Tuesday, January 29, 2008

It's ALL About the US Supreme Court

The next president will determine the course of US social, political, economic, and military strategy for a generation to come, because he or she will determine the defining seat on the US Supreme Court.

Issues abortion, gun control, regulation of the marketplace, the power of the presidency, and, above all, whether the Constitution is interpreted in light of the need and realities of the 21st Century or in light of the realities of the 18th Century, will be decided by the next Court.

Do not be beguiled into thinking that the Republican Party can be appeased or will drop its extreme agenda and become part of Obama's Coalition America. If you have doubts, please read the series about the rise and the agenda of the US Far Right here on this blog. They didn't invest 30 years of planning and funding to drop everything now and start singing Kumbay with progressive Democrats.

The Republican Party has not changed. The struggle between McCain and Romney is about how McCain is playing in the perceptions of Middle America, and the will and power of the Bush Establishment, which has backed Romney. Remember that Babs and Poppy have introduced him, and that the get-out-the-vote operatives of former FL Governor Jeb Bush were Romney's guys in this Florida primary.

In fewer than 8 years, McCain has moved from arch-critic of the Religious Right's takeover of the GOP to Chief Bootlicker of Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. The difference among McCain and Romney and Huckabee on social policy is so narrow that a mosquito would have to diet to fly through it. The Republican Party has not changed and is not changing. Guiliani is DOA. So much for a changed GOP social agenda.

Now that he has won FL, defeating the establishment candidate, McCain will trend to the hard Right in order to secure his nomination. Pay attention, America. The "maverick" is not so much a maverick as a weathervane. He is anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-separation of church and state, an enthusiastic supporter of Bush's tax-free wealthy class, pro "free market," anti-emvironmental protection, and pro-endless war. Look for these emphases.

And then imagine the kind of man (word used advisedly) that John McCain will appoint to the US Supreme Court, and ask yourself whether you children and grandchildren can hope to have a viable world if he is elected.

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