlier column before writing his own? You be the judge.
Sorry for the short column today, but since New Hampshire is the center of the political universe today, nobody's really paying attention to anything else anyway. If you want something fun to do while watching the returns come in tonight, head over to the McClatchy news site, where they're having a cartoon caption contest.
For those of you who have been reading this column long enough, you may remember a fun set of columns (Part 1 and Part 2) I wrote last year, giving my picks for the annual tongue-in-cheek awards handed out by the McLaughlin Group television show.
Because I had so much fun doing it last year, I present for your amusement, agreement, and/or rage my selections for this year's awards. This is a two-week event, so check back here next Friday for Part 2.
As always when this column hands out awards, our eminent jury consists of me, my wife, and our cat (who breaks ties with her vote). So I wouldn't take it too seriously.
It's only from the outside looking in that "religion" is funny. Members of that religion consider their own rites normal and proper. We'd all do well to remember that, presidential candidates included.
It's been a week of circular logic from the political world.
To begin with, Mitt Romney gave a speech on religion. This speech was brilliantly summed up in a comment to Chris Kelly's recent Huffington Post column:
1. We should all be tolerant of religions, even ones we don't agree with.
2. Secularism/atheism is a religion.
3. Let's all hate on those traitorous, treasonous, blasphemous secularists/atheists!
...For all of you interested in showing Dianne Feinstein what the voters of California think of her recent actions, there is a drive for the California Democratic Party to officially censure Senator Feinstein at its upcoming executive board meeting. I have no contact information for them, but if I were thinking of letting them know how I felt, I'd start at the California Democratic Party website.
For this week, the award goes to that brave Democratic Senator who stood up and filibustered Michael Mukasey's confirmation in the Senate. With the backing of 39 other stalwart Senators, this maneuver has scuttled for now the confirmation vote. The White House and the Republicans in general howled over this tactic, ignoring the fact that they've been doing the same thing on virtually every bill this year. One lone Democrat in the Senate deserves the MIDOTW award this week for successfully killing Mukasey's nomination.
Oh, wait.
That didn't happen.
I have believed for a long time now that whenever you see dismal poll numbers for Congress' approval ratings, there is one simple reason for them: Iraq. Democrats swept both houses of Congress last year, and the reason why the people who voted them in do not approve of the job they've been doing is because they haven't done more to end the war in Iraq.
When, in the future, you retire from the Senate and sit down to write your memoirs, I predict that this week's vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey will not rank as one of "the votes I'm proudest of in the Senate" for either of you.
You both knew that voting for Mukasey was the wrong thing to do, and yet you did it anyway for reasons that can only be described as "political expediency." Not exactly a profile in courage for either one of you.
So, according to Bush, you're a Nazi appeaser if you refuse to confirm someone as our highest law enforcement officer who will use Nazi tactics against our prisoners. Or something. Let me try again -- you're not against Nazis strongly enough if you don't allow me to behave like a Nazi and torture anyone I want. Boggles the mind, doesn't it? Like I said, it's hard to tell what he's thinking these days.
Anyway, remember you heard it here first: the Bush Doublethink Corollary to Godwin's Law.