election

All hail His Fraudulency, George Walker Bush.

OK, it was too much to expect the 2 justices with conflicts of interest to recuse themselves, but then the Republican party seems to be the party of conflict of interest this year. Sons in Republican law firms, wife processing resumes, cousin in the first news network to declare for you, campaign chair in charge of counting the votes, brother the governor. But to counter that, as the Daily Show pointed out, Al Gore's daughter works for "Futurama," so that's another whole can of worms.

The Supes didn't bother to rule the first time, stayed a count for no particular reason, and then issued a ruling 2 hours before a not-very-hard-and-fast deadline saying that there wasn't enough time. Rather like the guy who killed his parents and wanted mercy on the grounds of being an orphan.

I haven't thought much of the Supreme Court in years, but this was still disappointing. Not only did Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas suddenly discover the 14th Amendment, but intervened in a matter of state law in a way they wouldn't have done for other issues, or indeed had the Gore and Bush positions been reversed. It isn't just the partisanship, including Scalia's announcement on issuing the stay that Bush would probably win, an announcement of such a piece with Bush strategy that Karen Hughes might have written it, but the strong sense that they didn't believe the logic behind their own ruling, and didn't care.

So as we embark on the Failed Bush Administration (and I'm not only being bipartisan myself here, but bending over backwards--I started referring to the Failed Clinton Administration the day after election day 1992), let's remind ourselves of the questions Bush was allowed not to answer. To my mind, if we're going to elect someone with the power to declare war or push the button, we have a right to know everything we want to about him. I want debates next time held with polygraph machines (I had forgotten until this week that the polygraph and Wonder Woman were invented by the same man, by the way, a pop psychologist and bondage fetishist).

And Bush opened the doorway even wider by talking about "values" and "his heart" so often. Privacy is no longer an issue, if those are the standards. If someone wants to know whether he wears boxers or briefs, by god he should be made to answer. So, some of those questions:

--When did you take which drugs and how often?

--Do you really think you would have been given all that
money to start an oil business when you were in your 20s if it weren't for your connections?

--Did you fail in that business because you were drunk
a large portion of the time, or were you just incompetent?

--Were you arrested any other times?

--How often did you drive drunk with underage siblings
in the car (we know of at least twice)?

--Did you use AA to give up drinking, and if not, what
methods did you use and what methods do you use currently?

--Do you consider yourself to have been an alcoholic?

--Do gays go to hell?

--Jews?

--Catholics? (and we know that Billy Graham has
couched you to avoid this question by saying that it's not up to you who goes to hell, but that's not the question and you know it)

--What ever happened to Neil?