That Chip On His Shoulder

Bush is demonstrating clearly that his commitment to spending his "political capital" far exceeds any putative bipartisan spirit. When he speaks of bipartisanship, he means getting Democrats to act like Republicans, which has happened all too frequently since 1994 and the rise of the DLC.

Spending capital, means testing the limits of just how much the other party can be pushed around--daring them to stop him. Gonzales' nomination is part of that, and so is this:

on Dec. 23, while Americans were distracted by the holidays, the president gave his corporate backers (especially those in the energy and mining industries) a Christmas present: He announced his intent to renominate seven of the [ten] filibustered [federal judicial] candidates. (The other three were given the option of being renominated, but withdrew themselves from consideration.)

I could see maybe two or three renominations in cases where one believed the objection was far more political than meritorious. But Bush was going after the whole lot. Many of these judges were ideologues, and/or in corporate pockets, with questionable credentials at best. (I highly recommend reading Glenn Scherer's whole frightening article over at Grist Magazine.) But Bush's thinking is "Hey, we picked up three seats in the Senate, let's try putting them all through, and force the Democrats to appear obstructionist in order to block them.

There's more than one Republican with qualms about one party controlling all branches of government, but the problem is that doesn't translate into their voting against their own representative. Oy vey!